Keeping it Real

Tomorrow is Mother’s day in the US; yesterday it was Mother’s day in Chile.  We are right in the middle in more ways than one.  I just read an article from the Huffington Post that I think says something every mom can relate to; it’s called “Pinterest Stress,” and states that nearly half of the mothers addicted to this particular drug;), and other social media outlets, like Facebook and Instragram, are stressed by them:(.  Can you guess why?

Pinterest is to the modern housewife what Sex in the City is to modern singles.  Fuel to the fire and (almost) absolute fantasy.  If you didn’t already have a complex about not being tall enough or thin enough, with a toned booty and fabulous hair, clear skin, shaved legs, and rocking abs, along comes Pinterest, to hold a mirror up to your kitchen table and your child’s birthday party.  Some bee-atch out there made perfectly fluffed pink cupcakes and cake shaped like a pirate boat for her children’s birthdays; what about you?  Are you good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, crafty?  Or will your next creation end up as a contribution to Pinstrocity?  If you don’t already know about this wonderful contribution to keeping it real, I highly suggest you go have a laugh right this minute at the same pics that are making me laugh out loud, even as I write.

(to download this lovely reminder, click on the image).

I happen to be one of the weak souls who is particularly susceptible to over planning.  I actually like the idea of executing perfect cupcakes and pirate shaped cakes-but over the years, I have finally learned that often, while I am working so hard to make the magic moment, I miss it.  For my daughter’s fifth birthday, I was so excited she finally had some friends to borrow (through a scam we took great advantage of over the years called “a joint birthday party;)”) that I missed most of it, obsessing over some last minute details in an elaborate Peter Pan themed party.  I cringe to actually try and add how many “moments” I have missed in my life, obsessing over details.  One of the great strokes of luck in my life was having a half assed, pint sized wedding.  My sister picked my dress out while I was doing battle with the final copy of my thesis.  One of my best friend’s volunteered the musical track I wouldn’t have had without her.  My aunt brought beautiful bouquets of flowers with zero input from me about color or quantity or kind.  The day of my wedding, we did not go to the salon and get polished and buffed.  My sister and I wandered around downtown BC looking for an open salon, wondering if it was a national holiday, because NOTHING was open, and I hadn’t planned ahead.  In the end, she painted my nails.  I remember it well. Another dear friend invented a hairstyle for me the day before the ceremony-with no input from a bridal magazine of any kind.  What is my point? I remember everything-because I didn’t have time to even begin obsessing over the details.

My new goal in life is to let things be imperfect.  My daughter has now had 2 birthdays at a horribly tacky amusement park in our small Chilean town, including one ride I particularly despise, that she calls the “barbie” ride.  It is the torso of a badly airbrushed fiberglass blonde (no legs of course), and it embodies everything that Martha Stewart does NOT approve of.  I don’t either, but I am learning to tolerate it.  And to take pleasure in the moment-the sound of her glee as she crashes her bumper car into mine, the look of her face as she is swooped up in the air, under the wing of her dad, not sure if she should laugh or cry.  The summer magic of fiber optic wands she begs for-their nylon ends glittering with the ephemeral magic of fireflies, because we know that by tomorrow, their batteries will be dead, the feathery nylon tips chewed and bent.

It is easy to begin viewing every moment in life through an Instagram lense. Harder to forget about it, and be present in the moment.  This is the danger of modern life-wanting to package every sweet moment into an airbrushed momento.  But that puts us behind the camera, and turns our family lives into an episode of the Truman show, which by extension, makes us as plastic and false as Laura Linney’s character, posing whenever she can with a product in hand and a Crest smile.  We should not be concerned with air brushing our lives, but enjoying the sweet spots, when they come. If that includes some browsing fun on Pinterest, so be it, but just remember, not enough Martha Stewart is Martha enough to do it alone, and we definitely aren’t, and you ARE good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people LIKE you! (especially your kids):)

Love at First Sight

My daughter was adopted.  Once.  I say this to make a little point that it is not a chronic disease, or present tense verb.  She knows all about it, and at funny, unexpected moments, likes to mention it to strangers and friends alike.  I overheard her very recently taking to a friend about babies.  I think they were playing dolls.  Somehow, it seemed relevant to her to mention to her friend that I (as in “my mom”) had never ‘had’ a baby.  Her friend scoffed and said, “what about you, silly?” H mentioned very casually “I have another mother.  I was a baby in her tummy, and then I was my mom’s.”  Her poor little friend, who had never hear a word of this story before, wasn’t sure at all how to take it,  and so they picked a new subject.  Just as it should be.  The sky is blue, dinosaurs rock, I was adopted once.  But, just to put a little parenthesis on it, H ended the story the way she always does. “My mom always wanted me.”  And if you’re at all confused, by mom, she means me.

