Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: Our brother's keeper
Back to the Suburban Grind: Our brother's keeper: My three year old is quite precocious and wise beyond her years. I love talking to her and her big sister about whatever interests them, th...
Our brother's keeper
My three year old is quite precocious and wise beyond her years. I love talking to her and her big sister about whatever interests them, though we don't talk about murders or attacks or death of any kind which terrifies Lily and leaves her reeling for days. But we do tell them honestly how we feel about certain things, in an age appropriate way. No questions are off limits. Complex subjects are broken down but not dumbed down. We talk about God, religion, sex roles and gender stereotypes, marriage, politics, money, meditation, spirituality. I trust that my people can find the center, the core concepts. Tonight as we were going to bed, her big sister long ago fast asleep due to the cold that is kicking her little behind, Virginie said to me, "Do you remember that boy (Virginie still refers to all males as boys.)who was lying in the street when we went to New York City?" I did remember the man but was rather surprised that she did, as we'd been there together more than six months prior for a birthday party.
"Yes," I answered. I do remember that man. He was homeless. Remember that I told you that he had no home?"
"The street was his home. He lived there," she announced. She wasn't proud, just stating matter of factly that he must live somewhere, so the place where he lay must be it. She sat quietly for a moment, which for anyone who knows my dear girl knows is no small feat. Then she said, "Can he drive his car to his house somewhere else?" To which I replied, "I don't think he has a car either, baby, or a house somewhere else."
Her little brow furrowed and she stared into the darkness for a minute before she said, "We have to help him, Mama. Papa gets jobs. Maybe he can show him how to get one too."
"Maybe," I said while brushing her hair from her face and trying to gently lull her to sleep. I lay there in the darkness, missing my husband who is working through this holiday season, and thought, This baby is right. We have to help this man. We have to help people. We have to help each other.
I, too, have been guilty of turning in, working on my own issues, my own problems, my own story. I have gotten used to letting go of my community, not asking of it, and being slow to offer my assistance or service, assuming either that someone else will do it or fearing calling unwanted attention to me or my action. I have figured that the connections were too personal, too scary, left me too vulnerable to attack or to love. Whenever I have had the chance to participate, I've felt so incredible, so alive, so connected, so tangibly, vibrantly, extraordinarily human. I have been reminded by this small girl who somehow saw the connection between us all and asked not if we would help, but demanded we should. I say this so much when it relates to real tragedy, to the furthest reaches of human suffering and need, but it is also true in our every day. We are our brother's keeper. We need to see each other, consider each other, support each other. Want to.
Strangely, I too, could not get that particular homeless man's face out of my mind. Maybe it was because I could see him in the distance as the girls and I were about to pass and I mulled just what I would tell them when the question was inevitably asked. But for days after, when I thought of the conversation between us, I wondered how I'd found it so easy to explain that there was a man, red-faced and cold, clinging to a box, sleeping on the sidewalk in the city of their birth, and that I was able to say it so matter-of-factly.
I remember as a child, seeing my first homeless person. It was the early eighties and we'd gone into the city to do something, probably see a show or go to a museum as was usually the case. I was older than my girls are now and homeless people we not commonplace. As more and more people found themselves unable to keep up with the excess and striving of the 80s, coupled with the closing of mental health facilities that saw many with mental disabilities actually released to the street to fend for themselves, an invisible, underground (so to speak) population grew alongside those of us living above ground. I was terrified of the man and woman I saw. They seemed out of a movie. Which is, frankly, why it was probably so easy for so many adults to consider them unreal. It was hard to look at them and see their faces, to look them in the eye, let alone consider their stories. Their real life, human stories. Stories the same as those I or others I knew might tell. I never forgot them and my feeling that as a society, as a community, we were choosing to allow these people to live out of our sight, rather than bringing them back into the fold. I was just a kid but I knew that this just didn't seem right.
I'm not sure when and where we let go of each others' hands. Maybe we were never holding them in the first place, and it is a fantasy of my youth that we were meant to care for one another, to look out for one another, to try to lift each and every one of us from our place on the sidewalk, physically and metaphorically, to allow even those living in parallel universes to be seen and acknowledged from time to time. Some people think when we are young we can still see ghosts and spirits and as we age, we lose our connection to that world, overwhelmed are we by the material world. We cannot see what children see right in front of their faces. "We have to help him." We have to help each other because we need each other.
Inherent in all the struggle we have meeting the demands of the modern world, striving for a level of success equal to that of our parents, raising our children to be decent citizens while giving them everything we can without making them completely spoiled, must be the sense, if not the realization, that we cannot leave all those people behind. That there has already been too much of that, too much "going for mine," and that it has not brought comfort or peace. The "otherness" of homeless people, black people, white people, foreigners and expats, gay people, straight people, people with disabilities of any kind, people who think differently than we, rich people, poor people, anything that doesn't look, on the surface, just as we envision ourselves, has allowed us to ignore each other, to step over each other, walk around each other, justify killing each other, justify fearing each other, set up communities where we don't have to look at each other or be with each other. But that does not negate the fact that this man was lying down on the ground, living, breathing, sleeping and that many others actually and metaphorically are doing the same. And we should help them.
My baby wants to help him. It's my job to keep it that way.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back the Suburban Grind.
"Yes," I answered. I do remember that man. He was homeless. Remember that I told you that he had no home?"
"The street was his home. He lived there," she announced. She wasn't proud, just stating matter of factly that he must live somewhere, so the place where he lay must be it. She sat quietly for a moment, which for anyone who knows my dear girl knows is no small feat. Then she said, "Can he drive his car to his house somewhere else?" To which I replied, "I don't think he has a car either, baby, or a house somewhere else."
Her little brow furrowed and she stared into the darkness for a minute before she said, "We have to help him, Mama. Papa gets jobs. Maybe he can show him how to get one too."
"Maybe," I said while brushing her hair from her face and trying to gently lull her to sleep. I lay there in the darkness, missing my husband who is working through this holiday season, and thought, This baby is right. We have to help this man. We have to help people. We have to help each other.
I, too, have been guilty of turning in, working on my own issues, my own problems, my own story. I have gotten used to letting go of my community, not asking of it, and being slow to offer my assistance or service, assuming either that someone else will do it or fearing calling unwanted attention to me or my action. I have figured that the connections were too personal, too scary, left me too vulnerable to attack or to love. Whenever I have had the chance to participate, I've felt so incredible, so alive, so connected, so tangibly, vibrantly, extraordinarily human. I have been reminded by this small girl who somehow saw the connection between us all and asked not if we would help, but demanded we should. I say this so much when it relates to real tragedy, to the furthest reaches of human suffering and need, but it is also true in our every day. We are our brother's keeper. We need to see each other, consider each other, support each other. Want to.
Strangely, I too, could not get that particular homeless man's face out of my mind. Maybe it was because I could see him in the distance as the girls and I were about to pass and I mulled just what I would tell them when the question was inevitably asked. But for days after, when I thought of the conversation between us, I wondered how I'd found it so easy to explain that there was a man, red-faced and cold, clinging to a box, sleeping on the sidewalk in the city of their birth, and that I was able to say it so matter-of-factly.
I remember as a child, seeing my first homeless person. It was the early eighties and we'd gone into the city to do something, probably see a show or go to a museum as was usually the case. I was older than my girls are now and homeless people we not commonplace. As more and more people found themselves unable to keep up with the excess and striving of the 80s, coupled with the closing of mental health facilities that saw many with mental disabilities actually released to the street to fend for themselves, an invisible, underground (so to speak) population grew alongside those of us living above ground. I was terrified of the man and woman I saw. They seemed out of a movie. Which is, frankly, why it was probably so easy for so many adults to consider them unreal. It was hard to look at them and see their faces, to look them in the eye, let alone consider their stories. Their real life, human stories. Stories the same as those I or others I knew might tell. I never forgot them and my feeling that as a society, as a community, we were choosing to allow these people to live out of our sight, rather than bringing them back into the fold. I was just a kid but I knew that this just didn't seem right.
I'm not sure when and where we let go of each others' hands. Maybe we were never holding them in the first place, and it is a fantasy of my youth that we were meant to care for one another, to look out for one another, to try to lift each and every one of us from our place on the sidewalk, physically and metaphorically, to allow even those living in parallel universes to be seen and acknowledged from time to time. Some people think when we are young we can still see ghosts and spirits and as we age, we lose our connection to that world, overwhelmed are we by the material world. We cannot see what children see right in front of their faces. "We have to help him." We have to help each other because we need each other.
Inherent in all the struggle we have meeting the demands of the modern world, striving for a level of success equal to that of our parents, raising our children to be decent citizens while giving them everything we can without making them completely spoiled, must be the sense, if not the realization, that we cannot leave all those people behind. That there has already been too much of that, too much "going for mine," and that it has not brought comfort or peace. The "otherness" of homeless people, black people, white people, foreigners and expats, gay people, straight people, people with disabilities of any kind, people who think differently than we, rich people, poor people, anything that doesn't look, on the surface, just as we envision ourselves, has allowed us to ignore each other, to step over each other, walk around each other, justify killing each other, justify fearing each other, set up communities where we don't have to look at each other or be with each other. But that does not negate the fact that this man was lying down on the ground, living, breathing, sleeping and that many others actually and metaphorically are doing the same. And we should help them.
My baby wants to help him. It's my job to keep it that way.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back the Suburban Grind.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: Massacre of the Innocents
Back to the Suburban Grind: Massacre of the Innocents: Though a requirement for my Master's Degree, statistics have never been a strong suit for me. I remember when first learning basic stats in...
Reposted: Massacre of the Innocents
As the 365th day since the Newtown massacre loomed and images of those lost were flashed on screens with soft music playing in the background, as interviews with their friends and families aired, and stories of even more gun violence continued to spatter any news cycle at any time, my sadness and sense of helplessness began to surge. I wanted to say something but found myself mute. Shaking my head and muttering to myself over again what seems to be so obvious. We have to make this stop. I share again my post from last year. Thank you for reading.
Though a requirement for my Master's Degree, statistics have never been a strong suit for me. I remember when first learning basic stats in high school there was mention about considering the stats rather than sample stories or examples because while the stories are compelling, they often do not show the bigger picture. I know this to be true, and yet when I see statistics showing that gun violence is down since the 70s and 80s, that supposedly gun assaults and the US obsession with guns and other destructive weapons is on the decline, I am not put at ease. I respond to the sample. I see the killing, the killing, the senseless killing and have a hard time taking comfort in the decreasing numbers. Though I do accept the mathematical equations showing decline, I wonder if there is not more to review here. I am concerned about the causes of the new type of killer. I remember our fears in the 70s and 80s because I was a child during that time. We were afraid of gangs, the thriving, illegal, and suspect trade in crack cocaine, a drug that seemed to take over inner city neighborhoods in a season and then spread throughout the United States. During that bloody terror, a war on drugs was declared and it was fought out in the streets. This is not what we are experiencing here and the stats don't say anything of it.
I am frozen, but not numbed, boiling inside, acid rotting my gut, my heart bleeding out of my chest. The phrase "the slaughter of the innocents" has been much used in the murder of those 28 people in Newtown, CT and it is so appropriate. My oldest daughter is the same age as many of the victims of this crime and my anxiety was not well served by this news. I envisioned her walking through the hallway, dragging her hand along the wall as she daydreamed and walked to or from the bathroom, thrilled at the little bit of freedom she'd found in the middle of her day. I have seen so many of her peers do exactly that on days that I have visited her school. They look with wonder and trust and awe at nearly everything in the world. This is the age where kids are not quite jaded or "bored" by much of anything. Where their curiosity is peaked by almost everything. They pay attention because they are studying, learning, analyzing and don't pay attention for just the same reason. The thought of all those little, peering eyes trying to compute what was unfolding before them makes me faint. I mourn the massacre of these innocents and the loss of innocence of the poor, wide-eyed children who witnessed the murder of their classmates and teachers and professionals.
I cannot stand the argument that "we" care only when the tragedy, the massacre, the deaths of children and innocents hit close to home. How can anyone know that? How can they claim that? Yes, it is true that the media chooses what to cover, works its angles to keep us all interested in their particular network. I would support the idea that the networks and cable news channels make assumptions about what the viewing population wants, finds sensational or exciting, but I don't believe that there is a collective "we" that doesn't care about murder, massacres, and human suffering wherever it happens. I believe there is a greater "we" that does. Death, destruction, war whether in reality or in television, film, gaming doesn't appeal to us because we fear the darkness it dredges. We hope, pray, occupy in the hopes that the world can rid itself of its blood lust. Let's not insinuate that we only care about our homies as reason not to discuss what is wrong. And indeed, something is wrong.
Some of us may take our temperatures and find that we don't feel well, but others are burning up with fever, sick. We are the kind of sick that we don't even want to talk about in our homes so we surely do not want to discuss in relation to the culture of our great nation. The debate about how great, how marvelous, how special the United States of America is in so many ways is not in question. What I am talking about it the overachieving, over-reaching, striving, proud, miraculous image of strength that goes home and sees something entirely different in the mirror. Emotional and spiritual wounds left unchecked for lifetimes. Heavily medicated but not brought to light. We spend so much time on our projections that we have lost how we truly feel inside. We don't even talk about how we feel and if somehow you are someone who does talk about it or want to, you are considered the one who is fucked up. There is no dialogue here, no discussion, no honesty, no admittance of our fear, our frustration, our concern for ourselves and for others, even on the small scale, so how can we begin the conversation about healing the American spirit, the American soul.
