Our vacation was almost ruined before it started by my anxiety, the collapsed ceiling in our hallway that fell hours before our flight, and the miserable failure of XL Airlines and the absolute breach of professionalism and trust by this new airline. Were it not for a few Xanax in my pocket, the Minnow would be lost. After a night of sleep stolen on the uncomfortable chairs in JFK Airport's Terminal 4, we got on a new airplane commanded by the incredible Omni Airlines and Virginie promptly vomited into my hand. In the end, she was just tired. At the moment I wondered if we were doomed. We weren't and we made it into the air and to Charles de Gaulle Airport by 7 pm France time, only to get into the car with the French husband's brother and head 5 hours to Bretagne. The brothers chatted in the front seat, the French husband surely delirious from a lack of sleep and tortured resting positions, while the girls and I passed out in the backseat, twisted and contorted but salvaged by animal neck pillows. It was crazy getting here, but we were now in France.
They say when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Unless they are estranged, this is true. You want to make a good impression on everyone involved and you hope that you find you are also interested in some, if not all, of the family. When I married the French husband, someone from another country, and sometimes, it seems, another planet entirely, I felt that to know and love France would help me to know and love my hoped-to-be-husband.(I mean, the French got it down this love of country and pride of people.) I got the Rosetta Stone, brushed up on my history, listened to him wax on and on about the superiority of his culture to pretty much all others. He meant well. I know this. It wasn't so much arrogance as a cock-suredness that, frankly, was pretty damned sexy to this American broad.
It was the same with the Austrian for whom I tried just long enough to figure out how to conjugate a sentence or two and then was reduced to tears. I drank beer, ate wurst, supported their teams, even recognized the Habsburg jaw. With the Spaniard, I took 4 semesters of post-graduation Spanish and spoke to his parents, my friends' parents, anyone in my broken Spanish. I ate everything, wanted to learn flamenco, loved that Spanish guitar. I have cheered for all of their futbol teams. Sure, this reporting is stylized and reduced to the most obvious cliches of each culture, but trust, I was deep in. I still am.
Thanks to my anxiety, I still want to make a good impression every time, to marry them ALL all over again, to prove to them that marrying this crazy American girl was a good choice. But I was so tired and grumpy and crazy and tired that I nearly tore my poor French husband a new one when he tried to help me get through the security line while I held our sleeping five year old. Though this trip had been planned for months, we still found ourselves jamming things into a duffle bag at the 11th hour and racing out the door, sadly, without the girls' headphones but WITH my dance shoes and our library cards. :-/
We made such good time on the drive we were sure our luck had turned until we arrived at the airport to the gate of some airline called #XLAirways which has discounted fares to France. I'd heard about the airline just once through a new French friend in my dance class and recalled the many times we'd flown overseas without incident on a variety of airlines. Well, at Terminal 4 at JFK, a crappy early 80s design flaw of a place anchored by all the Middle Eastern and Israeli airlines as well as Caribbean Airlines, there was not one representative from XL Airlines, but there was a young woman in an unmarked blazer slowing passing along the bad news that, though none of us had been informed, there would be a delay in our flight time of 6 hours. Thank you very much and please stand on this line against the wall on the other side of anything civilized. Food, bathrooms, and escape were on the other side of the door. We slept on the floor. It was like the Wizard of Oz except not only are the memories of the start of our trip in black and white, but in slow motion.
On the other side, when we opened our eyes, was France. I love being here. I love attempting and trying to convince myself that I actually speak French. I love that my husband and I, who have been struggling with connection as many parents of time/energy/affection-sucking small children do, have time to look at each other. I love that there is discovery and adventure for all four of us and that the places where we roamed as we fell in love the first time in his country are now shared spaces. We showed them the beach where I first sunbathed topless, shy and embarrassed though no one else was with us, and they went topless too (though of course with decidedly different results than a grown woman bearing it all). The girls climbed the rocks leading to the Cote Sauvage where their father played as a young boy. We ate countless croissants, celebrated the iconic monuments of Paris, and drove from West to Central to nearly southern France squealing with delight at castles/chateaux, cows, sunflowers, horses, and vineyards.
And as much as they loved every one of those moments, they were happiest with their family. Their cousins, their uncle and auntie, their Papi, a surly, French, 84-year old fountain of wicked truth telling and a crazy crotchety Gaul. I married them, married them all. Because of my children, I am infinitely tied to this place. It is a part of them that it can never be for me as I am not OF this, no matter all my attempts. When we left Paris and my parents, who visited with us for a few days, I took the last Xanax (save the one for the return flight), closed my eyes, and let it all spin around me. There is too much wine, too much bread, too much cheese, and staying up too late for the under 8 set. But I feel good about it. I even spend a moment or two with the tatas out on the beach. The French husband gives it hard, he can be relentless in his superior posturing, but sitting with my toes in the sand, eating baguette and cheese, flipping through the glamorous pages of French Vogue, with the sun beating down on my naked stuff, I let go.
My trip was nearly ruined by my anxiety, by the stress that I ooze before I finally let go and just be in the place, whatever the place. Right now we have no idea what time it is or what day. We eat baguette and croissants every morning and sit in the garden with lavender all around. We walk to the sea, we eat good food, and we broken Franglais-speak with anyone who will listen to us try to describe this crazy beautiful moment. I say it every time, right before it's all over. We should do this more often. Travel. Be in the world. Be impressed and make impressions on people. I have to remember how I tied myself to that moment when I am home fretting about the hamsters and the bills and the school and the play dates. I have to remember that all those crazy, beautiful, hectic, wicked, scary, freaky, lovely moments are all part of my life. Even when I am not eating a baguette on the beach in Bretagne.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Showing posts with label bicultural. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bicultural. Show all posts
Monday, July 21, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Learning MLK
Black National Anthem
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
Written by James Weldon Johnson (1899), music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1900)
When I was a little girl, though I suspect younger than my two ladybugs, to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and legacy, my family would spend the afternoon at a black church listening to people who'd lived the Civil Rights era, talking about about our history and the life of this man, and singing and clapping and dancing to some incredible church music and old Negro spirituals. We were meant to reflect, consider, uplift, and rise, rise, rise above what our people, African-American people had endured in our own country. A suffering that weighed heavily in the story of my immediate family. This was not the story of just my ancestors, but of my people, my family, my father and mother and uncles and grands and greats. It was not the past. It was the ever-fluid present.
The emotion was so visceral, so intense in those moments that I was often embarrassed and humiliated by the heaviness. I was "one of the only's," "the Cosby" at my school (calling it largely white would understate it). That my father and mother were well-educated and had good jobs and provided for us well above even the national average allowed others to define us as "past all that." But we weren't. We aren't. That our experience as middle class, educated, law abiding, good neighbors seemed beyond the norm was just the start of the misunderstanding. That Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday was still being debated as a national holiday confused the young me. That I celebrated in a church full of African-Americans and very few others hit it home. This was my cross to bear. Everyone else got to have the day off.
I supposed that my white friends were spending the day shopping or watching TV, hanging out, while the weight of my people and really the future of our nation, felt like it rested on my shoulders, or ours, as we endured to keep the memory, the truth, and the history alive. I wanted everyone to be considering Martin Luther King, Jr. in the same way I was. As a man, a true person, not just an idea, who lived and breathed among us, the same air I was breathing now, and who saw severe racism and institutional injustice and wanted it changed. I felt burdened in a way different than my parents and their parents had because, according to so many who "don't see color" I was not living the outright barbaric terrorism of the times before the Civil Rights era and was living in a nearly all white community, proof to so many that things had changed. But I still felt racism's sting in the subtlest of ways and much of it was internalized. I still felt that it was mine to prove that we were equal, alike, multidimensional and multifaceted.
It has been an interesting lesson for my husband and me as we teach our children who are biracial and bicultural about this very particular man from this very particular moment and then open up the discussion to the greater topics of racism and equality, tolerance and acceptance. They are so young and still at an age where they see the differences but do not have cultural references as to what those differences mean to some people. Because I experienced that sense of other, I have been both protective of their feelings as such and have also opened the dialogue before their questions about otherness have even arisen. Since they were very small, they have seen both of our families either in person or via Skype. My husband speaks French with them and they see him speaking with his friends and family only in French. We have looked at the map and the globe to discover just "how close and how far" we are to where Papa grew up. We have visited with my parents and family full of aunts, uncles, and cousins down South in Virginia, Washington, DC, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. When we lived in Barbados, they saw what looked to them like a thriving nation where black and white people worked along side one another, where they saw many more people of color in positions of power, where racism was, of course, in play, as it is everywhere, but where they were not isolated because of their racial make up, where they were, in fact, part of the majority. They learned there about the East Indians and Chinese in the Caribbean through the friendships they made, and though they certainly asked questions about where folks came from, it was more a curiosity of geography than fear or confusion about race.
We have made it clear through our friendships and relations and the way we speak about all people that intolerance based on color, creed, religion, or sexual orientation will not be accepted in our home. They have never said they wished they were not black. Have never said they don't believe themselves to be beautiful. Have never said that boys are smarter than girls, that white is better than black, that something is a girl game or a boy color or only for one group or another. We talk about other peoples' customs and religions, even practicing some of the holiday customs and going to services when we can to demonstrate how all people are just striving for the same goals for their families. And yet, when the specifics of the pre-Civil Rights era come up, I am taken back to that pain.
As they have begun to learn the very cursory history and stories they are shocked. If the separate water fountains and segregated schools are enough to burn their cheeks and hurt their hearts, imagine how they were brought to silence, sucking the insides of their cheeks, when I told them that Grandma and Grandpa had grown up, been little kids, just as they were now, and had lived this abject racism and in the case of my parents, poverty. That Grandma and Grandpa and their brothers and sisters and so many other families and children just like them could not look away from it, rather had to live it and breathe it every day of their lives. That their lives, in the minds of many, institutionalized in the country they called home, were not as valuable as the lives of others. They see the absolute injustice right away and struggle and fumble for words. It is not an abstraction talked about as if a bygone era, but a tangible truth for people they love and hold dear. Because they still see us all as equal, they are just unable to comprehend. This is how it hurts. As the true terror and violence of that time comes to light for them, they will need the strength to endure and to forgive and to continue the legacy of a real, live man who gave his life in that struggle. For them, a real, live man who looks like Grandpa, for whom their eyes sparkle and who is loved infinitely.
Both girls are extremely empathic and feel for others so deeply and compassionately. I feel so lucky that we are the same in that way. But they, as I long ago, cannot define how it hurts, just feel the lumps in their throats, the flush of their cheeks, the knot in their hearts and they weep. They have cried for friends that "would not be our friends if the brown and the white could not be together." The oldest has a dear girlfriend who said she'd just have to be in jail because she loved her friend so and would not put up with that nonsense. I loved this comment more than I realized because it keeps returning to me, to my heart. I love it because during those MLK celebrations of my youth, I would have loved a professing of love and commitment such as that from someone who "didn't have to," was able to choose her commitment to the rights of others when the privilege was hers.
I was a young person and am now a grown woman. What I shared is not shame but the real visceral pain of that history, of what separation, exclusion, divisiveness of any kind does not only to us on a global scale, but what it does just to our own individual selves. We miss the true evolution of ourselves--physically, emotionally, spiritually, nationally, internationally, globally. We miss transcendence if we cannot "lift every voice and sing." I am working hard to keep that love in mine. I hope as we celebrate the man and his actions, we each make a commitment to ourselves and our actions.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
Written by James Weldon Johnson (1899), music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1900)
When I was a little girl, though I suspect younger than my two ladybugs, to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and legacy, my family would spend the afternoon at a black church listening to people who'd lived the Civil Rights era, talking about about our history and the life of this man, and singing and clapping and dancing to some incredible church music and old Negro spirituals. We were meant to reflect, consider, uplift, and rise, rise, rise above what our people, African-American people had endured in our own country. A suffering that weighed heavily in the story of my immediate family. This was not the story of just my ancestors, but of my people, my family, my father and mother and uncles and grands and greats. It was not the past. It was the ever-fluid present.
