Wednesday, December 11, 2013
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 ...
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
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 inqui...
Monday, November 25, 2013
Gone for the holidays
I haven't allowed my husband to see me cry in that ugly, snot-dripping, hyperventilating way since we left Barbados, where that sight was a common occurrence. As in most relationships I have had throughout my life, I am cautious and read the other person's reactions before I go on willy-nilly just expressing the hell out of myself. That's part of my raisin'. I know that my real feelings, the true strength of them, can blow the roof off the house and that, generally speaking, "nobody got time fuh dat." When I am all love and light, when I cannot give enough of myself, when I pour in and cannot see the space between myself and another person (most often my children, sometimes my husband), it is so good to be around me. I am mistaken for easy-going and good-natured and happy go lucky to those who have only experienced me this way. Oh, how I wish that I were.
When my husband told me last night that he would be leaving to work during the Thanksgiving holiday not on Wednesday as expected, but today, Monday, immediately, I just went silent. I wasn't even holding it in. I was stunned. I just slipped back behind myself, behind the knot in my heart, in my stomach, the knot that ran the cord of all my chakras from my coccyx to the crown of my head, and I disintegrated. I could not look him in the eye. Did not say a word to him. Suddenly, I was very, very busy. There was laundry to be done, knapsacks to be packed, lists to make and double check. I got to yelling at the girls to clean their playroom and mumbled on about how they would all be sorry if Mommy was not able to take care of everything like she does. But I did not cry.
I didn't cry because I always tell myself, as I have even written here many times, that so many others have it worse--soldiers' families, police officers, essential emergency personnel. They do not get to spend holidays together. They find ways to endure. But our situation is not like theirs. Because we, WE, we? chose this. Because he is a private chef, my husband makes much more money working the holidays than he does during his regular schedule. This is because I know, we know, everyone knows that taking a man away from his family during this time is a huge sacrifice and that he must be well compensated. For years I have accepted, even preached, the value of this package on our family's financial situation, have asked friends and neighbors to help me give the girls the best Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's possible, have sat up, without tears, putting toys together, writing notes from Santa, eating the cookies and carrots, then gone quietly to bed next to the girls hoping I've pulled it off again.
Without tears because if I let myself feel what I am really missing, I may never stop crying. I have spent the better part of our relationship longing for him, wanting him closer, wanting him to be with me. Long before there were children, the game of cat and mouse was being played. I chase and he runs or at least hides. He might hide behind work or his culture, his language or his accent. Before we were 'we' he hid behind his bad marriage, a miserable divorce, financial and professional fears, it doesn't matter. He is hiding. He does not want to be seen all the way and certainly does not want to see me for much the same reason as I cannot cry in front of him. And so I hide too. Hide behind the busy work, the busy-ness of being a mother and a wife, of hosting holidays without him, don't dare tell him I'd rather have him than the income, too afraid he will say "but we need it" which will make me second guess how important I am, we are, anyone is to anyone. And that is not the way I think. It cannot be.
When you have chased for love your entire life and it sits down in front of you to catch its breath and then runs off again, it is so easy to take up that game. I am playing again. It is so familiar. My experience of love in my youth is the reason I try so hard to show my children how to give it and receive it. I don't want them on the prowl for anything that looks like it, seems like it, but just isn't. I don't want them to suffer more than they have to for love and a peaceful heart. When they cry for their father, express how much they miss him, need him, want him, I support them but have not shown them how it hurts to be apart. I don't want to blow their minds. I don't want to blow my own. But if they never see how to love from us, if they learn only to hide, to camouflage, keep stony-faced when they are full to bursting, they will be doomed. They will disengage from their families, disconnect, and forget to tell the people they love just how much so and forget to beg them to stay.
Today was a bad day because Didier left this morning, a busy Monday morning that required too much attention to too much else, so I kissed him quickly and said goodbye. It is the first of too many goodbye kisses that signify he is gone for the holidays. We have done this for years and it never gets easier, but it looks the same every time. A fairly innocuous kiss goodbye and then days or weeks of separation where we pretend that being apart like this is normal. We ask how the other is doing without really wanting the answer, without really answering. The ugly, twisted face came hours later after school drop off and three stops at three different grocery stores. What I don't know, what I wonder, what I hope, is that somewhere he is making the ugly-crying face for me. That sometimes he is the cat and I am the mouse and that somewhere in the middle we can meet, hold on, and stop this vicious cycle.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
When my husband told me last night that he would be leaving to work during the Thanksgiving holiday not on Wednesday as expected, but today, Monday, immediately, I just went silent. I wasn't even holding it in. I was stunned. I just slipped back behind myself, behind the knot in my heart, in my stomach, the knot that ran the cord of all my chakras from my coccyx to the crown of my head, and I disintegrated. I could not look him in the eye. Did not say a word to him. Suddenly, I was very, very busy. There was laundry to be done, knapsacks to be packed, lists to make and double check. I got to yelling at the girls to clean their playroom and mumbled on about how they would all be sorry if Mommy was not able to take care of everything like she does. But I did not cry.
I didn't cry because I always tell myself, as I have even written here many times, that so many others have it worse--soldiers' families, police officers, essential emergency personnel. They do not get to spend holidays together. They find ways to endure. But our situation is not like theirs. Because we, WE, we? chose this. Because he is a private chef, my husband makes much more money working the holidays than he does during his regular schedule. This is because I know, we know, everyone knows that taking a man away from his family during this time is a huge sacrifice and that he must be well compensated. For years I have accepted, even preached, the value of this package on our family's financial situation, have asked friends and neighbors to help me give the girls the best Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's possible, have sat up, without tears, putting toys together, writing notes from Santa, eating the cookies and carrots, then gone quietly to bed next to the girls hoping I've pulled it off again.
Without tears because if I let myself feel what I am really missing, I may never stop crying. I have spent the better part of our relationship longing for him, wanting him closer, wanting him to be with me. Long before there were children, the game of cat and mouse was being played. I chase and he runs or at least hides. He might hide behind work or his culture, his language or his accent. Before we were 'we' he hid behind his bad marriage, a miserable divorce, financial and professional fears, it doesn't matter. He is hiding. He does not want to be seen all the way and certainly does not want to see me for much the same reason as I cannot cry in front of him. And so I hide too. Hide behind the busy work, the busy-ness of being a mother and a wife, of hosting holidays without him, don't dare tell him I'd rather have him than the income, too afraid he will say "but we need it" which will make me second guess how important I am, we are, anyone is to anyone. And that is not the way I think. It cannot be.
When you have chased for love your entire life and it sits down in front of you to catch its breath and then runs off again, it is so easy to take up that game. I am playing again. It is so familiar. My experience of love in my youth is the reason I try so hard to show my children how to give it and receive it. I don't want them on the prowl for anything that looks like it, seems like it, but just isn't. I don't want them to suffer more than they have to for love and a peaceful heart. When they cry for their father, express how much they miss him, need him, want him, I support them but have not shown them how it hurts to be apart. I don't want to blow their minds. I don't want to blow my own. But if they never see how to love from us, if they learn only to hide, to camouflage, keep stony-faced when they are full to bursting, they will be doomed. They will disengage from their families, disconnect, and forget to tell the people they love just how much so and forget to beg them to stay.
Today was a bad day because Didier left this morning, a busy Monday morning that required too much attention to too much else, so I kissed him quickly and said goodbye. It is the first of too many goodbye kisses that signify he is gone for the holidays. We have done this for years and it never gets easier, but it looks the same every time. A fairly innocuous kiss goodbye and then days or weeks of separation where we pretend that being apart like this is normal. We ask how the other is doing without really wanting the answer, without really answering. The ugly, twisted face came hours later after school drop off and three stops at three different grocery stores. What I don't know, what I wonder, what I hope, is that somewhere he is making the ugly-crying face for me. That sometimes he is the cat and I am the mouse and that somewhere in the middle we can meet, hold on, and stop this vicious cycle.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Sleeping over
Back to the Suburban Grind: Sleeping over: A sleep over used to be the crown jewel in the birthday party court with a bowling party, roller skating party, and ice cream sundae making ...
Sleeping over
A sleep over used to be the crown jewel in the birthday party court with a bowling party, roller skating party, and ice cream sundae making at ZIPZ, a local ice cream chain, ranking pretty high up there as well. I believe I went to my first in 4th grade as a nine to ten year old (DOUBLE DIGITS!) celebration. Sleeping over involved so many things, milestones, and were exceptional events. Girls got giddy with excitement thinking about staying up late with their girlfriends, eating lots of junk food all at once, usually with pizza for dinner as a starter and rolling quickly downhill to peanut M&Ms and Doritos as the cramming-to-stay-up-past-1 am treat. There was lots of dancing, shouting, singing, and crib games. Secrets told under the sleeping bags about boys kissed or wished for, bust-enlarging exercises ("We must! We must! We must increase our bust!") though more for play than actually hoping on my part. Even then I knew that the parents who hosted these parties were gods, better than mere mortals, because no way on Earth my parents were going to have a bunch of wild-assed banshees over at ours mucking up the place and acting a fool. (We did actually have one sleepover party and my parents/mom handled it for realz.)
This weekend Lily has two sleepovers. She is seven years old and I forced her to take a nap after gymnastics this afternoon so she would make it to the second without acting like a monkey. She didn't want to nap, almost burst into tears at the suggestion which is how I knew she needed to take a nap (that and the confession of a 12:13 am lights out). She moved all over the room, trying to read and rainbow loom, playing with her hair, and trying to make shadow puppets, when I forced her to climb up on the bed next to her sleeping sister (I'll get to that in a minute). I lay down behind her with a soft, fuzzy blanket over us and squeezed her little body and pet her hair. She was out in two minutes. Glad to see that technique from her toddlerhood still works nicely. It is Saturday afternoon at 3:30 pm and my entire family is napping in preparation for the sleepover that follows the sleepover.
The parents of both of Lily's sleepover pals are good friends, people I trust and know well. When she leaves me to be with them, I don't give her safety another thought. I am confident, comfortable, and thankful. Lily gets to relax a little from Mommy's strict rules and have a little space from her baby sister's crawling up her back. She gets to feel like a teenager...oh, wait. Well, she thinks she does. She feels punk rock and I want her to.
Virginie and her best girl are prepping for a sleepover of their own. Not quite a sleepover as they are both 4 1/2 years old and I believe that that is just too early for a sleepover. (I was happy to confirm that her pal's mother was completely in agreement and "on principle" could not permit her baby to stay the night and eat whipped crème from the spray can into her mouth...another time.) They will wear pajamas and get to play and stay up late and lie down in a little bed and watch movies, read bedtime stories and then, later than usual, Mommy will come and pick up her worn out princess and both 4 1/2 year olds will get to sleep in their own beds. Kind of like a regular play date for these two just later.
Lily went to her first sleepover when she was six years old and I cried almost the entire time. I did it in silence, not wanting her or her little sister to see that I was just freaked out beyond what was necessary. I knew my anxiety was getting the best of me, thoughts of kidnappings and hazings weaving through my brain threatening my sleep and my ability to breathe. Then I realized that the parents who hosted were as conscientious as I, nervous about having all these wiggly girls in their care, and basically planned to stay up all night dealing with the pre-tween set and their totally bizarre humor and girl power chants. I love a girl Lord of the Flies, except for the killing at the end. Love girl power and energy and pride. Just not sure I am totes ready for it at mine.
Baby steps. Two 4 1/2 year olds bugging out in their PJ's? Into it. I am thinking of cool stuff for them to do. Fort building, coloring, playing with Barbies, Monster Highs, and Little Ponies. Lily will be off on her own with her best girl and her cool ass parents living it up, feeling that freedom, knowing that she can come home to Mommy who will take care of her and put her to bed by wrapping her legs around her and boa-constricting her to sleep. What was once the prize of upper elementary school party time is now a common occurrence, a fun escape from home, a break in the crazy cycle of this aggressively structured childhood. But they can always come home to Mommy after their little adventures and regal me with dirty-haired, unbrushed-teeth, late-night tales and antics that in the retelling are surely (surely?) wilder than they were when they really happened...on run of the mill, rollin' with the homies-sleepover.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
This weekend Lily has two sleepovers. She is seven years old and I forced her to take a nap after gymnastics this afternoon so she would make it to the second without acting like a monkey. She didn't want to nap, almost burst into tears at the suggestion which is how I knew she needed to take a nap (that and the confession of a 12:13 am lights out). She moved all over the room, trying to read and rainbow loom, playing with her hair, and trying to make shadow puppets, when I forced her to climb up on the bed next to her sleeping sister (I'll get to that in a minute). I lay down behind her with a soft, fuzzy blanket over us and squeezed her little body and pet her hair. She was out in two minutes. Glad to see that technique from her toddlerhood still works nicely. It is Saturday afternoon at 3:30 pm and my entire family is napping in preparation for the sleepover that follows the sleepover.
The parents of both of Lily's sleepover pals are good friends, people I trust and know well. When she leaves me to be with them, I don't give her safety another thought. I am confident, comfortable, and thankful. Lily gets to relax a little from Mommy's strict rules and have a little space from her baby sister's crawling up her back. She gets to feel like a teenager...oh, wait. Well, she thinks she does. She feels punk rock and I want her to.
Virginie and her best girl are prepping for a sleepover of their own. Not quite a sleepover as they are both 4 1/2 years old and I believe that that is just too early for a sleepover. (I was happy to confirm that her pal's mother was completely in agreement and "on principle" could not permit her baby to stay the night and eat whipped crème from the spray can into her mouth...another time.) They will wear pajamas and get to play and stay up late and lie down in a little bed and watch movies, read bedtime stories and then, later than usual, Mommy will come and pick up her worn out princess and both 4 1/2 year olds will get to sleep in their own beds. Kind of like a regular play date for these two just later.