It is hard to argue that culturally and collectively, we like guns, cars, wide open spaces, our individuality, and what we consider our freedom, the right to do whatever we want, however we want, beholden to no one. We are proud and we have reason to be. It is no surprise that to much of the world, we are considered cowboys. Ye,s there is the love of the wide open space, the hard work, the commitment, the dedication but there is also that stubborn, risk-taking, man-on-my-own, my-way-or-the-highway attitude that gets in our way. It is hard to address our fears and our shortcomings when our pride refuses to allow us to even admit them.
The state of our mental health is terrifying. If we suffered physical wounds as traumatic as some of the wounds we are carrying, we'd stop immediately to salve them, heal them, warn others how we hurt ourselves in order to prevent the same from happening to them. But when we are hurt or damaged or in psychic pain, we don't want to talk about it. No one around us wants to talk about it either. We want to take something and hope that whatever it is we've just put in our mouths will make that hurt go away. That's not working. In the mass murders in Newtown, CT at the Sandy Hook Elementary school where a clearly wounded boy from a family that looks like many that I grew up around took from us all, but specifically from the trusting parents and families and friends who felt that they had the right to send their children to school to learn, the most precious, the most sacred gems of our community. The babies.
Targeting children, aiming at the very physical symbol of our hope, our dreams, our joy, he ripped out our souls and showed us how we are all truly strung together. Our souls pulled out like a string of paper dolls from a cut out. In our children, some of us have found the only place for true, pure love. We have given to them all in our hearts. They have mapped on our souls. We delight in their innocence, their openness, their trusting nature, the purity of their minds, hearts, and spirits. When children are hurt, even accidentally, we are distraught. When they are aimed at, when they are the target, we know we are dealing with a sick individual or a sick community or a sick state, country, world. We fail them and ultimately ourselves, if we cannot admit this. If we cannot find a way to make this different. If we will not try to heal ourselves.
My daughters are now trained at school how to handle a "Code Red." The first time my oldest described just what that entailed I stood, mouth agape, with tears coming down my face. At 5 1/2 years old, she was prepared to stand on a toilet seat in the bathroom if she found herself in there alone and heard gunshots or the sounds of shouting or escalating violence. She stood in closets, under desks, and contorted her body into large cabinets with her classmates and teachers "just in case there was someone who wanted to see his/her child so badly that they came into the school to get him," what she'd been told would be the reason for such a situation. She knew if the teacher gave the class her "most serious face" then she and her classmates were not to make a sound or pass notes or try to run to one another across the room, the hall, the building, but were to stay put until a "real police officer or good person" came to get them. She practiced this with the same ease as I long ago practiced the fire drill. I tell myself, "we never had a fire at school. All those drills. More than likely, my kids will have only drills.
.
"That's what the statistics say," they will assure me. But in the random sampling, young children, babies, and the people trained and hired to guide them, lead them, teach them, are dead. And to me, no matter the numbers, we are more than the numbers. We are human beings. We are our brothers' keepers and we must do better than this. We must still.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Though a requirement for my Master's Degree, statistics have never been a strong suit for me. I remember when first learning basic stats in high school there was mention about considering the stats rather than sample stories or examples because while the stories are compelling, they often do not show the bigger picture. I know this to be true, and yet when I see statistics showing that gun violence is down since the 70s and 80s, that supposedly gun assaults and the US obsession with guns and other destructive weapons is on the decline, I am not put at ease. I respond to the sample. I see the killing, the killing, the senseless killing and have a hard time taking comfort in the decreasing numbers. Though I do accept the mathematical equations showing decline, I wonder if there is not more to review here. I am concerned about the causes of the new type of killer. I remember our fears in the 70s and 80s because I was a child during that time. We were afraid of gangs, the thriving, illegal, and suspect trade in crack cocaine, a drug that seemed to take over inner city neighborhoods in a season and then spread throughout the United States. During that bloody terror, a war on drugs was declared and it was fought out in the streets. This is not what we are experiencing here and the stats don't say anything of it.
I am frozen, but not numbed, boiling inside, acid rotting my gut, my heart bleeding out of my chest. The phrase "the slaughter of the innocents" has been much used in the murder of those 28 people in Newtown, CT and it is so appropriate. My oldest daughter is the same age as many of the victims of this crime and my anxiety was not well served by this news. I envisioned her walking through the hallway, dragging her hand along the wall as she daydreamed and walked to or from the bathroom, thrilled at the little bit of freedom she'd found in the middle of her day. I have seen so many of her peers do exactly that on days that I have visited her school. They look with wonder and trust and awe at nearly everything in the world. This is the age where kids are not quite jaded or "bored" by much of anything. Where their curiosity is peaked by almost everything. They pay attention because they are studying, learning, analyzing and don't pay attention for just the same reason. The thought of all those little, peering eyes trying to compute what was unfolding before them makes me faint. I mourn the massacre of these innocents and the loss of innocence of the poor, wide-eyed children who witnessed the murder of their classmates and teachers and professionals.
I cannot stand the argument that "we" care only when the tragedy, the massacre, the deaths of children and innocents hit close to home. How can anyone know that? How can they claim that? Yes, it is true that the media chooses what to cover, works its angles to keep us all interested in their particular network. I would support the idea that the networks and cable news channels make assumptions about what the viewing population wants, finds sensational or exciting, but I don't believe that there is a collective "we" that doesn't care about murder, massacres, and human suffering wherever it happens. I believe there is a greater "we" that does. Death, destruction, war whether in reality or in television, film, gaming doesn't appeal to us because we fear the darkness it dredges. We hope, pray, occupy in the hopes that the world can rid itself of its blood lust. Let's not insinuate that we only care about our homies as reason not to discuss what is wrong. And indeed, something is wrong.
Some of us may take our temperatures and find that we don't feel well, but others are burning up with fever, sick. We are the kind of sick that we don't even want to talk about in our homes so we surely do not want to discuss in relation to the culture of our great nation. The debate about how great, how marvelous, how special the United States of America is in so many ways is not in question. What I am talking about it the overachieving, over-reaching, striving, proud, miraculous image of strength that goes home and sees something entirely different in the mirror. Emotional and spiritual wounds left unchecked for lifetimes. Heavily medicated but not brought to light. We spend so much time on our projections that we have lost how we truly feel inside. We don't even talk about how we feel and if somehow you are someone who does talk about it or want to, you are considered the one who is fucked up. There is no dialogue here, no discussion, no honesty, no admittance of our fear, our frustration, our concern for ourselves and for others, even on the small scale, so how can we begin the conversation about healing the American spirit, the American soul.
It is hard to argue that culturally and collectively, we like guns, cars, wide open spaces, our individuality, and what we consider our freedom, the right to do whatever we want, however we want, beholden to no one. We are proud and we have reason to be. It is no surprise that to much of the world, we are considered cowboys. Ye,s there is the love of the wide open space, the hard work, the commitment, the dedication but there is also that stubborn, risk-taking, man-on-my-own, my-way-or-the-highway attitude that gets in our way. It is hard to address our fears and our shortcomings when our pride refuses to allow us to even admit them.
The state of our mental health is terrifying. If we suffered physical wounds as traumatic as some of the wounds we are carrying, we'd stop immediately to salve them, heal them, warn others how we hurt ourselves in order to prevent the same from happening to them. But when we are hurt or damaged or in psychic pain, we don't want to talk about it. No one around us wants to talk about it either. We want to take something and hope that whatever it is we've just put in our mouths will make that hurt go away. That's not working. In the mass murders in Newtown, CT at the Sandy Hook Elementary school where a clearly wounded boy from a family that looks like many that I grew up around took from us all, but specifically from the trusting parents and families and friends who felt that they had the right to send their children to school to learn, the most precious, the most sacred gems of our community. The babies.
Targeting children, aiming at the very physical symbol of our hope, our dreams, our joy, he ripped out our souls and showed us how we are all truly strung together. Our souls pulled out like a string of paper dolls from a cut out. In our children, some of us have found the only place for true, pure love. We have given to them all in our hearts. They have mapped on our souls. We delight in their innocence, their openness, their trusting nature, the purity of their minds, hearts, and spirits. When children are hurt, even accidentally, we are distraught. When they are aimed at, when they are the target, we know we are dealing with a sick individual or a sick community or a sick state, country, world. We fail them and ultimately ourselves, if we cannot admit this. If we cannot find a way to make this different. If we will not try to heal ourselves.
My daughters are now trained at school how to handle a "Code Red." The first time my oldest described just what that entailed I stood, mouth agape, with tears coming down my face. At 5 1/2 years old, she was prepared to stand on a toilet seat in the bathroom if she found herself in there alone and heard gunshots or the sounds of shouting or escalating violence. She stood in closets, under desks, and contorted her body into large cabinets with her classmates and teachers "just in case there was someone who wanted to see his/her child so badly that they came into the school to get him," what she'd been told would be the reason for such a situation. She knew if the teacher gave the class her "most serious face" then she and her classmates were not to make a sound or pass notes or try to run to one another across the room, the hall, the building, but were to stay put until a "real police officer or good person" came to get them. She practiced this with the same ease as I long ago practiced the fire drill. I tell myself, "we never had a fire at school. All those drills. More than likely, my kids will have only drills.
.
"That's what the statistics say," they will assure me. But in the random sampling, young children, babies, and the people trained and hired to guide them, lead them, teach them, are dead. And to me, no matter the numbers, we are more than the numbers. We are human beings. We are our brothers' keepers and we must do better than this. We must still.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Piece of Paper
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Piece of Paper: "We're all married, right? All of us. You, Papa, me, and Lily, right? Because we are a family." 3 1/2 year old Virginie Four years ag...
The Piece of Paper
"We're all married, right? All of us. You, Papa, me, and Lily, right? Because we are a family." 3 1/2 year old Virginie
Four years ago today, my Honeypot and I ventured out in the pouring rain to City Hall in downtown Manhattan to make it official before the State of New York. We'd left our two and 1/2 year old with a sitter and met a small handful of friends and family who would be there to support us and bear witness. We'd applied for the marriage license with an eclectic mix of New Yorkers just a week earlier. Though we'd been warned and were well-prepared for crazy, DMV-style lines, the program at the Justice of the Peace was efficient if curt, and we were there for less than an hour and a 1/2. By the time we were finished, I was ravenous and had to pee. That was pretty much par for the course in those days. I was five and a 1/2 months pregnant.
I don't want to say that we were pressured to marry. Anyone who knew us back then could have told you that no fire burned hotter or brighter than we. I just didn't see the point. I'd seen successful, unsuccessful, sham, true love, high school sweetheart, known-each-other-three-month marriages and thought, "good for them." I just didn't think that the piece of paper was necessary to define who we were and what we were to each other. He'd been married previously and had had a pretty contentious divorce, one that I had suffered through with him, and frankly, we already had a child together that for us was the true symbol of our connection. We were committed, were in it to win it, and wanted to build our family, our union, our team without being told how it was meant to be done. No matter the piece of paper, I knew that my partner, the one I had chosen for life would never abandon me or my children. I had faith in the person that he showed himself to be and he had the same faith in me. I considered us a modern, honest, intellectual, artistic couple who could take it or leave it. The paper, I mean.
My parents had come for a visit in the early weeks of my pregnancy with Virginie and I was violently ill. Didier and I were proceeding with caution as I'd already suffered two miscarriages. I knew the sickness was a good sign, as they say, but we were not quite sure we were ready to disclose our condition. The problem was I couldn't hide it either. When you are one who almost never turns down a glass of wine, the refusal of one definitely raises a flag. If you find yourself suddenly running for the bathroom every few minutes and cannot chew anything without getting that dizzy, nauseous feeling, you begin to look suspect. I was nervous and jittery withholding a secret that made us giddy so in an ill-considered act of sharing, I told them the news. There was silence and then there was head shaking. There were averted eyes and sighs. Didier and I looked at each other across the room and wondered if perhaps they had not heard me correctly. So I said it again. "We are pregnant. It's just the early stages but we are coming to the end of the first trimester so I am nearly sure." Nothing.
A handful of miserably depressing phone calls later and the "you're an unmarried hussy-not a celebrity-what would the neighbors think-you will never be forgiven-find a faith" dialogue convinced me that my perspective was surely not the most popular out there. Our relationship had outlasted a sibling's marriage. We'd been together for years and had a child already. We were in love. It seemed a bit ridiculous to us to spend our money on a ceremony to appease my family when we were actually preparing for a new arrival. Sharing our plan was really a courtesy. We'd made no decision on when or where or how or why we should "make it official."
And then came the offer for a position in Barbados. Upon review of the culture of this tiny Caribbean island, we started to see the writing on the wall. We could live together, common-law, in New York, forever. Our kids could have a different last name from their father, and we could hang with our diverse group of friends, our community and feel safe, fit in, avoid definitions from outside. But in Barbados we didn't want to make waves. We didn't know anyone and didn't want to draw attention to ourselves by rolling in there to live, a French chef and his African-American girlfriend and their children. We choked and felt that the easiest way to make this transition smoothly was to get married. We'd go there as an easily recognizable family, without demanding an understanding of our own definition of ourselves. Witnessing a couple we spent a good amount of time with, a Canadian couple together longer than we, having to explain again and again that they were a couple, a family but common law partners, proved to us that we'd dodged one.