The emotion was so visceral, so intense in those moments that I was often embarrassed and humiliated by the heaviness. I was "one of the only's," "the Cosby" at my school (calling it largely white would understate it). That my father and mother were well-educated and had good jobs and provided for us well above even the national average allowed others to define us as "past all that." But we weren't. We aren't. That our experience as middle class, educated, law abiding, good neighbors seemed beyond the norm was just the start of the misunderstanding. That Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday was still being debated as a national holiday confused the young me. That I celebrated in a church full of African-Americans and very few others hit it home. This was my cross to bear. Everyone else got to have the day off.
I supposed that my white friends were spending the day shopping or watching TV, hanging out, while the weight of my people and really the future of our nation, felt like it rested on my shoulders, or ours, as we endured to keep the memory, the truth, and the history alive. I wanted everyone to be considering Martin Luther King, Jr. in the same way I was. As a man, a true person, not just an idea, who lived and breathed among us, the same air I was breathing now, and who saw severe racism and institutional injustice and wanted it changed. I felt burdened in a way different than my parents and their parents had because, according to so many who "don't see color" I was not living the outright barbaric terrorism of the times before the Civil Rights era and was living in a nearly all white community, proof to so many that things had changed. But I still felt racism's sting in the subtlest of ways and much of it was internalized. I still felt that it was mine to prove that we were equal, alike, multidimensional and multifaceted.
It has been an interesting lesson for my husband and me as we teach our children who are biracial and bicultural about this very particular man from this very particular moment and then open up the discussion to the greater topics of racism and equality, tolerance and acceptance. They are so young and still at an age where they see the differences but do not have cultural references as to what those differences mean to some people. Because I experienced that sense of other, I have been both protective of their feelings as such and have also opened the dialogue before their questions about otherness have even arisen. Since they were very small, they have seen both of our families either in person or via Skype. My husband speaks French with them and they see him speaking with his friends and family only in French. We have looked at the map and the globe to discover just "how close and how far" we are to where Papa grew up. We have visited with my parents and family full of aunts, uncles, and cousins down South in Virginia, Washington, DC, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. When we lived in Barbados, they saw what looked to them like a thriving nation where black and white people worked along side one another, where they saw many more people of color in positions of power, where racism was, of course, in play, as it is everywhere, but where they were not isolated because of their racial make up, where they were, in fact, part of the majority. They learned there about the East Indians and Chinese in the Caribbean through the friendships they made, and though they certainly asked questions about where folks came from, it was more a curiosity of geography than fear or confusion about race.
We have made it clear through our friendships and relations and the way we speak about all people that intolerance based on color, creed, religion, or sexual orientation will not be accepted in our home. They have never said they wished they were not black. Have never said they don't believe themselves to be beautiful. Have never said that boys are smarter than girls, that white is better than black, that something is a girl game or a boy color or only for one group or another. We talk about other peoples' customs and religions, even practicing some of the holiday customs and going to services when we can to demonstrate how all people are just striving for the same goals for their families. And yet, when the specifics of the pre-Civil Rights era come up, I am taken back to that pain.
As they have begun to learn the very cursory history and stories they are shocked. If the separate water fountains and segregated schools are enough to burn their cheeks and hurt their hearts, imagine how they were brought to silence, sucking the insides of their cheeks, when I told them that Grandma and Grandpa had grown up, been little kids, just as they were now, and had lived this abject racism and in the case of my parents, poverty. That Grandma and Grandpa and their brothers and sisters and so many other families and children just like them could not look away from it, rather had to live it and breathe it every day of their lives. That their lives, in the minds of many, institutionalized in the country they called home, were not as valuable as the lives of others. They see the absolute injustice right away and struggle and fumble for words. It is not an abstraction talked about as if a bygone era, but a tangible truth for people they love and hold dear. Because they still see us all as equal, they are just unable to comprehend. This is how it hurts. As the true terror and violence of that time comes to light for them, they will need the strength to endure and to forgive and to continue the legacy of a real, live man who gave his life in that struggle. For them, a real, live man who looks like Grandpa, for whom their eyes sparkle and who is loved infinitely.
Both girls are extremely empathic and feel for others so deeply and compassionately. I feel so lucky that we are the same in that way. But they, as I long ago, cannot define how it hurts, just feel the lumps in their throats, the flush of their cheeks, the knot in their hearts and they weep. They have cried for friends that "would not be our friends if the brown and the white could not be together." The oldest has a dear girlfriend who said she'd just have to be in jail because she loved her friend so and would not put up with that nonsense. I loved this comment more than I realized because it keeps returning to me, to my heart. I love it because during those MLK celebrations of my youth, I would have loved a professing of love and commitment such as that from someone who "didn't have to," was able to choose her commitment to the rights of others when the privilege was hers.
I was a young person and am now a grown woman. What I shared is not shame but the real visceral pain of that history, of what separation, exclusion, divisiveness of any kind does not only to us on a global scale, but what it does just to our own individual selves. We miss the true evolution of ourselves--physically, emotionally, spiritually, nationally, internationally, globally. We miss transcendence if we cannot "lift every voice and sing." I am working hard to keep that love in mine. I hope as we celebrate the man and his actions, we each make a commitment to ourselves and our actions.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Piece of Paper
"We're all married, right? All of us. You, Papa, me, and Lily, right? Because we are a family." 3 1/2 year old Virginie
Four years ago today, my Honeypot and I ventured out in the pouring rain to City Hall in downtown Manhattan to make it official before the State of New York. We'd left our two and 1/2 year old with a sitter and met a small handful of friends and family who would be there to support us and bear witness. We'd applied for the marriage license with an eclectic mix of New Yorkers just a week earlier. Though we'd been warned and were well-prepared for crazy, DMV-style lines, the program at the Justice of the Peace was efficient if curt, and we were there for less than an hour and a 1/2. By the time we were finished, I was ravenous and had to pee. That was pretty much par for the course in those days. I was five and a 1/2 months pregnant.
I don't want to say that we were pressured to marry. Anyone who knew us back then could have told you that no fire burned hotter or brighter than we. I just didn't see the point. I'd seen successful, unsuccessful, sham, true love, high school sweetheart, known-each-other-three-month marriages and thought, "good for them." I just didn't think that the piece of paper was necessary to define who we were and what we were to each other. He'd been married previously and had had a pretty contentious divorce, one that I had suffered through with him, and frankly, we already had a child together that for us was the true symbol of our connection. We were committed, were in it to win it, and wanted to build our family, our union, our team without being told how it was meant to be done. No matter the piece of paper, I knew that my partner, the one I had chosen for life would never abandon me or my children. I had faith in the person that he showed himself to be and he had the same faith in me. I considered us a modern, honest, intellectual, artistic couple who could take it or leave it. The paper, I mean.
My parents had come for a visit in the early weeks of my pregnancy with Virginie and I was violently ill. Didier and I were proceeding with caution as I'd already suffered two miscarriages. I knew the sickness was a good sign, as they say, but we were not quite sure we were ready to disclose our condition. The problem was I couldn't hide it either. When you are one who almost never turns down a glass of wine, the refusal of one definitely raises a flag. If you find yourself suddenly running for the bathroom every few minutes and cannot chew anything without getting that dizzy, nauseous feeling, you begin to look suspect. I was nervous and jittery withholding a secret that made us giddy so in an ill-considered act of sharing, I told them the news. There was silence and then there was head shaking. There were averted eyes and sighs. Didier and I looked at each other across the room and wondered if perhaps they had not heard me correctly. So I said it again. "We are pregnant. It's just the early stages but we are coming to the end of the first trimester so I am nearly sure." Nothing.
A handful of miserably depressing phone calls later and the "you're an unmarried hussy-not a celebrity-what would the neighbors think-you will never be forgiven-find a faith" dialogue convinced me that my perspective was surely not the most popular out there. Our relationship had outlasted a sibling's marriage. We'd been together for years and had a child already. We were in love. It seemed a bit ridiculous to us to spend our money on a ceremony to appease my family when we were actually preparing for a new arrival. Sharing our plan was really a courtesy. We'd made no decision on when or where or how or why we should "make it official."
And then came the offer for a position in Barbados. Upon review of the culture of this tiny Caribbean island, we started to see the writing on the wall. We could live together, common-law, in New York, forever. Our kids could have a different last name from their father, and we could hang with our diverse group of friends, our community and feel safe, fit in, avoid definitions from outside. But in Barbados we didn't want to make waves. We didn't know anyone and didn't want to draw attention to ourselves by rolling in there to live, a French chef and his African-American girlfriend and their children. We choked and felt that the easiest way to make this transition smoothly was to get married. We'd go there as an easily recognizable family, without demanding an understanding of our own definition of ourselves. Witnessing a couple we spent a good amount of time with, a Canadian couple together longer than we, having to explain again and again that they were a couple, a family but common law partners, proved to us that we'd dodged one.
I love being married to Didier, love what we have become, love the evolution of us from lovers to parents to the team. Each night, as I put the girls to bed, the littlest one asks, "Papa is married to all of us, right? We are all married together, right?" And I tell her, every night, that we are. That without her and her big sister there would be no "married," that we saved being married for them. For them, making the commitment, putting it down on paper, rather than in a song, in a painting, in a poem, in a dance, in the way we live was worth it.
Being married, signing the love on that paper has meant that everyone understands that we have rights and privileges that were we just "together" we'd have to fight for. We'd have red tape to cut through. Folks to have to argue with so that we could see each other in the hospital, have access to accounts and funds and private information. In Barbados, being married served us well, especially during exhausting visits to the Immigration Department where having and showing our marriage license seemed to at least begin the process, was a key to the door with 1000 locks. My unmarried friends suffered endlessly the questions, the downright concern that they did not have that paper and did not share a common name. With all else I was dealing with there, that just might have put me over the edge.
I am married. And to a wonderful man. When it so moved us, we went downtown and just did it. But what of our friends and family who don't have the option to do this? Who might embrace it in a way that we didn't? Who love each other as we do? Who have every right to cut through the red tape, see their names on important documents, embrace and love their children as we do? Perhaps they want to wing it and commit in a ceremony less formal and maybe they just want the option to have that piece of paper, to be legitimized, to be included, counted, considered. Some of my gay and lesbian friends won the geographical lottery living in States where their marriage is legal, so they too could run downtown as we did and just do it. Let's see us all catch up. If I need the piece of paper to make people happy, then I wish that everyone can be so happy. Just sayin'.
Happy Anniversary to my love. I remember the first date with the same jelly-legged swoon. The first kiss as the seal to our connection. The first fight as proof of our freedom to be ourselves and continue to love one another. The years in Barbados as a big freakin' test. And the piece of paper as a dare to do it all forever.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Four years ago today, my Honeypot and I ventured out in the pouring rain to City Hall in downtown Manhattan to make it official before the State of New York. We'd left our two and 1/2 year old with a sitter and met a small handful of friends and family who would be there to support us and bear witness. We'd applied for the marriage license with an eclectic mix of New Yorkers just a week earlier. Though we'd been warned and were well-prepared for crazy, DMV-style lines, the program at the Justice of the Peace was efficient if curt, and we were there for less than an hour and a 1/2. By the time we were finished, I was ravenous and had to pee. That was pretty much par for the course in those days. I was five and a 1/2 months pregnant.
