Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Back to the Suburban Grind: Hair raising
Back to the Suburban Grind: Hair raising: I cut my hair down to the quick because it was getting on my nerves. This week. A few weeks ago I cut it down to the skull because some ne...
Hair raising
I cut my hair down to the quick because it was getting on my nerves. This week. A few weeks ago I cut it down to the skull because some new product that promised to strengthen the short hair I did have on my head not only did not strengthen it but caused it to become brittle and dry. I sheared it off to start over. I'd been threatening this all summer, a massive cut, because I just could not find myself in the style that my slow-growing coif was presenting, and I wanted edgy, androgynous, strong and felt more like Dorothy Hamill mushroom or short-haired newscaster safety helmet.
I've given up on long hair. For me. When we lived in Barbados, my hair grew like a wacky weed due to the climate, moisture, water, and raging hormones I produced due to the recent arrival of my second babe. I wore it long and loose, top-knotted, with braids, shells, twists and left in the sand, conditioner, salt water (rinsing only the chlorine), and let the sun bleach it out. This was a me I never imaged. Super feminine, sexy, and girly. Only now can I admit that I was gorgeous--sun-kissed, toned, long-haired. I had headbands and rubber bands, barrettes and buns. I put flowers behind my ears and looked so demure and precious that I felt like a character. It was fun, truly. But when we got back to the States, all that hair threatened my time management and the style (mostly a bun or a ponytail) made me feel undefined and misdirected.
Since I was in seventh grade and a beauty school fuck-up destroyed my hair, my confidence, and my life in one afternoon's attempt at the ill-thought but insanely popular Jheri Curl, my hair has been short. I want to say that I took to it effortlessly, but that would be a flat out lie. I cried my face off for months as my pimply, awkward, pre-teen chubby face was forced to take center stage at just the moment that I wanted to wait in the wings. I wore a headband for years, afraid to let the hair just be, hopeful that it would grow long and full and I'd be able to poof it to heaven like all the other 80's vixens (black and white). It never dawned on me to wear a weave or a wig, they'd never have suited me, but I endured my wide open face on display with a tortured, simmering hurt.
My girls have hair down to their shoulders. The oldest has the most beautiful mane of auburn, blond, and chestnut hair that coils and twists and extends from her skull out into the world. When she wears it down, which is not often, she stuns. She has no idea of the power that head holds, and not just because of the hair. She struggles with the kinks and the knots and the fullness, but I have promised her that she will come to love it. She's a Leo and I've told her that she will walk the world like a lion one day and will love her unruly curls. For now, she wears it pulled back in a ponytail or bun. My youngest has dark brown hair with auburn highlights. Hers is wavier, thinner, and she loves it in side ponytails and topknots. Her cascading locks makes her look older than her six years. She's glamorous and girly and sweet. She often wonders aloud if I want longer hair, if I want to wear ponytails, or if I "like" my hair short "like a boy."
I do. Like it short like a boy. This is my familiar style. But it gives me no protection. There is nowhere to hide and nothing to make me beautiful on days that I am not. When my hair is short, super short like it is now, I have doubts and cannot slink under my bangs or wipe my hair back behind my ears. When it is short like this I have to hope that a wriggle of my nose or a twitching of the corners of my mouth or a flutter of my eyelashes doesn't give me away. With my hair short like this, anything and everything can be betrayed. It was once just my feelings but now it's my wrinkles, my changing hormones, my sprinkling of greys which seem to show up better when my hair is worn close to the skull.
As soon as my hair is cut, I begin the process of starting to grow it back. More as an exercise in its ability to still do that, grow, than in hoping I get locks flowing to my shoulders. The truth is that it just doesn't grow like that. There are people whose hair grows like weeds, a little water and light and the garden flourishes. Not mine. This is a black girl's story, and one that I will not tell with any fresher perspective than it has been previously told. My hair, because of the way it grows, because it is coarse and kinky, does not grown like silken threads, returning in months to pre-cut lengths. Mine can take years and breaks with frequency. The growing out sometimes leaves me frustrated and I run to the scissors. I can't wait. I have no judgment or loathing of myself because of this truth; I have resigned myself to it. The struggle is real.
The girls' hair, both some combination of my kinky, scrappy, nappy curls and my husband's fine, sweeping curls (of yesterday as he is now suffering from some level of hair loss that only occasionally strikes him as a horror) grows just fine. Mine has always needed coaxing. Oils and creams and potions. Wraps, conditioners, and special combs or brushes. It takes its time. And I wait. Until I can't.
Little girls with short pixie or asymmetricals, tight Afros or blunted bobs make me smile. The gender specific styles really influence the littles and anything that runs counter to that makes me beam. A friend has a daughter who brings her short cut, gold earrings, Star Wars, long shorts game every day and I call her my avatar. To bring it like that, as a baby boo, is so epic. The amount of judgment and projection that goes onto the shorn head of a woman or girl is pretty massive. Sometimes even I can't bear the weight. Yet she's all the way in and wondering what's wrong the folks who don't get her vibe, her style, not the other way around.
My crowning glory has to be my aura and not my hair. My halo is in the ether and not on my head. And though I sometimes have to shore myself up for each morning, each moment I pass the mirror, each time I reach to push my hair out of my face, and while I like my hair short, and have grown to love it over the past 30 years, I have never felt so seen and so naked. I imagine that people can see through my skin into my heart, can read behind my eyes, can see my thoughts, so I run my hand over my head...but it's still gone. I know it's not the hair. The hair doesn't really supply the power. It doesn't really protect or shield and it doesn't really make me more beautiful or more feminine. I don't even really look like a boy. But I have wanted to hide, to disappear, to go away, be invisible and unseen. I've seen my youth and my wide-eyed wonder recede under that skull cap of a style. I've seen my face loom larger, my eyes keener, my lines and wrinkles lightly tracing where I laughed and smiled and cried and picked. I've seen my face lurch forward with something I'd not realized was there before. Experience and wisdom.
I know things and I will not hide it. I can't. Because my hair is cut short to the quick and the truth is written all over my face.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Addendum: This is my journey with my hair. There is no judgment-stated or implied-for how others choose to wear their hair. It has been a lifelong process for me, dealing with this hair, and what the styles say to society at large, but I am at peace with it. Except for when I'm not.
I've given up on long hair. For me. When we lived in Barbados, my hair grew like a wacky weed due to the climate, moisture, water, and raging hormones I produced due to the recent arrival of my second babe. I wore it long and loose, top-knotted, with braids, shells, twists and left in the sand, conditioner, salt water (rinsing only the chlorine), and let the sun bleach it out. This was a me I never imaged. Super feminine, sexy, and girly. Only now can I admit that I was gorgeous--sun-kissed, toned, long-haired. I had headbands and rubber bands, barrettes and buns. I put flowers behind my ears and looked so demure and precious that I felt like a character. It was fun, truly. But when we got back to the States, all that hair threatened my time management and the style (mostly a bun or a ponytail) made me feel undefined and misdirected.
Since I was in seventh grade and a beauty school fuck-up destroyed my hair, my confidence, and my life in one afternoon's attempt at the ill-thought but insanely popular Jheri Curl, my hair has been short. I want to say that I took to it effortlessly, but that would be a flat out lie. I cried my face off for months as my pimply, awkward, pre-teen chubby face was forced to take center stage at just the moment that I wanted to wait in the wings. I wore a headband for years, afraid to let the hair just be, hopeful that it would grow long and full and I'd be able to poof it to heaven like all the other 80's vixens (black and white). It never dawned on me to wear a weave or a wig, they'd never have suited me, but I endured my wide open face on display with a tortured, simmering hurt.
My girls have hair down to their shoulders. The oldest has the most beautiful mane of auburn, blond, and chestnut hair that coils and twists and extends from her skull out into the world. When she wears it down, which is not often, she stuns. She has no idea of the power that head holds, and not just because of the hair. She struggles with the kinks and the knots and the fullness, but I have promised her that she will come to love it. She's a Leo and I've told her that she will walk the world like a lion one day and will love her unruly curls. For now, she wears it pulled back in a ponytail or bun. My youngest has dark brown hair with auburn highlights. Hers is wavier, thinner, and she loves it in side ponytails and topknots. Her cascading locks makes her look older than her six years. She's glamorous and girly and sweet. She often wonders aloud if I want longer hair, if I want to wear ponytails, or if I "like" my hair short "like a boy."
I do. Like it short like a boy. This is my familiar style. But it gives me no protection. There is nowhere to hide and nothing to make me beautiful on days that I am not. When my hair is short, super short like it is now, I have doubts and cannot slink under my bangs or wipe my hair back behind my ears. When it is short like this I have to hope that a wriggle of my nose or a twitching of the corners of my mouth or a flutter of my eyelashes doesn't give me away. With my hair short like this, anything and everything can be betrayed. It was once just my feelings but now it's my wrinkles, my changing hormones, my sprinkling of greys which seem to show up better when my hair is worn close to the skull.
As soon as my hair is cut, I begin the process of starting to grow it back. More as an exercise in its ability to still do that, grow, than in hoping I get locks flowing to my shoulders. The truth is that it just doesn't grow like that. There are people whose hair grows like weeds, a little water and light and the garden flourishes. Not mine. This is a black girl's story, and one that I will not tell with any fresher perspective than it has been previously told. My hair, because of the way it grows, because it is coarse and kinky, does not grown like silken threads, returning in months to pre-cut lengths. Mine can take years and breaks with frequency. The growing out sometimes leaves me frustrated and I run to the scissors. I can't wait. I have no judgment or loathing of myself because of this truth; I have resigned myself to it. The struggle is real.
The girls' hair, both some combination of my kinky, scrappy, nappy curls and my husband's fine, sweeping curls (of yesterday as he is now suffering from some level of hair loss that only occasionally strikes him as a horror) grows just fine. Mine has always needed coaxing. Oils and creams and potions. Wraps, conditioners, and special combs or brushes. It takes its time. And I wait. Until I can't.
Little girls with short pixie or asymmetricals, tight Afros or blunted bobs make me smile. The gender specific styles really influence the littles and anything that runs counter to that makes me beam. A friend has a daughter who brings her short cut, gold earrings, Star Wars, long shorts game every day and I call her my avatar. To bring it like that, as a baby boo, is so epic. The amount of judgment and projection that goes onto the shorn head of a woman or girl is pretty massive. Sometimes even I can't bear the weight. Yet she's all the way in and wondering what's wrong the folks who don't get her vibe, her style, not the other way around.