I love being married to Didier, love what we have become, love the evolution of us from lovers to parents to the team. Each night, as I put the girls to bed, the littlest one asks, "Papa is married to all of us, right? We are all married together, right?" And I tell her, every night, that we are. That without her and her big sister there would be no "married," that we saved being married for them. For them, making the commitment, putting it down on paper, rather than in a song, in a painting, in a poem, in a dance, in the way we live was worth it.
Being married, signing the love on that paper has meant that everyone understands that we have rights and privileges that were we just "together" we'd have to fight for. We'd have red tape to cut through. Folks to have to argue with so that we could see each other in the hospital, have access to accounts and funds and private information. In Barbados, being married served us well, especially during exhausting visits to the Immigration Department where having and showing our marriage license seemed to at least begin the process, was a key to the door with 1000 locks. My unmarried friends suffered endlessly the questions, the downright concern that they did not have that paper and did not share a common name. With all else I was dealing with there, that just might have put me over the edge.
I am married. And to a wonderful man. When it so moved us, we went downtown and just did it. But what of our friends and family who don't have the option to do this? Who might embrace it in a way that we didn't? Who love each other as we do? Who have every right to cut through the red tape, see their names on important documents, embrace and love their children as we do? Perhaps they want to wing it and commit in a ceremony less formal and maybe they just want the option to have that piece of paper, to be legitimized, to be included, counted, considered. Some of my gay and lesbian friends won the geographical lottery living in States where their marriage is legal, so they too could run downtown as we did and just do it. Let's see us all catch up. If I need the piece of paper to make people happy, then I wish that everyone can be so happy. Just sayin'.
Happy Anniversary to my love. I remember the first date with the same jelly-legged swoon. The first kiss as the seal to our connection. The first fight as proof of our freedom to be ourselves and continue to love one another. The years in Barbados as a big freakin' test. And the piece of paper as a dare to do it all forever.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Four years ago today, my Honeypot and I ventured out in the pouring rain to City Hall in downtown Manhattan to make it official before the State of New York. We'd left our two and 1/2 year old with a sitter and met a small handful of friends and family who would be there to support us and bear witness. We'd applied for the marriage license with an eclectic mix of New Yorkers just a week earlier. Though we'd been warned and were well-prepared for crazy, DMV-style lines, the program at the Justice of the Peace was efficient if curt, and we were there for less than an hour and a 1/2. By the time we were finished, I was ravenous and had to pee. That was pretty much par for the course in those days. I was five and a 1/2 months pregnant.
I don't want to say that we were pressured to marry. Anyone who knew us back then could have told you that no fire burned hotter or brighter than we. I just didn't see the point. I'd seen successful, unsuccessful, sham, true love, high school sweetheart, known-each-other-three-month marriages and thought, "good for them." I just didn't think that the piece of paper was necessary to define who we were and what we were to each other. He'd been married previously and had had a pretty contentious divorce, one that I had suffered through with him, and frankly, we already had a child together that for us was the true symbol of our connection. We were committed, were in it to win it, and wanted to build our family, our union, our team without being told how it was meant to be done. No matter the piece of paper, I knew that my partner, the one I had chosen for life would never abandon me or my children. I had faith in the person that he showed himself to be and he had the same faith in me. I considered us a modern, honest, intellectual, artistic couple who could take it or leave it. The paper, I mean.
My parents had come for a visit in the early weeks of my pregnancy with Virginie and I was violently ill. Didier and I were proceeding with caution as I'd already suffered two miscarriages. I knew the sickness was a good sign, as they say, but we were not quite sure we were ready to disclose our condition. The problem was I couldn't hide it either. When you are one who almost never turns down a glass of wine, the refusal of one definitely raises a flag. If you find yourself suddenly running for the bathroom every few minutes and cannot chew anything without getting that dizzy, nauseous feeling, you begin to look suspect. I was nervous and jittery withholding a secret that made us giddy so in an ill-considered act of sharing, I told them the news. There was silence and then there was head shaking. There were averted eyes and sighs. Didier and I looked at each other across the room and wondered if perhaps they had not heard me correctly. So I said it again. "We are pregnant. It's just the early stages but we are coming to the end of the first trimester so I am nearly sure." Nothing.
A handful of miserably depressing phone calls later and the "you're an unmarried hussy-not a celebrity-what would the neighbors think-you will never be forgiven-find a faith" dialogue convinced me that my perspective was surely not the most popular out there. Our relationship had outlasted a sibling's marriage. We'd been together for years and had a child already. We were in love. It seemed a bit ridiculous to us to spend our money on a ceremony to appease my family when we were actually preparing for a new arrival. Sharing our plan was really a courtesy. We'd made no decision on when or where or how or why we should "make it official."
And then came the offer for a position in Barbados. Upon review of the culture of this tiny Caribbean island, we started to see the writing on the wall. We could live together, common-law, in New York, forever. Our kids could have a different last name from their father, and we could hang with our diverse group of friends, our community and feel safe, fit in, avoid definitions from outside. But in Barbados we didn't want to make waves. We didn't know anyone and didn't want to draw attention to ourselves by rolling in there to live, a French chef and his African-American girlfriend and their children. We choked and felt that the easiest way to make this transition smoothly was to get married. We'd go there as an easily recognizable family, without demanding an understanding of our own definition of ourselves. Witnessing a couple we spent a good amount of time with, a Canadian couple together longer than we, having to explain again and again that they were a couple, a family but common law partners, proved to us that we'd dodged one.
I love being married to Didier, love what we have become, love the evolution of us from lovers to parents to the team. Each night, as I put the girls to bed, the littlest one asks, "Papa is married to all of us, right? We are all married together, right?" And I tell her, every night, that we are. That without her and her big sister there would be no "married," that we saved being married for them. For them, making the commitment, putting it down on paper, rather than in a song, in a painting, in a poem, in a dance, in the way we live was worth it.
Being married, signing the love on that paper has meant that everyone understands that we have rights and privileges that were we just "together" we'd have to fight for. We'd have red tape to cut through. Folks to have to argue with so that we could see each other in the hospital, have access to accounts and funds and private information. In Barbados, being married served us well, especially during exhausting visits to the Immigration Department where having and showing our marriage license seemed to at least begin the process, was a key to the door with 1000 locks. My unmarried friends suffered endlessly the questions, the downright concern that they did not have that paper and did not share a common name. With all else I was dealing with there, that just might have put me over the edge.
I am married. And to a wonderful man. When it so moved us, we went downtown and just did it. But what of our friends and family who don't have the option to do this? Who might embrace it in a way that we didn't? Who love each other as we do? Who have every right to cut through the red tape, see their names on important documents, embrace and love their children as we do? Perhaps they want to wing it and commit in a ceremony less formal and maybe they just want the option to have that piece of paper, to be legitimized, to be included, counted, considered. Some of my gay and lesbian friends won the geographical lottery living in States where their marriage is legal, so they too could run downtown as we did and just do it. Let's see us all catch up. If I need the piece of paper to make people happy, then I wish that everyone can be so happy. Just sayin'.
Happy Anniversary to my love. I remember the first date with the same jelly-legged swoon. The first kiss as the seal to our connection. The first fight as proof of our freedom to be ourselves and continue to love one another. The years in Barbados as a big freakin' test. And the piece of paper as a dare to do it all forever.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: Ageless beauty
Back to the Suburban Grind: Ageless beauty: I almost never get to lounge around in my pajamas, pimple cream, anti-aging, anti-wrinkle cream slathered on my face, and watch TV. Certain...
Monday, December 3, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: Mommy, party of one
Back to the Suburban Grind: Mommy, party of one: One is the loneliest number. But it's been a long time since I felt all alone. Sometimes in raising chidlren, navigating the waters of mar...
Ageless beauty
I almost never get to lounge around in my pajamas, pimple cream, anti-aging, anti-wrinkle cream slathered on my face, and watch TV. Certainly during the week when I am the first to get up to pack lunches, start breakfast, coffee and green tea, lining up shoes and coats, watching even a little would be out of the question. We have the morning routine timed to the last second and if anyone needs to so much as blow his nose, we could get off schedule. But some Sunday mornings when absolutely nothing is scheduled, I allow myself a Super Soul Sunday on OWN, videos on Vh1 Classic or if I really want to feel old, check out current videos and marvel at how little I know about what is happening in popular music, or maybe some entertainment news, BBC documentary, or Sex and the City reruns.
Inevitably, I stumble upon some infomercial that will guarantee with the loss of some blood, sweat, and tears AND huge bucks, gorgeous, youthful skin, a gorgeous, youthful, tight, no-signs-of-having-children or a peppermint-bark-problem body, or luxurious, youthful, tangle-free hair that looks like I get it done at the salon every day. Ageless beauty, it says, and I am mesmerized. I study the lines and wrinkles of Valerie Bertinelli and the increasingly, so easily gorgeous Cindy Crawford and I think, "That's it! That's the product for me." Or better," I will definitely work out for forty minutes a day, every day, sweating my face off and then go make dinner". Or," yeah sure, my hair is short but wouldn't it be nice to have that silky feeling even on my wee strands?"
Though I am getting older, watching my body change and let go of the lifetime of hours of tedious working out, afternoon facials, and cute haircuts, inside, I still feel like I graduated from college just moments ago. I catch glimpses of myself in the mirror while standing with the girls as they brush their teeth before bed or in the reflection of the car window as I pile everyone in or out and cannot believe that it's possible that that woman is representing me to the world. I am a softer, less angular, less stylish vision than the one I imagine of myself. I am not mad at it. Have come to accept it on some levels. But wouldn't mind a little help with the tweaking sometimes.
I have a cousin who is a plastic surgeon in Santa Barbara and have asked him and his wife countless questions involving terrifying procedures that will lift what were once hot boobies and turned into Mama mammaries, remove a bit of the junk bouncing out of the trunk, and lighten the load of the bags I am carrying under my eyes. I am a little too much of a wimp to handle these surgeries, as is my pocketbook, so I have gone a new direction. IT WORKS body wraps came to me from a friend on Facebook. She was selling them and posting pictures of all kinds of bodies on a wall of extreme transformation. I thought, "who knows if this really works, but I sure as heck want to find out!" As I mentioned, my pocketbook is a bit of a wimp and I did not want to commit to the fee for a possibly maybe. So I entered a contest on her website and if you can stand it, I won! Day two of the aforementioned experiment begins tomorrow.
I can't tell. I really can't tell if I see any difference after the first wrap which consisted of an herb-soaked, body part shaped napkin or cheesecloth that I squished and wrapped around my legs, then Saran wrapped for better travel and waited. I drank about 2 gallons of water and ate like a bunny. The next wrap will be done tomorrow, a full 72 hours after the first as is required. It smells great and I feel like my jeans might have fit a little less snugly in the thigh area. Pictures will be taken tomorrow before and after and we'll see. As I walked to my car, legs wrapped and Saran wrap swish-swish-swishing, I had to laugh out loud to myself.
What I never really realized, somehow missed all throughout my youth, was that when I was young, it came easy to me, easier than I believed. And I'm not alone. Look at a picture of yourself from back in the day. You are cute. You are hot. Your skin is smooth. Even after a night of partying, you look vibrant and fresh. I am surprisingly okay with this. I wish I looked a little better, sure. But a wiggly belly, tickled in bed by my six and three and 1/2 year old feels kind of jolly. I can work out some day. I can eat a little better, take in fewer brownies and more green things. I will. I will. I will. And I am sure twenty years from now, I will look at the pictures of me, wiggly belly and all and say, "Beautiful."
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Inevitably, I stumble upon some infomercial that will guarantee with the loss of some blood, sweat, and tears AND huge bucks, gorgeous, youthful skin, a gorgeous, youthful, tight, no-signs-of-having-children or a peppermint-bark-problem body, or luxurious, youthful, tangle-free hair that looks like I get it done at the salon every day. Ageless beauty, it says, and I am mesmerized. I study the lines and wrinkles of Valerie Bertinelli and the increasingly, so easily gorgeous Cindy Crawford and I think, "That's it! That's the product for me." Or better," I will definitely work out for forty minutes a day, every day, sweating my face off and then go make dinner". Or," yeah sure, my hair is short but wouldn't it be nice to have that silky feeling even on my wee strands?"
Though I am getting older, watching my body change and let go of the lifetime of hours of tedious working out, afternoon facials, and cute haircuts, inside, I still feel like I graduated from college just moments ago. I catch glimpses of myself in the mirror while standing with the girls as they brush their teeth before bed or in the reflection of the car window as I pile everyone in or out and cannot believe that it's possible that that woman is representing me to the world. I am a softer, less angular, less stylish vision than the one I imagine of myself. I am not mad at it. Have come to accept it on some levels. But wouldn't mind a little help with the tweaking sometimes.