This week will be Mother’s Day, and I can’t ever let it pass without a little hail Mary and a shout out to the good Lord who sent her my way, and let me keep her after all.  I DID always want her-every curly haired, cleft chinned, brown eyed, yell-talking, funky toed inch of her.  And the minute I saw her, I knew.  You may call it revisionist history, but I was there.  She is as right as she knows.  We are a pearl and a pea in a pod. We chafe against each other sometimes because we’re made of different material, but from even a very small distance, you would never guess it.  And we fit together just the same.

She likes to hear stories about when I was a child.  It surprises me sometimes how interested she is in them, and how bored by stories about herself.  ”Let me tell you about the first time your father saw you” I’ll offer, and she’ll roll her eyes and sigh, and say with bored intonation “I know, I KNOW.  He said you never told him how pretty I was” she says in a sing song voice, as though it’s too tired for comment.  And then she requests a new story about old times.  ”Tell me a story about when you were a kid,” she insists.

Someday, I hope she knows how spectacular and miraculous our life as a family is.  Sometimes, I’m ashamed to admit, I forget.  Our big anniversary is the 4th of July, but even that frequently passes without comment, as often happens in our sing song lives.  The miraculous becomes mundane, and we look for a new story to tell.  But sometimes, the old ones are best.

In biblical times, it was practice to build an alter out of a pile of rocks each time God did something worth remembering, a kindness, to his people.  I often reflect on this practice, and think about the wisdom there is in it, because we are all so human.  And to be human is to forget.  It is to be swept away by the latest and greatest worry or desire, and to forget all the moments of grace and redemption that have come before.  It is so easy to forget about the near misses and  last minute resolutions that we experience; to be consumed by worries about the future.  I think this is why God once commanded his people to build alters.  He knew they’d wander past them  every once in awhile in the literal desert of their despair, and remember their blessings.  Sometimes, we need rocks to remember.  We need a reminder, so we can tell ourselves and our children the stories of what went right.

My sister posted a picture of my niece today, a three year old mini-her, getting ready for a CT scan, for her one year check up after a major surgery that corrected a condition that, in another country, another decade, or even on another health plan, could have left her blind and retarded.  Instead, she is a healthy, happy, spunky, naughty, delicious 2 year old, with white blond hair, a Samantha Mortenson overbite,  and a penchant for charming the pants off anything that moves.  These healthy, happy girls, hers and mine, are not small miracles.  They are our personal Illiads.  And I think we are equally grateful for our happy endings.  I know they don’t happen to everyone; that’s what makes happy endings remarkable.

I saw an image today that was too terrible for inclusion, but to give a context, it was in reference to the atrocities committed by Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia “doctor” who essentially murdered hundreds of babies in what is euphemistically called “late term abortion.” I can’t read about this without thinking that each of the children murdered by the practice may have been the child another woman, like me, “always wanted,” as my Bean likes to say.  Every fairy tale is built around a nightmare-if you don’t believe, pick up an original copy of Pinnochio or Sleeping Beauty-and this is no different.  As we think about the gifts of motherhood, they are framed in stark contrast against the losses.  My daughter’s birth relative (mother) didn’t know she was pregnant until she was 3 months along; apparently, Philadelphia allows abortion until 24 weeks.  Think about that-that’s 6 months.

My child very easily could have been scraped out of someone’s womb, like so much unwanted baggage.  So I also think, on this holiday, of the person who chose life.  Who gave her to me.

Holidays are like alters; they sit there on the calender, waiting until we come around again, to remind us of different important truths.  May your mother’s day be as blessed as a pile of rocks, whether it is with stories you mother told you, or stories you have told your children;  Happy Mother’s Day mommies everywhere, and 100 cranes for those who dream of the child they have always wanted; a toast to your first rock.