My crowning glory has to be my aura and not my hair. My halo is in the ether and not on my head. And though I sometimes have to shore myself up for each morning, each moment I pass the mirror, each time I reach to push my hair out of my face, and while I like my hair short, and have grown to love it over the past 30 years, I have never felt so seen and so naked. I imagine that people can see through my skin into my heart, can read behind my eyes, can see my thoughts, so I run my hand over my head...but it's still gone. I know it's not the hair. The hair doesn't really supply the power. It doesn't really protect or shield and it doesn't really make me more beautiful or more feminine. I don't even really look like a boy. But I have wanted to hide, to disappear, to go away, be invisible and unseen. I've seen my youth and my wide-eyed wonder recede under that skull cap of a style. I've seen my face loom larger, my eyes keener, my lines and wrinkles lightly tracing where I laughed and smiled and cried and picked. I've seen my face lurch forward with something I'd not realized was there before. Experience and wisdom.
I know things and I will not hide it. I can't. Because my hair is cut short to the quick and the truth is written all over my face.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Addendum: This is my journey with my hair. There is no judgment-stated or implied-for how others choose to wear their hair. It has been a lifelong process for me, dealing with this hair, and what the styles say to society at large, but I am at peace with it. Except for when I'm not.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Back to the Suburban Grind: A Case of the 23's
Back to the Suburban Grind: A Case of the 23's: Our main babysitter is 23 years old. A gorgeous redhead with long legs and a nervous giggle, she's smart and kind and good and funny an...
Monday, September 28, 2015
A Case of the 23's
Our main babysitter is 23 years old. A gorgeous redhead with long legs and a nervous giggle, she's smart and kind and good and funny and so loved by the girls that they throw their arms around her whenever they see her anywhere. Even at St. James Gate where we went for a beer and a bite and they saw her saddled up to the bar on her laptop on a corner stool trying to people watch and hide from the crowds. I love her too. She feels so very familiar to me.
Recently, she has been cancelling our babysitting gigs at the last minute possible with lots of apologies and promises to do better and each time, rather than giving her the business. I gently explain to her how and why this is not acceptable, make other arrangements, and then check in on her a day or two later. I have talked her through break-ups, move outs, job searches, resume building, heartache, hospital stays, sending texts in the night when a thought comes into my mind. I want her to feel loved and cared for. She's 23. It's hard to know.
When I was 23, I found my poor soul at the end of one of the most important relationships of my life. While other bigger adults knew that this was par for the course, my imminent break up was consuming me, actually consuming me and I was achy and scrawny and scratchy and messy. I'd sent my belongings out to Colorado to move with him, where we'd live "as friends and roommates" because the shit was over and I had somehow agreed to that. I'd quit my job, the job procured with the help of one of my favorite people on earth, a college painting and drawing professor who really guided me in a way I'd not been in my life, and told everyone "So long, suckas!" And then backtracked. "What the f*** was I doing?" I had not thought this plan all the way through. I was going to MOVE to Colorado with my once boyfriend/love of my life, now roommate/pal/friend/what and live there? Maybe this really did require some tears and some sense and somebody help me. I was a tortured mess. Walked all over Boston from one end to the next in the heat of the summer, eating only grapes and Cheerios, taking the occasional psychedelic, and drinking wine. I cried from sun up to sundown and in between worked and walked and cried into the telephone, making teary phone calls at 5 am to anyone who would pick up. I missed appointments and sat in corner seats at the bar thinking I was invisible when I was really lovely and basically had no idea what on earth I was doing.
When I was in my thirties and living in New York, trying my hand at acting and doing stuff I always said I would, I fell hard for a boy who was 23. Ah, the 23 year old boy. He was stunning. Brand new and full of ideas and dreams. An old soul, so we had that, but young and 23. Gorgeous in the way that only a new adult can be. I couldn't bear to prevent him from the starts and stops and joys and pains of my twenties, couldn't even ask that he catch up to me, do what I wanted, be where I was, and it ended as I suppose it should have. Even now, I wonder how this boy grew into a man because there was so much there already...at 23.
When my sitter calls or texts each time to say she's sorry but she had to throw up, missed her train, lost her keys, just cannot pull it together, I swear that this is the absolute last straw. I need someone more reliable, someone who can commit, who cares about my schedule and my needs. I DO need that still. And sometimes I ask someone else to come or trade off my kids for someone else's another day. But when someone comes down with a case of the 23's, they need compassion and they need guidance and they need love. I give the business. I do. I say things like, "You don't want to represent yourself out there like that. You don't want to prove to be untrustworthy. Your word is your bond, you have to give it sincerely." I'm right. But I also remember being and feeling so brand new and believing that everything was just as urgent and important and earth-shattering as the first baby steps of a toddler. The world was opening up. I wanted to and believed I could do anything...if I could just get out of my own way.
When the girls get there, to 23, I hope I can breathe that rarefied air with them, recall when someone gave me a break and a nudge, let me go into the world and said they'd catch me, they'd be there, they'd let me figure it out, and give them the space to fuck up so beautifully. It is a fleeting moment, special and lovely, where you can get away with just about anything. Worn like leggings with short shirts, t-shirts with no bra, high heels with everything. It's for the young. And they look so good doing it, even if they drive you crazy and leave you hanging.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Recently, she has been cancelling our babysitting gigs at the last minute possible with lots of apologies and promises to do better and each time, rather than giving her the business. I gently explain to her how and why this is not acceptable, make other arrangements, and then check in on her a day or two later. I have talked her through break-ups, move outs, job searches, resume building, heartache, hospital stays, sending texts in the night when a thought comes into my mind. I want her to feel loved and cared for. She's 23. It's hard to know.
When I was 23, I found my poor soul at the end of one of the most important relationships of my life. While other bigger adults knew that this was par for the course, my imminent break up was consuming me, actually consuming me and I was achy and scrawny and scratchy and messy. I'd sent my belongings out to Colorado to move with him, where we'd live "as friends and roommates" because the shit was over and I had somehow agreed to that. I'd quit my job, the job procured with the help of one of my favorite people on earth, a college painting and drawing professor who really guided me in a way I'd not been in my life, and told everyone "So long, suckas!" And then backtracked. "What the f*** was I doing?" I had not thought this plan all the way through. I was going to MOVE to Colorado with my once boyfriend/love of my life, now roommate/pal/friend/what and live there? Maybe this really did require some tears and some sense and somebody help me. I was a tortured mess. Walked all over Boston from one end to the next in the heat of the summer, eating only grapes and Cheerios, taking the occasional psychedelic, and drinking wine. I cried from sun up to sundown and in between worked and walked and cried into the telephone, making teary phone calls at 5 am to anyone who would pick up. I missed appointments and sat in corner seats at the bar thinking I was invisible when I was really lovely and basically had no idea what on earth I was doing.
When I was in my thirties and living in New York, trying my hand at acting and doing stuff I always said I would, I fell hard for a boy who was 23. Ah, the 23 year old boy. He was stunning. Brand new and full of ideas and dreams. An old soul, so we had that, but young and 23. Gorgeous in the way that only a new adult can be. I couldn't bear to prevent him from the starts and stops and joys and pains of my twenties, couldn't even ask that he catch up to me, do what I wanted, be where I was, and it ended as I suppose it should have. Even now, I wonder how this boy grew into a man because there was so much there already...at 23.
When my sitter calls or texts each time to say she's sorry but she had to throw up, missed her train, lost her keys, just cannot pull it together, I swear that this is the absolute last straw. I need someone more reliable, someone who can commit, who cares about my schedule and my needs. I DO need that still. And sometimes I ask someone else to come or trade off my kids for someone else's another day. But when someone comes down with a case of the 23's, they need compassion and they need guidance and they need love. I give the business. I do. I say things like, "You don't want to represent yourself out there like that. You don't want to prove to be untrustworthy. Your word is your bond, you have to give it sincerely." I'm right. But I also remember being and feeling so brand new and believing that everything was just as urgent and important and earth-shattering as the first baby steps of a toddler. The world was opening up. I wanted to and believed I could do anything...if I could just get out of my own way.
When the girls get there, to 23, I hope I can breathe that rarefied air with them, recall when someone gave me a break and a nudge, let me go into the world and said they'd catch me, they'd be there, they'd let me figure it out, and give them the space to fuck up so beautifully. It is a fleeting moment, special and lovely, where you can get away with just about anything. Worn like leggings with short shirts, t-shirts with no bra, high heels with everything. It's for the young. And they look so good doing it, even if they drive you crazy and leave you hanging.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Back to the Suburban Grind: Tip of the iceberg: An average life
Back to the Suburban Grind: Tip of the iceberg: An average life: This is how I feel right now. I am in 9th grade reading Huckleberry Finn with my class and each time they call Jim a nigger, I cringe. And...
Tip of the iceberg: An average life
This is how I feel right now. I am in 9th grade reading Huckleberry Finn with my class and each time they call Jim a nigger, I cringe. And it's said over and over. Many look at me sympathetically, shrug their shoulders, some even touch me on the arm if they are close enough because we all know, no matter how we all long for the adventure, that poor, ol' Jim and I have more in common than Huck and me. I don't deny that most feel uncomfortable with the language that is explained away with a "that's how people spoke of black folks at that time" but when we move on to "A Farewell to Arms" everyone else can drop their shame, their melancholy, longing for the expectation that I have forgiven this past and that "we've come a long way, baby" and get back to modern living.
But I see Jim and I know him because, though you may be looking at me and seeing an upper middle class, well-educated, articulate, funny, put together (at times) African-American (I prefer Black) woman with a handsome, French husband and two beautiful mixed kids, I come from a long line where Jim and folks like him are roots on my tree. I am, as the expression goes, the tip of the iceberg, but under the surface is a lineage of survivors and thrivers, former slaves and slavers. We are mixed by choice and very often not. I spent my early years and my summers on the front porch of my grandparents' home at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Though I lived in a white neighborhood in New Jersey and believed myself assimilated, I sat at the feet of my grands and great-grands and heard about racism firsthand. Not just being called "nigger" or "blackie" or "brown sugar" by white kids testing their power and position in the wide streets of the suburbs, but pervasive, oppressive, strangulating cruelty that only served to threaten and stunt the mental, emotional, spiritual, and social growth of black people. These were not stories or headlines. These tales were the lives of my family and my ancestors. No matter where I am in the world, this is the ground beneath me.