I have a cousin who is a plastic surgeon in Santa Barbara and have asked him and his wife countless questions involving terrifying procedures that will lift what were once hot boobies and turned into Mama mammaries, remove a bit of the junk bouncing out of the trunk, and lighten the load of the bags I am carrying under my eyes. I am a little too much of a wimp to handle these surgeries, as is my pocketbook, so I have gone a new direction. IT WORKS body wraps came to me from a friend on Facebook. She was selling them and posting pictures of all kinds of bodies on a wall of extreme transformation. I thought, "who knows if this really works, but I sure as heck want to find out!" As I mentioned, my pocketbook is a bit of a wimp and I did not want to commit to the fee for a possibly maybe. So I entered a contest on her website and if you can stand it, I won! Day two of the aforementioned experiment begins tomorrow.
I can't tell. I really can't tell if I see any difference after the first wrap which consisted of an herb-soaked, body part shaped napkin or cheesecloth that I squished and wrapped around my legs, then Saran wrapped for better travel and waited. I drank about 2 gallons of water and ate like a bunny. The next wrap will be done tomorrow, a full 72 hours after the first as is required. It smells great and I feel like my jeans might have fit a little less snugly in the thigh area. Pictures will be taken tomorrow before and after and we'll see. As I walked to my car, legs wrapped and Saran wrap swish-swish-swishing, I had to laugh out loud to myself.
What I never really realized, somehow missed all throughout my youth, was that when I was young, it came easy to me, easier than I believed. And I'm not alone. Look at a picture of yourself from back in the day. You are cute. You are hot. Your skin is smooth. Even after a night of partying, you look vibrant and fresh. I am surprisingly okay with this. I wish I looked a little better, sure. But a wiggly belly, tickled in bed by my six and three and 1/2 year old feels kind of jolly. I can work out some day. I can eat a little better, take in fewer brownies and more green things. I will. I will. I will. And I am sure twenty years from now, I will look at the pictures of me, wiggly belly and all and say, "Beautiful."
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Mommy, party of one
One is the loneliest number. But it's been a long time since I felt all alone. Sometimes in raising chidlren, navigating the waters of marriage, relationships, and friendships, one feels that he or she is up against the world. But that feeling is fleeting and often tied to a very specific moment of tension, stress, and fatigue. I write this blog because I know I am not the only one who has stared into the eyes of a three year old in a stand off and wondered how the heck did I get here?!? I know that I am not the first to feel lost and confused as I transitioned from hot, young thing to Mummy in Mom jeans. I am not the first to fly two hours with two little ones, their car seats, almost all the toys from the toy box, snacks, DVD player, and coats tied on my head only to arrive at an overheated airport with one who has to use the toilet immediately. Or had vomit in my hair, my mouth, on the new carpet. I am not the first to have a bullied child or a baby who calls me countless times in the middle of the night. I would surely be incredibly narcissistic and self-involved if it were my intention to imply that no one has suffered as I. I write this to share, to commiserate, to have a laugh, and let off steam.
Talking with other parents and caregivers, I am mesmerized by our ability to rear these people, keep them safe, polite, kind, well-fed, dressed, well-kept, while kissing them, loving them, smiling at them, being all for them. I am often knocked senseless in shock and awe at just what it is that parents are called on to do. Had I received some kind of manual I would certainly not have believed what it was preparing me for. I would have said, no way is this going to happen, probably just minutes or seconds before said disaster came to pass. I like to talk about it, to recount the stories. Sometimes because what one of the girls has said is so funny or so profound, I want a witness to their genius. Sometimes because the conflict is so tight, the battle so heated, the fog of war so thick, I need a second mate or possibly a guide to tell me how to get through it. It is not complaining. It is pleading, it is longing for guidance and reassurance. It is questioning.
Much like we all feel original in high school, are sure no one but we have gone through the woes of heartbreak or heartache, the alienation of finding one's own way, or the wrenching panic and anxiety of not fitting in, parents often blanch at each new milestone or dilemma and shine at each new achievement or success, asserting that no one else could ever feel this proud, this hurt, this excited. It feels like the very first time, though it is not. The comfort and safety of other parents' experiences similar to my own or better, that prepare me for moments to come, give me peace. A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a knowing glance can mean so much when one is in the thick of it.
In this, I call on community. This is family created from like souls in a like experience. Their love, their guidance, their support, without "I told you so's" and "buck up and get it together's"has strengthened me and made me a better mom and a better person. I am not a party of one, though mothering is often a very isolating experience for me, because I have held out my hand and others have taken it at just the right time.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Talking with other parents and caregivers, I am mesmerized by our ability to rear these people, keep them safe, polite, kind, well-fed, dressed, well-kept, while kissing them, loving them, smiling at them, being all for them. I am often knocked senseless in shock and awe at just what it is that parents are called on to do. Had I received some kind of manual I would certainly not have believed what it was preparing me for. I would have said, no way is this going to happen, probably just minutes or seconds before said disaster came to pass. I like to talk about it, to recount the stories. Sometimes because what one of the girls has said is so funny or so profound, I want a witness to their genius. Sometimes because the conflict is so tight, the battle so heated, the fog of war so thick, I need a second mate or possibly a guide to tell me how to get through it. It is not complaining. It is pleading, it is longing for guidance and reassurance. It is questioning.
Much like we all feel original in high school, are sure no one but we have gone through the woes of heartbreak or heartache, the alienation of finding one's own way, or the wrenching panic and anxiety of not fitting in, parents often blanch at each new milestone or dilemma and shine at each new achievement or success, asserting that no one else could ever feel this proud, this hurt, this excited. It feels like the very first time, though it is not. The comfort and safety of other parents' experiences similar to my own or better, that prepare me for moments to come, give me peace. A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a knowing glance can mean so much when one is in the thick of it.
In this, I call on community. This is family created from like souls in a like experience. Their love, their guidance, their support, without "I told you so's" and "buck up and get it together's"has strengthened me and made me a better mom and a better person. I am not a party of one, though mothering is often a very isolating experience for me, because I have held out my hand and others have taken it at just the right time.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Way Back
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Way Back: I've been reconstructing so much in my life of late. We've been back in the States for a little over one year, have settled into an idyllic...
The Way Back
I've been reconstructing so much in my life of late. We've been back in the States for a little over one year, have settled into an idyllic little town on the edge of glorious NYC. I feel its presence, NYC that is, though I rarely make the trip in. I tried to do some writing there for a few days but got distracted by all the life. I figured I'd do much better writing in my local library where just my thoughts that needed processing could distract me. And I am distracted. While working like a maniac to give my girls the sense of family unity that I longed for, I've got years of sticky stuff clogging the pipes. It has shown up in migraine headaches, panic and anxiety attacks, and near nervous breakdowns, though all of these seem to be on the wane.
After what I will call euphemistically an eye-opening Thanksgiving visit with family, I returned home with a realization that I had to, needed to reconnect with and forgive my husband for what I felt was abandonment, disconnection, miscommunication during our years in Barbados. No matter the difficult times, he always came back. He never attacked me physically, verbally, or emotionally. In fact, he never tried to hurt me ever. He never left or turned his back even when I was foaming at the mouth. He never fought, just looked at me with those soft, puppy dog eyes and probably wondered where the hell the beautiful, loving, fun, cool, sexpot of a girlfriend and wife had gone off to. Wedded bliss and parenthood can alter a person. Wrestling demons and cellular emotional poison can destroy one.
As I walked through the gate at the airport on our return, two car seats, a stroller, an enormous 27-lb carry-on bag, two girls' jackets, and two girls in tow, I felt the weight lift. I marched the girls through the terminal to baggage claim to get to their father. Before we'd even made it, I saw his black coat and shy smile creeping around the corner. He'd come as far as he could to meet us, was right at the edge. We all ran to him, embraced, and relaxed into home. We'd made our way back. To see the girls and me hugging and kissing all over the man like we'd been gone five months instead of five days showed just how desperate we were to affirm our unit, our gang, our team, our family. In my arrested development, I often found it difficult to "choose" between my two families--the one into which I was born and the one I'd made myself.
I have often wondered if other people have this dilemma. We answer a different call when we make our own families, play a different role. In my family now, I am awesome. I am beautiful. I am funny. I am smart, and silly, and talented, and a good cook. (Seriously. I mean, I'm no chef, but the girls love my food and I have learned so much from my husband whether I wanted to or not!) I keep a clean house, a fun house where everyone has a favorite place but no place is off limits. I cannot help but get new things to make our home comfy and cozy and delight in the squeals and winks of my people when they see something new that makes them feel special. We delight in each other even when we can't stand each other because the latter lasts only as long as whatever conflict has formed is resolved. It doesn't linger until the poison fills up our veins.
Being a homemaker, whether one works outside the home or not, (I currently do not.) does not have to be mutually exclusive from being the same wicked hot, fun sexpot one was before getting married and making people. This, I am working on. In Barbados, it was easy to be cute with all the half- dressed, sun-dressed, no bra, sweatiness, hair in a disheveled ponytail, swimsuit as underwear hot, hot, blazing hotness going on. But back on the East Coast, it became so easy to fall into sweatpants, loose fitting jeans, trainers, and formless t-shirts, even ones with cool band names, that I felt like I looked like a co-ed on a stay-in Friday night eating ramen noodles. While I may not rock a heel every day, my high top, high heeled sneakers are doing the trick and a little mascara and lipstick when I am one bad item shy of a needed Oprah make over keeps me presentable and looking like I give a damn.
We are working on allowing ourselves breaks from the kiddles and as they get older this is much easier. Though still slim on babysitter pickings, an afternoon at the movies or walking in the reservation, a cuddle and make out on the couch on his day off, or a movie and a glass of wine, no computers, no texting, no phone calls once the people are asleep has brought us back to each others' hearts. I don't know if I ever left his. He is slow burning, patient, watchful to my hysterical, freak out, nervous, at least in loving each other. He is in it for the long haul. He wants me, loves us. And this realization on the way back from where-I'm-just-not-quite-sure gave new clarity and definition to what is MY family.
I woke up one day and discovered that I am one of the adults in this family! Ha! Not sure how this happened, but I chose to take it seriously, to commit, to handle it and I realized that it's actually quite fun (when it doesn't suck). The changes to my perspective and in turn, to my outlook on our future and our success as a family have surprised me and given me tremendous hope. Being in a family can be hard, but it doesn't have to be. I surely do not want it to be in mine.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
After what I will call euphemistically an eye-opening Thanksgiving visit with family, I returned home with a realization that I had to, needed to reconnect with and forgive my husband for what I felt was abandonment, disconnection, miscommunication during our years in Barbados. No matter the difficult times, he always came back. He never attacked me physically, verbally, or emotionally. In fact, he never tried to hurt me ever. He never left or turned his back even when I was foaming at the mouth. He never fought, just looked at me with those soft, puppy dog eyes and probably wondered where the hell the beautiful, loving, fun, cool, sexpot of a girlfriend and wife had gone off to. Wedded bliss and parenthood can alter a person. Wrestling demons and cellular emotional poison can destroy one.
As I walked through the gate at the airport on our return, two car seats, a stroller, an enormous 27-lb carry-on bag, two girls' jackets, and two girls in tow, I felt the weight lift. I marched the girls through the terminal to baggage claim to get to their father. Before we'd even made it, I saw his black coat and shy smile creeping around the corner. He'd come as far as he could to meet us, was right at the edge. We all ran to him, embraced, and relaxed into home. We'd made our way back. To see the girls and me hugging and kissing all over the man like we'd been gone five months instead of five days showed just how desperate we were to affirm our unit, our gang, our team, our family. In my arrested development, I often found it difficult to "choose" between my two families--the one into which I was born and the one I'd made myself.
I have often wondered if other people have this dilemma. We answer a different call when we make our own families, play a different role. In my family now, I am awesome. I am beautiful. I am funny. I am smart, and silly, and talented, and a good cook. (Seriously. I mean, I'm no chef, but the girls love my food and I have learned so much from my husband whether I wanted to or not!) I keep a clean house, a fun house where everyone has a favorite place but no place is off limits. I cannot help but get new things to make our home comfy and cozy and delight in the squeals and winks of my people when they see something new that makes them feel special. We delight in each other even when we can't stand each other because the latter lasts only as long as whatever conflict has formed is resolved. It doesn't linger until the poison fills up our veins.
Being a homemaker, whether one works outside the home or not, (I currently do not.) does not have to be mutually exclusive from being the same wicked hot, fun sexpot one was before getting married and making people. This, I am working on. In Barbados, it was easy to be cute with all the half- dressed, sun-dressed, no bra, sweatiness, hair in a disheveled ponytail, swimsuit as underwear hot, hot, blazing hotness going on. But back on the East Coast, it became so easy to fall into sweatpants, loose fitting jeans, trainers, and formless t-shirts, even ones with cool band names, that I felt like I looked like a co-ed on a stay-in Friday night eating ramen noodles. While I may not rock a heel every day, my high top, high heeled sneakers are doing the trick and a little mascara and lipstick when I am one bad item shy of a needed Oprah make over keeps me presentable and looking like I give a damn.
We are working on allowing ourselves breaks from the kiddles and as they get older this is much easier. Though still slim on babysitter pickings, an afternoon at the movies or walking in the reservation, a cuddle and make out on the couch on his day off, or a movie and a glass of wine, no computers, no texting, no phone calls once the people are asleep has brought us back to each others' hearts. I don't know if I ever left his. He is slow burning, patient, watchful to my hysterical, freak out, nervous, at least in loving each other. He is in it for the long haul. He wants me, loves us. And this realization on the way back from where-I'm-just-not-quite-sure gave new clarity and definition to what is MY family.