When Family isn’t Free

My daughter has a best friend that has been around for longer than she can remember.  They have a special, funny little world that they have had to take online, since we moved away.  But sweetly, and defying odds and expectations, the distance has not separated them.  They are BFF’s in the shared heart necklace sense of the word.  O’s little sister has honorary status as a BF (just one F short of full fledged forever), and her cousins have been grudgingly granted status as BFC’s (that’s Best Friend Cousins to you.) If that conjures thoughts of Sister Wives to you, you’re not alone. (as in, me too;)  O and H have been working on a master plan for their life their last two Skype dates.  It was apparently deemed complete today, as my daughter ripped it “just a little, to make it seem old mommy,” and squirreled it away into her secretest faux treasure chest.  And what does this list contain?  Well, I really couldn’t explain it to you any better than my kidlink, so I will type a full and unabridged (and “un”spell checked) version for you below, complete with original illustrations:

H & O’s (badly spelled) and well thought out master plan:
PA (Plan A): earning money
PB (Plan B): geting a job
PC (Plan C): geting more money
PD (Plan D): geting a car
PE (Plan E): geting a house
PF (Plan F): saving up cash
PG (Plan G): fashin contest
Ph (Plan E): Dog shoe (*show)
Pi (Plan I): get a casle
Pj (Plan J): Be prinsesis

O’s dad reports that she was crushed to realize that all those extra letters mean “in case the first plan doesn’t work out.”  I am terribly pleased H isn’t putting all her eggs in one basket.  Which brings me to two points.  One, my own plan A for life required some literal eggs in the basket, if you know what I mean.  If you don’t, let me share my daughter’s version with you.

“So, mommy, it’s like this”… (we like to summarize a lot of things this way.  And by we, I mean H, when she gets into “telling me how it is” mode.)

….”Daddy’s got shrimp that have to swim to the eggs, but they maybe just don’t like yours, or can’t find them.  Or *squint*, you’re just out?”

And that’s it, in a nutshell.  I’m just out, for reasons no one can explain.  And by no one, I mean doctors and specialists. The only thing I know for sure is it is definitive. H is not a product of my eggs or daddy’s “shrimp.”  She is a special gift whose story I may tell another day, or leave alone for her.  But she was unexpected, and did not come, as J.M. Barrie would say “fresh from God.”  Each year of her growth is a little neon light flashing “one more year without.”  Not because she isn’t our sunshine, but because of her.  She has no built in playmate, no long term safety net.  She has no sibling to call her own, just as we have never had the private experience of “expecting” to call our own.  This loss is a leaden, heavy thing that presses down on our lives, sometimes with more weight than others.  Time does not diminish it.  It is apart from the experience of being a parent.  I am a parent, but I long for the experience of “expecting” a child.  Of bringing all my years of waiting to a close. Which brings me to point number two.  Expecting.

When I was in 5th grade, I have a clear memory of sitting in the back of a school assembly, and fixating on some (random) woman and her baby, and wondering what would happen if I just grabbed that baby and ran out the door.  I was the same age as H is now.  10.  And I had a baby radar that superseded all other desires.  I was crazy for barbies and my little ponies, for drying elmer’s glue on my hand and peeling it off, and for microwaved cheese.  But none of these pleasures came close to my over-riding passion for tiny toes and feather soft hair.  I dreamed of babies, the way H dreams of dragons and castles.  But at least in her list, there is a fall back plan.  Plan E: Get a house.  Maybe the castle won’t work out.  But hey! There’s always the car & the house.  And the possibility of a dog show or fashion show, to drum up extra cash;)  H is practical.  We just got hot water for the first time in 4 months.  We walk everywhere.  She gets to see the dentist after the rent is paid.  She knows all about Plan B.  She gets that you need cash if you want the castle.  It is a theme. She is a wiser 10 year old than I was.  When I was 10, this was my list:

PA: Have babies.

PB: Adopt babies.

I just read a really great post by a man who experienced years of infertility with his wife, and summarized it into ten words.  And it made me think of H’s list.  There are two things I would have liked to warn my 10 year old self, so I could have prepared for Plan J.  The inability to make a baby is a very real possibility, and the ability to beg, borrow or steal one is not.  You may laugh or scoff at this, but I am not joking.  Contrary to messages prevalent in popular culture, the following is NOT true:  adoption is not easy, and most people who have failed to get pregnant do NOT get pregnant the minute they do try and adopt.  Do NOT tell this story to anyone who know who struggles with this particular sadness.

When you are 10, 20 is old and 30 is ancient.  Which means that, at the ripe old age of 35, I am decrepit.  I am feeling it.  I don’t even need the 10 year old me as a mirror.  I understand now what a mid-life crisis is.  It is looking back and realizing that you don’t have a castle, or a house, or a car, or a baby.  And that even if you were willing to throw over the first three for the latter, it probably wouldn’t be enough.  It isn’t enough.  The years have pooled into a particular moment in which you realize that “that” thing you dreamed of all you life probably won’t happen.