I did not grow up the way many envision black people growing up. Not because it is so rare but because you don't know us. And if you do, really do, then I am not talking to you, but I would venture to guess that you don't really. I dream of a life that is banal, no more exciting or charged than that of anyone else, maybe even the default. The life you think of when you think of every day life. And then I wake up and remember that I am black. That I am a black, sensitive, creative woman who, by nature of being black in America, cannot live an average life. That my life is meant to define, describe, explain, assuage, and calm the feelings of other citizens allowed to live their mundane lives while mine is fraught with symbolism and metaphor and hyperbole.
My grandmother told me often that she wanted better for me, for all of us, was grateful for what she'd seen us achieve in such a short amount of time, hoped that "white people were fair and good" to us. There was palpable fear and doubt, but also hope. I wanted to tell her, to show her that all her suffering and her efforts had not been in vain, that we were advancing. That the rapes, assaults, laws, white supremacy, and pervasive and accepted racism were seen as the horrors they were, were being put firmly in the past, and that WE were being seen for the "content of our character." And the advancement of our family specifically was tied to our advancement as black people in America collectively. Many black families will tell you the same. For us to be able to just be average, regular, unspectacular, under the radar, just living our lives gave her hope. It was the tip of the iceberg. She was sure we'd overcome. I carried that hope for her.
There were small things that reminded me we hadn't come as far as I'd hoped. My father getting followed home by the police on a morning run. People assuming he was a ball player because he drove a nice car. Having a very hard time finding an apartment even with full time employment, good credit, and a clean record. Having to consider that I had a clean record. Listening to people tell me, when hearing my experience as a black woman in America that racism wasn't the problem but poverty and elitism. Um, AND those too. Having to qualify that though, yes, micro-aggressions were not the same as being beaten or killed in the street, dealing with them was still incredibly damaging to the psyche. Having someone, a "friend" write something about "hey, blacks, I've suffered too and look at me" on my Facebook wall in response to more proof of the systemic racism that prevails in our country. Imagine trying to be part of a group or society or country but when the conch shell gets passed to you, everyone talks over you. Tells you it's not your turn.
If we meet you with rage, if we meet you with anger, you call us animals and beat us or pepper spray us or shoot us. If we ask for a fair shake, an opportunity, a chance, you say we are angling for special privilege. If we write stories or articles or blogs about our experiences on the outside, you say we, WE are the ones being divisive. If we tell you we are hurting, we are tired, we are traumatized by the rhetoric, by the hatred, by the violence, the unrelenting insensitivity and ignorance, you say buck up. When innocent black men, women, and children are murdered, people who look like us, in epic abuses of power, and no justice comes on their behalf. When we cry for them, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, cousins, friends, we are asked to consider why they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. We are told that if they'd just listened, behaved, respected the law and the policies that were not designed with them in mind, they might have lived another day to face it all again.
This racist system is real and it's killing all of us. Not just Black people, but our country. It's not that we are a nation divided by black and white because that isn't true. It wasn't then and it isn't now. But racism, complacency, white privilege and its hideous cousin, white supremacy do threaten to tear us apart. And everything that anyone finds great about this nation will crumble into the seas like the icebergs of white and blue and purple crumbling under the heat of global warming. We are dying ever so slowly from a disease that feels impossible to stop. We are sure it is going to overtake us, consume us. It just might. Like people suffering from illness, we can resign or we can fight it with all we have. There is prayer, meditation, and there is love. And love...
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13
I don't deny it, I am sinking, melting into the sea, afraid I will never be solid again. Each week, as I try to do what everyone else is doing, raising their children, trying to give them values and truths to uphold them, I am crying into the back of my hand, afraid to let them see what lies beneath the surface of their gleaming pyramid called life. I held the hope for my grandmother and now I hold it for my daughters. This conversation is just the start. It's the tip of the iceberg but if we don't tend to it, we are bound to hit the parts below the surface and dash all our dreams of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for an average life made special by our content, by our character, by our cooperation, and by our love.
RIP to the victims of the cowardly act of terrorism in at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
But I see Jim and I know him because, though you may be looking at me and seeing an upper middle class, well-educated, articulate, funny, put together (at times) African-American (I prefer Black) woman with a handsome, French husband and two beautiful mixed kids, I come from a long line where Jim and folks like him are roots on my tree. I am, as the expression goes, the tip of the iceberg, but under the surface is a lineage of survivors and thrivers, former slaves and slavers. We are mixed by choice and very often not. I spent my early years and my summers on the front porch of my grandparents' home at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Though I lived in a white neighborhood in New Jersey and believed myself assimilated, I sat at the feet of my grands and great-grands and heard about racism firsthand. Not just being called "nigger" or "blackie" or "brown sugar" by white kids testing their power and position in the wide streets of the suburbs, but pervasive, oppressive, strangulating cruelty that only served to threaten and stunt the mental, emotional, spiritual, and social growth of black people. These were not stories or headlines. These tales were the lives of my family and my ancestors. No matter where I am in the world, this is the ground beneath me.
I did not grow up the way many envision black people growing up. Not because it is so rare but because you don't know us. And if you do, really do, then I am not talking to you, but I would venture to guess that you don't really. I dream of a life that is banal, no more exciting or charged than that of anyone else, maybe even the default. The life you think of when you think of every day life. And then I wake up and remember that I am black. That I am a black, sensitive, creative woman who, by nature of being black in America, cannot live an average life. That my life is meant to define, describe, explain, assuage, and calm the feelings of other citizens allowed to live their mundane lives while mine is fraught with symbolism and metaphor and hyperbole.
There were small things that reminded me we hadn't come as far as I'd hoped. My father getting followed home by the police on a morning run. People assuming he was a ball player because he drove a nice car. Having a very hard time finding an apartment even with full time employment, good credit, and a clean record. Having to consider that I had a clean record. Listening to people tell me, when hearing my experience as a black woman in America that racism wasn't the problem but poverty and elitism. Um, AND those too. Having to qualify that though, yes, micro-aggressions were not the same as being beaten or killed in the street, dealing with them was still incredibly damaging to the psyche. Having someone, a "friend" write something about "hey, blacks, I've suffered too and look at me" on my Facebook wall in response to more proof of the systemic racism that prevails in our country. Imagine trying to be part of a group or society or country but when the conch shell gets passed to you, everyone talks over you. Tells you it's not your turn.
If we meet you with rage, if we meet you with anger, you call us animals and beat us or pepper spray us or shoot us. If we ask for a fair shake, an opportunity, a chance, you say we are angling for special privilege. If we write stories or articles or blogs about our experiences on the outside, you say we, WE are the ones being divisive. If we tell you we are hurting, we are tired, we are traumatized by the rhetoric, by the hatred, by the violence, the unrelenting insensitivity and ignorance, you say buck up. When innocent black men, women, and children are murdered, people who look like us, in epic abuses of power, and no justice comes on their behalf. When we cry for them, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, cousins, friends, we are asked to consider why they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. We are told that if they'd just listened, behaved, respected the law and the policies that were not designed with them in mind, they might have lived another day to face it all again.
This racist system is real and it's killing all of us. Not just Black people, but our country. It's not that we are a nation divided by black and white because that isn't true. It wasn't then and it isn't now. But racism, complacency, white privilege and its hideous cousin, white supremacy do threaten to tear us apart. And everything that anyone finds great about this nation will crumble into the seas like the icebergs of white and blue and purple crumbling under the heat of global warming. We are dying ever so slowly from a disease that feels impossible to stop. We are sure it is going to overtake us, consume us. It just might. Like people suffering from illness, we can resign or we can fight it with all we have. There is prayer, meditation, and there is love. And love...
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13
I don't deny it, I am sinking, melting into the sea, afraid I will never be solid again. Each week, as I try to do what everyone else is doing, raising their children, trying to give them values and truths to uphold them, I am crying into the back of my hand, afraid to let them see what lies beneath the surface of their gleaming pyramid called life. I held the hope for my grandmother and now I hold it for my daughters. This conversation is just the start. It's the tip of the iceberg but if we don't tend to it, we are bound to hit the parts below the surface and dash all our dreams of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for an average life made special by our content, by our character, by our cooperation, and by our love.
RIP to the victims of the cowardly act of terrorism in at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Back to the Suburban Grind: Color Me Bad
Back to the Suburban Grind: Color Me Bad: I don't know if the confusion is because my husband is French or because he is older than I am, but this whole birthday party planning t...
Color Me Bad
I don't know if the confusion is because my husband is French or because he is older than I am, but this whole birthday party planning thing has blown his mind. The lengths we have gone to to celebrate the birth of these people with their peers in a way fit for a new millennium-born hurts the brain. I honestly cannot say when all this happened because other than roller skating and bowling parties, there was not much else, unless a trip to McDonald's or the local ice cream parlor was your thing, for a child of the 70s to do to celebrate his or her birthday. The cake was almost always made at home and looked like all the cakes at that time--lopsided, licked, amateurish (except for one friend whose mother was a cake decorator and her cakes looked like heaven). The gifts were straight from the Mattel catalog and wrapped with little attention or care. There was pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, 2 liter Cokes, Sprite, and orange or grape soda, and bowls of junk food to choke a horse. I recall lots of running around and games like Simon Sez, musical chairs, and too much balloon popping, none helium filled. Basically, birthday parties were chaos, cost was minimal, sugar was plentiful, and fun was guaranteed to be a bit Lord of Flies meets Super Friends. It didn't really involve the adults who were there just to keep everyone in the ring.
My husband recalls his birthdays celebrated with family. A favorite meal, a lovely cake or tarte. If there were others involved, there was lots of outdoor activity, enjoying nature and its beauty. Kids wore nice clothes and uncomfortable shoes. They were quiet, elegant affairs. Yeah, so...the French do everything in a more sophisticated way. Whatevs.
Our six year old peanut had us choose between a gambling establishment for littles and tweens, silly games and twee rides, jumping parlors and castles, roller skating (She's a novice and my anxiety can't take her and all her friends falling all over the rink.), and this adorable pottery painting place. With foresight that we could never have known was brilliant until the moment our wee one's toe was crushed, leaving her unable to participate in physical activities, we opted for pottery painting at Color Me Mine. We invited all the girls from her class and two other pals who do not go to school with her and pre-ordered the Party Animal package.
The Party Animal package offered a choice of five ceramic animals to paint--a unicorn, a dragon, a kitten, a puppy, and a dolphin. With the party scheduled for just an hour and a 1/2, I figured painting, cupcakes, singing, balloons, done. Ten minutes after all the girls were given their animals to paint, the first was finished. Our staff host, not missing a beat, handed out paper bags to color and design. These bags would be the packaging for the finished products, the carrying cases for the work that we, my husband and I (probably just I), would deliver once the pieces had been fired and collected.