I woke up one day and discovered that I am one of the adults in this family! Ha! Not sure how this happened, but I chose to take it seriously, to commit, to handle it and I realized that it's actually quite fun (when it doesn't suck). The changes to my perspective and in turn, to my outlook on our future and our success as a family have surprised me and given me tremendous hope. Being in a family can be hard, but it doesn't have to be. I surely do not want it to be in mine.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: Things I love, I am thankful
Back to the Suburban Grind: Things I love, I am thankful: I am thankful for Lily's shy smile, Virginie's eyelashes, watching Lily dance when she thinks I cannot see her, Virginie's inquisitive mind,...
Things I love, I am thankful
I am thankful for Lily's shy smile, Virginie's eyelashes, watching Lily dance when she thinks I cannot see her, Virginie's inquisitive mind, both girls' constant conversation, Didier's eyes darting from one place to the next while he thinks. I love to watch my husband walking to the train from our window, his bouncy gait as enthusiastic and energetic as the little boy I imagine him to have been. I am thankful that each day, whether we drive each other mad or not, Didier and I have something more to discover about one another and thus far, still think that's pretty freakin' cool. That we adore and admire and support our children with the same intensity and joy. I love the curiosity, the drive, the charisma, and character of my children. I love that my people trust me when they look in my eyes and know that I'll always have their backs even if just moments before, I was yelling. I love that we come back to center after every argument, every tussle, every misunderstanding and love it out. We are a family and as it is the first bond, the first experience of community and strength, I want to give that to them hard, drill it in so they never forget and wander off or get lost.
I am thankful for the families that came together to produce me. Two incredibly strong, motivated, devoted, exceptional families that valued honesty, truth, love, wisdom, service, community, and compassion over the superficial and shallow. Two families whose matriarchs and patriarchs were willing to endure and suffer setbacks and slights so that their families, their progeny could go forward and soar. I am so grateful for this blessing and so often let myself forget the strength and guidance given to me by all these people, all these folks, both when they were with me and in spirit. I am thankful for my connection to the spirit, to the universe, to God without which I would surely have given up. I am thankful that even when things are difficult, exhausting, terrifying, I want to live and live long. I accept the responsibility of my lineage and feel blessed that it is mine. I am thankful that I get to pass this on to my children.
I am thankful for my education, for all that I have learned in school and in life, even when the lessons were damned hard and I thought they might kill me. I am blessed that the value of a good, proper education was given to me by my parents, their parents, and their parents' parents. I know that being able to learn, to think for myself, to consider has provided me with many incredible opportunities and allowed me to see the world through eager, inquisitive eyes. I am so happy to be able to share these wonders with the girls. I am happy that close-mindedness, shallow thinking, hate, and disdain have not been allowed to take root in my heart or my mind.
I am thankful that as I age it is still hard to tell just exactly how old I am (for others) and that my body continues to serve me well and that I am in good health. I pray that I am able to be with the girls and my husband for a long time, a long, healthy life. I am blessed that the early signs of middle age are creeping slowly and not coming quickly (though I'd love to spend a tiny bit more time in the gym working it all out.) I have my mother to thank for that, at least her incredible genes, because she looks about fifteen to twenty years younger than she is and has stayed as youthful in spirit (or maybe it's the early onset of the "whatevs.")
My friends and family who have supported me, cared for me, loved me, given to me when I didn't dare ask but certainly needed it have my thanks and gratitude forever. These gems have shaped my life, changed me and challenged me, begged me to get my lessons when I was violently opposed, blinded by my ego, hurt feelings, and fear. There are hardly words to describe how that invisible safety net of souls feels when it lifts me up and stands me back on my feet. Through the trials and tribulations of a life lived seeking the truth, these people are invaluable. Accepting their guidance and spirit has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. I am truly thankful.
The Thanksgiving brawls, physical, psychological, and emotional that must certainly attack more than just me, often try to steal my heart and turn it to coal, may try to threaten my sense of gratitude, may try to break my heart and render me thankless. But even that won't do. My life is blessed. My heart is still open. And I am thankful, thankful, thankful that I am able to continue to love.
Happy Thanksgiving.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I am thankful for the families that came together to produce me. Two incredibly strong, motivated, devoted, exceptional families that valued honesty, truth, love, wisdom, service, community, and compassion over the superficial and shallow. Two families whose matriarchs and patriarchs were willing to endure and suffer setbacks and slights so that their families, their progeny could go forward and soar. I am so grateful for this blessing and so often let myself forget the strength and guidance given to me by all these people, all these folks, both when they were with me and in spirit. I am thankful for my connection to the spirit, to the universe, to God without which I would surely have given up. I am thankful that even when things are difficult, exhausting, terrifying, I want to live and live long. I accept the responsibility of my lineage and feel blessed that it is mine. I am thankful that I get to pass this on to my children.
I am thankful for my education, for all that I have learned in school and in life, even when the lessons were damned hard and I thought they might kill me. I am blessed that the value of a good, proper education was given to me by my parents, their parents, and their parents' parents. I know that being able to learn, to think for myself, to consider has provided me with many incredible opportunities and allowed me to see the world through eager, inquisitive eyes. I am so happy to be able to share these wonders with the girls. I am happy that close-mindedness, shallow thinking, hate, and disdain have not been allowed to take root in my heart or my mind.
I am thankful that as I age it is still hard to tell just exactly how old I am (for others) and that my body continues to serve me well and that I am in good health. I pray that I am able to be with the girls and my husband for a long time, a long, healthy life. I am blessed that the early signs of middle age are creeping slowly and not coming quickly (though I'd love to spend a tiny bit more time in the gym working it all out.) I have my mother to thank for that, at least her incredible genes, because she looks about fifteen to twenty years younger than she is and has stayed as youthful in spirit (or maybe it's the early onset of the "whatevs.")
My friends and family who have supported me, cared for me, loved me, given to me when I didn't dare ask but certainly needed it have my thanks and gratitude forever. These gems have shaped my life, changed me and challenged me, begged me to get my lessons when I was violently opposed, blinded by my ego, hurt feelings, and fear. There are hardly words to describe how that invisible safety net of souls feels when it lifts me up and stands me back on my feet. Through the trials and tribulations of a life lived seeking the truth, these people are invaluable. Accepting their guidance and spirit has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. I am truly thankful.
The Thanksgiving brawls, physical, psychological, and emotional that must certainly attack more than just me, often try to steal my heart and turn it to coal, may try to threaten my sense of gratitude, may try to break my heart and render me thankless. But even that won't do. My life is blessed. My heart is still open. And I am thankful, thankful, thankful that I am able to continue to love.
Happy Thanksgiving.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Playing the "we"
When I was younger, I had a few boyfriends that just didn't make the grade with my friends. They always invited "us" but then would find a moment to corner "me" and mention that our "we" was kinda getting on their nerves. There were all kinds of different reasons why my beau just didn't cut it, often reasons that I, blinded by love and secret schmoopy-doop whisperings, just couldn't see. Either he was stand-offish, selfish, self-involved, boring, judgmental, smothering, cruel, belligerent, exhausting, needy, whatever and just made the people in my life wonder how and when I would come to my senses and release the fool from my team. Before I settled down with the Frenchy who is charming and funny and a little arrogant but also self-depreciating and of course, French and adorable, I really had no idea how putting together a good "we" could allow "me" to have and keep good friends and relations close.
I have witnessed more than a few relationships fall apart because of this situation, but wondered, what happens when the partner in question is not a boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, or pal who can be cut from the squad without legal strings, but is a husband, wife, or business partner? Can a friendship survive if the number 2 always has to tag along? Can you tell your friend that you just can't get down with her man? Out here in the suburbs, people tend to travel in clans. It's not like my former life in the city where packs of roving artists, actors, writers, and single types, often without children could move in and out of circles, trying on different personas, ideas, and accents. In the burbs, you and your partner and sometimes your kiddles move as a subset and merge with other subsets. It's awesome when the wives, the husbands, and the children get along on their own accord, when you don't have to remind someone to be on their best behavior, give them pointers on good conversation, worry that while you are having the time of your life, your partner or your kids are picking lint out of their belly buttons or worse, starting a war.
Political blowhards, lecherous Lotharios, Snoopy marshmallows (as my Frenchy calls the less interesting), inappropriate jokers, and flirty kittens can ruin any night out, dinner, or mixed family gathering. I often wonder, if before heading out the couples have a chat about how to behave. "Please honey, don't tell so and so how gorgeous you thought she was last time. I think it made her uncomfortable." or "Can you just try to add something to the conversation, babe? You have lots to talk about when we are together." I love my Frenchy and I must tell you he is damned funny in French and in English! But truth be told, sometimes I ask him if he wouldn't mind chiming in, sharing a little bit of himself, letting people see how good, funny, intelligent he is. I know that often, we fall for our friends and are so excited by them that we don't imagine that their partners will wilt our flowers, bore us to tears, piss us off to raging blindness. Maybe we don't have to always come as a package. Perhaps it's best to define that role before we force our others on the group and find the space between us grow. Perhaps "we" is too much when all we want is "you" and "me."
If someone told me that they loved hanging with me, but would I mind leaving my Gaul at home, I think I would take that as an assault on my taste and style. Really? You don't want the good stuff? Or worse, you think I don't have the good stuff? Sometimes, it's true, husbands dampen the conversation. Especially when that convo is meant to be about them individually or collectively or about sex or about running away with the trainer (even in jest) or something so private you only want to share it with a good girlfriend, not her husband. But other times, a lively repartee between couples, discourse, new ideas, funny tales can solidify a friendship, make scheduling and entertaining that much easier. And when time is limited, babysitters are scarce, and a good get-together is just what you are looking for, it's nice to know that we can all get along.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I have witnessed more than a few relationships fall apart because of this situation, but wondered, what happens when the partner in question is not a boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, or pal who can be cut from the squad without legal strings, but is a husband, wife, or business partner? Can a friendship survive if the number 2 always has to tag along? Can you tell your friend that you just can't get down with her man? Out here in the suburbs, people tend to travel in clans. It's not like my former life in the city where packs of roving artists, actors, writers, and single types, often without children could move in and out of circles, trying on different personas, ideas, and accents. In the burbs, you and your partner and sometimes your kiddles move as a subset and merge with other subsets. It's awesome when the wives, the husbands, and the children get along on their own accord, when you don't have to remind someone to be on their best behavior, give them pointers on good conversation, worry that while you are having the time of your life, your partner or your kids are picking lint out of their belly buttons or worse, starting a war.
Political blowhards, lecherous Lotharios, Snoopy marshmallows (as my Frenchy calls the less interesting), inappropriate jokers, and flirty kittens can ruin any night out, dinner, or mixed family gathering. I often wonder, if before heading out the couples have a chat about how to behave. "Please honey, don't tell so and so how gorgeous you thought she was last time. I think it made her uncomfortable." or "Can you just try to add something to the conversation, babe? You have lots to talk about when we are together." I love my Frenchy and I must tell you he is damned funny in French and in English! But truth be told, sometimes I ask him if he wouldn't mind chiming in, sharing a little bit of himself, letting people see how good, funny, intelligent he is. I know that often, we fall for our friends and are so excited by them that we don't imagine that their partners will wilt our flowers, bore us to tears, piss us off to raging blindness. Maybe we don't have to always come as a package. Perhaps it's best to define that role before we force our others on the group and find the space between us grow. Perhaps "we" is too much when all we want is "you" and "me."
If someone told me that they loved hanging with me, but would I mind leaving my Gaul at home, I think I would take that as an assault on my taste and style. Really? You don't want the good stuff? Or worse, you think I don't have the good stuff? Sometimes, it's true, husbands dampen the conversation. Especially when that convo is meant to be about them individually or collectively or about sex or about running away with the trainer (even in jest) or something so private you only want to share it with a good girlfriend, not her husband. But other times, a lively repartee between couples, discourse, new ideas, funny tales can solidify a friendship, make scheduling and entertaining that much easier. And when time is limited, babysitters are scarce, and a good get-together is just what you are looking for, it's nice to know that we can all get along.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Meet and Greet
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Meet and Greet: I was not popular in high school. I wouldn't say that I was unpopular either, but I certainly didn't strut around the place cocksure that I...
The Meet and Greet
I was not popular in high school. I wouldn't say that I was unpopular either, but I certainly didn't strut around the place cocksure that I was loved, admired, or led a coveted life. Funny how so much in the adult world takes you right back to those awkward feelings in the hallways of a place where everything was learned--intellectually, emotionally, strategically, socially. I didn't hate my experience, didn't hate being odd man out, though it was often lonely and painful, well hidden behind a smile and eccentric wardrobe. It was the 80s and though our neighborhood was integrated, there was no strong minority presence, so minority students were more like novelty acts, not headliners.
Unlike teens today, I didn't plot to hurt other people when I felt hurt and didn't have social media to blow up other people metaphorically with photos, miserable, cruel texts, or revealed secrets. I always thought that becoming successful would be the best revenge. Success being measured more by my ability to get as far away from my hometown as possible, finding a mate, making a family, and just having a level of happiness that the torture of being in high school and living at home denied me. I feel so good about the life I have made with my hubby and people, even when I am staring into space wondering how the hell we got here, begging the heavens for some guidance, direction, help when I just don't know what turn to take.