It’s not the post I read that resonates in particular, it is all the comments below. The women who have put themselves through Plan B (clomid), C (fertility treatments), D (donor eggs), E (2nd and 3rd rounds of donor eggs), F (failed adoptions), and are now trembling at G, so very angry at all the people around them that glowingly succeed with Plan A.

I get this.  It is perhaps a dirty little secret, but I’ll just let it out.  When you were dreaming of boys and swatch watches, I was dreaming of babies.  When you were getting on birth control and worrying about your weight, I was dreaming of babies.  When you were dreaming of white weddings and an Italian honeymoon, I was dreaming of babies.  I know, you wanted them too.  But did you want them with the passion and singularity I did?  And so yes, irrational and petty as it is, I am angry that it all came so easy to you.  It changes nothing, but you should know how it feels.  And don’t ever expect that I, or anyone else floating around in this little raft with me, will move on or get over it.  We are painters that didn’t get to paint, and musicians who do not get to sing.  We despair.  And listen up, 10 year old me.  We are not, as my husband likes to say, Brangelina.  We cannot afford the adoptions.  It’s not because we don’t want to.  These dreams, as my own 10 year old has figured out, require cash. Ironically, I suppose, I “shared” a cute little image on Facebook today, in which cheery little stick people declare that “the best things in life are free.” One of them, of course, is family.  Which I guess makes me a fraud of sorts, because family isn’t free for everybody.

I wrote a post yesterday about a family who got news that their very young, very loved little girl will not be with them much longer.  Plan A is not going as planned.  I would like to assign some cosmic meaning to it, but I can’t. God doesn’t love them less or you more. If Plan A or even Plan B went, and continues to go, as planned for you, please tremble carefully there, with the gratitude and respect it demands.  I know your life isn’t perfect.  But be kind with those around you who cannot reach the shore.  It is exhausting.  All I can do is hope that in 25 years, H will still feel about O the way she does now.  “She’s my sister, right mom?  We’re close as sisters, she and I.”  That may be as close she gets.   I hope they have some cash-but if not, at least they can share an umbrella.

Be Still My Soul

I received an e-mail this morning from my sister.  She was at a prayer meeting at her church, and learned about two friends who just discovered that one of their two children, still a very young child, has a rare brain cancer and will likely die within the year.  In the course of their prayer,  some people slid into spontaneous song, and as they did, this small child who was being prayed over joined in with the ABC’s. It was, my sister wrote, “the sweetest, most hearty version of the ABC’s I’ve ever heard, followed by the Itsy Bitsy Spider & Be Still My Soul.” I imagine God’s heart swelled.  This is the love he compels us toward.  Not a love the pushes others to bended knee and demands Latin incantations no one understands; not this, but love that sings a soulful ABC’s, followed by the Itsy Bitsy spider.

It reminded me of David Duncan’s marvelous book “The Brother’s K,” and his memorable anti heroine Vera Klinger.  She is a devoted 7th Day Adventist, with a harelip and a lisp, who prays sincere, vulnerable prayers.  She is guileless and sincere in the way many ostracized children are.  She is the soul of spiritual ABCs.

I love the picture of community projected by this image.  A small group of dissimilar people praying over a great heartbreak in an act of faith that rebukes the cynicism of our time, that says these gatherings are futile, these acts are foolish.  Willing, in fact, to participate with whole hearts in the foolishness of a spiritual ABC.  Mother Theresa, her own life a rebuke to the narcissism of our culture, made the simple statement that “What I do, you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do.  The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things.  But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.”  And what is greater than the moment of solidarity shared between people who cast off cycnism for tenderness. 

On his blog, Bent and Tender, Winn Collier contemplates the biblical story of the Pharisees, trying to engage Jesus in condemning an adulterous woman for her errors.  He writes “I find it curious that when the Pharisees asked Jesus if he was ready to grab a rock, John notes Jesus’ precise movement. Jesus, the story says, “bent down.” He did not answer. He did not theologize. He crouched low and doodled in the dirt.”

He doodled in the dirt.  The God of the universe narrowed himself down into a skin suit, and joined us in our smallness,  but not our pettiness.  He saw the world from where we stood, but not as we saw it.  I’m a mother, and am very often guilty of scolding my child for doodling in the dirt.  I have a very difficult time seeing the world as she does.  Of putting down the dishrag and picking up a puppet.  Of ignoring the smudge of dirt for the smile below it.  I wish I was more like a member of my sister’s community.  Ready to forget the plan in order to sing a spiritual Itsy Bitsy spider.  I know it’s what God wants from me.  Be Still my Soul.  Such a difficult task.  Such an important goal.