The Party Animal package was also an apt title for our working performance art piece because once these girls were set free from their own parental confines and rules, they let it loose! No matter that we were in an establishment with other people trying to get their creativity on painting plates and cups and ceramic tchtotchkes that said LOVE or were shaped like Winnie the Pooh, these animals were here to party! We served carrots and strawberries and pretzels, had juice boxes and water, and at the end of the fete we all sang "happy birthday" to my daughter standing before a line of mini-cupcakes (vanilla with vanilla frosting) decorated with candles that spelled out "happy birthday." (How apropos.)
The goodie bags I'd put together a few days earlier had fun craft stuffs, stickers, sidewalk chalk, and just one piece of candy (I'm not crazy about sending kids off into the world hopped up on sugary BS but I have no problem searching for grape soda if my oldest says she wants to taste it. Go figure. Hypocrisies of parenting.) Our baby said that her special day, celebrated one month after her actual birthday because of our Spring Break travel, was the best day ever. She has lots of those. Best days ever. My work is done.
...and yet. It sits funny with me this way of celebrating a birthday. True, it was my choice to have the party outside of my home, to turn it into an event, to pay someone else to do what I was unable or unwilling to do. I have had many birthday parties in the house and all of them involved projects. There was a shoe decorating party, tie-dye t-shirt party, princess party with costumes and crown decorating. It has been incredibly difficult for me to let go of the reins and let someone else take over and not because I am a control freak (or not only because of that), but because I have a hard time giving myself permission to not be everything at all times to my children. To everyone really. When I am tired, when I say I am spent, when I say I can't go on, can't do it, I still do. When I say no about something, I try to find a way to surprise a yes. Letting someone else run the party, handle the details and the minutia, put out the fires, and clean up the mess means my role has to change. It means that I cannot hide in the rush of the activity but have to stand stock in the center of it all and just be.
There are so many parties, birthday and other celebrations that have so much fanfare. I recall fabulous birthday parties for the classmates of my girls in Barbados where there was swimming and grilling and clowns and music and open bar and balloons and face painting and jumping castles and costume changes and the presentation of the celebrated as king or queen for a day. It was like a circus or carnival. And now back in the States, there are trips to all sorts of places set up for kids' enjoyment--skating and jumping and driving and water sports and painting, creating, dressing up. Parents spare no expense in honoring the arrival of their little ones to the world. But I miss the chaos of a 70s birthday party, the accidentally marvelous moments as opposed to the orchestrated, manufactured fun. I miss the innocence and the surprise of celebration, the wonder of it all.
All the girl babies from the party will have a little something to remind them of their time celebrating Virginie's birthday, at least for as long as their parents choose to keep it. Our girls will add them to the rows of other memorabilia from their childhood thus far and they will rest with the satisfaction that we showed them how much we love them by feting them so marvelously. But really, the part I like best about the girls' birthdays is when I can recount for them the days they were born. They love to hear the small details, a super hot day with melting pavement and hours wrapped in blankets in the cold room for Lily and a rainy afternoon when I stared out the picture window of my hospital room knowing she was soon to arrive for Virginie. They know these parties with so many celebrants will not last much longer. They have been told that age 10 is our cut off and that we prefer smaller events with just special friends to massive, all out galas.
I'm not crazy about celebrating like that, fearful that using money and gifts and grand events to show how I love them diminishes the greater truth. I want them to feel honored by how we love one another, to know it no matter what I have to give or don't. I want the truth to be that we love each other, celebrate each other, honor each other, care for each other, and will show it with our feelings, our hearts, and our actions. I don't want to buy their happiness or let them think they are owed such extravagance at every milestone, achievement, or event. It can't be about the money. It's purpose and it's value already threatens our daily existence. It's about the love. I can dole that out and sprinkle it everywhere, everyday. And sometimes it has to be enough even on the special days.
The painted dolphin and dragon sit on the book shelf in the girls' room. They love them and had a great time at the party. Right before bed, Virginie said in the sleepiest voice, "I know you and Papa and Lily love me because you tell me every day. But also thank you for letting me have this party. It was the best day ever." And then I don't feel so bad.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My husband recalls his birthdays celebrated with family. A favorite meal, a lovely cake or tarte. If there were others involved, there was lots of outdoor activity, enjoying nature and its beauty. Kids wore nice clothes and uncomfortable shoes. They were quiet, elegant affairs. Yeah, so...the French do everything in a more sophisticated way. Whatevs.
Our six year old peanut had us choose between a gambling establishment for littles and tweens, silly games and twee rides, jumping parlors and castles, roller skating (She's a novice and my anxiety can't take her and all her friends falling all over the rink.), and this adorable pottery painting place. With foresight that we could never have known was brilliant until the moment our wee one's toe was crushed, leaving her unable to participate in physical activities, we opted for pottery painting at Color Me Mine. We invited all the girls from her class and two other pals who do not go to school with her and pre-ordered the Party Animal package.
The Party Animal package offered a choice of five ceramic animals to paint--a unicorn, a dragon, a kitten, a puppy, and a dolphin. With the party scheduled for just an hour and a 1/2, I figured painting, cupcakes, singing, balloons, done. Ten minutes after all the girls were given their animals to paint, the first was finished. Our staff host, not missing a beat, handed out paper bags to color and design. These bags would be the packaging for the finished products, the carrying cases for the work that we, my husband and I (probably just I), would deliver once the pieces had been fired and collected.
The Party Animal package was also an apt title for our working performance art piece because once these girls were set free from their own parental confines and rules, they let it loose! No matter that we were in an establishment with other people trying to get their creativity on painting plates and cups and ceramic tchtotchkes that said LOVE or were shaped like Winnie the Pooh, these animals were here to party! We served carrots and strawberries and pretzels, had juice boxes and water, and at the end of the fete we all sang "happy birthday" to my daughter standing before a line of mini-cupcakes (vanilla with vanilla frosting) decorated with candles that spelled out "happy birthday." (How apropos.)
The goodie bags I'd put together a few days earlier had fun craft stuffs, stickers, sidewalk chalk, and just one piece of candy (I'm not crazy about sending kids off into the world hopped up on sugary BS but I have no problem searching for grape soda if my oldest says she wants to taste it. Go figure. Hypocrisies of parenting.) Our baby said that her special day, celebrated one month after her actual birthday because of our Spring Break travel, was the best day ever. She has lots of those. Best days ever. My work is done.
...and yet. It sits funny with me this way of celebrating a birthday. True, it was my choice to have the party outside of my home, to turn it into an event, to pay someone else to do what I was unable or unwilling to do. I have had many birthday parties in the house and all of them involved projects. There was a shoe decorating party, tie-dye t-shirt party, princess party with costumes and crown decorating. It has been incredibly difficult for me to let go of the reins and let someone else take over and not because I am a control freak (or not only because of that), but because I have a hard time giving myself permission to not be everything at all times to my children. To everyone really. When I am tired, when I say I am spent, when I say I can't go on, can't do it, I still do. When I say no about something, I try to find a way to surprise a yes. Letting someone else run the party, handle the details and the minutia, put out the fires, and clean up the mess means my role has to change. It means that I cannot hide in the rush of the activity but have to stand stock in the center of it all and just be.
There are so many parties, birthday and other celebrations that have so much fanfare. I recall fabulous birthday parties for the classmates of my girls in Barbados where there was swimming and grilling and clowns and music and open bar and balloons and face painting and jumping castles and costume changes and the presentation of the celebrated as king or queen for a day. It was like a circus or carnival. And now back in the States, there are trips to all sorts of places set up for kids' enjoyment--skating and jumping and driving and water sports and painting, creating, dressing up. Parents spare no expense in honoring the arrival of their little ones to the world. But I miss the chaos of a 70s birthday party, the accidentally marvelous moments as opposed to the orchestrated, manufactured fun. I miss the innocence and the surprise of celebration, the wonder of it all.
All the girl babies from the party will have a little something to remind them of their time celebrating Virginie's birthday, at least for as long as their parents choose to keep it. Our girls will add them to the rows of other memorabilia from their childhood thus far and they will rest with the satisfaction that we showed them how much we love them by feting them so marvelously. But really, the part I like best about the girls' birthdays is when I can recount for them the days they were born. They love to hear the small details, a super hot day with melting pavement and hours wrapped in blankets in the cold room for Lily and a rainy afternoon when I stared out the picture window of my hospital room knowing she was soon to arrive for Virginie. They know these parties with so many celebrants will not last much longer. They have been told that age 10 is our cut off and that we prefer smaller events with just special friends to massive, all out galas.
I'm not crazy about celebrating like that, fearful that using money and gifts and grand events to show how I love them diminishes the greater truth. I want them to feel honored by how we love one another, to know it no matter what I have to give or don't. I want the truth to be that we love each other, celebrate each other, honor each other, care for each other, and will show it with our feelings, our hearts, and our actions. I don't want to buy their happiness or let them think they are owed such extravagance at every milestone, achievement, or event. It can't be about the money. It's purpose and it's value already threatens our daily existence. It's about the love. I can dole that out and sprinkle it everywhere, everyday. And sometimes it has to be enough even on the special days.
The painted dolphin and dragon sit on the book shelf in the girls' room. They love them and had a great time at the party. Right before bed, Virginie said in the sleepiest voice, "I know you and Papa and Lily love me because you tell me every day. But also thank you for letting me have this party. It was the best day ever." And then I don't feel so bad.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Back to the Suburban Grind: Mother's Day: broken and fixed
Back to the Suburban Grind: Mother's Day: broken and fixed: Delicious treats dreamed up by my love, fabulous gifts, and the comfort of family makes Mother's Day special or at least appropriately c...
Mother's Day: broken and fixed
Delicious treats dreamed up by my love, fabulous gifts, and the comfort of family makes Mother's Day special or at least appropriately celebrated in the eyes of our everyday-is-a-party culture. I don't need pomp and circumstance and surely don't stand on ceremony, not for this made up day. Mother's Day is always a strange one for me. My husband, who is a private chef, almost always works so that the lady of the house can celebrate with her family in grand fashion. THAT is her Mother's Day.
Mine, at least for the past few years, looks more like this: my husband leaves for a beautiful destination of the rich and famous by private jet or souped up, tinted-window SUV to prepare luxury meals and treats for his clients, and I finish out the week of school, activities, play dates, grocery shopping, story reading (now listening since the 6 year old is thrilled to show off her reading), and socializing on my own. It's our rhythm and save the early school drop off on Friday when both girls need to be ready early enough to drop by 8 am, I can and do handle it.