But we live in our own sweet bubble. We are protected in this place because we made it and invite in only those we want. We are a family of four and any friends, family, acquaintances, or repairmen who get close do so with great scrutiny and testing. Can't play right? No more play dates. Can't speak kindly? No more phone calls. Bring the bad juju? Buh-bye. In just one situation, however, I am thrown back to the feeling I had trolling the high school hallways when I bumped into someone at the top of the heap.
A few nights ago, I forced my husband to come home early from work and attend a parents' night at Virginie's school. Were we not meeting her teachers, I would have scrapped the whole thing entirely, but we were. Meeting her teachers. And her teachers have already told us some wonderful things about our baby. Our baby who is 3 1/2 and trying to write her own name. Who talks non-stop with big words in big sentences. For her and for Lily, for each other, we will do anything. So there I found myself, with my handsome French husband with no high school hang ups because it seems that high school BS is a distinctly American problem, but with absolutely no interest in these people, meeting and greeting in the school's gymnasium while the PTA hawked books for its fundraiser and folks smiled at each other and air kissed each other and chatted about their other kids at bigger, better schools, their wonderful vacations, exciting plans for their charmed lives. I felt myself in braces, short spiky hair, and black wrestling shoes, in a sea of glamorous sorority girls.
I know, I know they are not all alike, not all the same. That we all have our crosses to bear and that the truth is often hidden behind those hair flips and blindingly flashy diamonds. Just as years later, relationships that never formed in high school have been able to develop and blossom via social media after one heck of a twentieth reunion. But the gut feeling is still there. The lump in the throat still lingers. Having spent those formative years in a nearly all white school, where just by nature of being different I found myself on the outside(not to mention the secret and not so secret racist ideals exhibited by some, but certainly not all in my community), it is hard for me to fully accept that I would be welcomed at these gatherings. Despite my attempts at self-improvement and self-acceptance, my inner teenager feels inept, awkward, and nervous in the crowd. In nearly every crowd, as I never quite fit in with the black bourgeoisie either. Fitting in has just not ever been my strongest suit.
But as a friend told me (another isolate, though introverted and not extroverted as I am) for the kids, for their development, for their friendships and relations, we have to make that effort even if we are afraid. Even if we fear judgment or attack. Even if it kills us. And you know, though it appears that this group is "keeping up" with each other, they are not checking for me. I am not part of the game. We had a perfectly lovely visit to our baby girl's school, enjoyed the projects and pictures posted all around for us to see, and even met some warm individuals. I know the projection is mine to deal with, something I work on all the time. But consider, if I, an outgoing, open, smiling individual fears being unwelcome, excluded and nearly missed such a wonderful event, how many others without the same social tools are avoiding all contact entirely? Who are not sending their kids to these great schools. Are not participating in events that can advance their children's education, experiences, development. Who feel like the dream is not meant for them.
I will meet anyone, greet anyone, if it means that I can hand over a place in the world for my people where they feel welcomed, considered, and included. I don't think it serves them or me to isolate ourselves. But I also hope that no one continues to keep their group closed, hiding all the assets and casting doubt that the world is indeed the oyster of everyone and not just a chosen few.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Unlike teens today, I didn't plot to hurt other people when I felt hurt and didn't have social media to blow up other people metaphorically with photos, miserable, cruel texts, or revealed secrets. I always thought that becoming successful would be the best revenge. Success being measured more by my ability to get as far away from my hometown as possible, finding a mate, making a family, and just having a level of happiness that the torture of being in high school and living at home denied me. I feel so good about the life I have made with my hubby and people, even when I am staring into space wondering how the hell we got here, begging the heavens for some guidance, direction, help when I just don't know what turn to take.
But we live in our own sweet bubble. We are protected in this place because we made it and invite in only those we want. We are a family of four and any friends, family, acquaintances, or repairmen who get close do so with great scrutiny and testing. Can't play right? No more play dates. Can't speak kindly? No more phone calls. Bring the bad juju? Buh-bye. In just one situation, however, I am thrown back to the feeling I had trolling the high school hallways when I bumped into someone at the top of the heap.
A few nights ago, I forced my husband to come home early from work and attend a parents' night at Virginie's school. Were we not meeting her teachers, I would have scrapped the whole thing entirely, but we were. Meeting her teachers. And her teachers have already told us some wonderful things about our baby. Our baby who is 3 1/2 and trying to write her own name. Who talks non-stop with big words in big sentences. For her and for Lily, for each other, we will do anything. So there I found myself, with my handsome French husband with no high school hang ups because it seems that high school BS is a distinctly American problem, but with absolutely no interest in these people, meeting and greeting in the school's gymnasium while the PTA hawked books for its fundraiser and folks smiled at each other and air kissed each other and chatted about their other kids at bigger, better schools, their wonderful vacations, exciting plans for their charmed lives. I felt myself in braces, short spiky hair, and black wrestling shoes, in a sea of glamorous sorority girls.
I know, I know they are not all alike, not all the same. That we all have our crosses to bear and that the truth is often hidden behind those hair flips and blindingly flashy diamonds. Just as years later, relationships that never formed in high school have been able to develop and blossom via social media after one heck of a twentieth reunion. But the gut feeling is still there. The lump in the throat still lingers. Having spent those formative years in a nearly all white school, where just by nature of being different I found myself on the outside(not to mention the secret and not so secret racist ideals exhibited by some, but certainly not all in my community), it is hard for me to fully accept that I would be welcomed at these gatherings. Despite my attempts at self-improvement and self-acceptance, my inner teenager feels inept, awkward, and nervous in the crowd. In nearly every crowd, as I never quite fit in with the black bourgeoisie either. Fitting in has just not ever been my strongest suit.
But as a friend told me (another isolate, though introverted and not extroverted as I am) for the kids, for their development, for their friendships and relations, we have to make that effort even if we are afraid. Even if we fear judgment or attack. Even if it kills us. And you know, though it appears that this group is "keeping up" with each other, they are not checking for me. I am not part of the game. We had a perfectly lovely visit to our baby girl's school, enjoyed the projects and pictures posted all around for us to see, and even met some warm individuals. I know the projection is mine to deal with, something I work on all the time. But consider, if I, an outgoing, open, smiling individual fears being unwelcome, excluded and nearly missed such a wonderful event, how many others without the same social tools are avoiding all contact entirely? Who are not sending their kids to these great schools. Are not participating in events that can advance their children's education, experiences, development. Who feel like the dream is not meant for them.
I will meet anyone, greet anyone, if it means that I can hand over a place in the world for my people where they feel welcomed, considered, and included. I don't think it serves them or me to isolate ourselves. But I also hope that no one continues to keep their group closed, hiding all the assets and casting doubt that the world is indeed the oyster of everyone and not just a chosen few.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: There are worse things...Hurricane Sandy, Part II....
Back to the Suburban Grind: There are worse things...Hurricane Sandy, Part II....: Rizzo, the sassy, brassy, bad girl from Grease sang, "There are worse things I could do..." and I keep hearing that refrain in my head thoug...
There are worse things...Hurricane Sandy, Part II.
Rizzo, the sassy, brassy, bad girl from Grease sang, "There are worse things I could do..." and I keep hearing that refrain in my head though I am not quite talking about how badly I have behaved but rather considering how much worse it could all actually be. I am finding it difficult it to keep the smooth skin over the brewing frustration and discontent. I rarely go to my community's website because on a good day there is too much chatter about what someone else is doing wrong or in what way someone has been harmed or offended. While often a great source of information, the site is also filled with folks needing to vent, tear off heads and shit down people's necks about parking, PTA, town fairs, community events, neighbors, and now Hurricane Sandy and its handling by the utilities and municipal government.
To be put out, indignant about our current situation, enough to blow up in the streets, puts me on edge. Perhaps it is my fear of an angry parent lashing out unexpectedly, randomly at the slightest infraction or the most horrific indignity with the same intensity, or my need to try to look on the bright side even while snidely bitching to myself and my closest peeps, or my naivete in expecting that people who tell me they are trying to help really are, but lengthy diatribes about "heads needing to roll" in the face of a horrific storm that brought death and total destruction to some and yes, a loss of power,heat, cable television, telephone, and internet to many others, are unfair and really not constructive. I don't mean to chastise because I know we all have our breaking points and we all need, desire, love our creature comforts. It is, in fact, quite surprising to discover just what it is we need for comfort until we are not able to have it. I totally get it.
When we were in Barbados during and after Tropical Storm Tomas and were looking at day five of no power, dwindling water supply, crying children, spoiling food, blazing heat and sweltering humidity, and animals trying to get into the house because they were scared out of their wits that whatever that was might happen again, I threatened to leave my husband and never return. I asked him why he dared put me and his children in harm's way. I brooded for days, trembled with panic, sweat my face off, and then came to my senses. Sure, I cried crocodile tears, hated the people who got power before we did, which in this case meant air conditioning and oscillating fans (oscillating fans!), resented those with cool drinking water and those who lived above sea level in the hills. I hated that though I longed for privacy, I needed to keep the windows and doors opened to keep from suffocating. I hated that my husband had to work through the clean up and I was forced to stay home alone with two kiddles. I heard myself say, "I am an American girl. I need my ____" whatever it was in that moment. I was spoiled and childish and tired and frustrated and upset in a country where I certainly had no right or ability to write to my public official days after the event and demand something be done for me now!
I had Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake in my memory and honestly, after surviving the house shaking, torrential rain-producing Tropical Storm Tomas, I felt the space between life and death, so tenuous, so silkworm-thread thin, that I thanked my lucky stars and tried to get on with it. I'd heard from my friend Kassandra who lived through Katrina what losing almost everything really felt like. It wasn't just uncomfortable and painful. It was soul crushing, energy sapping, despair producing. One could easily become catatonic with fear at the magnitude of the loss. The stories from Haiti were stunning. Seeing the images hit me at the core. What could really be said? This was life experienced at the fray. There are no words there. It is eerily quiet.
After Tomas, I decided to let go of my pride, my fear, my closed shell and open up to the friends who were reaching out to me. My good friend, Wendy, a lady I will know all my life, took me in, pep-talked me back to some level of sense, and slapped my cheeks with love and support to revive me. I learned that where I thought there were limits there was more to go and that I could endure it. I accepted that we each have our breaking points and that I would not condemn my own feelings or the feelings of others in relation to their own suffering, but that I would keep it in perspective. I empathize, I want to help. I want to listen. I want to confirm. I want to support.
Sitting in the middle of a community rendered power-less by downed trees, destroyed power lines, but with power myself, it is hard not to feel guilt, shame, discomfort at our good fortune. I do not dare complain about our lack of cable television, telephone, or internet when the temps outside are dropping well into the 40s at night and families are hunkered down, sleeping together in front of their fireplaces. I count the days with them and try to will the power back, but know that my ten cents mean nothing when showers are avoided because it's too cold to get out and bedtime comes when it gets dark. I remember the glow of the candles, trying to preserve the batteries, trying to find more batteries, becoming possessive of the flashlight, lashing out and crying out and calling out.
The sense of powerlessness to make it all better is only diminished by the ability to give and help in some way. Once we'd gotten home to find that not only was our house in tact, but that power had never failed (only the Comcast cable/telephone/internet), we were overwhelmed with the fatigue that comes after being held up by adrenaline. All I wanted to do was sleep. What I needed to do was see who needed help. We drove around with the girls in the car pointing out damaged homes, downed lines, mangled cars, patio furniture, broken trees. I wanted them to see that whatever suffering they felt at not being able to see Jake and the Neverland Pirates was nothing in comparison. When Lily saw the first images from the Jersey Shore, Staten Island, and lower Manhattan, she couldn't form the words to express the sheer magnitude of her terror. I could see it in her little face. How? Why? What will those people do? I felt worse than she because I had no answer. And because I'd grown up there. I knew those places.
Sandy brought out the light and the dark in nature and in each of us. It pummeled us, shook us, and tossed us about, and put our sense of survival and familial protection on heightened alert. She made us look at ourselves differently. Grease's Sandy wanted to change how she looked, in hopes of showing some depth, some strength and Rizzo wanted to put it all out there, pure aggression and strength to hide her vulnerability, her fearful self, her inner child. I hope that from this, we can all see both. That we have the strength to take care of ourselves and each other (more than we could ever imagine) and that we can accept being taken care of and being loved (more than we could ever allow).
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
To be put out, indignant about our current situation, enough to blow up in the streets, puts me on edge. Perhaps it is my fear of an angry parent lashing out unexpectedly, randomly at the slightest infraction or the most horrific indignity with the same intensity, or my need to try to look on the bright side even while snidely bitching to myself and my closest peeps, or my naivete in expecting that people who tell me they are trying to help really are, but lengthy diatribes about "heads needing to roll" in the face of a horrific storm that brought death and total destruction to some and yes, a loss of power,heat, cable television, telephone, and internet to many others, are unfair and really not constructive. I don't mean to chastise because I know we all have our breaking points and we all need, desire, love our creature comforts. It is, in fact, quite surprising to discover just what it is we need for comfort until we are not able to have it. I totally get it.