 

P.S.: If you’d like to do one small thing with great love, you can donate here to bless the above mentioned family, for their last season with their daughter.

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

I am an English teacher, with all the parts of speech loving neurosis that it entails.  I am an English teacher of the second language variety (not to be confused with the literature teaching variety!).   In honor of National Poetry month, I’m posting a favorite.  I love it because, more than highlighting the beauty of English, it highlights the failures. Or more particularly, the failure of words to really say what we often wish to.  Because I spend a lot of my day trying to help people say what they do intend, I have a special fondness for this brilliant poet, and this poem in particular.  In homage, I have included my take on the “problem of language,” as C.S. Lewis would likely have called it in a poem that follows.  Hope you enjoy.  Happy Poetry Month!!

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart
-by Jack Gilbert

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
Get it wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not a language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.

From THE GREAT FIRES: POEMS, 1982-1992 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994)                        

 

The Distant Land of Dandelion Clocks

Querer, it means to want and love in Spanish.  I want you, I love you. 

Te quiero.  Te amo. Love we say in English.  I love you,

I love hamburgers.  There is no coral shore between. 

In English, you can like a person.  In Spanish, they fall well to you. 

In English, we fall in love, in Spanish, enamoremos.  Our wires are crossed, the language so close, but not quite.  

I wish, I wonder, I wonder if I can tell you how to wish. 

I wish I could tell you the depths of wonder. 

Me pregunto too pedestrian, deseo too profound. 

A wish as gossamer and fleeting as a dandelion clock;

wonder as dark and glittering as the evening dome. 

The Phoenicians invented the alphabet, as elegant and useful as an iPhone. 

The Chinese invented logograms, as dense and rich as an old city library. 

Each character a haiku;  

east is  

where the sun rises  

behind the trees. 

The elegance of simple phonemes

trumping the poetry of pictures over time

goes unnoticed.  

We are travelers, like the men who gave us our alphabet. 

We cast aside what will not fit in the boat, or get us there fast enough. 

What lies in the deep beneath us?  An answer to the question, perhaps.

Quizas, tal vez.

How to translate a wish?

It’s the color of the madrugada, with its still blue and clear air. 

The wind sighing soft through the trees as you walk home with your father

on a quiet autumn day. It is a mosquito helicoptering past in the dark

that disappears in the light.

It smells of baby powder and coconut sunscreen

on the thick band your husband lost on a beach somewhere,

held captive by a galaxy of sand. 

It is the taste of batteries and sangria. 

It is the cashmere skin and apricot breath

of someone else’s baby.

 

And wonder, that other sunken treasure?

It is the weight of the night that wakes you

and won’t let you sleep. 

It is a verb, full of i n g, and rounder than the moon. 

It is a prairie, a wheat field of uncut grass with the wind passing through. 

It is quiet, and tenacious as a weed.

It makes a person smaller and the world broader,

and cannot be contained by a word

 

 

 

 

 

These are the Days that Must Happen to You

“Sometimes right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives you a fairytale.”

These are operative words.  These are the words that I once stamped on invitations to my hurried, imperfectly perfect wedding.  As in once upon a time.  A once upon a time that did not include a big poofy dress or much glitter.  It was a good requiem to our life.  In our wedding, a friend read the words to a Walt Whitman poem that turned out to be prophetic-The Open Road:

Listen, I will be honest with you
I do not offer the old smooth prizes
But offer rough new prizes
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is called riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve.
However sweet the laid up stores,
However convenient the dwelling, you shall not remain there.
However sheltered the port, however calm the waters, you shall not anchor there.
However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you,
You are permitted to receive it but a little while Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road
Healthy, free, the world before you the long brown path before you, leading wherever you choose.
Say only to one another:
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money; I give you myself before preaching and law:
Will you give me yourself?
Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Ironically, Whitman also wrote “Song of Myself,” so he is a fitting object lesson.  I read today that a representative from Planned Parenthood openly confessed that the organization supports the right of a mother and doctor to decide what will “happen” to a child born after a botched abortion.  Of course, “happen” is code for disposal, in the case that said mother and doctor agree that such a child does not have a right to exist.  It just so happens that today is the day my daughter and I got to the Spartans in her history book, and read about their practice of killing baby’s at birth whom they deemed too weak to exist.  It is a chilling parallel to our times, as genetic engineering is more of a reality than a theory, and we call the woman who reject their off spring “mothers.”  Too often, we are more interested in songs to ourselves, than the road less traveled. George Carlin died this week, and after years of associating him with crass humor, I was surprised to read a quote demonstrating his great wisdom.  I can’t plagiarize the whole thing, but here’s a marvelous bit:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

As the mama of a kidlink that was so unplanned she didn’t even come from my body, and arrived quite inconveniently when I was a single in grad school, I think I can safely say that LOVE gives you a fairy tale.  Not selfishness, or fear.  Love.  And even though we all know life isn’t usually a fairy tale, it doesn’t hurt to hum the theme song to Charlotte’s Web once in awhile, and remember that perhaps we have the wrong color of glasses on, and maybe it is, more than we realize.