I am too keenly aware of how quickly my children are growing up. Little chubby hands and fat, yummy fingers have become strong and elegant, rolly-poly bodies have elongated into graceful torsos, arms and legs for days, and beautiful faces resting on long necks. I measure time by these changes, recall real life events by growing and falling teeth, short or long hair, training wheels or riding free. In a mother's calendar there are also injuries and ailments as mile markers, moments that stop one's heart, and shore up strengths one did not know were there.
I remember when Lily broke her finger one summer when her cousin was visiting and recall her saying with pride after she'd been X-rayed and splinted, "I can't believe I broke a bone!" She was beaming and proud of her ability to hurt, to suffer, and to endure. She was so human in that moment and she brought my fantasy of being able to protect them, live the hurts for them, take the force of the blow, crashing to the ground. And months later when Virginie, walking with some friends along the creek that either trickles or rages through our town depending on the season, tripped and cut her chin requiring three stitches, I regretted the choice I made to allow her the opportunity to explore and court danger.
It's the delusion I have of shielding my children from life's pains and ills and woes, and physical safety seems a good place to practice. How many times a day do I say, "Be careful! Watch out! Don't touch that! Don't slip! Don't fall! Look out! Why would you do that? You are going to hurt yourself!" And hurt sucks. The iconic images of motherhood show women cuddling and comforting their children, holding them close, wiping tears and touching boo-boo's. The urban mythology of mothers lifting cars, running into burning buildings, staring down wild animals or humans to keep their babes safe only emphasizes this expectation.
When I arrived to a screaming Virginie, hurt on an after-school play date, her middle toe on her left foot smashed by a falling board, I immediately knew it was bad. She was screaming bloody murder. There was blood everywhere. Her tears were fat, her fear palpable, and I needed to make it right. Though I hate driving, especially on any road with more than 2 cars, I packed up my peanut in the car with her favorite things and some warm clothes and raced her to the ER. I carried her in and though I did not scream like Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment", I would have if the staff wasn't so efficient. I hadn't taken the time to truly look at her little toe because I'd gone into autopilot, but now we had time to be together...and I peeked.
She looked at me with those longing, big, brown eyes, eyelashes glued together with tears, and asked, "Is it bad? Is it bad, Mama?"
"It's alright, Peanut. We are going to get you better. These people here are going to help us. Just hold onto Mommy if you feel scared." And she squeezed. And I squeezed back. Also the tears. Her toe looked so, so terrible and it was. I wondered how this tiny thing had suffered, what she must have felt and thought, when pain, pain like that is still relatively new. I thought about all the hurts I'd ever had, all the hurts from which I will need to shield her, all the shoring up, all the armor, and I wished that I could take the hit. I silently prayed, "Why didn't you let it happen to me? Why did it have to be her?" And I became steely because we had hours to go and I was angry and hurt for her and I could only be by her side and bombard her with love and comfort. (Broken)
She was wheeled into a room for an X-ray to make sure that her toe wasn't broken. It was cold in the room and made heavy by the lead aprons we wore to shield our organs from the radiation. Hers was a ladybug. Mine was blue. She lay there on that table, following directions and holding still, tiny tears falling to her ears, balling her hands into fists. She was pulling it together. She looked at me and I smiled and she at me. She got to wheel herself back in a wheelchair (a wheelchair!) to our triage curtain and she beamed. Though she could "feel her heartbeat in her toe" we were coming to the other side of this ordeal. When she was back on her bed, I got on with her and we cuddled. She asked me if it was okay for me to be on the bed with her to which I replied, "Mommy makes her own rules when it comes to her babies. If you need me here, then YES, it's more than okay."
After a long afternoon into evening, Virginie ended up losing her toenail and getting five stitches to close her toe. A piece of antibiotic gauze was put in place to hopefully facilitate regrowth of her nail. She will have to get a boot to walk and is taking antibiotics to protect against infection. Sutures, rather than stitches, were used to close her toe because, as the doctor said, "This is not like the stitches in her chin that we put in to allow minimal scarring. This is her toe and it needs more time to heal. If it scars, it's in a place where no one can see it...unless she is wearing sandals." She'll have her tiny scars tucked on her foot, shared only with those she allows close.
And so will I. Teeny, tiny little scars made each time I see them hurt, whether on accident or on purpose, lacerate my heart. I will see the stitching, the jagged lines where the skin came back together. Those are for the physical ouches. And of the psychological tears? The emotional punctures? Hidden wounds? As she lay on the suturing table, wrapped in the cocoon to prevent her from moving, fear, frustration, pain on her face, I put my nose to hers, felt her eyelashes on my cheek, and whispered to her about the unicorns and sweets we think about before we dream. We talked about how we were together and how I would never leave her, would always be nose to nose, eyelashes to cheek, butterfly kisses, even when I wasn't really there. She quieted herself, went inside, and she believed me. She trusted me. Even in her hurt she believed that I would give her everything I had, that I was somehow feeling her pain or that I would at least walk with her through it. Comfort.
My husband is not here and we are not having a crazy display of elegant foods. I won't drink a mimosa in bed, nor will I sit with my feet up or even sleep past 6:45 am. I won't play queen for a day or do "something special for myself," at least not the kind of special that many believe moms are looking for. I am relieved that my girl is alright. I am proud of myself for getting in the car and driving her to the hospital and keeping a cool head. I am grateful for the people in my life who know what an accomplishment that is for me.
While sitting in the emergency room before Virginie was seen by a doctor I thought, "My baby will be scarred. She's only six years old and something is already broken. Her perfect little feet, her tiny toenails are gone." Yes, I know it's ridiculous. When they are those cute, little cherubs, smooth-skinned and innocent, we try so desperately to keep them clean of wounds, bruises, hurts. They are the best of us, the good in us, the pure. Each fall, scrape, tumble left me holding my breath, hoping it wouldn't be too bad, that it would heal quickly and leave no trace on their bodies or in their hearts.
Two days after she was hurt, Virginie is hopping on one foot through the house, laughing and smiling and chatting as she always has. Her foot is wrapped and the gauze is looking worse for the wear even after just two days. She's been fixed, is on the mend, will come out unscathed if not unscarred. But it's me, Mommy, who is taking a little longer to heal. Being a mom (for me) means going all the way in. Into the pain, into the hurt, into the past, into the joy, into a depth of love that frankly, nothing in my life before ever prepared me for. It's breaking and putting myself back together all the time. Its carrying the hurt with them and for them. It is doing my best to keep them from being broken.
We're together this morning and we are whole.
Happy Mother's Day.
(c) 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Mine, at least for the past few years, looks more like this: my husband leaves for a beautiful destination of the rich and famous by private jet or souped up, tinted-window SUV to prepare luxury meals and treats for his clients, and I finish out the week of school, activities, play dates, grocery shopping, story reading (now listening since the 6 year old is thrilled to show off her reading), and socializing on my own. It's our rhythm and save the early school drop off on Friday when both girls need to be ready early enough to drop by 8 am, I can and do handle it.
I am too keenly aware of how quickly my children are growing up. Little chubby hands and fat, yummy fingers have become strong and elegant, rolly-poly bodies have elongated into graceful torsos, arms and legs for days, and beautiful faces resting on long necks. I measure time by these changes, recall real life events by growing and falling teeth, short or long hair, training wheels or riding free. In a mother's calendar there are also injuries and ailments as mile markers, moments that stop one's heart, and shore up strengths one did not know were there.
I remember when Lily broke her finger one summer when her cousin was visiting and recall her saying with pride after she'd been X-rayed and splinted, "I can't believe I broke a bone!" She was beaming and proud of her ability to hurt, to suffer, and to endure. She was so human in that moment and she brought my fantasy of being able to protect them, live the hurts for them, take the force of the blow, crashing to the ground. And months later when Virginie, walking with some friends along the creek that either trickles or rages through our town depending on the season, tripped and cut her chin requiring three stitches, I regretted the choice I made to allow her the opportunity to explore and court danger.
It's the delusion I have of shielding my children from life's pains and ills and woes, and physical safety seems a good place to practice. How many times a day do I say, "Be careful! Watch out! Don't touch that! Don't slip! Don't fall! Look out! Why would you do that? You are going to hurt yourself!" And hurt sucks. The iconic images of motherhood show women cuddling and comforting their children, holding them close, wiping tears and touching boo-boo's. The urban mythology of mothers lifting cars, running into burning buildings, staring down wild animals or humans to keep their babes safe only emphasizes this expectation.
When I arrived to a screaming Virginie, hurt on an after-school play date, her middle toe on her left foot smashed by a falling board, I immediately knew it was bad. She was screaming bloody murder. There was blood everywhere. Her tears were fat, her fear palpable, and I needed to make it right. Though I hate driving, especially on any road with more than 2 cars, I packed up my peanut in the car with her favorite things and some warm clothes and raced her to the ER. I carried her in and though I did not scream like Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment", I would have if the staff wasn't so efficient. I hadn't taken the time to truly look at her little toe because I'd gone into autopilot, but now we had time to be together...and I peeked.
She looked at me with those longing, big, brown eyes, eyelashes glued together with tears, and asked, "Is it bad? Is it bad, Mama?"
"It's alright, Peanut. We are going to get you better. These people here are going to help us. Just hold onto Mommy if you feel scared." And she squeezed. And I squeezed back. Also the tears. Her toe looked so, so terrible and it was. I wondered how this tiny thing had suffered, what she must have felt and thought, when pain, pain like that is still relatively new. I thought about all the hurts I'd ever had, all the hurts from which I will need to shield her, all the shoring up, all the armor, and I wished that I could take the hit. I silently prayed, "Why didn't you let it happen to me? Why did it have to be her?" And I became steely because we had hours to go and I was angry and hurt for her and I could only be by her side and bombard her with love and comfort. (Broken)
She was wheeled into a room for an X-ray to make sure that her toe wasn't broken. It was cold in the room and made heavy by the lead aprons we wore to shield our organs from the radiation. Hers was a ladybug. Mine was blue. She lay there on that table, following directions and holding still, tiny tears falling to her ears, balling her hands into fists. She was pulling it together. She looked at me and I smiled and she at me. She got to wheel herself back in a wheelchair (a wheelchair!) to our triage curtain and she beamed. Though she could "feel her heartbeat in her toe" we were coming to the other side of this ordeal. When she was back on her bed, I got on with her and we cuddled. She asked me if it was okay for me to be on the bed with her to which I replied, "Mommy makes her own rules when it comes to her babies. If you need me here, then YES, it's more than okay."