I don't want to say that we were pressured to marry. Anyone who knew us back then could have told you that no fire burned hotter or brighter than we. I just didn't see the point. I'd seen successful, unsuccessful, sham, true love, high school sweetheart, known-each-other-three-month marriages and thought, "good for them." I just didn't think that the piece of paper was necessary to define who we were and what we were to each other. He'd been married previously and had had a pretty contentious divorce, one that I had suffered through with him, and frankly, we already had a child together that for us was the true symbol of our connection. We were committed, were in it to win it, and wanted to build our family, our union, our team without being told how it was meant to be done. No matter the piece of paper, I knew that my partner, the one I had chosen for life would never abandon me or my children. I had faith in the person that he showed himself to be and he had the same faith in me. I considered us a modern, honest, intellectual, artistic couple who could take it or leave it. The paper, I mean.
My parents had come for a visit in the early weeks of my pregnancy with Virginie and I was violently ill. Didier and I were proceeding with caution as I'd already suffered two miscarriages. I knew the sickness was a good sign, as they say, but we were not quite sure we were ready to disclose our condition. The problem was I couldn't hide it either. When you are one who almost never turns down a glass of wine, the refusal of one definitely raises a flag. If you find yourself suddenly running for the bathroom every few minutes and cannot chew anything without getting that dizzy, nauseous feeling, you begin to look suspect. I was nervous and jittery withholding a secret that made us giddy so in an ill-considered act of sharing, I told them the news. There was silence and then there was head shaking. There were averted eyes and sighs. Didier and I looked at each other across the room and wondered if perhaps they had not heard me correctly. So I said it again. "We are pregnant. It's just the early stages but we are coming to the end of the first trimester so I am nearly sure." Nothing.
A handful of miserably depressing phone calls later and the "you're an unmarried hussy-not a celebrity-what would the neighbors think-you will never be forgiven-find a faith" dialogue convinced me that my perspective was surely not the most popular out there. Our relationship had outlasted a sibling's marriage. We'd been together for years and had a child already. We were in love. It seemed a bit ridiculous to us to spend our money on a ceremony to appease my family when we were actually preparing for a new arrival. Sharing our plan was really a courtesy. We'd made no decision on when or where or how or why we should "make it official."
And then came the offer for a position in Barbados. Upon review of the culture of this tiny Caribbean island, we started to see the writing on the wall. We could live together, common-law, in New York, forever. Our kids could have a different last name from their father, and we could hang with our diverse group of friends, our community and feel safe, fit in, avoid definitions from outside. But in Barbados we didn't want to make waves. We didn't know anyone and didn't want to draw attention to ourselves by rolling in there to live, a French chef and his African-American girlfriend and their children. We choked and felt that the easiest way to make this transition smoothly was to get married. We'd go there as an easily recognizable family, without demanding an understanding of our own definition of ourselves. Witnessing a couple we spent a good amount of time with, a Canadian couple together longer than we, having to explain again and again that they were a couple, a family but common law partners, proved to us that we'd dodged one.
I love being married to Didier, love what we have become, love the evolution of us from lovers to parents to the team. Each night, as I put the girls to bed, the littlest one asks, "Papa is married to all of us, right? We are all married together, right?" And I tell her, every night, that we are. That without her and her big sister there would be no "married," that we saved being married for them. For them, making the commitment, putting it down on paper, rather than in a song, in a painting, in a poem, in a dance, in the way we live was worth it.
Being married, signing the love on that paper has meant that everyone understands that we have rights and privileges that were we just "together" we'd have to fight for. We'd have red tape to cut through. Folks to have to argue with so that we could see each other in the hospital, have access to accounts and funds and private information. In Barbados, being married served us well, especially during exhausting visits to the Immigration Department where having and showing our marriage license seemed to at least begin the process, was a key to the door with 1000 locks. My unmarried friends suffered endlessly the questions, the downright concern that they did not have that paper and did not share a common name. With all else I was dealing with there, that just might have put me over the edge.
I am married. And to a wonderful man. When it so moved us, we went downtown and just did it. But what of our friends and family who don't have the option to do this? Who might embrace it in a way that we didn't? Who love each other as we do? Who have every right to cut through the red tape, see their names on important documents, embrace and love their children as we do? Perhaps they want to wing it and commit in a ceremony less formal and maybe they just want the option to have that piece of paper, to be legitimized, to be included, counted, considered. Some of my gay and lesbian friends won the geographical lottery living in States where their marriage is legal, so they too could run downtown as we did and just do it. Let's see us all catch up. If I need the piece of paper to make people happy, then I wish that everyone can be so happy. Just sayin'.
Happy Anniversary to my love. I remember the first date with the same jelly-legged swoon. The first kiss as the seal to our connection. The first fight as proof of our freedom to be ourselves and continue to love one another. The years in Barbados as a big freakin' test. And the piece of paper as a dare to do it all forever.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Friday, November 16, 2012
The Meet and Greet
I was not popular in high school. I wouldn't say that I was unpopular either, but I certainly didn't strut around the place cocksure that I was loved, admired, or led a coveted life. Funny how so much in the adult world takes you right back to those awkward feelings in the hallways of a place where everything was learned--intellectually, emotionally, strategically, socially. I didn't hate my experience, didn't hate being odd man out, though it was often lonely and painful, well hidden behind a smile and eccentric wardrobe. It was the 80s and though our neighborhood was integrated, there was no strong minority presence, so minority students were more like novelty acts, not headliners.
Unlike teens today, I didn't plot to hurt other people when I felt hurt and didn't have social media to blow up other people metaphorically with photos, miserable, cruel texts, or revealed secrets. I always thought that becoming successful would be the best revenge. Success being measured more by my ability to get as far away from my hometown as possible, finding a mate, making a family, and just having a level of happiness that the torture of being in high school and living at home denied me. I feel so good about the life I have made with my hubby and people, even when I am staring into space wondering how the hell we got here, begging the heavens for some guidance, direction, help when I just don't know what turn to take.
But we live in our own sweet bubble. We are protected in this place because we made it and invite in only those we want. We are a family of four and any friends, family, acquaintances, or repairmen who get close do so with great scrutiny and testing. Can't play right? No more play dates. Can't speak kindly? No more phone calls. Bring the bad juju? Buh-bye. In just one situation, however, I am thrown back to the feeling I had trolling the high school hallways when I bumped into someone at the top of the heap.
A few nights ago, I forced my husband to come home early from work and attend a parents' night at Virginie's school. Were we not meeting her teachers, I would have scrapped the whole thing entirely, but we were. Meeting her teachers. And her teachers have already told us some wonderful things about our baby. Our baby who is 3 1/2 and trying to write her own name. Who talks non-stop with big words in big sentences. For her and for Lily, for each other, we will do anything. So there I found myself, with my handsome French husband with no high school hang ups because it seems that high school BS is a distinctly American problem, but with absolutely no interest in these people, meeting and greeting in the school's gymnasium while the PTA hawked books for its fundraiser and folks smiled at each other and air kissed each other and chatted about their other kids at bigger, better schools, their wonderful vacations, exciting plans for their charmed lives. I felt myself in braces, short spiky hair, and black wrestling shoes, in a sea of glamorous sorority girls.
I know, I know they are not all alike, not all the same. That we all have our crosses to bear and that the truth is often hidden behind those hair flips and blindingly flashy diamonds. Just as years later, relationships that never formed in high school have been able to develop and blossom via social media after one heck of a twentieth reunion. But the gut feeling is still there. The lump in the throat still lingers. Having spent those formative years in a nearly all white school, where just by nature of being different I found myself on the outside(not to mention the secret and not so secret racist ideals exhibited by some, but certainly not all in my community), it is hard for me to fully accept that I would be welcomed at these gatherings. Despite my attempts at self-improvement and self-acceptance, my inner teenager feels inept, awkward, and nervous in the crowd. In nearly every crowd, as I never quite fit in with the black bourgeoisie either. Fitting in has just not ever been my strongest suit.
But as a friend told me (another isolate, though introverted and not extroverted as I am) for the kids, for their development, for their friendships and relations, we have to make that effort even if we are afraid. Even if we fear judgment or attack. Even if it kills us. And you know, though it appears that this group is "keeping up" with each other, they are not checking for me. I am not part of the game. We had a perfectly lovely visit to our baby girl's school, enjoyed the projects and pictures posted all around for us to see, and even met some warm individuals. I know the projection is mine to deal with, something I work on all the time. But consider, if I, an outgoing, open, smiling individual fears being unwelcome, excluded and nearly missed such a wonderful event, how many others without the same social tools are avoiding all contact entirely? Who are not sending their kids to these great schools. Are not participating in events that can advance their children's education, experiences, development. Who feel like the dream is not meant for them.
I will meet anyone, greet anyone, if it means that I can hand over a place in the world for my people where they feel welcomed, considered, and included. I don't think it serves them or me to isolate ourselves. But I also hope that no one continues to keep their group closed, hiding all the assets and casting doubt that the world is indeed the oyster of everyone and not just a chosen few.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Unlike teens today, I didn't plot to hurt other people when I felt hurt and didn't have social media to blow up other people metaphorically with photos, miserable, cruel texts, or revealed secrets. I always thought that becoming successful would be the best revenge. Success being measured more by my ability to get as far away from my hometown as possible, finding a mate, making a family, and just having a level of happiness that the torture of being in high school and living at home denied me. I feel so good about the life I have made with my hubby and people, even when I am staring into space wondering how the hell we got here, begging the heavens for some guidance, direction, help when I just don't know what turn to take.
But we live in our own sweet bubble. We are protected in this place because we made it and invite in only those we want. We are a family of four and any friends, family, acquaintances, or repairmen who get close do so with great scrutiny and testing. Can't play right? No more play dates. Can't speak kindly? No more phone calls. Bring the bad juju? Buh-bye. In just one situation, however, I am thrown back to the feeling I had trolling the high school hallways when I bumped into someone at the top of the heap.
A few nights ago, I forced my husband to come home early from work and attend a parents' night at Virginie's school. Were we not meeting her teachers, I would have scrapped the whole thing entirely, but we were. Meeting her teachers. And her teachers have already told us some wonderful things about our baby. Our baby who is 3 1/2 and trying to write her own name. Who talks non-stop with big words in big sentences. For her and for Lily, for each other, we will do anything. So there I found myself, with my handsome French husband with no high school hang ups because it seems that high school BS is a distinctly American problem, but with absolutely no interest in these people, meeting and greeting in the school's gymnasium while the PTA hawked books for its fundraiser and folks smiled at each other and air kissed each other and chatted about their other kids at bigger, better schools, their wonderful vacations, exciting plans for their charmed lives. I felt myself in braces, short spiky hair, and black wrestling shoes, in a sea of glamorous sorority girls.
I know, I know they are not all alike, not all the same. That we all have our crosses to bear and that the truth is often hidden behind those hair flips and blindingly flashy diamonds. Just as years later, relationships that never formed in high school have been able to develop and blossom via social media after one heck of a twentieth reunion. But the gut feeling is still there. The lump in the throat still lingers. Having spent those formative years in a nearly all white school, where just by nature of being different I found myself on the outside(not to mention the secret and not so secret racist ideals exhibited by some, but certainly not all in my community), it is hard for me to fully accept that I would be welcomed at these gatherings. Despite my attempts at self-improvement and self-acceptance, my inner teenager feels inept, awkward, and nervous in the crowd. In nearly every crowd, as I never quite fit in with the black bourgeoisie either. Fitting in has just not ever been my strongest suit.
But as a friend told me (another isolate, though introverted and not extroverted as I am) for the kids, for their development, for their friendships and relations, we have to make that effort even if we are afraid. Even if we fear judgment or attack. Even if it kills us. And you know, though it appears that this group is "keeping up" with each other, they are not checking for me. I am not part of the game. We had a perfectly lovely visit to our baby girl's school, enjoyed the projects and pictures posted all around for us to see, and even met some warm individuals. I know the projection is mine to deal with, something I work on all the time. But consider, if I, an outgoing, open, smiling individual fears being unwelcome, excluded and nearly missed such a wonderful event, how many others without the same social tools are avoiding all contact entirely? Who are not sending their kids to these great schools. Are not participating in events that can advance their children's education, experiences, development. Who feel like the dream is not meant for them.