When we were in Barbados during and after Tropical Storm Tomas and were looking at day five of no power, dwindling water supply, crying children, spoiling food, blazing heat and sweltering humidity, and animals trying to get into the house because they were scared out of their wits that whatever that was might happen again, I threatened to leave my husband and never return. I asked him why he dared put me and his children in harm's way. I brooded for days, trembled with panic, sweat my face off, and then came to my senses. Sure, I cried crocodile tears, hated the people who got power before we did, which in this case meant air conditioning and oscillating fans (oscillating fans!), resented those with cool drinking water and those who lived above sea level in the hills. I hated that though I longed for privacy, I needed to keep the windows and doors opened to keep from suffocating. I hated that my husband had to work through the clean up and I was forced to stay home alone with two kiddles. I heard myself say, "I am an American girl. I need my ____" whatever it was in that moment. I was spoiled and childish and tired and frustrated and upset in a country where I certainly had no right or ability to write to my public official days after the event and demand something be done for me now!
I had Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake in my memory and honestly, after surviving the house shaking, torrential rain-producing Tropical Storm Tomas, I felt the space between life and death, so tenuous, so silkworm-thread thin, that I thanked my lucky stars and tried to get on with it. I'd heard from my friend Kassandra who lived through Katrina what losing almost everything really felt like. It wasn't just uncomfortable and painful. It was soul crushing, energy sapping, despair producing. One could easily become catatonic with fear at the magnitude of the loss. The stories from Haiti were stunning. Seeing the images hit me at the core. What could really be said? This was life experienced at the fray. There are no words there. It is eerily quiet.
After Tomas, I decided to let go of my pride, my fear, my closed shell and open up to the friends who were reaching out to me. My good friend, Wendy, a lady I will know all my life, took me in, pep-talked me back to some level of sense, and slapped my cheeks with love and support to revive me. I learned that where I thought there were limits there was more to go and that I could endure it. I accepted that we each have our breaking points and that I would not condemn my own feelings or the feelings of others in relation to their own suffering, but that I would keep it in perspective. I empathize, I want to help. I want to listen. I want to confirm. I want to support.
Sitting in the middle of a community rendered power-less by downed trees, destroyed power lines, but with power myself, it is hard not to feel guilt, shame, discomfort at our good fortune. I do not dare complain about our lack of cable television, telephone, or internet when the temps outside are dropping well into the 40s at night and families are hunkered down, sleeping together in front of their fireplaces. I count the days with them and try to will the power back, but know that my ten cents mean nothing when showers are avoided because it's too cold to get out and bedtime comes when it gets dark. I remember the glow of the candles, trying to preserve the batteries, trying to find more batteries, becoming possessive of the flashlight, lashing out and crying out and calling out.
The sense of powerlessness to make it all better is only diminished by the ability to give and help in some way. Once we'd gotten home to find that not only was our house in tact, but that power had never failed (only the Comcast cable/telephone/internet), we were overwhelmed with the fatigue that comes after being held up by adrenaline. All I wanted to do was sleep. What I needed to do was see who needed help. We drove around with the girls in the car pointing out damaged homes, downed lines, mangled cars, patio furniture, broken trees. I wanted them to see that whatever suffering they felt at not being able to see Jake and the Neverland Pirates was nothing in comparison. When Lily saw the first images from the Jersey Shore, Staten Island, and lower Manhattan, she couldn't form the words to express the sheer magnitude of her terror. I could see it in her little face. How? Why? What will those people do? I felt worse than she because I had no answer. And because I'd grown up there. I knew those places.
Sandy brought out the light and the dark in nature and in each of us. It pummeled us, shook us, and tossed us about, and put our sense of survival and familial protection on heightened alert. She made us look at ourselves differently. Grease's Sandy wanted to change how she looked, in hopes of showing some depth, some strength and Rizzo wanted to put it all out there, pure aggression and strength to hide her vulnerability, her fearful self, her inner child. I hope that from this, we can all see both. That we have the strength to take care of ourselves and each other (more than we could ever imagine) and that we can accept being taken care of and being loved (more than we could ever allow).
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: A poor man's Sandra Dee, Hurricane Sandy Part I.
Back to the Suburban Grind: A poor man's Sandra Dee, Hurricane Sandy Part I.: Leading up to what would become Hurricane Sandy, a Category 1 hurricane that came and decimated the state where I grew up and essentially be...
A poor man's Sandra Dee, Hurricane Sandy Part I.
Leading up to what would become Hurricane Sandy, a Category 1 hurricane that came and decimated the state where I grew up and essentially became me, there were lots of silly graphics showing its path. One that seemed to heavily make the rounds was one of Olivia Newton-John in the character of Sandy from Grease going from hair flipped, head-banded, kind-hearted Sandy to the fierce 70s-disco, Lycra-wearing, hair cork-screwed and wild, red Candie's slings, still kind-hearted Sandy. It gave me a giggle but really, it didn't ease my fears. After living through Tropical Storm Tomas in Barbados which kicked our asses and left us powerless and many waterless for five days (many more even longer than that) I knew there would be nothing cute and kind-hearted about it.
The Friday before the Monday storm, Didier and I began collecting supplies. Batteries, cases of water, soup, snacks for the kids (and way too many snacks for the mommy), and gas for the tank. We started charging the portable DVD players, yes players, downloading videos and games for the iPad, using and savoring the electricity. On Saturday morning, in a panic, I ran to Target to get a portable radio to find that they were sold out, and were wiped clean of all the water and C and D batteries. There were no flashlights, no tents, no lamps, lanterns, and very few coolers. I bought a cooler and six rain ponchos. We had five flashlights at home, bought as soon as Hurricane Irene had left us, because we'd been without even one when she hit. After Target I went to Pathmark, not sure for what, where I bought more Halloween candy (just in case the storm tracking as a direct hit on New Jersey somehow diverted and went out to sea and we'd be able to celebrate). There, I saw a woman buying twelve boxes of Wheat Thins. "I love them,"she told me. "And they are on sale!" Then the nervous laughter.
Of course there have been other massive hurricanes and bad storms in New Jersey's history. Just last year there was Irene. But none had the size and scope and sheer power that Sandy was bringing and most felt powerless. All the collecting and hoarding, removing Halloween decorations and tying down garbage cans, still did not provide comfort or ease the thickening air around us. By Monday, school was cancelled in anticipation. There was wind, but not much more than a typical windy or rainy day, and many said so, wishing their kids could be at school, hoping that this was all that was coming, that somehow the forecasters had gotten it wrong and that Sandy was just a little wind, a little rain. My stomach was in knots when it wasn't fluttering nervously wit butterflies. I did laundry, cleaned the house, refused to allow the kids to use the iPad, but did allow about ten hours of television, expecting the cable to go. And then we waited.
At about six-thirty we decided to head over to our friends' home on higher ground. Last year during Hurricane Irene, the creek behind our house flooded and our street was evacuated in the early morning hours in pitch blackness. I did not look forward to moving the girls during gale force winds and rain, so we got out of dodge and went a few blocks higher but still in town. We were in the house probably fifteen minutes when the power flickered and then went out. It would stay that way until...well, now. Our dear friends still have no power and I imagine that all the promises and mixed messages regarding its return are have begun to roll off their backs. They'll believe it when they see it. They are better than I. I just don't think I could do it with the girls, the cold, and the flashbacks of storms past. Such is my constitution. Our hosts, new friends, but incredibly warm, honest, and exceptionally decent, provided us all with shelter, warm beds, and good company.
While the kids went wild, having "the best sleepover ever" the adults sat at the table, opening lovely bottles of wine, falling silent only when a particularly strong gust of wind left us all with the feeling that the house might actually lift off. In the distance we saw flashing blue light and I, for one, assumed that a silent thunderstorm was also raging. Turns out the transformers in our small village were blowing one after another as trees and branches began battling with the power lines. In the darkness we could only guess what was happening out there, all of us listening intently for the sound of a crash of wood on wood that meant a tree had fallen on the house or the shattering of glass. Were it not for social media we would have been, quite literally, in the dark. News of Freehold, the town where I grew up, and other parts of southern New Jersey and the shore came in like Morse code. We got short dashes of information--power lines down, Atlantic City deluged, subway stations flooded--and envisioned the worst as we waited for pictures, all the while hoping that where we sat would not provide an equally devastating headline.
Bedtime for the kiddies was an enormous snugglefest with each tucked into a cute sleeping bag lined up like a row of princess pink and rainbow sardines and some sailboats on the end for the little brother of Lily's friend. I want to say that they were out like a light, but I was summoned to sit with mine for a little bit. Once all were fast asleep, I made my way back downstairs, where not a single adult was to be found. I could see small dots of light moving about in the night so I opened the front door to the howling wind to investigate. Walking through the yard and up the street were our hosts and my husband trying to make heads or tails of all the sounds and light flashes. Fearful of being struck by something, anything dangerous, all made their way back inside to the comfort and safety of the house.
Exhaustion came quickly, sleep less so. As I began dozing off next to the hubby, I would shudder and twitch and jolt at every loud sound, strain my ears to hear any peep from this kids' room. After hours of going in and out of consciousness, I heard Lily's whimper and went to the room to consult. A quick visit to the bathroom and a plea for me to massage her aching legs (growing pains) changed the sleep arrangements and Lily followed me to the room where her father, her little sister, and I had arranged ourselves. To prevent us from piling on top of one another, I proposed that Lily and I sleep on the floor. Virginie came down too leaving just Papa on the bed and the three ladies curled up on the floor. And even still I slept. In and out.
In the morning we all ventured out to see what Sandy had delivered. She'd come fierce and she'd come hard. There were enormous trees mangled and twisted, lying in the streets, across power lines, on rooftops, and across gardens. Power lines were everywhere. We'd been spared the expected rain and for that we were most grateful. Had severe flooding been added to the crazy mix we'd be weeks away from a return to basics instead of days. After a morning coffee and breakfast, we packed up our things and head home to see how we'd fared. As we zigzagged through our once idyllic community, absolute shock and awe struck our faces. Everything looked the same and yet completely and totally different. Our town felt vulnerable, raw, and stunned but also hopeful, motivated, and connected. The invisible lines of community began to glow like energy bands from one to another. People came out of their homes offering whatever they had, food, batteries, chainsaws, gas cans, skills and they started to immediately to try put it back together again.
As we rounded the corner to our street we saw light. Lights inside of our neighbors' homes! Our street had been spared the power outage that has disrupted most of the area. I heard music, tv's blaring, laughter. There were no downed trees, no power lines wiggling on the ground, no one outside. Just blocks away there was an eery calm, a silence, just the occasional hum of a chainsaw or just started generator. People were standing outside, staring in awe, thanking their stars the trees had fallen one way instead of another. Sandy had danced through the fun house in her tight pants all over our township, but on our street, she was still a poor man's Sandra Dee, quiet, wistful, hopeful. A wallflower.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The Friday before the Monday storm, Didier and I began collecting supplies. Batteries, cases of water, soup, snacks for the kids (and way too many snacks for the mommy), and gas for the tank. We started charging the portable DVD players, yes players, downloading videos and games for the iPad, using and savoring the electricity. On Saturday morning, in a panic, I ran to Target to get a portable radio to find that they were sold out, and were wiped clean of all the water and C and D batteries. There were no flashlights, no tents, no lamps, lanterns, and very few coolers. I bought a cooler and six rain ponchos. We had five flashlights at home, bought as soon as Hurricane Irene had left us, because we'd been without even one when she hit. After Target I went to Pathmark, not sure for what, where I bought more Halloween candy (just in case the storm tracking as a direct hit on New Jersey somehow diverted and went out to sea and we'd be able to celebrate). There, I saw a woman buying twelve boxes of Wheat Thins. "I love them,"she told me. "And they are on sale!" Then the nervous laughter.
Of course there have been other massive hurricanes and bad storms in New Jersey's history. Just last year there was Irene. But none had the size and scope and sheer power that Sandy was bringing and most felt powerless. All the collecting and hoarding, removing Halloween decorations and tying down garbage cans, still did not provide comfort or ease the thickening air around us. By Monday, school was cancelled in anticipation. There was wind, but not much more than a typical windy or rainy day, and many said so, wishing their kids could be at school, hoping that this was all that was coming, that somehow the forecasters had gotten it wrong and that Sandy was just a little wind, a little rain. My stomach was in knots when it wasn't fluttering nervously wit butterflies. I did laundry, cleaned the house, refused to allow the kids to use the iPad, but did allow about ten hours of television, expecting the cable to go. And then we waited.
At about six-thirty we decided to head over to our friends' home on higher ground. Last year during Hurricane Irene, the creek behind our house flooded and our street was evacuated in the early morning hours in pitch blackness. I did not look forward to moving the girls during gale force winds and rain, so we got out of dodge and went a few blocks higher but still in town. We were in the house probably fifteen minutes when the power flickered and then went out. It would stay that way until...well, now. Our dear friends still have no power and I imagine that all the promises and mixed messages regarding its return are have begun to roll off their backs. They'll believe it when they see it. They are better than I. I just don't think I could do it with the girls, the cold, and the flashbacks of storms past. Such is my constitution. Our hosts, new friends, but incredibly warm, honest, and exceptionally decent, provided us all with shelter, warm beds, and good company.