After a long afternoon into evening, Virginie ended up losing her toenail and getting five stitches to close her toe. A piece of antibiotic gauze was put in place to hopefully facilitate regrowth of her nail. She will have to get a boot to walk and is taking antibiotics to protect against infection. Sutures, rather than stitches, were used to close her toe because, as the doctor said, "This is not like the stitches in her chin that we put in to allow minimal scarring. This is her toe and it needs more time to heal. If it scars, it's in a place where no one can see it...unless she is wearing sandals." She'll have her tiny scars tucked on her foot, shared only with those she allows close.
And so will I. Teeny, tiny little scars made each time I see them hurt, whether on accident or on purpose, lacerate my heart. I will see the stitching, the jagged lines where the skin came back together. Those are for the physical ouches. And of the psychological tears? The emotional punctures? Hidden wounds? As she lay on the suturing table, wrapped in the cocoon to prevent her from moving, fear, frustration, pain on her face, I put my nose to hers, felt her eyelashes on my cheek, and whispered to her about the unicorns and sweets we think about before we dream. We talked about how we were together and how I would never leave her, would always be nose to nose, eyelashes to cheek, butterfly kisses, even when I wasn't really there. She quieted herself, went inside, and she believed me. She trusted me. Even in her hurt she believed that I would give her everything I had, that I was somehow feeling her pain or that I would at least walk with her through it. Comfort.
My husband is not here and we are not having a crazy display of elegant foods. I won't drink a mimosa in bed, nor will I sit with my feet up or even sleep past 6:45 am. I won't play queen for a day or do "something special for myself," at least not the kind of special that many believe moms are looking for. I am relieved that my girl is alright. I am proud of myself for getting in the car and driving her to the hospital and keeping a cool head. I am grateful for the people in my life who know what an accomplishment that is for me.
While sitting in the emergency room before Virginie was seen by a doctor I thought, "My baby will be scarred. She's only six years old and something is already broken. Her perfect little feet, her tiny toenails are gone." Yes, I know it's ridiculous. When they are those cute, little cherubs, smooth-skinned and innocent, we try so desperately to keep them clean of wounds, bruises, hurts. They are the best of us, the good in us, the pure. Each fall, scrape, tumble left me holding my breath, hoping it wouldn't be too bad, that it would heal quickly and leave no trace on their bodies or in their hearts.
Two days after she was hurt, Virginie is hopping on one foot through the house, laughing and smiling and chatting as she always has. Her foot is wrapped and the gauze is looking worse for the wear even after just two days. She's been fixed, is on the mend, will come out unscathed if not unscarred. But it's me, Mommy, who is taking a little longer to heal. Being a mom (for me) means going all the way in. Into the pain, into the hurt, into the past, into the joy, into a depth of love that frankly, nothing in my life before ever prepared me for. It's breaking and putting myself back together all the time. Its carrying the hurt with them and for them. It is doing my best to keep them from being broken.
We're together this morning and we are whole.
Happy Mother's Day.
(c) 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
From the tiny to the infinite
The day to day is lived in tiny increments. I try to start each day putting myself on a positive path, reminding myself of all that for which I should be grateful. I thank my guides and my angels that helped me sleep through the night and I pray for the continued safety of my family--for our health, peace in our hearts, love. I try to forgive myself the mistakes I will surely make throughout the day and hope that I am leaving lasting memories, good thoughts, proof of my good intentions in the hearts of my girls. That I am arming them with a sense of this dimension and the others and interconnectedness all while serving up pasta, reviewing homework, demanding clean up of the play room, and directing the nighttime program in that killer 5:30 to 8:00 block.
I am incredibly conscious of my actions, my deeds, the things I say, aware that I play a starring role in their early childhood memories and that these moments will be mined for information, for truth, that they will be distorted and contorted to tell the story of how they were loved or how they were not, maybe because those thoughts from my own childhood flood into my mind still. Most especially when I am having a particularly good or bad moment with them, I think, 'God, I hope they know how much I love them or 'Please don't let them think I didn't. ' I am present, conscious, real, and flawed all the time except for when I am not. And so it goes.
Since visiting with my husband's father this summer, we've been talking about the small ways in which he was letting go, in which he was straddling here and now and forever. Our visit provided the girls, who'd only seen him in photos or in the case of our oldest had met him just once when she was a toddler, a chance to spend real time with him. Though he had people who came every day to check and administer his medications and others who provided him with appropriate meals for all of his health issues, with us he had company. There were slow broken conversations in English and French. The girls sang songs and made drawings for him. Jean or Papi as he is called, was feeble and disconnected, a little lonely and frustrated. He'd become annoyed at times, disoriented at others, happy and full of wonder at others. We lived with him in 3-D, wandered his home looking at journals and incredible memorabilia from his travels. The girls looked at him and his home with awe.
One evening, after I'd put the girls to sleep, I started to walk down the stairs when I overheard my husband and his older brother having a pretty deep conversation with their father. A conversation full of longing and need, revelations of secrets and stories from long ago. They were pleading with him for information about their father's family, his boyhood, his hopes and dreams. They were asking for connection, drawing for memories. clues. I stayed at his desk at the top of the stairs and let the boys and their father share a moment. I feared my interruption would give everyone an unwanted distraction, an escape from that incredible connection. I hoped they'd file that memory to pull up when they needed to recall him.
These tiny moments add up to make a life. They leave an imprint, serve as mile markers. I leave little ticks and grooves in my girls' stories so that when I am gone they might say, "Wasn't that such a beautiful moment with Mom" or "I am so grateful that we had that time together or that conversation or saw that sunset/sunrise/incredible earthly moment together." I try to shore them up with self-love, self-respect, identity. I've begun to slowly trace the roots of both families that intertwined to create this branch of the larger family trees. I tell them secrets, our secrets, whisper to them about the people full of hope, love, and promise that came before them.
Before my mother's mom passed, we all spent a last summer on Hilton Head Island and I watched her sit at the edge of the ocean on the sand watching the sun set. I knew it wouldn't be long. She too. I went with my mother a couple of weeks later to move my grandparents' things from their home to the nursing home they were meant to move to. She never made it there. I knew she wouldn't. A week before my father's mother passed, I'd called her rather unexpectedly to tell her I loved her. It was Mother's Day. I chose that evening to tell her about my then boyfriend, now husband, who was, up until then a secret, whispered only in strict confidence, spoken only to help myself believe our love true. She was so tired but so present. I'd never have thought she was soon to leave us. I think of her so often, speak out loud about the mundane, ask her questions. I miss being able to ask the questions. To get the answers.
When someone dies, they are elevated to the heavenly realm, the eternal, esoteric, almost immediately. Remembering how they were in life becomes an exercise, a quiet search for moments real and true. In our mind's eye the memories are pulled and twisted in the murky quicksand of the earthly realm. They are still with us, of the earth, on this plane, only we can't find them. We are so full of longing, living in those dreamscapes, hoping to be with them, see them, hear them speaking to us as they really did, with weight and seriousness, but also humor and humanity and humanness just one more time.
After a 1/2 day of school, a lunch at the pub with friends, ice cream at the parlor for dessert, ballet, homework, bath time, and dinner, the girls and I tucked ourselves in to bed for the night. The day patched together with sweet moments and a whole lot of chatter. My husband's tiny steps took him to his parents' home where he sat in silence, their presence all around him, longing for one more word. The funeral over. Attendees to the service gone home. Flowers laid. I hope that he and his brothers were able to pull up those saved moments, let them shiver through their bodies, feel the life shared with their dad coursing through them before they said goodbye to him and released him to the infinite.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I am incredibly conscious of my actions, my deeds, the things I say, aware that I play a starring role in their early childhood memories and that these moments will be mined for information, for truth, that they will be distorted and contorted to tell the story of how they were loved or how they were not, maybe because those thoughts from my own childhood flood into my mind still. Most especially when I am having a particularly good or bad moment with them, I think, 'God, I hope they know how much I love them or 'Please don't let them think I didn't. ' I am present, conscious, real, and flawed all the time except for when I am not. And so it goes.
Since visiting with my husband's father this summer, we've been talking about the small ways in which he was letting go, in which he was straddling here and now and forever. Our visit provided the girls, who'd only seen him in photos or in the case of our oldest had met him just once when she was a toddler, a chance to spend real time with him. Though he had people who came every day to check and administer his medications and others who provided him with appropriate meals for all of his health issues, with us he had company. There were slow broken conversations in English and French. The girls sang songs and made drawings for him. Jean or Papi as he is called, was feeble and disconnected, a little lonely and frustrated. He'd become annoyed at times, disoriented at others, happy and full of wonder at others. We lived with him in 3-D, wandered his home looking at journals and incredible memorabilia from his travels. The girls looked at him and his home with awe.
One evening, after I'd put the girls to sleep, I started to walk down the stairs when I overheard my husband and his older brother having a pretty deep conversation with their father. A conversation full of longing and need, revelations of secrets and stories from long ago. They were pleading with him for information about their father's family, his boyhood, his hopes and dreams. They were asking for connection, drawing for memories. clues. I stayed at his desk at the top of the stairs and let the boys and their father share a moment. I feared my interruption would give everyone an unwanted distraction, an escape from that incredible connection. I hoped they'd file that memory to pull up when they needed to recall him.
These tiny moments add up to make a life. They leave an imprint, serve as mile markers. I leave little ticks and grooves in my girls' stories so that when I am gone they might say, "Wasn't that such a beautiful moment with Mom" or "I am so grateful that we had that time together or that conversation or saw that sunset/sunrise/incredible earthly moment together." I try to shore them up with self-love, self-respect, identity. I've begun to slowly trace the roots of both families that intertwined to create this branch of the larger family trees. I tell them secrets, our secrets, whisper to them about the people full of hope, love, and promise that came before them.
Before my mother's mom passed, we all spent a last summer on Hilton Head Island and I watched her sit at the edge of the ocean on the sand watching the sun set. I knew it wouldn't be long. She too. I went with my mother a couple of weeks later to move my grandparents' things from their home to the nursing home they were meant to move to. She never made it there. I knew she wouldn't. A week before my father's mother passed, I'd called her rather unexpectedly to tell her I loved her. It was Mother's Day. I chose that evening to tell her about my then boyfriend, now husband, who was, up until then a secret, whispered only in strict confidence, spoken only to help myself believe our love true. She was so tired but so present. I'd never have thought she was soon to leave us. I think of her so often, speak out loud about the mundane, ask her questions. I miss being able to ask the questions. To get the answers.