Lily went to her first sleepover when she was six years old and I cried almost the entire time. I did it in silence, not wanting her or her little sister to see that I was just freaked out beyond what was necessary. I knew my anxiety was getting the best of me, thoughts of kidnappings and hazings weaving through my brain threatening my sleep and my ability to breathe. Then I realized that the parents who hosted were as conscientious as I, nervous about having all these wiggly girls in their care, and basically planned to stay up all night dealing with the pre-tween set and their totally bizarre humor and girl power chants. I love a girl Lord of the Flies, except for the killing at the end. Love girl power and energy and pride. Just not sure I am totes ready for it at mine.
Baby steps. Two 4 1/2 year olds bugging out in their PJ's? Into it. I am thinking of cool stuff for them to do. Fort building, coloring, playing with Barbies, Monster Highs, and Little Ponies. Lily will be off on her own with her best girl and her cool ass parents living it up, feeling that freedom, knowing that she can come home to Mommy who will take care of her and put her to bed by wrapping her legs around her and boa-constricting her to sleep. What was once the prize of upper elementary school party time is now a common occurrence, a fun escape from home, a break in the crazy cycle of this aggressively structured childhood. But they can always come home to Mommy after their little adventures and regal me with dirty-haired, unbrushed-teeth, late-night tales and antics that in the retelling are surely (surely?) wilder than they were when they really happened...on run of the mill, rollin' with the homies-sleepover.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 2.
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 2.: Please. Take your time. I am just waiting on this news feeling like hearing it out loud could pull down the poll of the circus tent of my ...
Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 2.
Please. Take your time. I am just waiting on this news feeling like hearing it out loud could pull down the poll of the circus tent of my life and cause everything to collapse, hurting, maiming, maybe even killing some of the performers. Was it two to three business days you told me? Was Monday a holiday? I checked the cell every few minutes thinking maybe the phone was still on vibrate. Answered lots of solicitations on the home phone just in case, somehow, the call from Arizona was the lab, knowing full well that the lab was up the street and that it would, in fact, be from my doctor's office that the call came. But it didn't come. Not for two, three, four, five, or six days. I waited and let myself be convinced and reassured by friends that no news was good news. "They would want you to know right away if it was indeed C," still no one wanted to say it and I surely did not want to hear the letters that follow 'c' in that word.
My dear husband, seven plus years older than I am, always (so sweetly) reminds me that I am young. "You are still young and beautiful." And this not only when he is feeling frisky. Nowadays when we say things like this, it is often in relation to how much more of life there is to live, that yes I CAN still wear a short skirt if I like, do something crazy to my hair, start a new career, try new things. But when it comes to health issues--aches, pains, pinches, twists, tears, and pulls, age has slowly crept up with us. When I see pictures of some of my childhood mates, I see their parents' faces staring back at me. I read posts about injuries from doing things that were once facile, part of every day movement until just the wrong thing slipped or "went." We laugh about those pains. "Getting old," we say. But aging also brings more serious health concerns and a need to make at least annual trips to a physician. The laissez-faire attitude of our youth has given way to consideration of each new freckle, rising cholesterol, too much sugar in the blood, lack of time for exercise or sleep, lack of time for anything really as a sign that we are creeping over that hill. We feel young inside but our bodies demand us to acknowledge that time has passed and that we need to be tender with them.
My dance classes and my meditation practice, my family and my love for them gave me the physical and psychic strength to prepare for the worst news but really expect the best. I, full to the brim with anxiety and too much nervous energy, found ways to distract myself from the waiting for results. My house is now spotless and that includes all closets, drawers, cabinets, and the attic. I danced my brains out and allowed people to love me, care for me, bring me food, invite me to parties, looked them back in their eyes to thank them, and just breathed in and out every single day. I breathed to the top of my head and down to my toes.
On the fifth day I started calling and leaving messages. I felt embarrassed to be calling as though it was expected that I'd wait patiently for the news. I wondered, in all the prep I was given for the biopsy, had anyone in the medical profession thought about my feelings, fears, hopes, anxiety. While I'd been warned not to take aspirin 48 hours prior, and been told how the procedure would happen (ultrasound, cleaning of the breast, numbing local anesthetic followed by a tugging or pulling sensation that would collect the cells to be examined, then days of soreness, bruising, swelling, a little pain, and a tiny scar underneath), very little was said about the shallow breaths I was taking, the tears that came to my eyes when I thought of having to tell the girls that something was wrong with Mommy. When they kicked or pulled or tugged at me and accidentally hit my ailing breast, I'd wince and then smile. I didn't want to give them anything to worry about. I was reminded only once to go back to my life as usual. I felt, and I could be wrong about it but it felt this way, that no one wanted to say what it was they knew I was afraid of. One does not go in for a biopsy the way one might for a new retinol cream for wrinkles. The biopsy signifies there is something in there that is unknown and the big unknown, the one that sets most of us on edge, is fucking cancer. I was scared shitless that I might have breast cancer.
For every day that I waited and meditated and danced and wore a brave face, I was scared, humbled, awed by the life I'd managed to make for myself. For people who loved me, for a community I belonged to, for friends, family, strangers, humankind that had the urge to live, to be part of this carnival called life. It had never been called into question for me in such high resolution. Yes, I was full of anxiety in Barbados and did fear losing it there and once there was some crazy turbulence on a plane where we dropped a few feet and I grabbed the girls and cried my face off, telling them how much I loved them over and over again until we steadied, but I never put myself, allowed myself to see myself as old enough, ready spiritually, to imagine the end of my life. Breathe in. Breathe out. This I would tell myself every moment that I drifted to those thoughts. Because that was what scared me the most. I went all the way there every time.
A rogue nurse in the office sent me a secret text to tell me that the results of my biopsy were negative two days before my doctor's office gave me the official word. I want to say that I danced on the ceiling, but I instead sat quietly on the floor, complete silence all around me, save the ticking of the clock in another room and the hum from the fridge. I felt relief for myself and compassion for those, many of whom are my friends or family or acquaintances, whose tales don't or have not ended on this note. I can still not touch the bullet resting on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. The bruising and soreness has proven a longer healing period than expected, but I know my little lump is there. I want to remove it. It is no talisman and I am not brave enough to carry it. Even knowing that it is benign, it presses at everything dear to me and threatens to pull the tent down. I'd prefer a scar where it once made itself cozy, an 'X' to mark the spot where my fears were released and my dreams held tight in a deep inhale were released.
Do your self exams and get a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or thermal scan if you are over 40 or have a history of breast cancer.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My dear husband, seven plus years older than I am, always (so sweetly) reminds me that I am young. "You are still young and beautiful." And this not only when he is feeling frisky. Nowadays when we say things like this, it is often in relation to how much more of life there is to live, that yes I CAN still wear a short skirt if I like, do something crazy to my hair, start a new career, try new things. But when it comes to health issues--aches, pains, pinches, twists, tears, and pulls, age has slowly crept up with us. When I see pictures of some of my childhood mates, I see their parents' faces staring back at me. I read posts about injuries from doing things that were once facile, part of every day movement until just the wrong thing slipped or "went." We laugh about those pains. "Getting old," we say. But aging also brings more serious health concerns and a need to make at least annual trips to a physician. The laissez-faire attitude of our youth has given way to consideration of each new freckle, rising cholesterol, too much sugar in the blood, lack of time for exercise or sleep, lack of time for anything really as a sign that we are creeping over that hill. We feel young inside but our bodies demand us to acknowledge that time has passed and that we need to be tender with them.
My dance classes and my meditation practice, my family and my love for them gave me the physical and psychic strength to prepare for the worst news but really expect the best. I, full to the brim with anxiety and too much nervous energy, found ways to distract myself from the waiting for results. My house is now spotless and that includes all closets, drawers, cabinets, and the attic. I danced my brains out and allowed people to love me, care for me, bring me food, invite me to parties, looked them back in their eyes to thank them, and just breathed in and out every single day. I breathed to the top of my head and down to my toes.
On the fifth day I started calling and leaving messages. I felt embarrassed to be calling as though it was expected that I'd wait patiently for the news. I wondered, in all the prep I was given for the biopsy, had anyone in the medical profession thought about my feelings, fears, hopes, anxiety. While I'd been warned not to take aspirin 48 hours prior, and been told how the procedure would happen (ultrasound, cleaning of the breast, numbing local anesthetic followed by a tugging or pulling sensation that would collect the cells to be examined, then days of soreness, bruising, swelling, a little pain, and a tiny scar underneath), very little was said about the shallow breaths I was taking, the tears that came to my eyes when I thought of having to tell the girls that something was wrong with Mommy. When they kicked or pulled or tugged at me and accidentally hit my ailing breast, I'd wince and then smile. I didn't want to give them anything to worry about. I was reminded only once to go back to my life as usual. I felt, and I could be wrong about it but it felt this way, that no one wanted to say what it was they knew I was afraid of. One does not go in for a biopsy the way one might for a new retinol cream for wrinkles. The biopsy signifies there is something in there that is unknown and the big unknown, the one that sets most of us on edge, is fucking cancer. I was scared shitless that I might have breast cancer.
For every day that I waited and meditated and danced and wore a brave face, I was scared, humbled, awed by the life I'd managed to make for myself. For people who loved me, for a community I belonged to, for friends, family, strangers, humankind that had the urge to live, to be part of this carnival called life. It had never been called into question for me in such high resolution. Yes, I was full of anxiety in Barbados and did fear losing it there and once there was some crazy turbulence on a plane where we dropped a few feet and I grabbed the girls and cried my face off, telling them how much I loved them over and over again until we steadied, but I never put myself, allowed myself to see myself as old enough, ready spiritually, to imagine the end of my life. Breathe in. Breathe out. This I would tell myself every moment that I drifted to those thoughts. Because that was what scared me the most. I went all the way there every time.
A rogue nurse in the office sent me a secret text to tell me that the results of my biopsy were negative two days before my doctor's office gave me the official word. I want to say that I danced on the ceiling, but I instead sat quietly on the floor, complete silence all around me, save the ticking of the clock in another room and the hum from the fridge. I felt relief for myself and compassion for those, many of whom are my friends or family or acquaintances, whose tales don't or have not ended on this note. I can still not touch the bullet resting on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. The bruising and soreness has proven a longer healing period than expected, but I know my little lump is there. I want to remove it. It is no talisman and I am not brave enough to carry it. Even knowing that it is benign, it presses at everything dear to me and threatens to pull the tent down. I'd prefer a scar where it once made itself cozy, an 'X' to mark the spot where my fears were released and my dreams held tight in a deep inhale were released.
Do your self exams and get a mammogram, ultrasound, MRI, or thermal scan if you are over 40 or have a history of breast cancer.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 1.
Back to the Suburban Grind: Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 1.: There is a lump. Well, I like to call it a marble on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. It is close to the sternum, so close that...
Lady Bits: Bounce your boobies, Part 1.
There is a lump. Well, I like to call it a marble on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. It is close to the sternum, so close that it was missed in the mammogram. But I can feel it. Rub it, move it around. Sometimes I lose it, but then it reappears, especially when I am lying flat and my once perky breasts drift to the sides of my body like loose bags of Jell-o, no longer resting on top of my chest, but on the sides like bat wings. I called my doctor and asked for further testing. My breasts are dense, lots of tissue and mass and weird stuff that I somehow never chose to use as a selling point once upon a way-back-when when I just wanted boys and men to touch them and was not feeling around for an exam. Go figure.
The exam is important. The mammogram is important and what came next for me is also important. After the mammogram did not detect my marble, I followed up with an ultrasound. Fortunately for me, my health insurance covered the follow up because it was requested by my doctor (thank you), after it was requested by me. Lying flat on my back in the exam room, breasts to the side, my nurse chit chatted with me about the usual subjects--my kids, my work, my voice, how it wouldn't take long and then I could get back to my life--while moving the roller-ball all over my right breast, not even stopping at the speed bump of my cold nipple, rubbing ultrasound goo all over the place and typing frantically like a science fiction space crew member who was soon to be ambushed and killed in the first ten minutes. At least the gel had been warmed up, something almost never done when, years earlier a similar roller ball was checking in on the babies growing in my belly. When she got to my left breast her voice began to trail off. She asked me about nipple discharge and breast pain. Huh? Then she said she was all done and left me to wipe off the goo. I was told to wait in case the doctor wanted to see me and was not allowed to get dressed. (Not that fitting my clothes over my slimed body seemed appealing at that moment.) When she returned, she told me the doctor did not need to see me and that my results would come in a few days. The call would come from my doctor and not their office.
I knew I felt a lump, so I was certain they were going to tell me something about it. I was just hoping for something more reassuring, a "this is just a precaution/I wouldn't worry too much/Let me put you at ease," but nothing like that came. I went home and waited. Waited with high levels of anxiety and a nervousness about the threat to my peace, to the sanctity of my family, about the break in my good fortune on the health front.
Two days later I was called by my doctor and the imaging office. Both left messages. Both wanted to talk to me. Not quite reassuring. I called my doctor's office first. She told me there had indeed been some abnormality that needed to be further investigated with an ultrasound guided biopsy. They wanted to do an ultrasound to see the marble and then lance it with a needle and vacuum some of the tissue to examine it and determine its nature. They wanted to find out what it was, what it was made of, and was it malignant or benign, cancer or...something else. I spoke with ease, professionalism, and calm. I told all parties that I understood what was happening. I tried not to expire on the floor when the earliest date to perform the biopsy was more than 2 weeks from the moment of the phone call when inside I was screaming, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I will come in tomorrow. How about today? How about right now?" But the truth is, I was and am scared to death and cannot stand that I don't know. All sorts of apocalyptic, end-of-days images flashed before my eyes, and my anxiety which usually rides pretty high at an 8 out of 10 on normal days was nearing infinity.