I will meet anyone, greet anyone, if it means that I can hand over a place in the world for my people where they feel welcomed, considered, and included. I don't think it serves them or me to isolate ourselves. But I also hope that no one continues to keep their group closed, hiding all the assets and casting doubt that the world is indeed the oyster of everyone and not just a chosen few.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Between a rock and hard place: A story in sleep torture
It seems that mine is a life of sleep deprivation and contorted positions. Before Lily was born I'd been given stern warning by mothers and women, friends and strangers even to get my rest. "Sleep now," they'd say,"because it all goes to hell when the baby is born." How could I have known, a single girl well into my thirties, who'd been able to drop in and out of bed whenever I chose, whose boyfriend/fiance/then husband was still willing to put some tape across his nose and rid himself of the rhinosounds, squeaks, and hisses, and who was still able to put in earplugs because the only thing she'd had to listen out for was, well, nothing, that these ominous warnings would predict a future so bleak that I should have been lying down all day every day?
Last night after a particularly grueling evening suffering with abdominal pain, I was forced to confront the three year old who threw down in an epic overtired, overexcited, pre-bed temper tantrum that went on for over an hour and caused lots of tears and stress for the entire family. It appears that though she is relatively newly potty trained, Virginie would prefer never to have a pull up touch her little hips, save for during intense #2s, nor would she like to have to brush her teeth two minutes after her big sister. None of this was shared, however, before the Exorcist-like knock down that took that wide-grinned whippersnapper and turned her into a mean Gremlin that ate way too much after midnight.
We moved from room to room allowing the tantrum to unfold, but never leaving her alone to feel alienated or rejected, though this is exactly how I felt. I reached for her and held her tight, wrapping her flailing arms and legs in a kind of burrito to try to bring her down. She turned it up a notch to hysteria. I tried to dial it down to Zen but got closer to weeping willow. She finally spun out and collapsed in the bed with me. She wore no pull up, had brushed her teeth in the dark after her sister, was sweaty with curls stuck to her cheeks, and continued that trembling sigh that signals crazy-wild crying had taken place, and looked as angelic as that little puppy that has torn to shreds your favorite shoes, but is just so cute with the bits and pieces all around her. I was knackered. Just wanted to get to sleep. My poor husband would have to miss his birthday "present" for this evening.
As we drifted off to sleep, exhausted and saddened, frankly, by the evening's turn of events, I started massive, heavy dreaming right away which usually tells me that I too am overtired. When the spirits overtake me in slumber, provide wild visuals and what I often accept as secret messages, it means Mumma's ass is bushed. Not sure how long I was lost in outer space when someone, tapped me on the arm to invite me to visit the toilet with her for company. Lily often asks permission to do the most mundane tasks. "Excuse me, Mommy, can I please play in my playroom? May I wash my hands? Can I go to the bathroom?" Tonight it was a special invitation to watch her pee and then get in the bed with her to snuggle. Thank you. We cuddled up together, she surrounded by cute and cuddly stuffed animals, me lying on the connection point between two twin beds pushed together, with a now moist and cold Virginie rolling into me as though I were an electric blanket.
Once both girls were fully asleep, I was able to extricate myself by completely flattening my body and slithering to the floor and rolling out the door. I returned to my own comfortable bed to be confronted by snoring that rocked the walls. My dear husband has not ever accepted my video proof of his snoring rattling the house and was not going for the pushes, taps, and nose pinches I offered last night either. I can assure you that if you listen closely at the front door of the house, you can hear this poor sod all the way from our bedroom. While he insists he cannot make that much noise because he does not have sleep apnea, which he calls ap-nay because he is saying it as one would in French, I have reassured him that of course he does not have ap-nay. He just has an incredibly loud breathing situation that appears to make him stop breathing for a second and catch his breath again like apnea but is in no way apnea. Whatever it is, I lay next to him each night with a foghorn ringing my inner ear until I cannot take it any longer and return to the pinch point in the girls' bed.
During our first months in Barbados, Virginie was a tiny little thing, just barely four months old. Though we'd been wildly unsuccessful getting Lily to sleep in the crib years before, we felt confident that starting the process all over again with a more stubborn, willful child would/could yield better results. I did manage to get Virginie in the crib, God bless me. But in order for her to stay there and sleep the night, I would have to lie on the floor on a yoga mat with my hand reaching up to her. After years of sleeping in Lily's toddler bed, this was a marked step in the wrong direction. I was beginning to feel like a failure and I was damned tired. I finally gave in and put two twin mattresses on the floor in the girls' room and slept with them every night. This ensured at least five hours a night before one of the two people answered nature's clock and woke with the cocks and the baby sea turtles.
I have raised those mattresses with bed frames and a feather bed and carry one of the pillows from my own bed to theirs so as not to feel like a total loser but the truth is I have not had a good night's, seven to eight hour, refreshing, rejuvenating sleep in nearly seven years. I should have heeded that advice and tried to bank it long ago. For now it's green juice and hemorrhoid cream on the eyes in the morning and quick cuddles by my captors. Stockholm syndrome-stylie, I have given in to them. Every once in a while I close my eyes for a few minutes while sitting on the couch, watching soccer practice, or listening to one of the people regale me with tales of their lives or better yet some crazy detail from one of their favorite television shows, and I think, then say out loud, "Don't tease me. I'm awake"
Night night.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Last night after a particularly grueling evening suffering with abdominal pain, I was forced to confront the three year old who threw down in an epic overtired, overexcited, pre-bed temper tantrum that went on for over an hour and caused lots of tears and stress for the entire family. It appears that though she is relatively newly potty trained, Virginie would prefer never to have a pull up touch her little hips, save for during intense #2s, nor would she like to have to brush her teeth two minutes after her big sister. None of this was shared, however, before the Exorcist-like knock down that took that wide-grinned whippersnapper and turned her into a mean Gremlin that ate way too much after midnight.
We moved from room to room allowing the tantrum to unfold, but never leaving her alone to feel alienated or rejected, though this is exactly how I felt. I reached for her and held her tight, wrapping her flailing arms and legs in a kind of burrito to try to bring her down. She turned it up a notch to hysteria. I tried to dial it down to Zen but got closer to weeping willow. She finally spun out and collapsed in the bed with me. She wore no pull up, had brushed her teeth in the dark after her sister, was sweaty with curls stuck to her cheeks, and continued that trembling sigh that signals crazy-wild crying had taken place, and looked as angelic as that little puppy that has torn to shreds your favorite shoes, but is just so cute with the bits and pieces all around her. I was knackered. Just wanted to get to sleep. My poor husband would have to miss his birthday "present" for this evening.
As we drifted off to sleep, exhausted and saddened, frankly, by the evening's turn of events, I started massive, heavy dreaming right away which usually tells me that I too am overtired. When the spirits overtake me in slumber, provide wild visuals and what I often accept as secret messages, it means Mumma's ass is bushed. Not sure how long I was lost in outer space when someone, tapped me on the arm to invite me to visit the toilet with her for company. Lily often asks permission to do the most mundane tasks. "Excuse me, Mommy, can I please play in my playroom? May I wash my hands? Can I go to the bathroom?" Tonight it was a special invitation to watch her pee and then get in the bed with her to snuggle. Thank you. We cuddled up together, she surrounded by cute and cuddly stuffed animals, me lying on the connection point between two twin beds pushed together, with a now moist and cold Virginie rolling into me as though I were an electric blanket.
Once both girls were fully asleep, I was able to extricate myself by completely flattening my body and slithering to the floor and rolling out the door. I returned to my own comfortable bed to be confronted by snoring that rocked the walls. My dear husband has not ever accepted my video proof of his snoring rattling the house and was not going for the pushes, taps, and nose pinches I offered last night either. I can assure you that if you listen closely at the front door of the house, you can hear this poor sod all the way from our bedroom. While he insists he cannot make that much noise because he does not have sleep apnea, which he calls ap-nay because he is saying it as one would in French, I have reassured him that of course he does not have ap-nay. He just has an incredibly loud breathing situation that appears to make him stop breathing for a second and catch his breath again like apnea but is in no way apnea. Whatever it is, I lay next to him each night with a foghorn ringing my inner ear until I cannot take it any longer and return to the pinch point in the girls' bed.
During our first months in Barbados, Virginie was a tiny little thing, just barely four months old. Though we'd been wildly unsuccessful getting Lily to sleep in the crib years before, we felt confident that starting the process all over again with a more stubborn, willful child would/could yield better results. I did manage to get Virginie in the crib, God bless me. But in order for her to stay there and sleep the night, I would have to lie on the floor on a yoga mat with my hand reaching up to her. After years of sleeping in Lily's toddler bed, this was a marked step in the wrong direction. I was beginning to feel like a failure and I was damned tired. I finally gave in and put two twin mattresses on the floor in the girls' room and slept with them every night. This ensured at least five hours a night before one of the two people answered nature's clock and woke with the cocks and the baby sea turtles.
I have raised those mattresses with bed frames and a feather bed and carry one of the pillows from my own bed to theirs so as not to feel like a total loser but the truth is I have not had a good night's, seven to eight hour, refreshing, rejuvenating sleep in nearly seven years. I should have heeded that advice and tried to bank it long ago. For now it's green juice and hemorrhoid cream on the eyes in the morning and quick cuddles by my captors. Stockholm syndrome-stylie, I have given in to them. Every once in a while I close my eyes for a few minutes while sitting on the couch, watching soccer practice, or listening to one of the people regale me with tales of their lives or better yet some crazy detail from one of their favorite television shows, and I think, then say out loud, "Don't tease me. I'm awake"
Night night.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Castle on the Shoreline
My husband works weekends and is out of the house for more than fourteen hours a day on the days he is working. Sometimes, due to the nature of his job, he is gone from Wednesday through Sunday, on long business trips every week. Essentially, that leaves me at home, like a single mother, but not, to take care of the girls and the home, with the full responsibility of schooling, doctors appointments, cleaning, laundry, feedings, bathing, homework, fighting, and art and science projects. I am the 24/7. I am the rock. I am tired on so many levels that I either complain about everything or am rendered completely unable to speak, too stunned am I to admit that I cannot believe how I've found myself down this rabbit hole when I was once sipping gorgeous roses at the bar, wearing heels, make up, jewelry, some hot outfit, and a smile wide and honest.
A good friend asked me the other day if I got lonely being with the kids so much, er, all the time. She knows that at times when I need a break I will have a sitter come and play, entertain, and watch the girls so I can regain my bearings, but she also knows that all the time, every day, even if there weren't lots of activities and excitement, fights, poos and spills, can be a lot. Sometimes it's too much. Often. Unless you have experienced it, it's nearly impossible to imagine what the constant chatter, "Mommommomuhmommymommommommommy," paper cutting, coloring that gets in the table, the floor, Oops, the wall, *sorry*, spills, pulls, falls, dropsies can do to your psyche. Add this to the basic household responsibilities which entail taking care of absolutely everything, and you only have an inkling what it's like daily. This schedule cannot be broken down in linear time as there are many dimensions and phases that define the stress. One cannot say, for example, "Oh, you have been home with the kids for just six hours after school? My workday is 8, 10, 12 hours long." Uh, yeah. Being at the ready, down for whatever, all the time blows all most other gigs out of the water.
But do I get lonely? The truth is, I have been doing this for years. Our move to Barbados marked so many transitions in our lives. We were newly married, living abroad together for the first time, had a new baby, Lily (then a new three year old) was starting school, and I found myself home. Home. All the time. With postpartum depression and culture shock. I could not work, which I had done all my adult life, and was very uncomfortable giving it up. It made sense at the time because Virginie was a tiny baby and needed me. I told myself it all made sense and that I would be able to study French, maybe even paint, meditate, and swim in the backyard pool. Make discoveries about myself while the baby slept, do light cleaning and housework.