When someone dies, they are elevated to the heavenly realm, the eternal, esoteric, almost immediately. Remembering how they were in life becomes an exercise, a quiet search for moments real and true. In our mind's eye the memories are pulled and twisted in the murky quicksand of the earthly realm. They are still with us, of the earth, on this plane, only we can't find them. We are so full of longing, living in those dreamscapes, hoping to be with them, see them, hear them speaking to us as they really did, with weight and seriousness, but also humor and humanity and humanness just one more time.
After a 1/2 day of school, a lunch at the pub with friends, ice cream at the parlor for dessert, ballet, homework, bath time, and dinner, the girls and I tucked ourselves in to bed for the night. The day patched together with sweet moments and a whole lot of chatter. My husband's tiny steps took him to his parents' home where he sat in silence, their presence all around him, longing for one more word. The funeral over. Attendees to the service gone home. Flowers laid. I hope that he and his brothers were able to pull up those saved moments, let them shiver through their bodies, feel the life shared with their dad coursing through them before they said goodbye to him and released him to the infinite.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Back to the Suburban Grind: 1/2 full
Back to the Suburban Grind: 1/2 full: When my husband goes away for work, he usually fills the gas tank for me. Even if he knows that I won't drive more than a few blocks, h...
1/2 full
When my husband goes away for work, he usually fills the gas tank for me. Even if he knows that I won't drive more than a few blocks, he knows I will feel better seeing that needle on F(ull).This morning, I went out in the frigid cold, ran to Trader Joe's and CVS, to get the handful of things on our needed list, though I knew that four more packs of seaweed snacks and a new roll of aluminum foil were not urgent and that missing them in the house would not put us on empty. At Trader Joe's, I bought three and four of everything we needed though we already had more than one of each at home. We're stocked.
My husband left for a long weekend (It's Winter Break in our school district.) one day before he'd been scheduled and had to rush to get himself properly packed and prepared for 5 days in Florida. I took him to the train station with plenty of time to spare when I looked to the odometer to find our needle underneath the picture of the gas pump and on its way to E(mpty). I mentioned its position nearly inaudibly because I did not want him to worry about the state of affairs when he left and a tank nearly on empty might tilt the board. He muttered something about having enough and being able to make it wherever I needed to go but avoided my eye because he knew it was turning crazy.
I think so much about the question, that one wherein others try to determine your stance, your position on facing obstacles in life, "Is the glass 1/2 full or is it 1/2 empty?" and I try very hard to meet them with 1/2 full. I try to look on the bright side, make lemonade out of lemons, accept that everything happens for a reason, and that as one door closes another opens. But all this comes after the scream, audible or silent, the kicked can, the certainty that my glass is nearly done. I feel hopelessly out of control, sure that whatever it is I desire, whatever it is I long for is out of reach.
In that hollow where love fills up, I have not been able to get enough. All my life. When it comes in, I scramble for things to protect me from feeling so much, for wanting to be connected, loved, seen, cared for. Just in case it won't happen, I prepare. Prepare for having to do it all alone. I've stockpiled, barricaded, trapped myself in. Paralyzed, afraid to move the line on that glass.
I'd probably have no reason to stop getting so bothered by my 1/2 empty glass were it not for the watching eyes of the girls. In a culture of consumption and with the desire for things to feel secure and valuable part of the American way, it is important that I show the girls how to work with what they have, how to make it work no matter their circumstances. When I fear my glass is 1/2 empty, there is still hope that I can use my reserve, that I have something instead of nothing. Having even a 1/2 empty glass is privileged. I've at least got something.
It is fear that leads me to want the safety of complete fullness, that wants the buffer, the cushion should I fall or should I fail. I used to say that I was an optimist preparing for the worst outcome, bracing myself for disappointment. That may very well still be true. Failure, disappointment, and losing hurt so much, and adding a spot of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment on top of that can make it all unbearable. But it also holds me back. There is hesitation, avoidance, missed chances and opportunities because I long to be promised that I will always be safe, that nothing can hurt me. I suppose it's a survival tactic. I cannot be hurt or wounded if I don't try, but I also cannot have surprising and wonderful experiences, can't discover something unexpected, cannot be inspired by something new, see something precious, hear my inner voice and learn to trust it from the comfort of my cushy perch.
I took my cash to the gas station (I get a better rate for paying in cash than with a credit card.) and asked the attendant to fill it up. I was sweating a little, nervous about getting out of my comfort zone, changing the routine. The attendant asked if I'd like to have my oil checked and cleaned the windshield. I said, "Sure," and he checked. Everything was fine. I thanked him and he told me to take care. The little one asked, "Why did that man do those things for you?" to which I replied, "Well, it's his job...but he also wanted to be helpful and be sure we were safe. People have to look out for each other. I am glad he was looking out for us. The people in our neighborhood."
Long ago when I was the age of my little one now, I used to love the People in Your Neighborhood segment of Sesame Street. We kids were introduced to all types of folks who lived and worked in our neighborhood. We learned about their jobs, what they did, where we might find them. Every one of them was smiling and happy and proud of their work and gave us a sense of community, of connection and belonging that I often miss. A friend posted on Facebook the other day about shoveling her driveway all by herself while her neighbors, all with snow blowers, all men, buzzed around her, never offering to help her. She finished the job on her own, knowing she was fully capable of the task, but missing that neighborly kindness. She wondered on her page just what might prevent them from coming to her aid, even speaking to her, a friend, a neighbor, while she toiled away in the frigid cold.
When our glasses are 1/2 empty, we spend more time trying not to spill what's left, rather than share ourselves and our joys and fears and loves and hurt. We give up on our connection. Living in a state of lack rather than abundance teaches us to distrust, to hoard, to close rather than open and share. I have my suspicions about my fear of not having enough, not being enough. It's my work to do, my issue to overcome. But I don't want to send my girls out into the world full of fear, hesitation, with closed hearts and minds. We are privileged, all of us, and a glass 1/2 empty or 1/2 full has at least something. The state in which we view it, our perception of just how much we have can be changed, strengthened or weakened, by our sense of connection and belonging.
We have enough food, enough toys, enough clothes, enough gas in the car, enough things. That it hasn't been enough tells me there is something more to share. Ourselves. And then the cup will runneth over and won't stop. I just have to get to the place where I don't mind spilling and I don't mind taking a sip.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My husband left for a long weekend (It's Winter Break in our school district.) one day before he'd been scheduled and had to rush to get himself properly packed and prepared for 5 days in Florida. I took him to the train station with plenty of time to spare when I looked to the odometer to find our needle underneath the picture of the gas pump and on its way to E(mpty). I mentioned its position nearly inaudibly because I did not want him to worry about the state of affairs when he left and a tank nearly on empty might tilt the board. He muttered something about having enough and being able to make it wherever I needed to go but avoided my eye because he knew it was turning crazy.
I think so much about the question, that one wherein others try to determine your stance, your position on facing obstacles in life, "Is the glass 1/2 full or is it 1/2 empty?" and I try very hard to meet them with 1/2 full. I try to look on the bright side, make lemonade out of lemons, accept that everything happens for a reason, and that as one door closes another opens. But all this comes after the scream, audible or silent, the kicked can, the certainty that my glass is nearly done. I feel hopelessly out of control, sure that whatever it is I desire, whatever it is I long for is out of reach.
In that hollow where love fills up, I have not been able to get enough. All my life. When it comes in, I scramble for things to protect me from feeling so much, for wanting to be connected, loved, seen, cared for. Just in case it won't happen, I prepare. Prepare for having to do it all alone. I've stockpiled, barricaded, trapped myself in. Paralyzed, afraid to move the line on that glass.
I'd probably have no reason to stop getting so bothered by my 1/2 empty glass were it not for the watching eyes of the girls. In a culture of consumption and with the desire for things to feel secure and valuable part of the American way, it is important that I show the girls how to work with what they have, how to make it work no matter their circumstances. When I fear my glass is 1/2 empty, there is still hope that I can use my reserve, that I have something instead of nothing. Having even a 1/2 empty glass is privileged. I've at least got something.
It is fear that leads me to want the safety of complete fullness, that wants the buffer, the cushion should I fall or should I fail. I used to say that I was an optimist preparing for the worst outcome, bracing myself for disappointment. That may very well still be true. Failure, disappointment, and losing hurt so much, and adding a spot of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment on top of that can make it all unbearable. But it also holds me back. There is hesitation, avoidance, missed chances and opportunities because I long to be promised that I will always be safe, that nothing can hurt me. I suppose it's a survival tactic. I cannot be hurt or wounded if I don't try, but I also cannot have surprising and wonderful experiences, can't discover something unexpected, cannot be inspired by something new, see something precious, hear my inner voice and learn to trust it from the comfort of my cushy perch.
I took my cash to the gas station (I get a better rate for paying in cash than with a credit card.) and asked the attendant to fill it up. I was sweating a little, nervous about getting out of my comfort zone, changing the routine. The attendant asked if I'd like to have my oil checked and cleaned the windshield. I said, "Sure," and he checked. Everything was fine. I thanked him and he told me to take care. The little one asked, "Why did that man do those things for you?" to which I replied, "Well, it's his job...but he also wanted to be helpful and be sure we were safe. People have to look out for each other. I am glad he was looking out for us. The people in our neighborhood."
Long ago when I was the age of my little one now, I used to love the People in Your Neighborhood segment of Sesame Street. We kids were introduced to all types of folks who lived and worked in our neighborhood. We learned about their jobs, what they did, where we might find them. Every one of them was smiling and happy and proud of their work and gave us a sense of community, of connection and belonging that I often miss. A friend posted on Facebook the other day about shoveling her driveway all by herself while her neighbors, all with snow blowers, all men, buzzed around her, never offering to help her. She finished the job on her own, knowing she was fully capable of the task, but missing that neighborly kindness. She wondered on her page just what might prevent them from coming to her aid, even speaking to her, a friend, a neighbor, while she toiled away in the frigid cold.
When our glasses are 1/2 empty, we spend more time trying not to spill what's left, rather than share ourselves and our joys and fears and loves and hurt. We give up on our connection. Living in a state of lack rather than abundance teaches us to distrust, to hoard, to close rather than open and share. I have my suspicions about my fear of not having enough, not being enough. It's my work to do, my issue to overcome. But I don't want to send my girls out into the world full of fear, hesitation, with closed hearts and minds. We are privileged, all of us, and a glass 1/2 empty or 1/2 full has at least something. The state in which we view it, our perception of just how much we have can be changed, strengthened or weakened, by our sense of connection and belonging.