There is no history of breast cancer in my family and while that makes me feel good, from what I learned all those afternoons in the imaging center, 80% of breast cancer patients have no history. So there is that. The doctors and nurses were kind as I would expect them to be. Somber faces and head shaking would not really have been apropos. I thanked everyone for everything in the hopes that my kindness could have something, anything to do with my results. And then I walked out of the office into the light of day and matriculated back into the suburban stream.
It was a secret. I blended right back in, going with the flow, talking about homework and after school activities and the struggle to get the girls down for bed time. I greeted friends on the street, chatted with my cashier at the grocery store, let the girls snuggle with me at night though their kicks to the now sore breast were excruciating. Suddenly the marble felt like a ticking bomb sitting right in the middle of my chest, at the center of my heart chakra. I told myself, this is a metaphor, this is a lump of coal in your house of love. You need to open your heart and find a way to love greater. I sat with this. Called my Buddhists and meditators, walked in nature, danced my brains out in class. Never one to share news, good or bad, for fear of being consoled or seen or loved or cared for in such a visible way (see Childhood traumas), I told very few. The first were told the day of the biopsy because one hour after my scheduled appointment time, I still had not been seen and my husband, who'd taken the day off to be with me, had to go pick up Virginie. I sent out cryptic notes to two of my closest friends asking if they'd be able to pick me up. When they fully understood the gravity of my bizarro texts, they immediately offered to help and pulled the heart strings and loved me. Ow. I mean, yay.
I write this now to share because I need to, because I want to be close, make connections, but also to say, "Touch your lady bits. Rub your boobs. Do your self exams." Sitting in the waiting area/recovery after the biopsy before heading in for a second mammogram, I found myself next to a woman from Jamaica. I cannot tell you her age because she looked as young and clear-skinned and vibrant as she could, but she mentioned her family, children who insisted she come in for an exam. She'd not seen a doctor in twelve years. Needing to gab, feeling quite nervous in her surgical gown with strange ties and loose strings, she turned to me and asked, "How do you tie this thing anyway?" I showed her the inside ties and the outside snap and she finally felt OK. In those few moments we were community, family, support, mirrors.
Talking about our breasts, our bodies, women's bodies is still so awkward and uncomfortable, even amongst ourselves. So many of us joke about the manhandling that goes on during a mammogram, feeling your breasts pressed together like between two large-volume books, some even avoid it all together. But it is certainly no more painful than having a nursing baby bite your nipples or some of the pulling and tugging they experience at other times (name yours). An exam takes just minutes. Many are unsure if they are doing the self-exam correctly, so they just don't do it at all. It feels silly. There's so much going on in there, who knows what you are feeling--a muscle, a knot, a mammary gland, a fibroid, but you should still do it. Touch them, feel them, get to know them. In our youth we asked our lovers to do it. Caress them, be kind to them, love them. We must do the same.
And now I wait. The bruising is clearing up. A small purplish, black and blue mark slowly fades on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. There is a tiny little pin prick mark underneath where the boobs were once ripe and delicious before the girls nursed them all away. Immediately following the procedure the poor thing was sore and tender and my core was wounded but I could go on about my business. After forty-eight hours I was allowed to dance again. Last night I took a hip hop class and laughed and smiled with friends and dancers. As I sit in anticipation of my results I implore you to get examined, ask your friends, lovers, wives, girlfriends, mothers, and daughters to check.
To be continued...
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The exam is important. The mammogram is important and what came next for me is also important. After the mammogram did not detect my marble, I followed up with an ultrasound. Fortunately for me, my health insurance covered the follow up because it was requested by my doctor (thank you), after it was requested by me. Lying flat on my back in the exam room, breasts to the side, my nurse chit chatted with me about the usual subjects--my kids, my work, my voice, how it wouldn't take long and then I could get back to my life--while moving the roller-ball all over my right breast, not even stopping at the speed bump of my cold nipple, rubbing ultrasound goo all over the place and typing frantically like a science fiction space crew member who was soon to be ambushed and killed in the first ten minutes. At least the gel had been warmed up, something almost never done when, years earlier a similar roller ball was checking in on the babies growing in my belly. When she got to my left breast her voice began to trail off. She asked me about nipple discharge and breast pain. Huh? Then she said she was all done and left me to wipe off the goo. I was told to wait in case the doctor wanted to see me and was not allowed to get dressed. (Not that fitting my clothes over my slimed body seemed appealing at that moment.) When she returned, she told me the doctor did not need to see me and that my results would come in a few days. The call would come from my doctor and not their office.
I knew I felt a lump, so I was certain they were going to tell me something about it. I was just hoping for something more reassuring, a "this is just a precaution/I wouldn't worry too much/Let me put you at ease," but nothing like that came. I went home and waited. Waited with high levels of anxiety and a nervousness about the threat to my peace, to the sanctity of my family, about the break in my good fortune on the health front.
Two days later I was called by my doctor and the imaging office. Both left messages. Both wanted to talk to me. Not quite reassuring. I called my doctor's office first. She told me there had indeed been some abnormality that needed to be further investigated with an ultrasound guided biopsy. They wanted to do an ultrasound to see the marble and then lance it with a needle and vacuum some of the tissue to examine it and determine its nature. They wanted to find out what it was, what it was made of, and was it malignant or benign, cancer or...something else. I spoke with ease, professionalism, and calm. I told all parties that I understood what was happening. I tried not to expire on the floor when the earliest date to perform the biopsy was more than 2 weeks from the moment of the phone call when inside I was screaming, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I will come in tomorrow. How about today? How about right now?" But the truth is, I was and am scared to death and cannot stand that I don't know. All sorts of apocalyptic, end-of-days images flashed before my eyes, and my anxiety which usually rides pretty high at an 8 out of 10 on normal days was nearing infinity.
There is no history of breast cancer in my family and while that makes me feel good, from what I learned all those afternoons in the imaging center, 80% of breast cancer patients have no history. So there is that. The doctors and nurses were kind as I would expect them to be. Somber faces and head shaking would not really have been apropos. I thanked everyone for everything in the hopes that my kindness could have something, anything to do with my results. And then I walked out of the office into the light of day and matriculated back into the suburban stream.
It was a secret. I blended right back in, going with the flow, talking about homework and after school activities and the struggle to get the girls down for bed time. I greeted friends on the street, chatted with my cashier at the grocery store, let the girls snuggle with me at night though their kicks to the now sore breast were excruciating. Suddenly the marble felt like a ticking bomb sitting right in the middle of my chest, at the center of my heart chakra. I told myself, this is a metaphor, this is a lump of coal in your house of love. You need to open your heart and find a way to love greater. I sat with this. Called my Buddhists and meditators, walked in nature, danced my brains out in class. Never one to share news, good or bad, for fear of being consoled or seen or loved or cared for in such a visible way (see Childhood traumas), I told very few. The first were told the day of the biopsy because one hour after my scheduled appointment time, I still had not been seen and my husband, who'd taken the day off to be with me, had to go pick up Virginie. I sent out cryptic notes to two of my closest friends asking if they'd be able to pick me up. When they fully understood the gravity of my bizarro texts, they immediately offered to help and pulled the heart strings and loved me. Ow. I mean, yay.
I write this now to share because I need to, because I want to be close, make connections, but also to say, "Touch your lady bits. Rub your boobs. Do your self exams." Sitting in the waiting area/recovery after the biopsy before heading in for a second mammogram, I found myself next to a woman from Jamaica. I cannot tell you her age because she looked as young and clear-skinned and vibrant as she could, but she mentioned her family, children who insisted she come in for an exam. She'd not seen a doctor in twelve years. Needing to gab, feeling quite nervous in her surgical gown with strange ties and loose strings, she turned to me and asked, "How do you tie this thing anyway?" I showed her the inside ties and the outside snap and she finally felt OK. In those few moments we were community, family, support, mirrors.
Talking about our breasts, our bodies, women's bodies is still so awkward and uncomfortable, even amongst ourselves. So many of us joke about the manhandling that goes on during a mammogram, feeling your breasts pressed together like between two large-volume books, some even avoid it all together. But it is certainly no more painful than having a nursing baby bite your nipples or some of the pulling and tugging they experience at other times (name yours). An exam takes just minutes. Many are unsure if they are doing the self-exam correctly, so they just don't do it at all. It feels silly. There's so much going on in there, who knows what you are feeling--a muscle, a knot, a mammary gland, a fibroid, but you should still do it. Touch them, feel them, get to know them. In our youth we asked our lovers to do it. Caress them, be kind to them, love them. We must do the same.
And now I wait. The bruising is clearing up. A small purplish, black and blue mark slowly fades on the inside corner pocket of my left breast. There is a tiny little pin prick mark underneath where the boobs were once ripe and delicious before the girls nursed them all away. Immediately following the procedure the poor thing was sore and tender and my core was wounded but I could go on about my business. After forty-eight hours I was allowed to dance again. Last night I took a hip hop class and laughed and smiled with friends and dancers. As I sit in anticipation of my results I implore you to get examined, ask your friends, lovers, wives, girlfriends, mothers, and daughters to check.
To be continued...
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
City Mom in the Jungle: Tennis Elbow
City Mom in the Jungle: Tennis Elbow: Didier was determined to find the grip tape used on tennis rackets and baseball bats, so when we happened upon a sporting goods store at t...
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Picking up the phone
Back to the Suburban Grind: Picking up the phone: I remember when I was a little girl that the ringing phone sent everyone into motion. My little sister and I would jump up, racing our pare...
Picking up the phone
I remember when I was a little girl that the ringing phone sent everyone into motion. My little sister and I would jump up, racing our parents to answer. This was after rotary but before cordless and long before caller ID. Answering the phone was an adventure. Who is calling? Is it someone who wants to play with me or just someone for my parents who wants to talk about boring adult stuff? The phone was the social media and everyone learned how to do it. Little kids had play rotary phones even though they were no longer the fashion or little push button phones that they could pick up and talk into for hours. "Hello? Hello? Yes, this is So-and-so" or "Hold on just a minute please. Let me see if I can find him/her (presumably Mommy or Daddy)."
My parents did not forbid us to answer the phone, but there was a hierarchy to the phone tower. Mom and Dad on the top, kids on the bottom. Don't answer if there were no adults at home because they had to "run up the street for a minute and you don't want anyone to know you are home alone, do you?" We learned and we practiced. We just answered, "Hello?" But some of our friends were taught to answer, "So-and-so residence, who may I ask is calling?" I always got a kick out of those kids. They seemed so professional and formal, like they were Ricky Schroeder on Silver Spoons. But they knew how to answer the phone and they got the job done.
By the time I was a teenager, my parents had to install a second line in the house for my sister and me so that, even with call waiting in the house, they'd actually get a chance to talk to someone and not find a message about an important call three hours later when one of us had finally finished talking to a BFF about who the heck knows what or whispering repeated sweet absolutely nothings into the waiting ear of a paramour. We loved the phone. The phone was the life line. The phone was connection, communication, community, and it was direct. You had to pick up the phone if you wanted to know who was on the other side because there was no call waiting and much less phone solicitation. So other than teenaged prank callers or appointment confirmations, more than likely someone in the household wanted to talk to whomever was on the other end.
My kids aren't getting that practice. When Lily was in kindergarten, she was given an assignment to call someone on the telephone as part of a monthly activity log. I thought it would be fun for her to call up one of her classmates and talk to them about whatever it was they were doing at home and vice versa. I prearranged the call time with her friend's mother and we all, on both sides, geared up for the momentous occasion. The prep was as much for the adults as for the children. Because dinner time, the time scheduled for the call, has now become prime time for solicitous phone calls, fundraising efforts, surveys, and other robocalls, we had to avoid those landmines. At the appropriate time, the phone was to ring on one end and the child was supposed to answer with a greeting, the other would respond, and they'd get to chatting.
And so it went. The caller nervously dialed the phone number and started talking into the receiver before the call had even connected. "Let's try again. You have to wait for the call to connect, hon. Listen for the tone, dial, hear it ring and wait for someone to pick up."
"Hello?" someone answered shyly on the other end and *click,* our caller had gotten nervous and hung up. We tried again. Phone rings and Lily answers in a near whisper, "Hello?" Silence. "Hello?"
"Hi."
"Hi."
"It's me from your class."
"I know that."
"I am calling you."
"I know that."
"OK, bye."
*click*
Not much has changed since that exchange because, frankly, the kids don't get much opportunity to set up their own play dates and are too young to gab it up on the phone with their friends. Long before they've gotten off the bus, I've texted, emailed, maybe called, possibly seen the others' parent(s) and made the arrangements myself. I don't have the girls answer the phone when it rings because the caller ID tells us who it is and gives me the chance to decide whether or not I want contact with the outside world. The lurking danger of someone, anyone assuming that my children are home alone, a learned paranoia from my childhood, has stopped me from having them pick up (I mean, why would a child answer the phone in the middle of the afternoon?), as well as the fear of all the info they might divulge when prompted. (Oh, yeah, my mom is here. She is in the bathroom and waved her hands for me not to tell you that. She's so silly.)