Well that was a bust. In two years I got through the first level of discs in the Rosetta Stone program and my French improved only from my crazy attempts at talking to a French ex-pat who, in trying to encourage my comfort with the language, spoke only French with me. Painting? Never saw a brush. It was impossible to meditate in that heat, swatting mosquitoes, nursing a baby, and pacing the floor. I did take a swim or two in the pool so there were surely some comforts, but I did so most often when baby Virginie fell asleep o,r in the end, was at school. I never stayed too long for fear of some freak accident leaving me stranded or drowned in the pool with no one home to help me or at least call emergency. Thank you, Mom, for suggesting that every time I mentioned possibly going for a swim.
I remember afternoons along the shore, staring at the Caribbean, taking photos that made our life look surreal, unimaginable in its magnificence and beauty. We were tan and covered in sand, looking like the Swiss Family Robinson lost at sea. The waves would lap at our feet and our legs as we sat at the water's edge. It's those stolen moments (and they were indeed stolen from the hubby's crazy work life where he was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) that I recall when I am trying to convince myself that we can do this. We'd raced to the beach as soon as he'd found a moment free, a small reprieve from the Keystone Kitchen he'd been expected to lead, made up of untrained locals and immovable union reps in a small country with big dreams but often without the skill set to make them come true.
Three years later we are doing it all again. The girls are older and somewhat wiser to the game. They know it's all me, but they are also greater manipulators. They knew that I feel terrible that they cannot be with their father, so I overcompensate for this with too much attention, too many small excursions, and too many projects. I have exhausted myself trying to give them the impression that there are two of us here. And that the two of us are secure. And that we are a happy family. I have no turquoise blue sea to distract them or myself. I often wonder how military families do it with deployments of 6, 18, 24 months. How do the stay-at-homes keep it up? I mean, when someone is gone so long, isn't it hard to conjure up those same feelings? Does absence truly make the heart grow fonder? Or is is resentful? Bitter? Indifferent?
I know this is the way of many modern families. Long distance love affairs, weekend meetings and rendez-vous. Living in different cities, coming together on the weekends, seeing each other at the end of the night on the computer for a cyber-good night. Pictures, photos, promises of tomorrow that cannot be kept today.
We built sand castles every weekend on the shoreline. Elaborate cities with tunnels, and rivers, and turrets. All four of us would work on some part of it either until we were exhausted or the shore took part of our home back to sea. Sometimes we'd rebuild and sometimes we thought best to let it go.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
A good friend asked me the other day if I got lonely being with the kids so much, er, all the time. She knows that at times when I need a break I will have a sitter come and play, entertain, and watch the girls so I can regain my bearings, but she also knows that all the time, every day, even if there weren't lots of activities and excitement, fights, poos and spills, can be a lot. Sometimes it's too much. Often. Unless you have experienced it, it's nearly impossible to imagine what the constant chatter, "Mommommomuhmommymommommommommy," paper cutting, coloring that gets in the table, the floor, Oops, the wall, *sorry*, spills, pulls, falls, dropsies can do to your psyche. Add this to the basic household responsibilities which entail taking care of absolutely everything, and you only have an inkling what it's like daily. This schedule cannot be broken down in linear time as there are many dimensions and phases that define the stress. One cannot say, for example, "Oh, you have been home with the kids for just six hours after school? My workday is 8, 10, 12 hours long." Uh, yeah. Being at the ready, down for whatever, all the time blows all most other gigs out of the water.
But do I get lonely? The truth is, I have been doing this for years. Our move to Barbados marked so many transitions in our lives. We were newly married, living abroad together for the first time, had a new baby, Lily (then a new three year old) was starting school, and I found myself home. Home. All the time. With postpartum depression and culture shock. I could not work, which I had done all my adult life, and was very uncomfortable giving it up. It made sense at the time because Virginie was a tiny baby and needed me. I told myself it all made sense and that I would be able to study French, maybe even paint, meditate, and swim in the backyard pool. Make discoveries about myself while the baby slept, do light cleaning and housework.
Well that was a bust. In two years I got through the first level of discs in the Rosetta Stone program and my French improved only from my crazy attempts at talking to a French ex-pat who, in trying to encourage my comfort with the language, spoke only French with me. Painting? Never saw a brush. It was impossible to meditate in that heat, swatting mosquitoes, nursing a baby, and pacing the floor. I did take a swim or two in the pool so there were surely some comforts, but I did so most often when baby Virginie fell asleep o,r in the end, was at school. I never stayed too long for fear of some freak accident leaving me stranded or drowned in the pool with no one home to help me or at least call emergency. Thank you, Mom, for suggesting that every time I mentioned possibly going for a swim.
I remember afternoons along the shore, staring at the Caribbean, taking photos that made our life look surreal, unimaginable in its magnificence and beauty. We were tan and covered in sand, looking like the Swiss Family Robinson lost at sea. The waves would lap at our feet and our legs as we sat at the water's edge. It's those stolen moments (and they were indeed stolen from the hubby's crazy work life where he was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) that I recall when I am trying to convince myself that we can do this. We'd raced to the beach as soon as he'd found a moment free, a small reprieve from the Keystone Kitchen he'd been expected to lead, made up of untrained locals and immovable union reps in a small country with big dreams but often without the skill set to make them come true.
Three years later we are doing it all again. The girls are older and somewhat wiser to the game. They know it's all me, but they are also greater manipulators. They knew that I feel terrible that they cannot be with their father, so I overcompensate for this with too much attention, too many small excursions, and too many projects. I have exhausted myself trying to give them the impression that there are two of us here. And that the two of us are secure. And that we are a happy family. I have no turquoise blue sea to distract them or myself. I often wonder how military families do it with deployments of 6, 18, 24 months. How do the stay-at-homes keep it up? I mean, when someone is gone so long, isn't it hard to conjure up those same feelings? Does absence truly make the heart grow fonder? Or is is resentful? Bitter? Indifferent?
I know this is the way of many modern families. Long distance love affairs, weekend meetings and rendez-vous. Living in different cities, coming together on the weekends, seeing each other at the end of the night on the computer for a cyber-good night. Pictures, photos, promises of tomorrow that cannot be kept today.
We built sand castles every weekend on the shoreline. Elaborate cities with tunnels, and rivers, and turrets. All four of us would work on some part of it either until we were exhausted or the shore took part of our home back to sea. Sometimes we'd rebuild and sometimes we thought best to let it go.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Brown girl in the ring
I grew up in an all-white community in the 70s and 80s. It was surely a different time than now. No one was looking out for me or loving on me. This is before images of beautiful black and brown people were served up as part of the mainstream. Before Naomi Campbell, Alek Wek, Beyonce, and Rihanna. This is before anyone would speak of a black president without nervous laughter or fear that it could never happen. This is a time when blackness was still subversive and underground and though there were some bright spots that poked out, we had ours and they had theirs. I listened to WBLS and 92KTU which played disco and old school black music until it was more than apparent that this was not popular/pop music and that that sound was not going to help me fit in. I realized that the pink tights I wore for ballet were meant to simulate my pink legs and my pink slippers, my pink toes, except that my legs and toes were brown. I'm from Jersey and all that it entails, Springsteen, Bon Jovi, muscle cars, Jersey Freeze, the shore. Girls could fight here and did, while still looking awesome with feathered hair and satin jackets, combs tucked neatly into their back pockets. I watched from far away, hoping, wishing, praying, but that just wasn't me.
I never got to know "black culture" as it was known. Never got my hair did every Saturday and listened to the ladies talk smack and prep for Sunday's chuch. My church was white. I loved the Lord, but he was white and had us singing slow, wack songs . There were no drums or bass guitar played. I didn't get to get LIVE and feel the spirit coursing through me. I never heard people play the dozens or just groove to the cool sounds on a summer night sitting in the car blasting the radio. I never saw a black mayor, police chief, lawyers, doctors, television stars, beauty queens, anyone really. I saw it all on TV. I wanted it. There were other black kids in my community and I saw their longing just like mine. They each tried to fill that space somehow, somewhere.
I write this because I have, for the last four weeks, dropped my girls off at a camp filled with young, 3 to 13 year old African-American kids. I am thrilled for my people to be experiencing the black community in a way they just wouldn't where we live and yet I am highly disturbed by some of the things I see happening around them. Lily and Virginie are being adored like little princesses. It scares and confuses me. In a sea of beautiful black and brown faces, I see few who recognize their own loveliness, their own beauty, their own strength. But when Lily and Virginie enter the room, the girls run to them, want to touch them, brush their hair, hold them (mostly Virginie, but even girls from Lily's own group, which would make them the same age as she, want to carry her around). I have heard them tell my girls how pretty, lovely, whatever it is they are.
My children are young, three and almost six. While we have talked about differences in race, culture, experience, looks, identity, it has been rudimentary at best. They are not at a stage where they could possibly fathom that some people, based on these characteristics, could be and are treated differently. Lily believes everyone has something beautiful about them and I agree with her. She describes her friends by the things they like, the things they do, and the way they make her feel. She loves these little girls at camp and cannot see what I see when I watch the interaction.
My girls are black and French and they know it and feel proud to be both. Though I find them to be stunning, it is certainly not something we stress at home. How they look is surely not more important than the content of their character or that they have good manners and are kind and considerate girls. We stress their achievements and their accomplishments, encouraging them to try things they are afraid of and keep trying until they succeed. I have taught them to trust themselves in new situations and to find the good person, the kind person in the group and Lily has often done just that. Walked into unfamiliar territory and come out with a good, kind soul to befriend. Never has she chosen one or another based on their race or their background.
She has seen many examples of women, black, mixed, Hispanic, Asian, white, straight, lesbian in our community and through the little media she has access to and has accepted our strengths, our power, and our beauty in a way that took me more than half my life to discover. She has never told me that she wished she were white, quite the opposite, hoped that she could be more like me. I am so happy that she, thus far, seems to care little about the outside world's perception of her and yet, there she is. A cute, little, light-skinned baby girl with a bouncy ponytail. I would have adored her had we been contemporaries. Except for Kim Fields who played Tootie on the Facts of Life, there was no one else to show me or believe in my loveliness. That bouncy ponytail alone would have given me a thousand fantasies. But the braids, Afro puffs, twists, and low 'fros I see at camp are just as stunning. I want the girls who sport them to know this too.
This is a complicated issue, weighed heavily by the racism and perceptions of beauty, importance, and relevance of people of color that have marred this country from its inception. I don't have an answer here, don't know how to show these beautiful, intelligent brown girls their value. I know that since she was a baby, I used to sing the song, "Brown Girl in the Ring" to Lily and she knew that she was that brown girl. So did Virginie when I sang it to her. So do I feel the connection when I hear it now. It took a lifetime for me to learn to love myself, not to compare myself to a standard that wasn't even considering me, in which I had no chance of being beautiful or special.
I'd hoped these little brown girls had started to find role models, at least people who looked like them, talked like them, shared their dreams with them, to make them feel proud of who they are. I look into their warm, brown eyes and see my little self feeling less than and hope they feel, when I put my hand on their cheeks or cup their chins in my hand to tilt their heads to mine that I can see they are special. Don't get me wrong. I love, love, love my beautiful babies. Don't consider them less than or greater than, just beautiful brown babes navigating this craziness. They will have a guide through this mucky muck. But I pray the same for all the brown girls too.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I never got to know "black culture" as it was known. Never got my hair did every Saturday and listened to the ladies talk smack and prep for Sunday's chuch. My church was white. I loved the Lord, but he was white and had us singing slow, wack songs . There were no drums or bass guitar played. I didn't get to get LIVE and feel the spirit coursing through me. I never heard people play the dozens or just groove to the cool sounds on a summer night sitting in the car blasting the radio. I never saw a black mayor, police chief, lawyers, doctors, television stars, beauty queens, anyone really. I saw it all on TV. I wanted it. There were other black kids in my community and I saw their longing just like mine. They each tried to fill that space somehow, somewhere.
