The Diana Chronicles and My Summer of Keeping Appearances

I picked up the Diana Chronicles at Costco right before our trip to Montana to visit the in-laws. Even though I’ve always been fascinated by Princess Di, I’ve never read any of the books written about her until now. I’m glad I waited. Tina Brown has put forth an impeccably researched and objectively written page-turner. She covers everything from Diana’s dysfunctional family and doomed marriage to her PR prowess and amazing capacity for empathy, to her tragic death. When I mentioned to one of my friends that I was reading this book and how affected I was by it, she said, “I don’t believe Diana was meant to have a long life.” I’m still digesting what she means by that, but it does seem that high profile people carrying with them the hopes and dreams of people and nations seem to live short lives (i.e. John Lennon, MLK, JFK, JFK Jr. ).

It seemed appropriate to read this book as we approach the 10-year anniversary of her death. I found it ironic that I was reading it in Montana, where I got married just four years prior on August 31, the day she died. So aware was I of Di even when planning my wedding, I asked my-then betrothed if we should pick another date. We didn’t. (But in hindsight, perhaps we should have since the entire state Montana was engulfed in forest fire when we married, but that’s another story.) But what seemed more ironic about the timing of this read, was that the theme of my summer was slowly starting to emerge: The Keeping Up of Appearances. Visiting the in-laws this time around with toddler in tow, I became keenly aware of the importance of appearances in front of their friends--a bunch of retired transplanted Californians playing golf in the wilds of Montana.

Only three weeks before we spent a week in Idaho where I realized my own family’s obsession with appearance, theirs being more about religion and social conservatism. (I was practically burned at the stake for not taking my husband’s name yet no one could articulate the real issue with it except that, “it just doesn’t look right.”) We recently visited friends and related to them our experiences with the grandparents. And, M, who’s French and whose mother lives in France (and still they’ve had a heavy dose of grandparent drama) commented, “For our parents generation, it’s all about keeping up with appearances.”

Between that comment and reading the Diana book, everything seemed to come together. Here Diana married into the Royal Family were everything was about maintaining appearances and following protocol. Duty before self. (And it’s worth noting that the Queen herself is the same generation of my parents.) How suffocating that environment must have been. I can’t even imagine. How glad I am to be living in a day and place and class of society where I can pretty much look out for my immediate family and me and forget all the pomp and circumstance.

But then I wonder (as I keep contemplating new remodeling projects) is the keeping up of appearances only a thing of our parents’ generation or in our modern society do we just do it differently? Unlike Royals, here in SV it’s not cool to wear suits in the office and we address pretty much everybody by their first name (even kids to adults). Yet maybe we’re not so different in the appearance department.

Now that I’ve started to “put down some roots” here in SV, I’m becoming all to aware of the tallying of the score: what house you live in, what neighborhood it’s located in, what car you park out front, what high-tech you or your husband works at, what preschool you’re filling out applications for so that your son can get in the right elementary for the right middle school so he can go to Bellermine.

It all gives me a headache. And, I realize that unless I choose to live more consciously, and surround myself by others who try to do the same, I too, will be one of those parents suffocating thier children for the sake of appearances.