Mine are still small and I have heard from their contemporaries' parents that theirs also don't get much phone time. My oldest had a friend/classmate who would frequently make her own robocalls using the school directory and reach out to every person in her class she might like to play with until someone finally answered and said yes. Thanks to caller ID, I would see the name come up and expect the caller to be the parent of said little girl and would answer. I regret to inform that I fell for this okey-doke far too many times. On the other end there would be stammering, whispering, and the question, "Can Lily and I have a playdate?" Depending on how quickly I recovered she'd either offer thanks and hang up, offer thanks and scream to her mother across the house that she'd connected and what time could they get together, or offer disappointment and ask me to call her back another time when Lily might be able to play! I should call her back?
Talking to this little girl on the phone made me batty, but I admired her gumption, and though I was not sure if her parents were intentionally teaching her the ropes of phone communique, I appreciated the effort, even remarked to a friend that in a time of crisis I'd hoped that Lily would stick with that one because she knew how to get her point across, wasn't afraid of adults, and would figure out the path to safety. She had no shyness, no fear, and complete confidence.
Thanks to FaceTime and SKYPE, my kids have the opportunity to talk to AND see my parents. I imaged the conversations would be easier since they are able to see them, almost like in a real conversation. Not so. They talk on FaceTime much like they do on the phone. In monosyllables, blips, blurps, and beeps. If they do indeed find something they like to talk about, they do so in a whisper. I can see their mouths moving, am even sitting right next to them, but can barely hear a word they are saying. My parents smile at them and nod, occasionally saying, "That's wonderful, " even when the girls are saying that the guppies in class have died. Everyone is just thrilled to see each other. I suppose the real talking will come later.
Or maybe not. Do people even talk on the phone anymore? So many people have just their smartphones, having said goodbye to landlines long ago. There is texting, emailing, FaceTiming, Skyping. It seems that long gone are the days of chatting up a storm or falling asleep on one end of the phone while your best friend does the same on the other. And yet, to me, the lessons learned on the phone, communicating when you have to rely on the words, the tone, the pauses, the cracks, the muffled sound of crying, giggling, listening, paying attention, considering appear to be less important. I am guilty too of preferring a text to a call, an email to a long drawn out explanation of what and where and when and how. But when I need comfort, human contact (yes, the phone now represents human contact!) I reach for the phone and if I am able, I settle in for a delicious conversation with a friend who will calm my soul, reassure me, reinvigorate me, set me back on course. And when I say settle in I mean walk around the house doing dishes, folding laundry, general cleaning, and checking texts on my cell while talking. But that "hello," that "what's up?", that "I'm here," is worth a thousand :-) or LOLs or :-/. Somehow I feel that we are together.
Sharing yourself can be challenging. Being vulnerable, nervous, afraid, reaching out and admitting the need to connect can be embarrassing especially now that even in highly emotional states we can emoticon and air quote and asterisk our feelings in text. But we need each other, might need to make the call, might need to receive one. So we soldier on, the girls and me, one *click*, one hang up, one awkward silence at a time until talking to one another, sharing with one another, listening to one another is easy.
(c) Copyrighted 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My parents did not forbid us to answer the phone, but there was a hierarchy to the phone tower. Mom and Dad on the top, kids on the bottom. Don't answer if there were no adults at home because they had to "run up the street for a minute and you don't want anyone to know you are home alone, do you?" We learned and we practiced. We just answered, "Hello?" But some of our friends were taught to answer, "So-and-so residence, who may I ask is calling?" I always got a kick out of those kids. They seemed so professional and formal, like they were Ricky Schroeder on Silver Spoons. But they knew how to answer the phone and they got the job done.
By the time I was a teenager, my parents had to install a second line in the house for my sister and me so that, even with call waiting in the house, they'd actually get a chance to talk to someone and not find a message about an important call three hours later when one of us had finally finished talking to a BFF about who the heck knows what or whispering repeated sweet absolutely nothings into the waiting ear of a paramour. We loved the phone. The phone was the life line. The phone was connection, communication, community, and it was direct. You had to pick up the phone if you wanted to know who was on the other side because there was no call waiting and much less phone solicitation. So other than teenaged prank callers or appointment confirmations, more than likely someone in the household wanted to talk to whomever was on the other end.
My kids aren't getting that practice. When Lily was in kindergarten, she was given an assignment to call someone on the telephone as part of a monthly activity log. I thought it would be fun for her to call up one of her classmates and talk to them about whatever it was they were doing at home and vice versa. I prearranged the call time with her friend's mother and we all, on both sides, geared up for the momentous occasion. The prep was as much for the adults as for the children. Because dinner time, the time scheduled for the call, has now become prime time for solicitous phone calls, fundraising efforts, surveys, and other robocalls, we had to avoid those landmines. At the appropriate time, the phone was to ring on one end and the child was supposed to answer with a greeting, the other would respond, and they'd get to chatting.
And so it went. The caller nervously dialed the phone number and started talking into the receiver before the call had even connected. "Let's try again. You have to wait for the call to connect, hon. Listen for the tone, dial, hear it ring and wait for someone to pick up."
"Hello?" someone answered shyly on the other end and *click,* our caller had gotten nervous and hung up. We tried again. Phone rings and Lily answers in a near whisper, "Hello?" Silence. "Hello?"
"Hi."
"Hi."
"It's me from your class."
"I know that."
"I am calling you."
"I know that."
"OK, bye."
*click*
Not much has changed since that exchange because, frankly, the kids don't get much opportunity to set up their own play dates and are too young to gab it up on the phone with their friends. Long before they've gotten off the bus, I've texted, emailed, maybe called, possibly seen the others' parent(s) and made the arrangements myself. I don't have the girls answer the phone when it rings because the caller ID tells us who it is and gives me the chance to decide whether or not I want contact with the outside world. The lurking danger of someone, anyone assuming that my children are home alone, a learned paranoia from my childhood, has stopped me from having them pick up (I mean, why would a child answer the phone in the middle of the afternoon?), as well as the fear of all the info they might divulge when prompted. (Oh, yeah, my mom is here. She is in the bathroom and waved her hands for me not to tell you that. She's so silly.)
Mine are still small and I have heard from their contemporaries' parents that theirs also don't get much phone time. My oldest had a friend/classmate who would frequently make her own robocalls using the school directory and reach out to every person in her class she might like to play with until someone finally answered and said yes. Thanks to caller ID, I would see the name come up and expect the caller to be the parent of said little girl and would answer. I regret to inform that I fell for this okey-doke far too many times. On the other end there would be stammering, whispering, and the question, "Can Lily and I have a playdate?" Depending on how quickly I recovered she'd either offer thanks and hang up, offer thanks and scream to her mother across the house that she'd connected and what time could they get together, or offer disappointment and ask me to call her back another time when Lily might be able to play! I should call her back?
Talking to this little girl on the phone made me batty, but I admired her gumption, and though I was not sure if her parents were intentionally teaching her the ropes of phone communique, I appreciated the effort, even remarked to a friend that in a time of crisis I'd hoped that Lily would stick with that one because she knew how to get her point across, wasn't afraid of adults, and would figure out the path to safety. She had no shyness, no fear, and complete confidence.
Thanks to FaceTime and SKYPE, my kids have the opportunity to talk to AND see my parents. I imaged the conversations would be easier since they are able to see them, almost like in a real conversation. Not so. They talk on FaceTime much like they do on the phone. In monosyllables, blips, blurps, and beeps. If they do indeed find something they like to talk about, they do so in a whisper. I can see their mouths moving, am even sitting right next to them, but can barely hear a word they are saying. My parents smile at them and nod, occasionally saying, "That's wonderful, " even when the girls are saying that the guppies in class have died. Everyone is just thrilled to see each other. I suppose the real talking will come later.
Or maybe not. Do people even talk on the phone anymore? So many people have just their smartphones, having said goodbye to landlines long ago. There is texting, emailing, FaceTiming, Skyping. It seems that long gone are the days of chatting up a storm or falling asleep on one end of the phone while your best friend does the same on the other. And yet, to me, the lessons learned on the phone, communicating when you have to rely on the words, the tone, the pauses, the cracks, the muffled sound of crying, giggling, listening, paying attention, considering appear to be less important. I am guilty too of preferring a text to a call, an email to a long drawn out explanation of what and where and when and how. But when I need comfort, human contact (yes, the phone now represents human contact!) I reach for the phone and if I am able, I settle in for a delicious conversation with a friend who will calm my soul, reassure me, reinvigorate me, set me back on course. And when I say settle in I mean walk around the house doing dishes, folding laundry, general cleaning, and checking texts on my cell while talking. But that "hello," that "what's up?", that "I'm here," is worth a thousand :-) or LOLs or :-/. Somehow I feel that we are together.
Sharing yourself can be challenging. Being vulnerable, nervous, afraid, reaching out and admitting the need to connect can be embarrassing especially now that even in highly emotional states we can emoticon and air quote and asterisk our feelings in text. But we need each other, might need to make the call, might need to receive one. So we soldier on, the girls and me, one *click*, one hang up, one awkward silence at a time until talking to one another, sharing with one another, listening to one another is easy.
(c) Copyrighted 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Be gone
Back to the Suburban Grind: Be gone: When I disappear for huge chunks of time one can best believe that something is up. Here's what's up. Or has been up. Nits. Th...
Be gone
When I disappear for huge chunks of time one can best believe that something is up. Here's what's up. Or has been up. Nits.
The girls and I were at the pool when I got a text from a friend, the mother of a little girl with whom my girls had been spending a lot of time. Giving it to me straight, no chaser she told me, "P has lice. We are on our way to Lice Be Gone." I have to put it all out there, as a black chick, I'd never come even close to the critters. Never thought I would. Since I was a girl, when the school nurse took the tongue depressor/popsicle stick to my classmates' heads in search of the dreaded bugs and their eggs, I'd turn my head as she barely searched. All that grease, that heat, the braids had convinced us all that BLACK PEOPLE DON'T GET LICE. (Which we will soon discover is so not true. Alas, while being black is cool and has its merits, a biological impossibility of getting lice is not one of them. *sigh*) With two years of school cycles back here in the States we'd managed to avoid countless lice warnings and sightings at both of their schools. (I'd never even heard about it in Barbados, but that doesn't mean anything really.) Just to be fair, I took a cursory glance at the girls' hair, checked behind the ears, along the back of the neck, in the crown and sectioned the strands. I never saw a bug, thank God, but tucked deep into the soft, marshy forest that is the girls' thick curly hair I saw tiny little, gummy dewdrops that were not easy to get off with a flick of the brush. Nits. NITS!
With Panic as my middle name, you can best be assured that I grabbed those two cuties by the arms and snatched them away from any and all children. Their hair, now dripping with chlorinated water looked beautiful, golden from the hours spent in the pool and under the summer sun, sweet, bouncy curls tangling in their eyelashes. I whispered to them that it was time for us to go because I wanted to get to the local drug store immediately to get the kit and have these "lice be gone!" The whisper was for naught. "We have lice? How did we get it?" Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. My first time. I'd never experienced what so many others had for years prepared for after camp season, first week of school, and sleepovers. I wore it as shame and embarrassment. They as curiosity, interest, nervousness.
"We don't know for sure but we'd damn well better get you off the streets and into the darkness...I mean, home." I probably didn't swear. Probably I did. I did. Along with the lice shampoo, gel, comb, and bedding spray, I purchased Quick Nits to prevent the return, lots of candy, a movie, and a Barbie or something or other for each. Not a stuffed animal because I'd already been warned that I'd have to nearly incinerate them in the dryer to kill any lice that might be foolishly trying to snuggle into that fake hairy furriness. I washed their heads with RidX and slathered some anti-lice gel onto their heads to "aid in the combing out of nits." Unfortunately for all of us, I had no idea what exactly I was looking for. Yeah, I'd seen the pictures on line but when confronted with the daunting task of combing through a 500,000 thread count of curly, sandy hair, picking and pulling, searching for tiny whitish, yellowish stickiness strand after strand until my eyes dried shut, I knew I was up against the worst of it. Because I just couldn't be sure, even after the second course of shampoo and nitpicking, I gave in and convinced the hubby to join me on a trip to Lice Be Gone in the town over.
Lice Be Gone offers a guarantee of lice and nit removal and a follow up for 1/2 the original charge. With one treatment on shoulder length hair running $250 per head, we were looking at a new iPad, as my husband liked to remind me. Five hundred dollars for the two girls and $250 if I chose the follow up. (I think you know which option my cheap ass went with.) We were looking at peace of mind for ourselves and everyone we do, did, or might spend time with. At the initial search, Virginie was found to have about thirty-five to forty nits glued to her hair. Lily was the real shocker that just blew up my mind and I am still piecing it back together. Lily had over two hundred nits! Did I not just say that I did two shampoos and nitpicked for hours offering up gifts and snacks and good times? Two hundred? It was like I hadn't done a thing.
It appears that the shampoo renders the nits void, but it was my job to pick them out. Until shown by the staff at Lice Be Gone how to do that, I was really looking for needles in the haystack. Luckily, the eggs never hatched and we never saw a bug on the head as they could have been walking around like Pig Pen with a halo of lice swarming their dear heads. A team of two young girls worked on each of the girls' heads with a nit comb and gallons of cheap, white conditioner. They parted and searched and combed and searched some more. It took them about an hour and a 1/2 to do the entire treatment--parting, searching, parting, searching--until they were ready to shampoo, recheck, blow-dry, and finally release the people back to the world. No nits, no bugs, no lice. Instead of the $250 return trip, we agreed to put Crisco on the girls' heads every Saturday for the next three weeks, cover them with shower caps, and have them wear those for 8 to 10 hours a day. Who even uses Crisco anymore? The girls loved it except for the Crisco and the shower caps and wearing them for 8 to 10 hours a day.