“It’s not so unusual

when everything is beautiful;

it’s just another ordinary miracle today.

The sky knows when it’s time to snow

Don’t need to teach a seed to grow

It’s just another ordinary miracle today.

Believe me, when you live near the dryest desert on earth, a seed growing and snow falling are both miracles.  And raindrops on spider webs-exquisite!  Take it from my own little fairy tale-it’s her favorite song!  May love prevail.  May love, like grace, fall down on you and me.  May it give you the fairytale that nothing else will.  May it save the lives of precious children, and give us all new eyes for the ordinary marvels of our lives.  May we be more like the Athenians than the Spartan’s.  Concerned with truth and beauty, and leaving something for the future. 

 

 

Selling ourselves

With timely enthusiasm, my 10 year old, who has been making “insect poison” all day out of a messy concoction of whatever she can get her hands on, just declared joyfully to me~ “I’m glad I made what I always wanted to!”  And I am glad to know that 2 decades before me, she has figured out the bliss of following her passion, without waiting for an outside jury to call it good.  We have been studying Genesis this week, and it calls to mind the fifth day.  God looked at the oceans and land, sea creatures and birds, and called them good.  I’m pretty sure he had just finished up with pistachios when he said this.  And then he moved onto the sixth day, and added people, probably so we could agree that it is good.  Even God likes an audience.

My husband crashed out at the ungodly early hour of 11:00 pm last night.  Which meant I had the rare opportunity to touch the sacred remote control.  So much power, so much pressure.  What does a girl watch when she actually gets to choose?  All I know is what I WON’T watch: if it includes Matt Damon or LEEE-O (as in DiCaprio), my husband’s man crushes, not gonna watch it.  (Sorry Matt and Leo, you’re both fine actors!) If it has the name Bourne or Star Wars in the title, not gonna watch it.  If a bike is going down a hill anywhere on screen, not gonna watch it.  So what did I watch?  Julia and Julia!  As contrary to all the former “not gonna watch’ems”as I could get:)  As a rule, if it’s a Nora Ephron film, wait for your man to fall asleep early!

Watching the film, my number one thought was how unlikeable I found the Julie Powell character, which is especially surprising, because she is played by the usually very likeable Amy Adams.  (If you’re not with me on this, try and find a copy of Junebug to watch.  She’s amazing.)  So, my conclusion is that perhaps Julie Powell herself is not so likeable.  Apparently (and surprisingly) Julia Child’s herself was not a fan of Julie Powell.  In a Publisher’s Weekly review, Judith Jones, Julia Child’s editor and confidante at Knopf, had the following to say on the topic:

“Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn’t attractive, to me or Julia. She didn’t want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt. She would never really describe the end results, how delicious it was, and what she learned. Julia didn’t like what she called ‘the flimsies.’ She didn’t suffer fools, if you know what I mean.”

At one point in the film, the Julie Powell character writes to her invisible audience:

Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder. Is there anyone out there reading me?   But I’m sure you are, aren’t you? Somebody?     Anybody?

And sure enough, lots of people were, in the end.  Perhaps the percentage of the population who gladly suffers fools? It’s frustrating, when you try to produce quality and be authentic, to see how mediocrity and stunts do so often succeed.  In fact, if you spend any time at all trying to study the alchemy of success, you may come across websites that explain the importance of self promotion.  In this day and age of everybody writes, it seems you do need to do a stunt to be noticed.  Most books and blogs giving advice on the subject agree.  Perhaps Julie Powell is a genius.  Perhaps she is just lucky.  Who can explain what made her blog so popular-if it was timing, talent, or topic?

Sometimes, I get obsessed with the science of it-trying to figure out what “it” thing other people are doing to compel success.  If Julia Child’s doesn’t even approve of Julie Powell, how did she get a movie made featuring Julie Child’s as a character, and a book deal with her name?  I suppose Malcomb Gladwell would have an actual answer for me, but I mean it philosophically.  For every J.K. Rowling in the world, there is a Stephanie Myers.  Success really is a crapshoot.  Life really is a mystery.