We have enough food, enough toys, enough clothes, enough gas in the car, enough things. That it hasn't been enough tells me there is something more to share. Ourselves. And then the cup will runneth over and won't stop. I just have to get to the place where I don't mind spilling and I don't mind taking a sip.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Back to the Suburban Grind: Thelma and Louise and Me
Back to the Suburban Grind: Thelma and Louise and Me: After the whirlwind week between Christmas Eve and today, I found myself with the first free moments last night. The girls were passed out ...
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Thelma and Louise and Me
After the whirlwind week between Christmas Eve and today, I found myself with the first free moments last night. The girls were passed out in my bed, tucked in after having had their first up-'til-midnight celebration of the new year's arrival and the following day's parties and good wishes tour through the neighborhood. Flicking through channels, sitting snuggled up on my couch with a blanket and a glass of wine, the quiet of the house brought the present upon me. I was no longer in my head planning for the next day, reflecting about those passed and things missed or not done, I was right there. And my birthday was coming in a few hours. I got to Thelma and Louise just as they were coming upon J.D., the young, handsome, brand new Brad Pitt, but I knew the story like I know myself. Thelma and Louise, like The Color Purple and Terms of Endearment and The English Patient, is a spot on my timeline, a moment of clarity and insight that I take pleasure in revisiting, no matter the tears and splatter that are sure to come.
And on the eve of my 45th, I looked with new eyes on my story. Every time, every single time, I love the charm, naiveté of Thelma. Her hope, her wonder, her journey (with massive shock and disappointment sure), her young soul charm and adorability. I beg her to see what I see before she gets into trouble, does something stupid, thwarts their chances and every time she does not. She is so cute, so sweet, so shiny. Oh, Thelma.
But I am Louise. Cautious, well-prepared, ordered, organized, playing the cards close to the vest. The thrill I get as this woman tidies her house before going away for what she expects will be a long weekend cannot be understated. The way she keeps herself in check, always on high alert, even when she is having fun is familiar. Her composure, her comportment, her trembling under that reserve is mine. I can be zany and funny and irreverent. I bet Louise was once a long time ago. Sometimes. Before Texas. Which she wants to avoid at all costs, does not want to revisit. It's the past and threatens to tear her wide open again.
Thelma and Louise takes us all on this journey across the gorgeous landscape of this country, showing us the beauty, the majesty, and the shifting contrasts and shadows made from that luminous glow. As these women let their masks fall, revealing themselves, their internal struggles and realizations and their skin, their human skin that they live in every day without make up, naked, we see the terrain change shape, see danger in the shadows, feel the ominous pull of life's magic and mystery as they sort out the mess of their circumstances. I have put myself in their shoes, lived vicariously through them every time. But this time I wondered, what if indeed one of these women were actually me. What if instead of two beautiful white women who find themselves with snowballing legal and emotional problems, Thelma and Louise or Thelma or Louise was a black woman. Was me. Would anyone be willing to take the journey with me? Would anyone want to come to my rescue? Would my choices be seen as heroic or tragic? Could I make that drive through the country, through the Midwest and Southwest of the United States as I tried to figure out how to right the wrongs, the mistakes and the impulses that got me into hot water? Would I go over the canyon or be knocked off long before my soul made that arc, reveled in its evolution and transcendence?
And then the tears fell harder even than usual when I realized that though the archetype, the Everyman (woman) journey, is indeed for everyone, I doubted that most would want to come along on the ride with me. It's where we find ourselves today or at least where I find myself. Deep in my heart, though I love with everything I can, I wonder if my love is reciprocated truly. In our "post-racial" America, I now wonder who wants to hear my story, any of our stories, to really listen to them without trying to place it in a specific genre, a special place, an "other" category. Does anyone believe that though our stories can be and are similar in so many ways, that we'd still like to see ourselves, be seen ourselves as part of the larger tale? That ours are not peripheral, supporting parts but starring roles too? I don't ask the questions to receive knee-jerk, fumbling reassurances. I ask because of how much it hurts me to even have to. Because the doubt has crept in and made me feel that whatever it was I thought I was leaving to my daughters has been eroded and that they will have to fight to be seen too.
I ended the year struggling to be open and available to people who were more than comfortable telling me how I feel, how people of color are/feel/act/think/behave or who told me they didn't see what I was showing them, telling them, expressing, shouting about, crying about, and were quick to walk away or shut down the dialogue with all sorts of "proof" and "post-racial" mumbo-jumbo. I lost people, let some go and allowed others to let me go when I took off my makeup, my mask, and showed my skin, my human skin, and it was real and pained and flawed, and could not be tidied. When I realized that even I, a friend or a colleague or acquaintance, could not make a convincing argument for recognition or compassion or even dialogue.
After years of trying not to "drive through Texas," not to go back to some painful truths, to reveal the scars I'd covered with my tidy, poised, secretive composure and protective stance, the circumstances had changed. I couldn't get out of this. Though I'd take many roads to try, they all still seem to end at the canyon. So here we are. I am hoping in the new year that we can talk to each other. That the seekers of the shiny and new, the naïve and the fresh can take the hands of the weary and the wary and the jaded and the wounded and forge a direction together. I hope that we are able to step back to think about and consider what each other says rather than react and attack. I hope that I am not met with theorems and postulates in place of real stories and truth and connection. I hope that we can find some kind of common group so that my story is as interesting, as worthy, as real, as true, as archetypal as any other. I want us to see ourselves in each other, longing more for what is similar, rather that foreign or strange. I want us to journey in all senses of the word--physically, emotionally, spiritually.
I love Thelma and Louise and wouldn't want to change their story. I road with them through their map, followed the lines that lead them to themselves and to their realizations and truths. I will again. Their journey has informed mine and they have inspired me to seek out hands to hold, to revisit old places and find undiscovered territory, maybe even some truth. Out there in that wildly powerful and spiritually haunting landscape, we all discover the essence of who we are. If we let ourselves.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
And on the eve of my 45th, I looked with new eyes on my story. Every time, every single time, I love the charm, naiveté of Thelma. Her hope, her wonder, her journey (with massive shock and disappointment sure), her young soul charm and adorability. I beg her to see what I see before she gets into trouble, does something stupid, thwarts their chances and every time she does not. She is so cute, so sweet, so shiny. Oh, Thelma.
But I am Louise. Cautious, well-prepared, ordered, organized, playing the cards close to the vest. The thrill I get as this woman tidies her house before going away for what she expects will be a long weekend cannot be understated. The way she keeps herself in check, always on high alert, even when she is having fun is familiar. Her composure, her comportment, her trembling under that reserve is mine. I can be zany and funny and irreverent. I bet Louise was once a long time ago. Sometimes. Before Texas. Which she wants to avoid at all costs, does not want to revisit. It's the past and threatens to tear her wide open again.
Thelma and Louise takes us all on this journey across the gorgeous landscape of this country, showing us the beauty, the majesty, and the shifting contrasts and shadows made from that luminous glow. As these women let their masks fall, revealing themselves, their internal struggles and realizations and their skin, their human skin that they live in every day without make up, naked, we see the terrain change shape, see danger in the shadows, feel the ominous pull of life's magic and mystery as they sort out the mess of their circumstances. I have put myself in their shoes, lived vicariously through them every time. But this time I wondered, what if indeed one of these women were actually me. What if instead of two beautiful white women who find themselves with snowballing legal and emotional problems, Thelma and Louise or Thelma or Louise was a black woman. Was me. Would anyone be willing to take the journey with me? Would anyone want to come to my rescue? Would my choices be seen as heroic or tragic? Could I make that drive through the country, through the Midwest and Southwest of the United States as I tried to figure out how to right the wrongs, the mistakes and the impulses that got me into hot water? Would I go over the canyon or be knocked off long before my soul made that arc, reveled in its evolution and transcendence?
And then the tears fell harder even than usual when I realized that though the archetype, the Everyman (woman) journey, is indeed for everyone, I doubted that most would want to come along on the ride with me. It's where we find ourselves today or at least where I find myself. Deep in my heart, though I love with everything I can, I wonder if my love is reciprocated truly. In our "post-racial" America, I now wonder who wants to hear my story, any of our stories, to really listen to them without trying to place it in a specific genre, a special place, an "other" category. Does anyone believe that though our stories can be and are similar in so many ways, that we'd still like to see ourselves, be seen ourselves as part of the larger tale? That ours are not peripheral, supporting parts but starring roles too? I don't ask the questions to receive knee-jerk, fumbling reassurances. I ask because of how much it hurts me to even have to. Because the doubt has crept in and made me feel that whatever it was I thought I was leaving to my daughters has been eroded and that they will have to fight to be seen too.
I ended the year struggling to be open and available to people who were more than comfortable telling me how I feel, how people of color are/feel/act/think/behave or who told me they didn't see what I was showing them, telling them, expressing, shouting about, crying about, and were quick to walk away or shut down the dialogue with all sorts of "proof" and "post-racial" mumbo-jumbo. I lost people, let some go and allowed others to let me go when I took off my makeup, my mask, and showed my skin, my human skin, and it was real and pained and flawed, and could not be tidied. When I realized that even I, a friend or a colleague or acquaintance, could not make a convincing argument for recognition or compassion or even dialogue.
After years of trying not to "drive through Texas," not to go back to some painful truths, to reveal the scars I'd covered with my tidy, poised, secretive composure and protective stance, the circumstances had changed. I couldn't get out of this. Though I'd take many roads to try, they all still seem to end at the canyon. So here we are. I am hoping in the new year that we can talk to each other. That the seekers of the shiny and new, the naïve and the fresh can take the hands of the weary and the wary and the jaded and the wounded and forge a direction together. I hope that we are able to step back to think about and consider what each other says rather than react and attack. I hope that I am not met with theorems and postulates in place of real stories and truth and connection. I hope that we can find some kind of common group so that my story is as interesting, as worthy, as real, as true, as archetypal as any other. I want us to see ourselves in each other, longing more for what is similar, rather that foreign or strange. I want us to journey in all senses of the word--physically, emotionally, spiritually.
I love Thelma and Louise and wouldn't want to change their story. I road with them through their map, followed the lines that lead them to themselves and to their realizations and truths. I will again. Their journey has informed mine and they have inspired me to seek out hands to hold, to revisit old places and find undiscovered territory, maybe even some truth. Out there in that wildly powerful and spiritually haunting landscape, we all discover the essence of who we are. If we let ourselves.
(c) Copyright 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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