We were good and we were safe. I went back to treating the girls with the kind of product usually reserved for the school year when I put their hair back in ponytails and buns and clips every day. I had gotten lax in the summer because they were swimming so much. It had seemed a waste to use all that product and then have them swim it down the drain. But we were back to product and the occasional olive/tea tree/eucalyptus oil treatment. I allowed myself to relax, to loosen the PTSD constraints that pulled at me every time I felt an itch or saw one of the girls scratch their heads.
And then the ground swell rumbling began. First a call came in from a friend whose daughter had played with Lily and Virginie just the night before. Outside. For an hour or so. Did they touch heads? Was there head to head contact? I didn't see them touch heads. Did they? Were their heads in contact? While traveling by car on a ten hour trip, my friend had noticed the itching and then bugs, lice! crawling in her daughter's hair. She had to warn me. I did the treatment. Checked their heads. Freaked and acted like a monkey. Days later, another friend called to say that her two had been sent home from school ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL because they had nits and bugs. SHE had nits too. I'd been coating the girls in olive oil since Saturday's treatment and checking their heads daily pulling everything that was small, flaky, white, grey, blue, pink and not hair so I felt alright except not really. And then my neighbor whose daughter is Virginie's BFF called to tell me that hers too had lice. Bugs. Crawling. She'd shaved her boys' heads to the quick and started checking on the girl. There was shampooing, nitpicking, oiling. It seemed that everyone knew someone who was doing the same damned thing.
I finally cracked. "Black people night not get lice," I thought/prayed, "but I'd better treat myself too." I didn't want to be trolling the house with lice, infecting the girls, especially after all that treatment. Though I'd never seen anything on my head through any of the outbreak, I itched any time anyone said lice or nits. I checked my head until it hurt. I thought I saw a little bug in the sink after one of the comb outs only to find that it was a tiny ball at the end of the spiral brush bristle that fell off. I did the treatment, scrubbed and nitpicked and found nothing. I shaved the hubby's head down to "Marine Corp." pronounced "MAH-rins Cor-P" and washed all the laundry, anything soft really, and bleach-sponged every surface in the house.
We've seen ten nits and safely removed them. They slept in shower caps and slumber caps with their hair coated in oils. I have nitpicked and nitpicked and am now convinced I may have a future as a lice checker. There is no itching. But what there is is a sadness at the shame, the anxiety, the stress that these little blood sucking creatures caused me, my friends and neighbors, and probably countless others who hid away, fearing too that they were Patient Zero, the cause of a "chicken-or-the-egg" scenario if ever there was one. Anyone can get lice. Clean or dirty, rich or poor, from any ethnic background. The owner of Lice Be Gone told me on that first visit, "If you know people who haven't had lice yet it's just because they are lucky." Reassuring. I think the outbreaks are becoming epidemic and can't even begin to guess why. For this poor OCD/PTSD mother nitpicking has been added to the color coordinated clothes hanging in the closet, playroom straightening, housecleaning, lock checking (car and house) as one of the daily rituals.
My friend told me that the search for Patient Zero is futile and invites an advanced level Blame Game that serves no one. She's right. It doesn't matter to me how it starts. It's how it ends. And so far, it's ended well. The lice be gone. ;-)
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The girls and I were at the pool when I got a text from a friend, the mother of a little girl with whom my girls had been spending a lot of time. Giving it to me straight, no chaser she told me, "P has lice. We are on our way to Lice Be Gone." I have to put it all out there, as a black chick, I'd never come even close to the critters. Never thought I would. Since I was a girl, when the school nurse took the tongue depressor/popsicle stick to my classmates' heads in search of the dreaded bugs and their eggs, I'd turn my head as she barely searched. All that grease, that heat, the braids had convinced us all that BLACK PEOPLE DON'T GET LICE. (Which we will soon discover is so not true. Alas, while being black is cool and has its merits, a biological impossibility of getting lice is not one of them. *sigh*) With two years of school cycles back here in the States we'd managed to avoid countless lice warnings and sightings at both of their schools. (I'd never even heard about it in Barbados, but that doesn't mean anything really.) Just to be fair, I took a cursory glance at the girls' hair, checked behind the ears, along the back of the neck, in the crown and sectioned the strands. I never saw a bug, thank God, but tucked deep into the soft, marshy forest that is the girls' thick curly hair I saw tiny little, gummy dewdrops that were not easy to get off with a flick of the brush. Nits. NITS!
With Panic as my middle name, you can best be assured that I grabbed those two cuties by the arms and snatched them away from any and all children. Their hair, now dripping with chlorinated water looked beautiful, golden from the hours spent in the pool and under the summer sun, sweet, bouncy curls tangling in their eyelashes. I whispered to them that it was time for us to go because I wanted to get to the local drug store immediately to get the kit and have these "lice be gone!" The whisper was for naught. "We have lice? How did we get it?" Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. My first time. I'd never experienced what so many others had for years prepared for after camp season, first week of school, and sleepovers. I wore it as shame and embarrassment. They as curiosity, interest, nervousness.
"We don't know for sure but we'd damn well better get you off the streets and into the darkness...I mean, home." I probably didn't swear. Probably I did. I did. Along with the lice shampoo, gel, comb, and bedding spray, I purchased Quick Nits to prevent the return, lots of candy, a movie, and a Barbie or something or other for each. Not a stuffed animal because I'd already been warned that I'd have to nearly incinerate them in the dryer to kill any lice that might be foolishly trying to snuggle into that fake hairy furriness. I washed their heads with RidX and slathered some anti-lice gel onto their heads to "aid in the combing out of nits." Unfortunately for all of us, I had no idea what exactly I was looking for. Yeah, I'd seen the pictures on line but when confronted with the daunting task of combing through a 500,000 thread count of curly, sandy hair, picking and pulling, searching for tiny whitish, yellowish stickiness strand after strand until my eyes dried shut, I knew I was up against the worst of it. Because I just couldn't be sure, even after the second course of shampoo and nitpicking, I gave in and convinced the hubby to join me on a trip to Lice Be Gone in the town over.
Lice Be Gone offers a guarantee of lice and nit removal and a follow up for 1/2 the original charge. With one treatment on shoulder length hair running $250 per head, we were looking at a new iPad, as my husband liked to remind me. Five hundred dollars for the two girls and $250 if I chose the follow up. (I think you know which option my cheap ass went with.) We were looking at peace of mind for ourselves and everyone we do, did, or might spend time with. At the initial search, Virginie was found to have about thirty-five to forty nits glued to her hair. Lily was the real shocker that just blew up my mind and I am still piecing it back together. Lily had over two hundred nits! Did I not just say that I did two shampoos and nitpicked for hours offering up gifts and snacks and good times? Two hundred? It was like I hadn't done a thing.
It appears that the shampoo renders the nits void, but it was my job to pick them out. Until shown by the staff at Lice Be Gone how to do that, I was really looking for needles in the haystack. Luckily, the eggs never hatched and we never saw a bug on the head as they could have been walking around like Pig Pen with a halo of lice swarming their dear heads. A team of two young girls worked on each of the girls' heads with a nit comb and gallons of cheap, white conditioner. They parted and searched and combed and searched some more. It took them about an hour and a 1/2 to do the entire treatment--parting, searching, parting, searching--until they were ready to shampoo, recheck, blow-dry, and finally release the people back to the world. No nits, no bugs, no lice. Instead of the $250 return trip, we agreed to put Crisco on the girls' heads every Saturday for the next three weeks, cover them with shower caps, and have them wear those for 8 to 10 hours a day. Who even uses Crisco anymore? The girls loved it except for the Crisco and the shower caps and wearing them for 8 to 10 hours a day.
We were good and we were safe. I went back to treating the girls with the kind of product usually reserved for the school year when I put their hair back in ponytails and buns and clips every day. I had gotten lax in the summer because they were swimming so much. It had seemed a waste to use all that product and then have them swim it down the drain. But we were back to product and the occasional olive/tea tree/eucalyptus oil treatment. I allowed myself to relax, to loosen the PTSD constraints that pulled at me every time I felt an itch or saw one of the girls scratch their heads.
And then the ground swell rumbling began. First a call came in from a friend whose daughter had played with Lily and Virginie just the night before. Outside. For an hour or so. Did they touch heads? Was there head to head contact? I didn't see them touch heads. Did they? Were their heads in contact? While traveling by car on a ten hour trip, my friend had noticed the itching and then bugs, lice! crawling in her daughter's hair. She had to warn me. I did the treatment. Checked their heads. Freaked and acted like a monkey. Days later, another friend called to say that her two had been sent home from school ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL because they had nits and bugs. SHE had nits too. I'd been coating the girls in olive oil since Saturday's treatment and checking their heads daily pulling everything that was small, flaky, white, grey, blue, pink and not hair so I felt alright except not really. And then my neighbor whose daughter is Virginie's BFF called to tell me that hers too had lice. Bugs. Crawling. She'd shaved her boys' heads to the quick and started checking on the girl. There was shampooing, nitpicking, oiling. It seemed that everyone knew someone who was doing the same damned thing.
I finally cracked. "Black people night not get lice," I thought/prayed, "but I'd better treat myself too." I didn't want to be trolling the house with lice, infecting the girls, especially after all that treatment. Though I'd never seen anything on my head through any of the outbreak, I itched any time anyone said lice or nits. I checked my head until it hurt. I thought I saw a little bug in the sink after one of the comb outs only to find that it was a tiny ball at the end of the spiral brush bristle that fell off. I did the treatment, scrubbed and nitpicked and found nothing. I shaved the hubby's head down to "Marine Corp." pronounced "MAH-rins Cor-P" and washed all the laundry, anything soft really, and bleach-sponged every surface in the house.
We've seen ten nits and safely removed them. They slept in shower caps and slumber caps with their hair coated in oils. I have nitpicked and nitpicked and am now convinced I may have a future as a lice checker. There is no itching. But what there is is a sadness at the shame, the anxiety, the stress that these little blood sucking creatures caused me, my friends and neighbors, and probably countless others who hid away, fearing too that they were Patient Zero, the cause of a "chicken-or-the-egg" scenario if ever there was one. Anyone can get lice. Clean or dirty, rich or poor, from any ethnic background. The owner of Lice Be Gone told me on that first visit, "If you know people who haven't had lice yet it's just because they are lucky." Reassuring. I think the outbreaks are becoming epidemic and can't even begin to guess why. For this poor OCD/PTSD mother nitpicking has been added to the color coordinated clothes hanging in the closet, playroom straightening, housecleaning, lock checking (car and house) as one of the daily rituals.
My friend told me that the search for Patient Zero is futile and invites an advanced level Blame Game that serves no one. She's right. It doesn't matter to me how it starts. It's how it ends. And so far, it's ended well. The lice be gone. ;-)
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Story time
Back to the Suburban Grind: Story time: I have spent the entire summer with my girls. Their father is working full time, often six days a week, and we decided long ago, after the ...
Story time
I have spent the entire summer with my girls. Their father is working full time, often six days a week, and we decided long ago, after the years in Barbados had me traipsing from Miami to Bim with the girls and all kinds of stuff alone (A-LONE), that we should take trips together from here forward. We have had an epic Mommy Camp summer with more iPad and less study binder than I'd hoped for but also gardening and visiting and swimming and playing and talking. I know that we will all look back on these dog days with joy and easy smiles. At present it can be rather tough.
When we get ready for bed at night, I try to have a pile of library books on hand. Because I have a new efficient and excited reader, we often get through the stack before I expected we would and find ourselves with time. I turn off the lights in their room and we stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars around the room, listen to the hamsters running amok, and hear ourselves breathing. These past few nights, the girls have started asking for "stories that come from my mouth" instead of books. How did they know they had the right mommy?
I can spin a yarn, tell a tale, work some magic. But with the stories that I tell my girls, there is something more. The tales are not tall. Have no wizards and fairies. They are instead, opportunities I have taken to impart feelings of self-worth, relevance, value, intuition, connection, and divinity within. In the last story I told last night there were three sisters. The first sister wanted to see the world and put on her backpack and hiking boots, took a map, and a tent and went off to see what nature had to offer. She walked through the jungle, climbed mountains, scaled walls, drank from clear rivers, and watched herds of animals as they interacted with one another. The second sister wanted to see the world and all that man had made, so she packed up her fancy suitcases, beautiful clothes and traveled to the world's best cities. She ate delicious food, stayed in amazing hotel suites, looked at art, listened to live music, saw live theatre, and was inspired by architecture and the built world. The third sister stayed behind. She crossed her legs and sat in meditation. She did yoga. She searched for the invisible string that connected her heart to all the hearts in the world. She concentrated on love and light, opened herself to being compassionate and available to all people and all things. She listened and watched and learned so that she could understand people and what made them do the things they did.
Before I could finish my story, my four year old called out, "I'm like her! I'm like her! The third girl is me."
I asked, "Are you sure? You don't want to travel the world and see those beautiful things?"
To which she replied, "She already knows those beautiful things. They are in her heart."
As I finished my story with the return of the two sisters to home where they regaled each other with wild tales and stories of impressive sights and sites, I closed with "all three found their way to the truth about the marvel of all things." Both girls lay quietly, slowly breathing, eyes blinking to close. I kissed them both on their foreheads and slithered out of the bed.
Each night there is a story like this. Each night I heal the wound, the emptiness, the hurt and longing of my nights in my bedroom alone. Each night I hope they do not feel those same fears. I have no idea if these stories will be important, if they will stick in their minds, rest gently in their psyches to be recalled when compassion, love, connection, empathy need to be called up. But in the darkness, after a long, arduous day spent in the company of chatty, little babes, I hope I am giving them stories that will take root in their minds and in their hearts when they no longer want to snuggle up to me and be told stories "from my mouth."