I write this because I have, for the last four weeks, dropped my girls off at a camp filled with young, 3 to 13 year old African-American kids. I am thrilled for my people to be experiencing the black community in a way they just wouldn't where we live and yet I am highly disturbed by some of the things I see happening around them. Lily and Virginie are being adored like little princesses. It scares and confuses me. In a sea of beautiful black and brown faces, I see few who recognize their own loveliness, their own beauty, their own strength. But when Lily and Virginie enter the room, the girls run to them, want to touch them, brush their hair, hold them (mostly Virginie, but even girls from Lily's own group, which would make them the same age as she, want to carry her around). I have heard them tell my girls how pretty, lovely, whatever it is they are.
My children are young, three and almost six. While we have talked about differences in race, culture, experience, looks, identity, it has been rudimentary at best. They are not at a stage where they could possibly fathom that some people, based on these characteristics, could be and are treated differently. Lily believes everyone has something beautiful about them and I agree with her. She describes her friends by the things they like, the things they do, and the way they make her feel. She loves these little girls at camp and cannot see what I see when I watch the interaction.
My girls are black and French and they know it and feel proud to be both. Though I find them to be stunning, it is certainly not something we stress at home. How they look is surely not more important than the content of their character or that they have good manners and are kind and considerate girls. We stress their achievements and their accomplishments, encouraging them to try things they are afraid of and keep trying until they succeed. I have taught them to trust themselves in new situations and to find the good person, the kind person in the group and Lily has often done just that. Walked into unfamiliar territory and come out with a good, kind soul to befriend. Never has she chosen one or another based on their race or their background.
She has seen many examples of women, black, mixed, Hispanic, Asian, white, straight, lesbian in our community and through the little media she has access to and has accepted our strengths, our power, and our beauty in a way that took me more than half my life to discover. She has never told me that she wished she were white, quite the opposite, hoped that she could be more like me. I am so happy that she, thus far, seems to care little about the outside world's perception of her and yet, there she is. A cute, little, light-skinned baby girl with a bouncy ponytail. I would have adored her had we been contemporaries. Except for Kim Fields who played Tootie on the Facts of Life, there was no one else to show me or believe in my loveliness. That bouncy ponytail alone would have given me a thousand fantasies. But the braids, Afro puffs, twists, and low 'fros I see at camp are just as stunning. I want the girls who sport them to know this too.
This is a complicated issue, weighed heavily by the racism and perceptions of beauty, importance, and relevance of people of color that have marred this country from its inception. I don't have an answer here, don't know how to show these beautiful, intelligent brown girls their value. I know that since she was a baby, I used to sing the song, "Brown Girl in the Ring" to Lily and she knew that she was that brown girl. So did Virginie when I sang it to her. So do I feel the connection when I hear it now. It took a lifetime for me to learn to love myself, not to compare myself to a standard that wasn't even considering me, in which I had no chance of being beautiful or special.
I'd hoped these little brown girls had started to find role models, at least people who looked like them, talked like them, shared their dreams with them, to make them feel proud of who they are. I look into their warm, brown eyes and see my little self feeling less than and hope they feel, when I put my hand on their cheeks or cup their chins in my hand to tilt their heads to mine that I can see they are special. Don't get me wrong. I love, love, love my beautiful babies. Don't consider them less than or greater than, just beautiful brown babes navigating this craziness. They will have a guide through this mucky muck. But I pray the same for all the brown girls too.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Camping!
OK so they are not really camping. Not out in the wild with tents and mess kits, tying knots and roasting marshmallows, but the people have been and will continue to be enrolled in camp. I took the liberty of not typing this in all caps, but you can best believe that I am shouting! Because from 9 am until 4 pm, both girls find themselves having a little enrichment in their reading and math skills, learning to cheer and dance, making some kind of ridiculous project, doing sport, watching movies, and not being at home. Every day! Alas, next week is their final week of this heavenly excursion as I will start carting them on weekend jaunts to the Hamptons to enjoy the summer house given us by my husband's employer and taking full advantage of the local pool for which I paid over $400 for the summer.
The camp is not my favorite but it doesn't have to be; I'm not going there. A little unorganized with too many teenagers in roles that they are surely not capable of handling in between all the texting, ogling, flirting, and tickling, it is a pretty makeshift operation in the basement of a church. Each morning, Lily and her group of 5 to 8 year olds reinforce their reading and writing skills and work on various K through 2nd grade math problems. There is snack, free lunch, extracurriculars, swimming twice a week, and field trips on Fridays. She has learned to do a cartwheel and various Disney-grade, tween cheerleading moves, and has made friends with kids outside of her school and neighborhood. I am not really loving the field trips as they cost additional money and are often not age appropriate but thus far I have let Lily go (She will not, however, go on the trip to a massive water park tomorrow billed as having 18 water slides. Not quite ready for that.). Virginie has stayed home with me because while I am desperate for some free time, not at the expense of a three year old being forced to endure forty minute bus rides and guided tours of the museum. Lest you think I have sacrificed Lily, she loves camp, is kind of out of her mind about it, and I have checked in on the field trip chaperones and called in to make sure all is OK. Yes, I am still that mom.
Most of the children at this camp are African-American with a few others interspersed. It is exactly the opposite of her school's make up, which while pretty diverse for largely segregated New Jersey still shows the children of color as little dots in a sea of pinks and peaches. This is not judgment, just the truth. I feel good to see Lily in the mix with all these lovely brown-skinned, chocolate-hued children feeling comfortable and accepted. Much like our time in Barbados, I am happy to have Lily and Virginie see the varying shades of our community with love and acceptance. It's funny, in the largely white town that we live in, the white children come to the discovery that I am Lily's mother with surprise, the black children with pride. Lily has met them both with the same response, "Yup. That's my mom. She's the best mom ever." We have begun the slow turning, layered conversation about race with both the people, and I am happy to report that they feel comfortable with themselves and everyone else.
What happens at the camp, as long as my children are safe, is fine with me. I am most excited about 6 1/2 hours of unscheduled, unstructured time for myself where I can and do whatever I want. The first two weeks, as I was new to this free time thing, I did lots of housecleaning and laundry, dinner prep, and once all that was done would sit down and read or watch a little TV before going to get the people. And then I got hip to the game. I could write! Go for a walk! Go to the movies! Listen to the deafening, glorious silence or the hum of the central air conditioning! I could take a shower and have no one, nobody, come and ask me something! I took a nap, read old magazines that I have not been able to keep up with, chatted on the phone with long lost friends, and wrote to my heart's content.
Summer offers freedom and new experiences for these little kiddies and I am so happy to share this idyllic time with them. But I am also so happy to find the time to camp out myself, doing things that I want to do by myself...and being able to do them.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The camp is not my favorite but it doesn't have to be; I'm not going there. A little unorganized with too many teenagers in roles that they are surely not capable of handling in between all the texting, ogling, flirting, and tickling, it is a pretty makeshift operation in the basement of a church. Each morning, Lily and her group of 5 to 8 year olds reinforce their reading and writing skills and work on various K through 2nd grade math problems. There is snack, free lunch, extracurriculars, swimming twice a week, and field trips on Fridays. She has learned to do a cartwheel and various Disney-grade, tween cheerleading moves, and has made friends with kids outside of her school and neighborhood. I am not really loving the field trips as they cost additional money and are often not age appropriate but thus far I have let Lily go (She will not, however, go on the trip to a massive water park tomorrow billed as having 18 water slides. Not quite ready for that.). Virginie has stayed home with me because while I am desperate for some free time, not at the expense of a three year old being forced to endure forty minute bus rides and guided tours of the museum. Lest you think I have sacrificed Lily, she loves camp, is kind of out of her mind about it, and I have checked in on the field trip chaperones and called in to make sure all is OK. Yes, I am still that mom.
Most of the children at this camp are African-American with a few others interspersed. It is exactly the opposite of her school's make up, which while pretty diverse for largely segregated New Jersey still shows the children of color as little dots in a sea of pinks and peaches. This is not judgment, just the truth. I feel good to see Lily in the mix with all these lovely brown-skinned, chocolate-hued children feeling comfortable and accepted. Much like our time in Barbados, I am happy to have Lily and Virginie see the varying shades of our community with love and acceptance. It's funny, in the largely white town that we live in, the white children come to the discovery that I am Lily's mother with surprise, the black children with pride. Lily has met them both with the same response, "Yup. That's my mom. She's the best mom ever." We have begun the slow turning, layered conversation about race with both the people, and I am happy to report that they feel comfortable with themselves and everyone else.
What happens at the camp, as long as my children are safe, is fine with me. I am most excited about 6 1/2 hours of unscheduled, unstructured time for myself where I can and do whatever I want. The first two weeks, as I was new to this free time thing, I did lots of housecleaning and laundry, dinner prep, and once all that was done would sit down and read or watch a little TV before going to get the people. And then I got hip to the game. I could write! Go for a walk! Go to the movies! Listen to the deafening, glorious silence or the hum of the central air conditioning! I could take a shower and have no one, nobody, come and ask me something! I took a nap, read old magazines that I have not been able to keep up with, chatted on the phone with long lost friends, and wrote to my heart's content.
Summer offers freedom and new experiences for these little kiddies and I am so happy to share this idyllic time with them. But I am also so happy to find the time to camp out myself, doing things that I want to do by myself...and being able to do them.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
My children, thoughts after Trayvon Martin
Before having the ultrasound that would tell us the sex of our second child, I watched and wondered with amazement and curiosity my misshapened belly swelling and contorting in ways that it did not during the first pregnancy. "It's definitely a boy!" family members, friends, and strangers would point out, giving me all sorts of "proof" of this. "A boy for your husband. Good job." At this, I would cringe. The thought, the expectation that I might need to keep popping out people until a boy was handed over to my Cheshire grinning husband made me nervous and frankly quite sick. I wasn't sure I would be the best mother for a boy and worried about raising a biracial little boy who would want to take the lead from his father who had not at any time during this lifetime been a black man.
Yes, such is the way my brain works. I thought of my uncircumcised (My husband is French and would find circumcision completely barbaric and ridiculous. I actually agree, but all the other kids would be circumcised which would further alienate and complicate.), bi-cultural, bi-racial, brown-skinned boy trying to navigate the world of American boyhood. Baseball, football, ultimate Frisbee, basketball, all games my husband has never played nor enjoyed watching. I wondered if I would have to stand in front of the house teaching this child how to do and love these things, maybe even coach so that he just might have a fighting chance on the playground. Untucked shirts, pants hanging low (even if low-ish that's pretty low for a French guy who pulls his pants up close to his chest), and unkempt hair just might be too much for this Euro metrosexual who loves cologne as much as wine.
I panicked before I even had any idea the sex of the baby. Would I be the one to have "the talk" with our son? About how he was sweet and lovely with curls and an eager smile until he went into the local convenience store at twelve for some wholly unhealthy snack, until he and his friends sauntered home from school laughing and talking loudly about whatever it is teenage boys talk about, until he turned too quickly at a stop sign while driving a car full of his friends, until he wanted to date one of his lifetime playmates and then became "the black boy." I hated the thought of explaining that though he loved space and astronauts, science, art, music, girls, and skateboarding, people would look at him suspiciously because of the color of his skin, just waiting for him to do something wrong. I cringed thinking about explaining how "no matter what your white friends are doing, don't you get caught out there doing any of it!" The same message that, even as a young girl, I received.