I watched a nice little video this morning by Rilla Alexander, an Australian illustrator who wrote, among other things, a whimsical book called “Her Idea” about a little girl trying to find success with her BIG idea.

The most compelling part of her presentation is the idea that making an idea into a success is 99 percent effort, and only 1 percent inspiration.  I don’t think this takes into account all the other outside factors, but I do like her take that making an idea successful requires an on going commitment to that single idea.  And her conclusion that- at the end of doing your best at something-there may not be a bandstand.  Not every idea-even with a commitment of 99 percent effort, brings the intended result.  We won’t all end up with a book and movie deal.  The conclusion of her book says “This is her idea, and it’s completely done.”  Like my daughter, she is glad she made what she always wanted to.  And sometimes, that’s the most we can hope for.  If you’re born a poet, you probably won’t be a great salesman.  It’s the conundrum of our age, and unfortunately, the salesmen usually find a lot more success than the poets.  But if you are a poet, here is a parting thought for you:

{Print available at emilymcdowelldraws.}

What’s Up Your Sleeve?

So it’s Valentine’s day.  A day some love to hate, a day others pretend to hate.  A day some of us openly love, but not for Hallmark reasons.  Valentine’s Day, like Halloween, in newer to my part of the world.  …

The Shadow of Grace

I have a friend, we’ll call her KL, who is currently battling cancer. Her Christmas card this year read “It’s a Wonderful Life.” How can she say this?  She said something to me when I was home this year that …

Poster paint kids in a watercolor world

My kid is all poster paint.  She’s bright, messy and loud.  She doesn’t stay much in the lines, and does everything with her fingers, and she’s almost 10.  Now, I am not one of those parents who thinks everything my child does is precious-I myself am a watercolor person.  I like subtlety, I like staying in the lines, and blending.  I shrink when we are out in public and H wants to do a ‘look at me’ show.  I die when she walks around with dirt and jam bedazzling her mouth and shirt.  And when you say “H!  have you SEEN yourself?” She says “huh?”  My daughter is the ying to my yang-she is is as different from me as could be.  She loves soccer balls like I loved baby dolls, and is as unconcerned with mess as I was obsessed with order at her age. I have to force her to sit and read, whereas the minute I could read, you rarely found me again without a book in hand.  But the most important difference between us is far deeper-she struggles with self regulation and curbing her impulses in ways I never did, for reasons that are not her fault.  She has an invisible disability, and it will haunt her her entire life.  But for once, I can relate to my kiddo.  And because of my mother’s wisdom, I hope I can protect her.

We are living now in educational pergatory-it’s not quite hell, but it’s far south of heaven.  In the dusty town we call home, plopping children into chairs five rows deep where they are expected to stay, and stuffing backpacks with multiple 200 page textbooks passes for education.  Anything outside this paradigm is looked at with suspicion, and children who cannot swim in this model sink.  There is no shallower water for them.  My daughter is one of these kids, and just yesterday, we received a document from her school with the ever so diplomatic phrase that “they had decided a change of pedagological environment would be recommended for miss H.”  Well, how nice of them to decide this for her.  How nice of the only school in the city who advertises that they work with special needs kids, to decide that my own dusty angel-who has in her meager 9 years  already changed last names twice, countries twice, and schools 4 times, to decide she would be BEST served by being kicked out of school.  Because, as her head teacher so elegantly put it in a parent’s meeting, she is not one of the children who DESERVES to continue on at the school.

Now like me, you may be asking, whathuh?  Is this a school for miniature politicians, in which they must campaign prove their worth?  Is this school run by the capitol? (If that were the case-H would would be the winning tribute, no doubt;)  But no-this is simply a school that has decided poster paint kids are messy, and they’re rather keep the watercolor kids, and clean house of the messy ones.  Of course, the fact that we as parents have lodged complaints against our daughter’s teacher with the ministry of education does not help.  But did this motivate the teacher to change her practices and do better?  No.  Because SHE does not need to campaign to be worthy.  For the real comedy in this little tragedy, let me tell you about a conversation we had with the “educational” team that politely told us our child was not welcome at their school.

Educational team: “Mr. and Mrs. D, we’ve given your daughter all the support we can this year, and she has just not made the improvement we were hoping for.  She continues to be very impulsive and has problems regulating herself.”

Mr. D: “I’m sorry.  What did you say?  Exactly what kind of “improvements” are looking for in a year?  Do you THINK she will “get better?”  She has damage to her BRAIN.”