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
When we get ready for bed at night, I try to have a pile of library books on hand. Because I have a new efficient and excited reader, we often get through the stack before I expected we would and find ourselves with time. I turn off the lights in their room and we stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars around the room, listen to the hamsters running amok, and hear ourselves breathing. These past few nights, the girls have started asking for "stories that come from my mouth" instead of books. How did they know they had the right mommy?
I can spin a yarn, tell a tale, work some magic. But with the stories that I tell my girls, there is something more. The tales are not tall. Have no wizards and fairies. They are instead, opportunities I have taken to impart feelings of self-worth, relevance, value, intuition, connection, and divinity within. In the last story I told last night there were three sisters. The first sister wanted to see the world and put on her backpack and hiking boots, took a map, and a tent and went off to see what nature had to offer. She walked through the jungle, climbed mountains, scaled walls, drank from clear rivers, and watched herds of animals as they interacted with one another. The second sister wanted to see the world and all that man had made, so she packed up her fancy suitcases, beautiful clothes and traveled to the world's best cities. She ate delicious food, stayed in amazing hotel suites, looked at art, listened to live music, saw live theatre, and was inspired by architecture and the built world. The third sister stayed behind. She crossed her legs and sat in meditation. She did yoga. She searched for the invisible string that connected her heart to all the hearts in the world. She concentrated on love and light, opened herself to being compassionate and available to all people and all things. She listened and watched and learned so that she could understand people and what made them do the things they did.
Before I could finish my story, my four year old called out, "I'm like her! I'm like her! The third girl is me."
I asked, "Are you sure? You don't want to travel the world and see those beautiful things?"
To which she replied, "She already knows those beautiful things. They are in her heart."
As I finished my story with the return of the two sisters to home where they regaled each other with wild tales and stories of impressive sights and sites, I closed with "all three found their way to the truth about the marvel of all things." Both girls lay quietly, slowly breathing, eyes blinking to close. I kissed them both on their foreheads and slithered out of the bed.
Each night there is a story like this. Each night I heal the wound, the emptiness, the hurt and longing of my nights in my bedroom alone. Each night I hope they do not feel those same fears. I have no idea if these stories will be important, if they will stick in their minds, rest gently in their psyches to be recalled when compassion, love, connection, empathy need to be called up. But in the darkness, after a long, arduous day spent in the company of chatty, little babes, I hope I am giving them stories that will take root in their minds and in their hearts when they no longer want to snuggle up to me and be told stories "from my mouth."
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Bleeding Heart
Back to the Suburban Grind: Bleeding Heart: My children are small. Very small. Small enough that outside of rules about recycling and energy conservation, stories about the holidays ...
Bleeding Heart
My children are small. Very small. Small enough that outside of rules about recycling and energy conservation, stories about the holidays that cover just the basic "facts" and themes, news about the weather, and public interest stories about animals and the pool opening for summer, they are blissfully ignorant and detached from news of the world. I am thankful for that today. Though we talk casually about children in the world who are not as fortunate as they, who do not have the freedoms, rights, and more specifically (and frequently), toys and birthday parties that they have, their minds are not burdened with the state of the world. They will learn soon enough. I will lead them to a place of understanding, of compassion, and as important, what I think is often missing in the lessons that we parents offer our children, that none of us is more important or more valuable or more special than anyone else. Truly.
But this lesson is easily taught by me to my children. It was taught to me by my parents in as much what they did as what they said. And it was surely taught to them by their parents. When you are black in America, that message comes in loud and clear. We were taught that we had to be twice as good, told to mind our p's and q's, to watch and wait before entering a group, take the temperature, find out if the members of that group were amenable to our presence. Even if we knew that what we would bring to that group--talent, intelligence, humor, compassion, kindness--would greatly benefit, we entered with caution. We were, clichéd as it sounds, outsiders. Without being told this directly, I took it also to mean that I was never enough, didn't quite measure up, and probably never would.
My children know their gifts and know they are special to me. I try to instill it in them every day, but they surely do not believe that they deserve more in this world than anyone else. They are learning that we must lift each other up to rise, that we must all rise together, not climb on others' backs or blindly soar while others are pedaling or flapping their wings underfoot. The wind beneath their wings is my love and support, not a system that propels them to the top while others languish in the decks below. They know this because I am teaching this to them.
My parents, I can see it now, are insanely intelligent and exceptional people. They are both smart and funny and witty and caring and giving, having been raised by fierce, God-loving, trusting, good people. They are exceptional, but are not the exception. We knew so many other black families like ours. Saw success and drive, intelligence and creativity, humor and wit. When we were all together, everyone could breathe a little easier, relax into our true selves, let our spirits soar, because the defining character of ourselves outside that group, our race, could be ignored. We could be real, three-dimensional people with hopes and dreams and desires that could be acknowledged and considered. But outside of that group, of that safety net, we just weren't sure where we stood with people. We had so many wonderful friends from different backgrounds, people who shared themselves with us and allowed us to do the same. Who truly judged us and all minorities by the content of our character. But there were also others with whom we spent time at church or school or on sports teams or dance classes who wouldn't acknowledge us outside of our activities or used derogatory language about blacks and other minorities in our presence with the disclaimer, "but I don't mean you."
Oh, but you do. And they did even if they'd convinced themselves that there was a different place for this black face, this black person. They had a space for other and it was outside of their circle. Sure there are criminals flaunted on the local news daily. Those are people to be feared no matter their background (though a disproportionate number of those shown on local news are people of color as it helps to continue that narrative) but the rest of us are just normal citizens going about our daily lives. We want what's best for our children, want to shape them to be the kind of people we want to be, want to see them have greater opportunity and success than we've had. Verdicts like this one just handed down in the Trayvon Martin case remind us that we are still outside the circle.
My bleeding heart. My "excessive" sympathy can, at times, leave me speechless, immobile, frozen in an emotional coma where the feelings rage inside the cocoon but on the outside I stand in fear. I cannot do this and still take care of my children. I have to get up and prepare breakfast and make beds and plan the day. I still weep this morning for that young man being followed by a stranger in a neighborhood where he should have, like everyone else there, felt safe. There was, after all, a neighborhood watch. But the neighborhood watchman was watching him, checking for him, had written him outside the circle and pursued him, against police suggestion, and all of his hopes and dreams and desires died with him. We won't even know them.
None of us is more special, more important, more valuable than any other. And none of us is less so. In our spiritual core, in our hearts, in the part of us that is within our human selves but is not constrained by it, we know this. But in the part where we are but mere human beings, in the part where we jockey for self-importance and relevancy, we don't believe it. Can't. In our keeping-up-with-the-Joneses/Kardashians/1% culture, where racism and discrimination burden the pursuit of happiness, where the "going for mine" and "doin' me" mentality reigns, teaching compassion and love and empathy is a serious endeavor but one we must all attempt or risk an epic failure.
There is room enough for us all in the circle. God I hope so. And any loss suffered by any one of us should be felt by all. The girls woke me this morning with kicks to the knees and ribs as they jockeyed for prime snuggling position. They kissed my face even before I'd opened my eyes and whispered good morning before they knew whether I was asleep or awake. They didn't know I'd cried all night and wouldn't. It's not theirs to bear right now. It is mine. Though I stood up and was not able to clear the fog of the news of last night's verdict from my mind, my heart still fluttered for them. It raged. Their warm, little bodies jolted me back to my real life. The life where I care for them and raise them and teach them how we must love one another. My heart also bleeds for the mother who cannot hold her son, the mothers who cannot hold their children, cannot feel their warm bodies, be jolted out of bed by their promise, be comforted by the hope that their dreams and desires provide. It bleeds because if we are all part of the same circle, what's mine is yours and we are one and the same. And today I feel, again, that mother's emptiness.
RIP Trayvon Martin.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
But this lesson is easily taught by me to my children. It was taught to me by my parents in as much what they did as what they said. And it was surely taught to them by their parents. When you are black in America, that message comes in loud and clear. We were taught that we had to be twice as good, told to mind our p's and q's, to watch and wait before entering a group, take the temperature, find out if the members of that group were amenable to our presence. Even if we knew that what we would bring to that group--talent, intelligence, humor, compassion, kindness--would greatly benefit, we entered with caution. We were, clichéd as it sounds, outsiders. Without being told this directly, I took it also to mean that I was never enough, didn't quite measure up, and probably never would.
My children know their gifts and know they are special to me. I try to instill it in them every day, but they surely do not believe that they deserve more in this world than anyone else. They are learning that we must lift each other up to rise, that we must all rise together, not climb on others' backs or blindly soar while others are pedaling or flapping their wings underfoot. The wind beneath their wings is my love and support, not a system that propels them to the top while others languish in the decks below. They know this because I am teaching this to them.
My parents, I can see it now, are insanely intelligent and exceptional people. They are both smart and funny and witty and caring and giving, having been raised by fierce, God-loving, trusting, good people. They are exceptional, but are not the exception. We knew so many other black families like ours. Saw success and drive, intelligence and creativity, humor and wit. When we were all together, everyone could breathe a little easier, relax into our true selves, let our spirits soar, because the defining character of ourselves outside that group, our race, could be ignored. We could be real, three-dimensional people with hopes and dreams and desires that could be acknowledged and considered. But outside of that group, of that safety net, we just weren't sure where we stood with people. We had so many wonderful friends from different backgrounds, people who shared themselves with us and allowed us to do the same. Who truly judged us and all minorities by the content of our character. But there were also others with whom we spent time at church or school or on sports teams or dance classes who wouldn't acknowledge us outside of our activities or used derogatory language about blacks and other minorities in our presence with the disclaimer, "but I don't mean you."
Oh, but you do. And they did even if they'd convinced themselves that there was a different place for this black face, this black person. They had a space for other and it was outside of their circle. Sure there are criminals flaunted on the local news daily. Those are people to be feared no matter their background (though a disproportionate number of those shown on local news are people of color as it helps to continue that narrative) but the rest of us are just normal citizens going about our daily lives. We want what's best for our children, want to shape them to be the kind of people we want to be, want to see them have greater opportunity and success than we've had. Verdicts like this one just handed down in the Trayvon Martin case remind us that we are still outside the circle.
My bleeding heart. My "excessive" sympathy can, at times, leave me speechless, immobile, frozen in an emotional coma where the feelings rage inside the cocoon but on the outside I stand in fear. I cannot do this and still take care of my children. I have to get up and prepare breakfast and make beds and plan the day. I still weep this morning for that young man being followed by a stranger in a neighborhood where he should have, like everyone else there, felt safe. There was, after all, a neighborhood watch. But the neighborhood watchman was watching him, checking for him, had written him outside the circle and pursued him, against police suggestion, and all of his hopes and dreams and desires died with him. We won't even know them.
None of us is more special, more important, more valuable than any other. And none of us is less so. In our spiritual core, in our hearts, in the part of us that is within our human selves but is not constrained by it, we know this. But in the part where we are but mere human beings, in the part where we jockey for self-importance and relevancy, we don't believe it. Can't. In our keeping-up-with-the-Joneses/Kardashians/1% culture, where racism and discrimination burden the pursuit of happiness, where the "going for mine" and "doin' me" mentality reigns, teaching compassion and love and empathy is a serious endeavor but one we must all attempt or risk an epic failure.
There is room enough for us all in the circle. God I hope so. And any loss suffered by any one of us should be felt by all. The girls woke me this morning with kicks to the knees and ribs as they jockeyed for prime snuggling position. They kissed my face even before I'd opened my eyes and whispered good morning before they knew whether I was asleep or awake. They didn't know I'd cried all night and wouldn't. It's not theirs to bear right now. It is mine. Though I stood up and was not able to clear the fog of the news of last night's verdict from my mind, my heart still fluttered for them. It raged. Their warm, little bodies jolted me back to my real life. The life where I care for them and raise them and teach them how we must love one another. My heart also bleeds for the mother who cannot hold her son, the mothers who cannot hold their children, cannot feel their warm bodies, be jolted out of bed by their promise, be comforted by the hope that their dreams and desires provide. It bleeds because if we are all part of the same circle, what's mine is yours and we are one and the same. And today I feel, again, that mother's emptiness.
RIP Trayvon Martin.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: It Takes a Village
Back to the Suburban Grind: It Takes a Village: Lily woke up in the middle of the night with a fever boiling through her bloodstream. I knew because she was snuggled up next to me and I f...
It Takes a Village
Lily woke up in the middle of the night with a fever boiling through her bloodstream. I knew because she was snuggled up next to me and I felt my own blood start to simmer until I realized that she was tucked in the crook of my arm. I touched her head, put my hand on her rising belly and she was on fire. I reached for her little sister on the other side of me and she, thankfully, did not feel the same. She turned over to avoid my handling of her little body and I tended to her big sister. That was the first night.
The next evening, antibiotics in hand for the raging ear infection that was plaguing my girl, we tried again. Lily on my right and Virginie on my left. Everyone tucked in and medicated or whatever was needed to allow a comfortable night's sleep and healing. We made it to 3 AM. At 3 AM, Virginie started wheezing as if she'd swallowed a balloon. She could not seem to take a full breath without this full, croupy cough taking over her tiny body. She would cough and tremble and cry, all while trying to fall back to sleep. I offered her inhaler every fifteen minutes until she could breath easier. Unfortunately, her coughing woke Lily who began pulling at one of her ears, coughing herself, and complaining of pain. For her there were pain killers and a back rub. In fact, with each one sandwiching me into the middle of the bed, I rubbed and patted them, arms outstretched, until 5 AM when I heard the last labored breath subside to soft, even whistles. Then I slept.