All these things gave me pause, but none like needing to teach my little brown boy that though his parents were a mixed couple with a European father and an African-American mother, in the eyes of the United States of America he would be a little black child, a black boy, and that being a black boy was somehow "less than" no matter what we'd taught him. I agonized over having to explain to him and to his father that while yes he was indeed a boy of mixed heritage, in the United States definitions and criteria for Americanship are nebulous, and that here one is often forced to "choose a side", to simplistically label, and that black, no matter what popular culture (music, games, sports) would tell him, was not cool on the street, in your car, in the store, on a date.
How would I explain that even our president, the leader of the modern, free world still had to spend more time than necessary explaining who he was and where he came from, so much so that it often seemed like that was the only question anyone wanted answered, nevermind a sluggish economy and serious world issues to tackle. I woke up many nights in terror as I heard my husband describing our children as "metisse" or "Creole" with all the sincerity in the world, really having no idea what a young son of ours would endure. My husband is an altruist when it comes to race and culture, expecting that all should be open and curious about our differences and excited by our similarities. I hated to be the acid rain on the parade, but after all my years in this country I was not so optimistic about people. I was prepared if I needed to be, but extraordinarily grateful when the ultrasound told us that, once again, we were having a girl.
I am not proud of this. In truth there is a lot of shame for me that I just did not think I could bear it, could not live up to what a little black boy would need to become a strong, dignified, self-respecting black man in the face of overt and covert racism and discrimination. I knew that because of my fears and my inexperience with boys and males, that I would be a strict, aggressively clingy, overprotective mother. And that that could be possibly emasculating and harmful to the boy who just might not ever learn how to defend himself because at every turn, there I would be. I just knew that I was not great with boys and would take the responsibility of leading him and showing him a path through our racist, hypocritical culture as though it were a life and death matter. Already, my girls know that Mommy holds them accountable for more than many of their friends are held. They know that there are rules about self-respect, public behaviors, how we treat others, what we call them, and how we judge.
This afternoon, after a walk with a friend in a local reservation, we stopped into a Starbucks in a neighboring town. We were dressed in athletic gear. She with a fanny pack (very cute LeSportsSac) and I with a small, shoulder-slung backpack. She suggested we browse at a cute shoe store and also a little dress shop that looked promising. I bristled but not noticeably. We perused together and were met at the door by the shopkeeper who was kind and all smiles. We did not buy anything. I actually did not have any money with me, but we muttered to one another something about the shoes being cute and hoping to get back soon. On the sidewalk I mentioned to her that I don't usually go into small shops or boutiques, malls, department stores, anywhere really, dressed like I was for fear of being followed. "Shopping while black" I told her. She was quite surprised. I have known her nearly all my life. She is astute, incredibly intelligent, fair, open, very liberal (maybe even more so than myself) and had never considered this at all.
How I wish Lily and Virginie will not have to learn this. And I hope that they will not have to defend themselves against people who believe them to be sexually promiscuous, aggressive, emasculating, or less attractive or intelligent than their white counterparts. I hope that they are not given more to bear, too much to carry while others are given less to handle. I hope that they will not have to be representatives from the Planet Black or Planet Biracial explaining all the time who they are and what moves them. Can we still not find common ground?
When I hear the story of Trayvon Martin unfolding, when I see the injustice, when I see the hypocrisy, and the laissez-faire attitude with which a black life is considered, when I see how easy it is to describe a tall, lanky, unarmed black boy as suspicious with little disagreement or worse, ignored concern of good neighbors, my heart bleeds for us all.
Trayvon Martin could have been our child and but for the grace of God he could have been yours too. Hold your children close tonight. Whisper in their ears how they are loved, how you will honor them, how you want with them to make the world a better place. Then tell them how even in the leading country in the world, a citizen can be gunned down on the street, a child,a playmate, a friend, by a vigilante who thought that he, dressed like all the other teenaged boys in the world, looked suspicious. Let your kids know this, so they can feel it and help us change the world.
Yes, such is the way my brain works. I thought of my uncircumcised (My husband is French and would find circumcision completely barbaric and ridiculous. I actually agree, but all the other kids would be circumcised which would further alienate and complicate.), bi-cultural, bi-racial, brown-skinned boy trying to navigate the world of American boyhood. Baseball, football, ultimate Frisbee, basketball, all games my husband has never played nor enjoyed watching. I wondered if I would have to stand in front of the house teaching this child how to do and love these things, maybe even coach so that he just might have a fighting chance on the playground. Untucked shirts, pants hanging low (even if low-ish that's pretty low for a French guy who pulls his pants up close to his chest), and unkempt hair just might be too much for this Euro metrosexual who loves cologne as much as wine.
I panicked before I even had any idea the sex of the baby. Would I be the one to have "the talk" with our son? About how he was sweet and lovely with curls and an eager smile until he went into the local convenience store at twelve for some wholly unhealthy snack, until he and his friends sauntered home from school laughing and talking loudly about whatever it is teenage boys talk about, until he turned too quickly at a stop sign while driving a car full of his friends, until he wanted to date one of his lifetime playmates and then became "the black boy." I hated the thought of explaining that though he loved space and astronauts, science, art, music, girls, and skateboarding, people would look at him suspiciously because of the color of his skin, just waiting for him to do something wrong. I cringed thinking about explaining how "no matter what your white friends are doing, don't you get caught out there doing any of it!" The same message that, even as a young girl, I received.
All these things gave me pause, but none like needing to teach my little brown boy that though his parents were a mixed couple with a European father and an African-American mother, in the eyes of the United States of America he would be a little black child, a black boy, and that being a black boy was somehow "less than" no matter what we'd taught him. I agonized over having to explain to him and to his father that while yes he was indeed a boy of mixed heritage, in the United States definitions and criteria for Americanship are nebulous, and that here one is often forced to "choose a side", to simplistically label, and that black, no matter what popular culture (music, games, sports) would tell him, was not cool on the street, in your car, in the store, on a date.
How would I explain that even our president, the leader of the modern, free world still had to spend more time than necessary explaining who he was and where he came from, so much so that it often seemed like that was the only question anyone wanted answered, nevermind a sluggish economy and serious world issues to tackle. I woke up many nights in terror as I heard my husband describing our children as "metisse" or "Creole" with all the sincerity in the world, really having no idea what a young son of ours would endure. My husband is an altruist when it comes to race and culture, expecting that all should be open and curious about our differences and excited by our similarities. I hated to be the acid rain on the parade, but after all my years in this country I was not so optimistic about people. I was prepared if I needed to be, but extraordinarily grateful when the ultrasound told us that, once again, we were having a girl.
I am not proud of this. In truth there is a lot of shame for me that I just did not think I could bear it, could not live up to what a little black boy would need to become a strong, dignified, self-respecting black man in the face of overt and covert racism and discrimination. I knew that because of my fears and my inexperience with boys and males, that I would be a strict, aggressively clingy, overprotective mother. And that that could be possibly emasculating and harmful to the boy who just might not ever learn how to defend himself because at every turn, there I would be. I just knew that I was not great with boys and would take the responsibility of leading him and showing him a path through our racist, hypocritical culture as though it were a life and death matter. Already, my girls know that Mommy holds them accountable for more than many of their friends are held. They know that there are rules about self-respect, public behaviors, how we treat others, what we call them, and how we judge.
This afternoon, after a walk with a friend in a local reservation, we stopped into a Starbucks in a neighboring town. We were dressed in athletic gear. She with a fanny pack (very cute LeSportsSac) and I with a small, shoulder-slung backpack. She suggested we browse at a cute shoe store and also a little dress shop that looked promising. I bristled but not noticeably. We perused together and were met at the door by the shopkeeper who was kind and all smiles. We did not buy anything. I actually did not have any money with me, but we muttered to one another something about the shoes being cute and hoping to get back soon. On the sidewalk I mentioned to her that I don't usually go into small shops or boutiques, malls, department stores, anywhere really, dressed like I was for fear of being followed. "Shopping while black" I told her. She was quite surprised. I have known her nearly all my life. She is astute, incredibly intelligent, fair, open, very liberal (maybe even more so than myself) and had never considered this at all.
How I wish Lily and Virginie will not have to learn this. And I hope that they will not have to defend themselves against people who believe them to be sexually promiscuous, aggressive, emasculating, or less attractive or intelligent than their white counterparts. I hope that they are not given more to bear, too much to carry while others are given less to handle. I hope that they will not have to be representatives from the Planet Black or Planet Biracial explaining all the time who they are and what moves them. Can we still not find common ground?
When I hear the story of Trayvon Martin unfolding, when I see the injustice, when I see the hypocrisy, and the laissez-faire attitude with which a black life is considered, when I see how easy it is to describe a tall, lanky, unarmed black boy as suspicious with little disagreement or worse, ignored concern of good neighbors, my heart bleeds for us all.
Trayvon Martin could have been our child and but for the grace of God he could have been yours too. Hold your children close tonight. Whisper in their ears how they are loved, how you will honor them, how you want with them to make the world a better place. Then tell them how even in the leading country in the world, a citizen can be gunned down on the street, a child,a playmate, a friend, by a vigilante who thought that he, dressed like all the other teenaged boys in the world, looked suspicious. Let your kids know this, so they can feel it and help us change the world.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Of mean girls and little princes
I have thought about at length and with great frequency how incredibly difficult it is to raise children. Not just to have them, but to make a real effort to raise them, teach them, guide them so that they might become upstanding citizens and productive and helpful members of society. My grandmother used to tell us that she told her children, our parents, aunties, and uncles, that she was “always going to love them but that is was [her] job to get others to like them.” We used to laugh at that as we imagined our parents as little children running around, acting a fool, and wreaking havoc on Grandma’s home.
But I have my own two little mermaids splashing all over the house and now that we are a household with four crazy, intense personalities I can see the need on a daily basis, really on a minute by minute, to empower these people to make good decisions, to inspire empathy, and to provide them with a world view in which they are not the sun, the moon, or the stars, but kindhearted people who care about their neighbors and all mankind.
And that, my friends, is the hard part. Because we are living in a culture where telling our children that they are indeed the sun, moon, and stars, little princesses, “my own little man,” oh so special, is so prevalent. I have no argument against allowing children to feel special and good, to celebrate their achievements, true achievements not just forgoing the beating of their little brothers or sisters down to the ground or going to bed finally after begging for three or four reprieves. What I am talking about is the constant drilling, reminding, cajoling while loving, supporting, guiding that helps children find their own way to kindness, to strength, to self-awareness, and awareness of others. I know, I do, that after a long day at work, in the trenches at home with small people, juggling all that life tosses in, that spending that time with a whiny one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, whatever year old not just reminding them to say please, thank you, hello, and goodbye, but ingraining in themselves the sense of community and camaraderie that can make the world a better place.
I have seen absolute terrors on the playground, in the grocery store, and at the public library and wondered, “Do these parents know that they are living with a mean girl? Do they know they have created a little prince with no interest whatsoever in engaging with their peers from anywhere but the throne?” When my oldest suffered some indignity on the playground by a total bitchy brat, an eight year old meanie, I sought out her mother, only to find her nanny chatting away on the telephone, clueless to the girl’s bullying tactics. It got me thinking. Do people leave their children with other people and then assume or hope that the lessons one would hope to instill are being taught? Or do they not even realize that there are lessons to learn at every age and that they are not being learned?
I lived in the Caribbean for two years and while I did see birthday celebrations that rivaled Celine Dion’s stage sets in Vegas, I also learned that Caribbean parents and certainly grandparents “don’t take no mess.” Are the women, many of them Caribbean, left in charge of these unguided cherubs being expected to raise them up as their own? Because I highly doubt that what needs to be done would be allowed. And I am in no way talking about corporal punishment. I do not like spanking or hitting unless it immediately stops an incredibly dangerous act. For example, I have swatted the girls on the bum if they have run into the street. We spend a long time talking about why we do and don’t do things, come up with examples from Mommy and children, think of new ways we could handle situations, and hopefully grow together. But this takes discipline, commitment, sometimes a stern voice, a strong tone, something that it seems many are nervous to take with Little Princess or Wee Prince.