Educational team. “Well, we understand that.  But she just doesn’t meet our stated policy of school conviviality.  We haven’t mentioned it before…but we have gotten lots of complaints from other parents about her touching their children aggressively.”

Mr D.: “Have you gotten any complaints from us? No?  Right.  Because H DOESN’T complain.  Doesn’t mean other kids aren’t aggressive to her. H learns from watching other kids, and imitates them.”

(Now, for those of you reading my little Greek play here-you should visualize the chorus being split into 2-on one side, a mob of children rolling on the ground, punching each other and yelling, and on the opposite side, a group of sanguine adults looking on but NEVER intervening in said behavior.)

Mr. D. “So basically, you are punishing a 9 year old with a disability, whom we brought to your school BECAUSE you deal with disabilities, for having a disability and not being “cured” within a year?”

Psychologist. “No, no, Mr. D.  We aren’t saying anything, really.  Because that’s our policy, not to say anything.  But what we are saying is that we can only handle 3 kids with disabilities in your child’s class, and this year there were 4.”

Mr. D: “And who’s fault was that?  And why have we never heard this before?”

Director: “Well, Mr. D. It’s all very unfortunate.  Now who enrolled you at the beginning of the year? Because they really should never have let you in without a lot more paperwork.”

Psychologist: “Now, Mr. D.  We have asked and asked you to take your daughter to the neurologist…”

Mr D: “The neurologost lives down south!  And only visits her office in the city near us on occassion.  (And costs lots o money).  And we DID get you a report from an occupational therapist with strategies you can use (but haven’t)…”

Psychologist: “Yes, yes; now we know you don’t WANT to medicate your daughter, but the neurologist could tell you how.”

And on and on and on.  At least my daughter has a medical REASON for being dense.  And she understands differences, and limitations.  And she adores the teacher we lodged a complaint against, because she gives her love freely, and looks for the good in people.  Did I mention that this school keeps a running log of any and everything “bad” they could find about my daughter’s behavior? And no, there is not a parallel log about the “good.”  So imagine you have a child with a short leg, who runs slowly because of it. And the school kept a record of every time that child was late somewhere because of their leg? And imagine, one day, that school sat that child’s parents down, and explained that, unfortunately, in the space of a year, the leg hadn’t grown.  And because it was really interfering with the class, that child would be needing to find another school.  But of course, there is no other school for that child, because they now have the baggage of a book they must take with them that has every “slow” thing they ever did written down.

I’d say we had a good start on writing a log for that school themselves.

When I was a child, I had an 80 percent hearing loss. But of course, no one could see it.  So my parents began to think I was ignoring them on purpose, and my teachers thought I was “slow.” Until the day my mother noticed my little sister speaking like a deaf person, so I could read her lips.  And it dawned on her.  ”K can’t hear.” And sure enough, I couldn’t.  So when I went to Kindergarden, my mom pulled my teacher aside and said “K can’t hear, so you’ll need to put her up front so she can read your lips.”  And sure enough, a few weeks later, mom gets called to the school.

Teacher: “K is being very difficult, and not following instructions.”

Mom: “Where is she seated?”

Teacher: “At the back of the class.”

Poster paint kids are like deaf children in a world that thinks yelling will help.  It’s so much easier than making modifications that actually WILL help.  Sometimes I am guilty, because it’s been a really long time since I was deaf.  But even I know that you don’t ask a short legged child to grow a long leg.  And so, I ask forgiveness for all the poster paint kids I’ve ever tried to shout at, and kindness for my own child.  And of course, because this is Greek tragedy, vengeance on the schools that close their doors to them. I ask for the courage to be disliked.  This is my particular flaw, and an area where I will try to emulate my mother; she knows how to pick her battles.  I am a people pleaser by nature; it’s like a tic I have, to smile and smooth things over, when yelling and anger are called for.  My husband has a particular talent for demanding justice.  Someday I’ll make him a spandex body suit with “the avenger”  stitched across the chest.  He can flash it before he gets going, so people know what they’re in for.  I wish I had his talent.  I’m glad I at least married it!  There is such a thing a righteous anger; sometimes it’s the only language people will respond to.  It is certainly true in our city, where most people feel no particular obligation to offer any kind of service unless it suits them, even if that means you won’t get paid on time, or you’ll miss your flight, or your daughter will be in educational limbo.

On the other side of the coin, I ask blessings to the teachers who have listened, really listened when we offered strategies and asked for support-you become lifetime friends!  And if my own messy angel ever reads this, let it be known that the world NEEDS poster paint children.  They are perfect versions of themselves, and give us COLOR!