I've spent countless nights alone with the girls and most nights they are well, though often chatty and wake in the night. When they are sick or scared or in need, I am available for them too, will take care of what needs caring for until it is right. The good days greatly surpass the bad, but the bad ones fuel the fuzzy-brained, rain-clouded, barbed-wire pressured, and angst-filled stories of parenthood. Those nights leave me feeling so low and lonely, mostly because I am sleep deprived and insane (JEG, you know who you are), like I don't have a prayer or a hand or a friend.
This morning, my neighbor offered to take the girls for a while to play with her children. She and her husband had run their errands and handled their business and knew that I was alone for the long, holiday weekend with the girls. I tried to bow out, excuse myself, convince her that it wasn't necessary, that the girls were fine with crazy me. Though I have longed for a community, a tribe, a village to help me raise my children, I don't think I ever considered what I was really asking for. It wasn't something mythic, epic, poetic, romantic. It wasn't only a dream or an expression used in speeches when children had again been marginalized or ignored. For me, it was having someone that I trusted and that I knew cared for me and my children, take them for a bit. Nurture them. Feed them. Play with them. Entertain them. So that I might have a moment to regenerate, take a shower without a guest lecturer present, hell use the bathroom without having a conversation about only God knows what with a person sitting one foot in front of me. On the floor.
I let the girls go for a bit when a friend called requesting Virginie, the four year old. My friend's four year old was down for a full afternoon of play that involved multiple costume changes, a bath, coloring, a trip to the pool, all the cool stuff the pre-K set is into. She went. She stayed. I saw her at 6 pm. Lily, too, stayed out and I did things. Fun things, housework things, banking things, lying down things, standing up things, alone things. I later sat in the yard having an afternoon drink with my neighbor while we watched our children ride bikes and scooters up and down the drive. A family of friends who were walking by on their way to the train station, continuing on to the airport and a European vacation, stopped for a quick beer. I promised to check in on their house and their visitors. (They were doing a house trade with a family in France.)
I felt the village forming around me. I always see in my mind a Native American or African tribe of my imagining with huts configured in a circle, women working and tending to their children, men hunting and gathering, doing what they do. It is an image that comforts me, though it lives in my fantasy and is not drawn from any particular group or tribe. It's just what I want. The houses in my neighborhood are close enough for my children, young as they are, to walk from our home to a friend's without my being nervous. In the nearly two years we have lived here, we have amassed a small tribe of families to whom I would entrust my children, my home, our pet (Baby Dragon, the newt). There is a wonderful exchange of childcare, babysitting, dinners, evening cocktails, and conversations that gives me peace. The girls have learned to respect and consider other adults (and children too) and other ways in which families live and households are run. But as important, I have learned to trust, to fall into the arms of people who want to love and support me, who would allow me to love and support them, who have helped me give and receive in equal measure despite myself.
The village that we have chosen to call home has given me a place in the circle. The people we have added to our circle have given me no corners to be pushed into and no walls to hide behind. I am grateful for the connections and the community. When the nights are insufferable and days or weeks alone threaten my sanity, my village comes to my aid. It takes a village to raise a child. This one has raised up my family too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The next evening, antibiotics in hand for the raging ear infection that was plaguing my girl, we tried again. Lily on my right and Virginie on my left. Everyone tucked in and medicated or whatever was needed to allow a comfortable night's sleep and healing. We made it to 3 AM. At 3 AM, Virginie started wheezing as if she'd swallowed a balloon. She could not seem to take a full breath without this full, croupy cough taking over her tiny body. She would cough and tremble and cry, all while trying to fall back to sleep. I offered her inhaler every fifteen minutes until she could breath easier. Unfortunately, her coughing woke Lily who began pulling at one of her ears, coughing herself, and complaining of pain. For her there were pain killers and a back rub. In fact, with each one sandwiching me into the middle of the bed, I rubbed and patted them, arms outstretched, until 5 AM when I heard the last labored breath subside to soft, even whistles. Then I slept.
I've spent countless nights alone with the girls and most nights they are well, though often chatty and wake in the night. When they are sick or scared or in need, I am available for them too, will take care of what needs caring for until it is right. The good days greatly surpass the bad, but the bad ones fuel the fuzzy-brained, rain-clouded, barbed-wire pressured, and angst-filled stories of parenthood. Those nights leave me feeling so low and lonely, mostly because I am sleep deprived and insane (JEG, you know who you are), like I don't have a prayer or a hand or a friend.
This morning, my neighbor offered to take the girls for a while to play with her children. She and her husband had run their errands and handled their business and knew that I was alone for the long, holiday weekend with the girls. I tried to bow out, excuse myself, convince her that it wasn't necessary, that the girls were fine with crazy me. Though I have longed for a community, a tribe, a village to help me raise my children, I don't think I ever considered what I was really asking for. It wasn't something mythic, epic, poetic, romantic. It wasn't only a dream or an expression used in speeches when children had again been marginalized or ignored. For me, it was having someone that I trusted and that I knew cared for me and my children, take them for a bit. Nurture them. Feed them. Play with them. Entertain them. So that I might have a moment to regenerate, take a shower without a guest lecturer present, hell use the bathroom without having a conversation about only God knows what with a person sitting one foot in front of me. On the floor.
I let the girls go for a bit when a friend called requesting Virginie, the four year old. My friend's four year old was down for a full afternoon of play that involved multiple costume changes, a bath, coloring, a trip to the pool, all the cool stuff the pre-K set is into. She went. She stayed. I saw her at 6 pm. Lily, too, stayed out and I did things. Fun things, housework things, banking things, lying down things, standing up things, alone things. I later sat in the yard having an afternoon drink with my neighbor while we watched our children ride bikes and scooters up and down the drive. A family of friends who were walking by on their way to the train station, continuing on to the airport and a European vacation, stopped for a quick beer. I promised to check in on their house and their visitors. (They were doing a house trade with a family in France.)
I felt the village forming around me. I always see in my mind a Native American or African tribe of my imagining with huts configured in a circle, women working and tending to their children, men hunting and gathering, doing what they do. It is an image that comforts me, though it lives in my fantasy and is not drawn from any particular group or tribe. It's just what I want. The houses in my neighborhood are close enough for my children, young as they are, to walk from our home to a friend's without my being nervous. In the nearly two years we have lived here, we have amassed a small tribe of families to whom I would entrust my children, my home, our pet (Baby Dragon, the newt). There is a wonderful exchange of childcare, babysitting, dinners, evening cocktails, and conversations that gives me peace. The girls have learned to respect and consider other adults (and children too) and other ways in which families live and households are run. But as important, I have learned to trust, to fall into the arms of people who want to love and support me, who would allow me to love and support them, who have helped me give and receive in equal measure despite myself.
The village that we have chosen to call home has given me a place in the circle. The people we have added to our circle have given me no corners to be pushed into and no walls to hide behind. I am grateful for the connections and the community. When the nights are insufferable and days or weeks alone threaten my sanity, my village comes to my aid. It takes a village to raise a child. This one has raised up my family too.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Father's Day
Back to the Suburban Grind: Father's Day: I have to confess that no matter how hard I've tried to distance myself from some of my dad's behavior, there is no denying it. My ...
Father's Day
I have to confess that no matter how hard I've tried to distance myself from some of my dad's behavior, there is no denying it. My mom is as cool as a cucumber, but my dad, all moist-eyed and sensitive, all curious and excitable, all passion and rage and angst and joy, is me. A girlfriend of mine has told me repeatedly to cherish the time with my parents, to celebrate and relish who we are to each other while we can as both of her parents are no longer living. I have listened, though often not heard her because I am all moist-eyed and sensitive, all passion and rage and angst and joy. I am, in so many ways, the Mini to his Me.
He and my mother visited this Father's Day, stayed in our home for the first time (not including Barbados which was not actually ever our home), spent real adult time, played with the girls, went on our errands, meandered through our town, and enjoyed ourselves together. We visited with family friends and I felt adult and grown and proud to be with them. I am not sure if it is my midlife crisis which looks more like actualization than crushing breakdown, my recent interest in meditation and reiki, my return to dance, or the shifting of our collective consciousness, but I have found acceptance of who and what I am and therefore in who and what everyone around me is. I have found the desperate need to hold on to past hurts and wounds to be exhausting and have forgiven them, though more than likely not forgotten them. (I am, after all, a Penn.)
I have spent much of my life recognizing my role as a member of my family and feeling that I was failing miserably. No matter how this thinking came about, I felt overwhelming pressure at being "the daughter of/big sister of/first grandchild of." The burden of carrying on the line of two incredible families, the credits, achievements, and successes of which are extraordinary by any standard, but given that they were done by those poor and black, largely undereducated, during the dark days of our country's history, made them mythic, epic, heroic. I felt like a straight up fraud. Middle class, indulged, allowed my mood swings and artistic tendencies. I didn't have to give up my dreams, whatever they were, in order to put food on the table or a roof over my head. The fight over outright racist and sexist policy was fought on their backs while they were striving for the promised American dream. I had a kind of survivor's guilt because I did not struggle to achieve what was seemingly handed to me, because the racism, sexism, and white privilege that I faced was more subtle, because I had been walked to third base by a family that persevered in getting into the stadium and onto the field. Though I know now that I did not need to apologize for myself, I was then so sorry and ashamed.
Under the weight of that, my father and I would look at each other, mirror to reflection, reflection to mirror and declare, under our breaths, "What?" There was so much expectation, so much want, so much need and no real way to express it. So there was moist-eyed, sensitive, curious, and excitable passion, rage, angst, and joy. I would cower in his presence, hold my breath, not feel safe expressing myself as I did when "away from home." I was miserable to be around, was either pulled in and tense or exploded when provoked(like someone I know), hated family get-togethers because I did not feel like I could be myself, because what I reflected back to Mr. Penn was too much for him to see. It might even still be.
But there are new facets to this diamond. The glittering, fascinating shine of my children. And in my children and how they are being raised and how they behave and love and give, I believe that my dad and I can share something, love something together. We can see that part of each other that loves, that cares, that is all moist-eyed and longing. Like two shy, nervous baby birds we just might dare to fly, helping each other do so but also concentrating on our own flight. As I see him soar, I feel joy. He might not tell me, but he feels the same for me. We have this story to tell, this epic tale in which to contribute. Like that game where one person starts the story and another picks it up where he leaves off and then another picks up and so on and so forth until an incredible tale is told, we are living and weaving our lives.
We are much alike, but not entirely the same. My father wanted to be a journalist but that gig did not pay well enough for a young man who had the obligation to help put his younger siblings through school as his older siblings had done for him. He has something to say but often chooses his words carefully, sparingly, and certainly does not express his feelings or wear his heart on his sleeve. I, on the other hand, did not have that financial responsibility, did not make a choice based on monetary need, cry, laugh, love, freak, and respond to every stimulus, and even when I might keep my mouth shut, cannot do so! I want to say something; I have to, come what may. I respect his choices, his sacrifices, and know that he loves us. I hope, hope, hope that he feels the same for me because this Father's Day, I allowed myself to love him like I did as a girl. With wonder, curiosity, awe, and the first twinkling of autonomy that a toddler shows when she realizes that she and her parents are not indeed the same entity. It was truly a great day to celebrate having and being a father.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
He and my mother visited this Father's Day, stayed in our home for the first time (not including Barbados which was not actually ever our home), spent real adult time, played with the girls, went on our errands, meandered through our town, and enjoyed ourselves together. We visited with family friends and I felt adult and grown and proud to be with them. I am not sure if it is my midlife crisis which looks more like actualization than crushing breakdown, my recent interest in meditation and reiki, my return to dance, or the shifting of our collective consciousness, but I have found acceptance of who and what I am and therefore in who and what everyone around me is. I have found the desperate need to hold on to past hurts and wounds to be exhausting and have forgiven them, though more than likely not forgotten them. (I am, after all, a Penn.)
I have spent much of my life recognizing my role as a member of my family and feeling that I was failing miserably. No matter how this thinking came about, I felt overwhelming pressure at being "the daughter of/big sister of/first grandchild of." The burden of carrying on the line of two incredible families, the credits, achievements, and successes of which are extraordinary by any standard, but given that they were done by those poor and black, largely undereducated, during the dark days of our country's history, made them mythic, epic, heroic. I felt like a straight up fraud. Middle class, indulged, allowed my mood swings and artistic tendencies. I didn't have to give up my dreams, whatever they were, in order to put food on the table or a roof over my head. The fight over outright racist and sexist policy was fought on their backs while they were striving for the promised American dream. I had a kind of survivor's guilt because I did not struggle to achieve what was seemingly handed to me, because the racism, sexism, and white privilege that I faced was more subtle, because I had been walked to third base by a family that persevered in getting into the stadium and onto the field. Though I know now that I did not need to apologize for myself, I was then so sorry and ashamed.
Under the weight of that, my father and I would look at each other, mirror to reflection, reflection to mirror and declare, under our breaths, "What?" There was so much expectation, so much want, so much need and no real way to express it. So there was moist-eyed, sensitive, curious, and excitable passion, rage, angst, and joy. I would cower in his presence, hold my breath, not feel safe expressing myself as I did when "away from home." I was miserable to be around, was either pulled in and tense or exploded when provoked(like someone I know), hated family get-togethers because I did not feel like I could be myself, because what I reflected back to Mr. Penn was too much for him to see. It might even still be.