While the kids went wild, having "the best sleepover ever" the adults sat at the table, opening lovely bottles of wine, falling silent only when a particularly strong gust of wind left us all with the feeling that the house might actually lift off. In the distance we saw flashing blue light and I, for one, assumed that a silent thunderstorm was also raging. Turns out the transformers in our small village were blowing one after another as trees and branches began battling with the power lines. In the darkness we could only guess what was happening out there, all of us listening intently for the sound of a crash of wood on wood that meant a tree had fallen on the house or the shattering of glass. Were it not for social media we would have been, quite literally, in the dark. News of Freehold, the town where I grew up, and other parts of southern New Jersey and the shore came in like Morse code. We got short dashes of information--power lines down, Atlantic City deluged, subway stations flooded--and envisioned the worst as we waited for pictures, all the while hoping that where we sat would not provide an equally devastating headline.
Bedtime for the kiddies was an enormous snugglefest with each tucked into a cute sleeping bag lined up like a row of princess pink and rainbow sardines and some sailboats on the end for the little brother of Lily's friend. I want to say that they were out like a light, but I was summoned to sit with mine for a little bit. Once all were fast asleep, I made my way back downstairs, where not a single adult was to be found. I could see small dots of light moving about in the night so I opened the front door to the howling wind to investigate. Walking through the yard and up the street were our hosts and my husband trying to make heads or tails of all the sounds and light flashes. Fearful of being struck by something, anything dangerous, all made their way back inside to the comfort and safety of the house.
Exhaustion came quickly, sleep less so. As I began dozing off next to the hubby, I would shudder and twitch and jolt at every loud sound, strain my ears to hear any peep from this kids' room. After hours of going in and out of consciousness, I heard Lily's whimper and went to the room to consult. A quick visit to the bathroom and a plea for me to massage her aching legs (growing pains) changed the sleep arrangements and Lily followed me to the room where her father, her little sister, and I had arranged ourselves. To prevent us from piling on top of one another, I proposed that Lily and I sleep on the floor. Virginie came down too leaving just Papa on the bed and the three ladies curled up on the floor. And even still I slept. In and out.
In the morning we all ventured out to see what Sandy had delivered. She'd come fierce and she'd come hard. There were enormous trees mangled and twisted, lying in the streets, across power lines, on rooftops, and across gardens. Power lines were everywhere. We'd been spared the expected rain and for that we were most grateful. Had severe flooding been added to the crazy mix we'd be weeks away from a return to basics instead of days. After a morning coffee and breakfast, we packed up our things and head home to see how we'd fared. As we zigzagged through our once idyllic community, absolute shock and awe struck our faces. Everything looked the same and yet completely and totally different. Our town felt vulnerable, raw, and stunned but also hopeful, motivated, and connected. The invisible lines of community began to glow like energy bands from one to another. People came out of their homes offering whatever they had, food, batteries, chainsaws, gas cans, skills and they started to immediately to try put it back together again.
As we rounded the corner to our street we saw light. Lights inside of our neighbors' homes! Our street had been spared the power outage that has disrupted most of the area. I heard music, tv's blaring, laughter. There were no downed trees, no power lines wiggling on the ground, no one outside. Just blocks away there was an eery calm, a silence, just the occasional hum of a chainsaw or just started generator. People were standing outside, staring in awe, thanking their stars the trees had fallen one way instead of another. Sandy had danced through the fun house in her tight pants all over our township, but on our street, she was still a poor man's Sandra Dee, quiet, wistful, hopeful. A wallflower.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Something Wicked This Way Comes
It seems we have found ourselves again waiting for a storm, a big one, er huge. This time it is Sandy who will make our acquaintance either as a tropical storm or a hurricane some time this evening. Schools and businesses, Wall Street, the market, the subways, and rail and road all closed down in anticipation. After last year's storm, Tropical Storm Irene, and Tropical Storm Tomas that we endured while living in Barbados, we have just come to accept these storms as part of our lives. I have been nervously laughing my face off over some of the posts on Facebook and other social media sites as we all anticipate our lady's arrival. She looks to be tough, enormous, and strong. With sustainable winds of up to 75 miles per hour, she will prove to be aggressive, destructive, and brutal. Wicked. We fear the creek behind our house overflowing again and broken trees and downed power lines. But for now, we are sitting in the house with pots and pans, garbage cans, and a tub full of water, with electricity fired up, waiting.
And it is the waiting that is the hardest part. While the husband, who thank God is home this time, and I watch the windows, check the space in the freezer for room to put more food when the power does finally go, review our cases of water, and all items to our evacuation bag, fret, the girls are dancing naked, playing golf in their Halloween costumes, and picking at their healthy lunch and devouring stolen junk food treats. Didier is cracking me up with his meteorological knowledge delivered with the greatest French accent. Nearly everything he says is funny enough to send me reeling. It's a great distraction.
We are not sure what to do next. Our original plan was to go to some friends' house to ride out the worst of the storm and avoid the possible flooding of the creek, but we are getting Intel that says the creek should hold. There has been little rain of late so the creek is low and the reservoir has been drained to accommodate the expected rain. It would be nice to stay home though I am certain I will not sleep more than a wink or two. Anticipation is not something at which I excel. In fact, the craziness of this wait has led me to early afternoon alcohol consumption. I feel better now.
The wind and rain has begin to kick up though it is still bearable. In anticipation of what is to come, I have found some of my old posts about past storms from City Mom in the Jungle. Please enjoy.
Hurricane Irene:
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2011/09/and-then-hurricane.html
Tropical Storm Tomas:
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/11/tropical-storm-tomas-arrives-i.html
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/11/tomas-home-alone-with-no-power-ii.html
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/11/tomas-starting-to-fade-into-light-iii.html
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
And it is the waiting that is the hardest part. While the husband, who thank God is home this time, and I watch the windows, check the space in the freezer for room to put more food when the power does finally go, review our cases of water, and all items to our evacuation bag, fret, the girls are dancing naked, playing golf in their Halloween costumes, and picking at their healthy lunch and devouring stolen junk food treats. Didier is cracking me up with his meteorological knowledge delivered with the greatest French accent. Nearly everything he says is funny enough to send me reeling. It's a great distraction.
We are not sure what to do next. Our original plan was to go to some friends' house to ride out the worst of the storm and avoid the possible flooding of the creek, but we are getting Intel that says the creek should hold. There has been little rain of late so the creek is low and the reservoir has been drained to accommodate the expected rain. It would be nice to stay home though I am certain I will not sleep more than a wink or two. Anticipation is not something at which I excel. In fact, the craziness of this wait has led me to early afternoon alcohol consumption. I feel better now.
The wind and rain has begin to kick up though it is still bearable. In anticipation of what is to come, I have found some of my old posts about past storms from City Mom in the Jungle. Please enjoy.
Hurricane Irene:
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2011/09/and-then-hurricane.html
Tropical Storm Tomas:
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/11/tropical-storm-tomas-arrives-i.html
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/11/tomas-home-alone-with-no-power-ii.html
http://citymominthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/11/tomas-starting-to-fade-into-light-iii.html
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: A little space
Back to the Suburban Grind: A little space: Yesterday afternoon while cleaning the house (which actually just started as a small two-loads of laundry, sweeping, possibly mopping mornin...
A little space
Yesterday afternoon while cleaning the house (which actually just started as a small two-loads of laundry, sweeping, possibly mopping morning and exploded into an OCD cleaning fest) I got the brilliant idea that the girls "queen-sized" bed should be separated into the two twins it actually is. The ultimate kiddie sleep bed was born out of necessity. I was just too tired and physically wounded from sleeping in either one of their little twins when called upon in the middle of the night, so I put them together, placed a soft featherbed on top and queen sheets, and got some good sleep sandwiched between Thing One and Thing Two. And whilst I got some semi-enjoyable shut eye, I was doing the girls no service preventing them from learning to sleep alone and denying them their "own" beds. So they were split.
We all marveled at the space created in the room with the separated beds. How each would have her own place to sit and daydream. How there was greater access to the chalkboard wall. The bookshelf that is home to about 1,000 books was turned upright, rather than on its side, and gave the place a cool sitting room, hang out vibe with greater floor space and room for their work table and chairs. We were all giddy and high, save Papa who really thought it was cool but is French so has to be pretty laid back about the whole thing, and I allowed myself to dream of a full night's sleep in my own king-sized bed that has been home to one sleeping Frenchman and not to the Frenchman and his lovely bride (me).
When we went to put the girlies to bed that night and by we, I mean me (I did), Lily started in with the whole, "I'm not sure I'm ready to be on my own" nonsense, while Virginie was all, "I am a big girl. I totally got this" jam. I had to take turns spending a few minutes with each ladybug in her own tiny crawl space, cuddling, hugging, promising to love each other forever. When I last landed in Virginie's bed (this after going back and forth between them about 100 times), Lily fell fast asleep. Virginie, who had been up late the night before and up early, was still chattering away about what a big fucking girl she was, even though I was in the dang bed with her! She then asked if we could go to my bed for a second and yes, judge not lest ye be judged, I went with her hoping her talk in the other room would not wake up her now long sleeping sister. We sat there for about 30 seconds and then she asked to return to her own bed, but alone. Without Mommy. Yay. What she meant was that I needed to come but that I should not sleep in her bed with her. I was to sit on the floor holding her hand.
I will spare you all the bloody details but suffice it to say, the Brave went down about thirty minutes later. I got out of the room and was pissed. I'd spent the night, my time, battling with the kiddle, while the husband cleared the table, put the dishes in the sink, and promptly went to his computer to read and listen to music. I came off the battlefield to the soaking dishes, laundry on the bed, and the next day's backpacks and lunches needing to be prepped. Somehow I must give off the sexy vibe during these rageful moments because there was the husband looking for a lovin' spoonful. "I just want to be alone for a minute, babe," I imagine I said, but more than likely barked. I do pretty well during the course of a twelve hour plus day of giving, giving, giving, but when the night time comes around and I have still not had a break, I let myself go to Crazytown.
The people are little and the new sleeping arrangement was a change. They will get used to it and sleep better and longer one hopes. My thinly worn patience revealed a slowly healing wound underneath. I just needed a little privacy, a little thinking time, a little space, the sound of no one's voice, the touch of no one's hand. That was just for tonight, not always. A good night's sleep can fill Mommy up and prepare her for better days. that's all I want.
Still waiting on the good night's sleep but happy to have the girls meet me in my bed in the morning, proud of themselves, giddy with proof of their getting to big girl status, and excited to do it all again. (Except for the chattering on and on part.)
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
We all marveled at the space created in the room with the separated beds. How each would have her own place to sit and daydream. How there was greater access to the chalkboard wall. The bookshelf that is home to about 1,000 books was turned upright, rather than on its side, and gave the place a cool sitting room, hang out vibe with greater floor space and room for their work table and chairs. We were all giddy and high, save Papa who really thought it was cool but is French so has to be pretty laid back about the whole thing, and I allowed myself to dream of a full night's sleep in my own king-sized bed that has been home to one sleeping Frenchman and not to the Frenchman and his lovely bride (me).
When we went to put the girlies to bed that night and by we, I mean me (I did), Lily started in with the whole, "I'm not sure I'm ready to be on my own" nonsense, while Virginie was all, "I am a big girl. I totally got this" jam. I had to take turns spending a few minutes with each ladybug in her own tiny crawl space, cuddling, hugging, promising to love each other forever. When I last landed in Virginie's bed (this after going back and forth between them about 100 times), Lily fell fast asleep. Virginie, who had been up late the night before and up early, was still chattering away about what a big fucking girl she was, even though I was in the dang bed with her! She then asked if we could go to my bed for a second and yes, judge not lest ye be judged, I went with her hoping her talk in the other room would not wake up her now long sleeping sister. We sat there for about 30 seconds and then she asked to return to her own bed, but alone. Without Mommy. Yay. What she meant was that I needed to come but that I should not sleep in her bed with her. I was to sit on the floor holding her hand.
I will spare you all the bloody details but suffice it to say, the Brave went down about thirty minutes later. I got out of the room and was pissed. I'd spent the night, my time, battling with the kiddle, while the husband cleared the table, put the dishes in the sink, and promptly went to his computer to read and listen to music. I came off the battlefield to the soaking dishes, laundry on the bed, and the next day's backpacks and lunches needing to be prepped. Somehow I must give off the sexy vibe during these rageful moments because there was the husband looking for a lovin' spoonful. "I just want to be alone for a minute, babe," I imagine I said, but more than likely barked. I do pretty well during the course of a twelve hour plus day of giving, giving, giving, but when the night time comes around and I have still not had a break, I let myself go to Crazytown.
The people are little and the new sleeping arrangement was a change. They will get used to it and sleep better and longer one hopes. My thinly worn patience revealed a slowly healing wound underneath. I just needed a little privacy, a little thinking time, a little space, the sound of no one's voice, the touch of no one's hand. That was just for tonight, not always. A good night's sleep can fill Mommy up and prepare her for better days. that's all I want.
Still waiting on the good night's sleep but happy to have the girls meet me in my bed in the morning, proud of themselves, giddy with proof of their getting to big girl status, and excited to do it all again. (Except for the chattering on and on part.)
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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