But there are new facets to this diamond. The glittering, fascinating shine of my children. And in my children and how they are being raised and how they behave and love and give, I believe that my dad and I can share something, love something together. We can see that part of each other that loves, that cares, that is all moist-eyed and longing. Like two shy, nervous baby birds we just might dare to fly, helping each other do so but also concentrating on our own flight. As I see him soar, I feel joy. He might not tell me, but he feels the same for me. We have this story to tell, this epic tale in which to contribute. Like that game where one person starts the story and another picks it up where he leaves off and then another picks up and so on and so forth until an incredible tale is told, we are living and weaving our lives.
We are much alike, but not entirely the same. My father wanted to be a journalist but that gig did not pay well enough for a young man who had the obligation to help put his younger siblings through school as his older siblings had done for him. He has something to say but often chooses his words carefully, sparingly, and certainly does not express his feelings or wear his heart on his sleeve. I, on the other hand, did not have that financial responsibility, did not make a choice based on monetary need, cry, laugh, love, freak, and respond to every stimulus, and even when I might keep my mouth shut, cannot do so! I want to say something; I have to, come what may. I respect his choices, his sacrifices, and know that he loves us. I hope, hope, hope that he feels the same for me because this Father's Day, I allowed myself to love him like I did as a girl. With wonder, curiosity, awe, and the first twinkling of autonomy that a toddler shows when she realizes that she and her parents are not indeed the same entity. It was truly a great day to celebrate having and being a father.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Cicadas love
Back to the Suburban Grind: Cicadas love: A while back I posted on Facebook or somewhere that I really loved nature and my claim was disputed, almost immediately, by a friend w...
Cicadas love
We are in the midst of a natural phenomenon here in Northern New Jersey, one that is incredibly profound and exciting and terrifying. The rise of the cicadas after their 17 year slumber has brought a buzz throughout our community. Really. The sound echoes everywhere. My husband, the chef, likens it to working in the kitchen all evening and having the hum of the hood droning on in the background. It doesn't really bother him. He doesn't realize it's on until it is finally turned off and then there is a sound to the silence. Only then does he recognize that the hood was enveloping him in sound.
I won't lie, those beady, red-eyed, stain-glass winged chirpies give me the willies. And don't let one land on me or near me or by me or around me, but I am still utterly fascinated. This afternoon, on my hubby's day off, we trekked through the reservation in our town and did a bit of hiking through clouds of cicadas. As we got deeper into the woods, the sound was all enveloping; each individual song rising in unison like the breath, Ohm, in a meditative state. We walked in silence, almost unable to speak or hear one another above the rising chant. We did not see cicadas with every step, were not wading through a sea of carcasses, nor did we swat at swarms of cicadas moving in a black cloud formation like I saw in multiple videos on the internet. We did have to duck down as a few seemed determined to attach to us or fly through the space we were occupying. Didier's red shirt seemed to be a draw. I was sure to stand not quite next to him. I still love it, nature I mean, but I didn't need all that nature all over me too!
The cicadas came out of the ground when it got to a comfortable sixty-two degrees in the soil. The dime-sized holes pocked the ground where they'd made their climb. The short life span allowed for just one life goal and that was to mate. From the looks of it, there needed to be billions of them if the species was going to survive. So many of these ding-dang things were crushed, floating in puddles, getting snacked on by birds and squirrels and probably somebody else out there. The ones that did make it at least out of the ground and out of harm's way were meeting wing to wing and then making the Chinese finger torture love. They would connect and one would be moving forward and the other backwards, like the bug world Fred and Ginger. Truly, the connection when made, which we witnessed many times over, is just stunning. As a metaphor for love, the overlain wings, rhythmic, unified walk, determination, will, these partnerships are amazing.
Walking in the woods with my husband of nearly five years, trying to keep up our connection when the demands of raising children and working and living and expanding and contracting threaten to kick our asses, we rooted for the cicadas to thrive and survive. We got angry, frustrated, and annoyed with the ones that landed in the water and then kept trying to walk through the water. We rescued the ones that were nearly on the edge and felt sad for the ones that had just been trampled underfoot, run down by bikers and joggers carelessly moving on the path. We watched them. We studied them. We felt thankful for the chance to be here. Be here NOW while this incredible phenomenon took place in real time and we were able to live it.
Lily is terrified out of her mind at the sight and sound of the cicadas. After a boy in her grade threw one at her, I figured she'd never come around to seeing the magic. When I told her she'd see them next when she was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, she considered it. She said she does feel like it's special. Just not for her. I get it. There are people who love to be out in it, sleeping in the dark, in a tent, in places they've never been or even in their backyards. Who might revel in the sight of monkeys coming to their door or lizards scurrying across the floor of their home. There are those who offer nuts to the squirrels and let enormous cockroaches crawl on their hands. I confess. I am not one of those. I am afraid, cautious, anxious, hopeful; it's the way I approach everything I love.
I love that the cicadas came out and that I got to be here to see them.
When they go, it'll be like the hood has been turned off in the kitchen. There will still be buzzing and then there will be silence. We will just then realize that the hum is no longer with us and that it stirred and amplified us and then let us go. When I say I love nature this is what I mean. I am genuinely shocked, awed, and humbled and though I may be scared or freaked out of my wits, I welcome the chance to love.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Back to the Suburban Grind: Running Late
Back to the Suburban Grind: Running Late: A couple of nights ago, Virginie, who has reignited the fires of late night chatter and moving about, came to our room because she was not c...
Running Late
A couple of nights ago, Virginie, who has reignited the fires of late night chatter and moving about, came to our room because she was not comfortable in her bed. It turns out that she'd accidentally wet the bed through her night time Pull Up and did not know that she could remove the pad beneath her and get back to the business of sleeping. Sleeping, apparently, was not on her agenda because she got right into our bed, had a few sips of her water, lay down, had a few more sips, lay down and started crying. I rubbed her back and tried to urge her back to sleep but to no avail. She was not comfortable and could not regroup. Around 5:15 am, I felt her body finally relax and she was asleep. What seemed like ten minutes later, the ducks on my iPhone started quacking, signaling wake up time. It was really 7 am. I felt like shit.
Lily, who'd managed to sleep the entire night in her own bed, as she usually does, woke up with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. She was reading quietly until she saw me. The chatter began promptly. Chatter on an adult without enough sleep is a kind of torture, no matter how sweet the voice and lovely the conversation. I grumbled my way through and prepped her breakfast and lunch. Once she was fully dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed and styled, and backpack packed, I got myself dressed enough and took her outside to wait for the bus. Without fanfare, she was picked up and taken off to school leaving me standing in the driveway determined to get Virginie, still asleep, snoring even, to school on time.
Tardiness, being late, not being on time is not only no virtue with the Penns, but I think entire back stories can be created about one's character should one not get "to the church on time." My father and his siblings have got a lock on the "so on time we are early" thing and they are not letting it go. Even as they advance in age, they will be the first to whatever it is, a taco stand, if it weren't so spicy! To get them all together talking about something, conversation will inevitably turn to someone who just "cannot get it together" and a big part of that is being late. So I got it. The message. Loud and clear. Virginie is in pre-school but I have to tell you, there was nothing in me that wanted to see her, tired or not, get to school after 9 am.
At 8:30, when Virginie was still, yes STILL asleep in my bed, I started to panic. Her lunch was packed, clothes laid out, backpack and folder checked and rechecked. I'd left the "hairstyling box" on the table and prepped for what I rightly assumed would be her breakfast, mini-waffles. Then I waited. For about 45 seconds and then started opening blinds, turning on music, whispering in her ear. She was going to school, I knew that, and if I could help it, she was going on time. 8:30 was already cutting it close if she was to actually eat breakfast, get dressed, brush her teeth, and get her hair done. The school is about ten minutes from our house and who knew what kind of impediments there'd be to our travel time. She needed to get up and get it together.
It isn't just about my time. I give that up on a regular basis. But being on time, I have been taught, is a sign of respect, a sign of self-worth and value, a consideration, a gesture of decency. I go insane and act like a monkey if I think we are not going to make it on time. It is a bit embarrassing and completely ridiculous at times, but the message has been implanted. I have a girlfriend who laughed with me one day when I commented on her son's near daily late arrival at school (And no it was not a holier-than-thou comment. I'd told her about my race through town to get Lily to school after a late wake up and how I was ranting about how we could not make that a habit and she said, "We are never on time. I hate it. Being on time that is"). She told me that there was something freeing about breaking the rules, not taking seriously the laws put in place, showing her son that he could come and go on his own time. She was never on time, always behind the eight ball, running, rushing, dropping off and picking up late. Her people seemed to roll with it. Maybe it made them more flexible, less rigid. I'll never know. Punctuality, even with my small people, is important.
That morning Virginie got to school fifteen minutes late. I could not deny her a good breakfast, brushing her teeth at her own pace, selection of shoes to go with her cute outfit, and a little wake up and squeeze time with Mommy. I told her that we wanted to be respectful of her teacher and try to do better next time and she promised she would. I told her that being on time would allow her the extra play in the morning before school got underway. I reminded her of the times we'd arrived promptly to other events and gotten good seating, a free snack, or early prize. She seemed to understand that Mommy built in a little time "just in case" and that getting there early was truly best for Mommy so that she could scope out the place and make sure everything was on the up and up. I was glad to help her make these connections and hoped for myself that I could release myself of some of the rigidity. True, I prefer to get to school, appointments, and parties on time, but I think the scheduled arrival and departure for the 5-hour, open-air concert could be a bit flexible. A work in progress.
I have to give myself and the people the chance to "stop and smell the roses," to slow down sometimes when life allows so we aren't just passing and running and running and passing but enjoying ourselves, each other, and tending to our most basic needs. The savored moments garnered from an unwatched clock can be so delicious. Maybe there is a happy medium or at least space for no tears and no yelling, no stress or anxiety. My tightly wound clock will surely teach the girls to respect theirs and others' time, but I hope to give them some moments so warm and wonderful that time stands still.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Lily, who'd managed to sleep the entire night in her own bed, as she usually does, woke up with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. She was reading quietly until she saw me. The chatter began promptly. Chatter on an adult without enough sleep is a kind of torture, no matter how sweet the voice and lovely the conversation. I grumbled my way through and prepped her breakfast and lunch. Once she was fully dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed and styled, and backpack packed, I got myself dressed enough and took her outside to wait for the bus. Without fanfare, she was picked up and taken off to school leaving me standing in the driveway determined to get Virginie, still asleep, snoring even, to school on time.
Tardiness, being late, not being on time is not only no virtue with the Penns, but I think entire back stories can be created about one's character should one not get "to the church on time." My father and his siblings have got a lock on the "so on time we are early" thing and they are not letting it go. Even as they advance in age, they will be the first to whatever it is, a taco stand, if it weren't so spicy! To get them all together talking about something, conversation will inevitably turn to someone who just "cannot get it together" and a big part of that is being late. So I got it. The message. Loud and clear. Virginie is in pre-school but I have to tell you, there was nothing in me that wanted to see her, tired or not, get to school after 9 am.
At 8:30, when Virginie was still, yes STILL asleep in my bed, I started to panic. Her lunch was packed, clothes laid out, backpack and folder checked and rechecked. I'd left the "hairstyling box" on the table and prepped for what I rightly assumed would be her breakfast, mini-waffles. Then I waited. For about 45 seconds and then started opening blinds, turning on music, whispering in her ear. She was going to school, I knew that, and if I could help it, she was going on time. 8:30 was already cutting it close if she was to actually eat breakfast, get dressed, brush her teeth, and get her hair done. The school is about ten minutes from our house and who knew what kind of impediments there'd be to our travel time. She needed to get up and get it together.
It isn't just about my time. I give that up on a regular basis. But being on time, I have been taught, is a sign of respect, a sign of self-worth and value, a consideration, a gesture of decency. I go insane and act like a monkey if I think we are not going to make it on time. It is a bit embarrassing and completely ridiculous at times, but the message has been implanted. I have a girlfriend who laughed with me one day when I commented on her son's near daily late arrival at school (And no it was not a holier-than-thou comment. I'd told her about my race through town to get Lily to school after a late wake up and how I was ranting about how we could not make that a habit and she said, "We are never on time. I hate it. Being on time that is"). She told me that there was something freeing about breaking the rules, not taking seriously the laws put in place, showing her son that he could come and go on his own time. She was never on time, always behind the eight ball, running, rushing, dropping off and picking up late. Her people seemed to roll with it. Maybe it made them more flexible, less rigid. I'll never know. Punctuality, even with my small people, is important.
That morning Virginie got to school fifteen minutes late. I could not deny her a good breakfast, brushing her teeth at her own pace, selection of shoes to go with her cute outfit, and a little wake up and squeeze time with Mommy. I told her that we wanted to be respectful of her teacher and try to do better next time and she promised she would. I told her that being on time would allow her the extra play in the morning before school got underway. I reminded her of the times we'd arrived promptly to other events and gotten good seating, a free snack, or early prize. She seemed to understand that Mommy built in a little time "just in case" and that getting there early was truly best for Mommy so that she could scope out the place and make sure everything was on the up and up. I was glad to help her make these connections and hoped for myself that I could release myself of some of the rigidity. True, I prefer to get to school, appointments, and parties on time, but I think the scheduled arrival and departure for the 5-hour, open-air concert could be a bit flexible. A work in progress.
I have to give myself and the people the chance to "stop and smell the roses," to slow down sometimes when life allows so we aren't just passing and running and running and passing but enjoying ourselves, each other, and tending to our most basic needs. The savored moments garnered from an unwatched clock can be so delicious. Maybe there is a happy medium or at least space for no tears and no yelling, no stress or anxiety. My tightly wound clock will surely teach the girls to respect theirs and others' time, but I hope to give them some moments so warm and wonderful that time stands still.
(c) Copyright 2013. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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