Are we Americans just too lenient with our children? Do we hold them to a standard far below the standards of parents in other countries? Perhaps it's that we hold ourselves to a lesser standard, caring less about compassion, unity, consideration and more about success and winning. It seems that every few months a tome from another culture, community, or country alights where we are, if not failing, faltering. When I am bugging out over some kiddie’s bad behavior on the playground, I always seek out the parent. I want to see them, want to know, want to understand. I know it sounds like judgment, but it isn’t meant to be so. I just know that a little one only does or says or acts in a way that he or she has been allowed. When I stumble upon a parent whose head is buried in a smartphone or ear is turned to a good chat or is not there at all, I wonder if that parent has considered how his or her behavior has affected the child. Sure I know I could be catching them at a bad moment, an necessary phone call, an emergency but very often it is the same few perpetrators.
My girlfriend from El Salvador told me that there is a saying, "Mothers raise their daughters and love their sons." Little boys who are not held accountable for their actions, their words, being told, "You know how boys are" as an excuse for really inappropriate, impolite, disrespectful behavior. Little boys who take no responsibility for their actions, don't say hello or goodbye to others, come into another's home and break toys, open the refrigerator, flop on the couch shoes and all, don't have home chores or responsibilities appropriate for their age make me cringe. Because it stirs in me the fear that this behavior will be perpetuated throughout his life. How could he not feel like the king? The space has been cleared all around him. He will come into contact with people feeling no responsibility for his actions, not recognizing their needs, or the role he might play in making their lives better or worse. Because he will not see himself as part of a community, but as a solo flyer. A sea of solo flyers where everyone is a star ace does not bode well for community-building or peace.
My girls love to dress up like princesses and dance around like ballerinas. They also like making things and playing soccer and drawing. I am taking nothing away from the joy of being young, little, creative, imaginative thinkers when I ask them to help me set the table, clear their plates, clean their playroom, carry their own backpacks. When they are asked to speak to adults, strangers to them but familiar to Mommy, they are happy to speak up. They are certainly excited to talk to their grandparents and aunties and uncles and familiar faces. We have tantrums and meltdowns and crying spells and fights like all families with kiddies, but we are respectful of each other and others. We don't throw our garbage on the floor or out the window. When we drop things, we pick them up. When we hurt someone we apologize and we know before being told that what we have said or done just might have been hurtful. Even if we didn't think it was, we apologize anyway because we can see that we have hurt someone.
My girls have felt the sting of cruel words and shoves and would never want another to suffer them as they have. I suppose I have too which is why this selfish, disconnected behavior bothers me so. It is okay to pretend to be a king or queen for the day, but the fun in that is having the knowledge that most of us live below that exalted line where we just don't have to give a damn. We should give a damn. All of us should give a damn.
My girls love to dress up like princesses and dance around like ballerinas. They also like making things and playing soccer and drawing. I am taking nothing away from the joy of being young, little, creative, imaginative thinkers when I ask them to help me set the table, clear their plates, clean their playroom, carry their own backpacks. When they are asked to speak to adults, strangers to them but familiar to Mommy, they are happy to speak up. They are certainly excited to talk to their grandparents and aunties and uncles and familiar faces. We have tantrums and meltdowns and crying spells and fights like all families with kiddies, but we are respectful of each other and others. We don't throw our garbage on the floor or out the window. When we drop things, we pick them up. When we hurt someone we apologize and we know before being told that what we have said or done just might have been hurtful. Even if we didn't think it was, we apologize anyway because we can see that we have hurt someone.
My girls have felt the sting of cruel words and shoves and would never want another to suffer them as they have. I suppose I have too which is why this selfish, disconnected behavior bothers me so. It is okay to pretend to be a king or queen for the day, but the fun in that is having the knowledge that most of us live below that exalted line where we just don't have to give a damn. We should give a damn. All of us should give a damn.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Full on Full-time
I get up each morning and start the girls' lunches for school, after making the girls' beds and ours. There is breakfast, if anyone has any interest in eating it, making beds--the girls' and ours, selecting clothes for the girls and myself, getting those clothes on (the girls and myself), combing hair (which, don't be fooled, is not anything like you have seen on a NO MORE TANGLES commercial and more like tooth removal with no anesthetic and no restraints), packing backpacks, supervising the selection of toys that will be privileged enough to come along for the ride (the less than five minute ride that sometimes sees a full zoo of escorts in the backseat), supervising the five 1/2 year old's tooth brushing and brushing the nearly three year old's teeth without her realizing that I am, in fact, brushing them so that we do not have to start over. Somewhere in there I try to put on clothes that match, are not pajamas, sweatpants and flannel and brush my hair, dust on some powder, glide on a bit of lip stain, get on my shoes, theirs, make sure all are tied, get on jackets, hats, backpacks, pack gloves, tissues, and an extra paci for Virginie. Get the car warmed up, everything meant to travel with us in the car, and everyone down the stairs and out the door before the school bell rings at 8:45 am. I must also note that Virginie, almost three years old, has no interest in wearing a jacket and favors sleeveless leotards, swimsuits, and summer tops during these winter months. Getting to the car, in the car, on the road, and to the school before the bell rings is pretty much an accomplishment that requires congratulations and YES, some sort of medallion telling me that I am awesome.
Once both girls are in school (and that is only three days a week for Virginie, the other two I get to cart her around with me ALL day) I race home to drink a glass of water (finally), get something to eat, pay bills, sign up for this or that class, straighten up, and hopefully sit down for a while to write or possibly exercise. This does not always happen as I often find myself needing to return library books or run to the grocery store, pick up something from the cleaners, or some other household related task that takes precious moments away from my down time.
Just hours later I am back on the road picking up the little one from school and either bringing her back home for a little lunch (though she's just had lunch at school) and puzzle making, Strawberry Shortcake playing, My Little Pony dancing, drawing, total entertaining or I am driving all over the area trying to lull this tired little monster to sleep, though she would argue that she is not a monster, nor is she tired. Ever. Even when her eyes are rolling to the back of her head and she is drooling, her paci falling to her chest. When she does fall asleep, I just pull up in front of Lily's school and wait the hour and change for school to get out. I use that time to catch up on Sound Board on NPR, read, and occasionally carry my laptop with me to try to write. If I have not well prepared myself with books or magazines, I send text messages and answer emails on my phone. Maybe I'll get out and stretch my legs and back, but more often than not I don't want to even stir lest the little cracken awake.
Lily's release from school does not allow us time to go home and just chill as I sit or stand at the playground for thirty minutes to an hour almost every day, even longer if it is unseasonably warm, chatting with the other parents who have stayed to allow their little cherubs to let off steam. When we do finally leave it is a race to get home before someone has to either use the bathroom or is near starvation in the backseat. We have music (Yo Gabba Gabba), gum chewing (everybody), and meltdowns (any one of the three of us). At home we start the process of getting ready for bed. There is the review of all in the backpack, two or three assignments on the monthly homework chart, emptying of the lunch boxes and packs, tossing of dirty clothes in the hamper, an unwind for the girlies in the playroom or in front of the tv while Mommy changes into sweats, takes off makeup, and begins the dinner prep.
Dinner prep usually involves asking the girls what they want, making it, and having them take the next two hours to eat it or move it around their plates. The only thing about which they are certain is the popsicle or ice cream sandwich and thank God for that. Because of these treats, I am able to get them to eat the other food! While they eat, I run the bath, choose clothes that they will reject in the morning, prep the kitchen so that dishes can be put away quickly and easily. There is bathing, lotioning, dressing in pajamas, braiding hair, brushing teeth, storytime, one last trip to the bathroom, choosing stuffed animals or Barbies to sleep with, snuggling in, and finally a quick story acted out by Mommy before lights out. With the lights out we offer up five things a piece that we want to dream about so as to prevent nightmares. We spray good dream potion (water with a bit of glitter in a pink spray bottle) twice and then cuddle, all three of us, in the girls' big bed, say our "I love you's" and I watch and wait for them to go to sleep before I do, sometimes failing in this miserably.
Then it's repeat. For five days. The variations either provide extreme highs, a ballet recital, playdate, sunny afternoon where everyone revels in the sunlight falling on our faces or the breeze in our hair, or beyond miserable lows, a midnight vomiting session that keeps me and the little one up all night, only to finally slumber the last hour before the morning's alarm or again, the little one refusing to get dressed in the morning and wandering naked to the front door expecting to sit in her car seat completely in the buff. In the midst of this full time life, I am trying to complete the first drafts of two books, go back to work in voiceover, print, and on-camera acting, and have something that resembles a life, an effort at which I am not exactly succeeding.
I have spent over two weeks trying to write even this blog post, so tight am I on time and energy. There have been other starts and stops too, ideas that I did not have the commitment for, voice recordings to remind me of things to attempt later, scribbled notes here and there, apologies to friends, colleagues, family for my lack of availability, tears shed for myself when I catch sight of myself in the car window or store mirror and see the shell of me wandering from A to B in the hazy maze of young childrearing.
It's a lonely job this full- time full on caregiving. There is no one to complain to, no one to appeal to. The work is for the pure joy of raising beautiful, well adjusted, confident, able children and each day's little indignities are not even worth sharing, so fleeting and expected they are that all parents have them. But in giving full time, pouring out for the delight, pleasure, and well-being of others, one just might sometimes forget to receive the small gifts that life offers. I am still touched by the sweet gestures of my girls. When they read, dance, say hilarious things, tell me how they love me, remind me of being young and curious, I am moved. When I look at their faces, bright eyed, sweet lipped, flush cheeked, listen to their voices, breathe in their breath and scent of their hair and skin, I am stilled. But in the monotony of the day to day, I am frozen and I don't dare dream of my life before I had a family and hope only to find myself again when we pass this lap.
I know this level of intensity and involvement will give way to other responsibilities and concerns. That there will be mean girls and clothing wars, driving, SATs, team try outs and boys! But I hope the physical stress, the fatigue, the sheer exhaustion of being a mother all the time, full time, full on can relax a bit so that I might share this life with them and have a little for myself.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama:Back to the Suburban Grind.
Once both girls are in school (and that is only three days a week for Virginie, the other two I get to cart her around with me ALL day) I race home to drink a glass of water (finally), get something to eat, pay bills, sign up for this or that class, straighten up, and hopefully sit down for a while to write or possibly exercise. This does not always happen as I often find myself needing to return library books or run to the grocery store, pick up something from the cleaners, or some other household related task that takes precious moments away from my down time.
Just hours later I am back on the road picking up the little one from school and either bringing her back home for a little lunch (though she's just had lunch at school) and puzzle making, Strawberry Shortcake playing, My Little Pony dancing, drawing, total entertaining or I am driving all over the area trying to lull this tired little monster to sleep, though she would argue that she is not a monster, nor is she tired. Ever. Even when her eyes are rolling to the back of her head and she is drooling, her paci falling to her chest. When she does fall asleep, I just pull up in front of Lily's school and wait the hour and change for school to get out. I use that time to catch up on Sound Board on NPR, read, and occasionally carry my laptop with me to try to write. If I have not well prepared myself with books or magazines, I send text messages and answer emails on my phone. Maybe I'll get out and stretch my legs and back, but more often than not I don't want to even stir lest the little cracken awake.
Lily's release from school does not allow us time to go home and just chill as I sit or stand at the playground for thirty minutes to an hour almost every day, even longer if it is unseasonably warm, chatting with the other parents who have stayed to allow their little cherubs to let off steam. When we do finally leave it is a race to get home before someone has to either use the bathroom or is near starvation in the backseat. We have music (Yo Gabba Gabba), gum chewing (everybody), and meltdowns (any one of the three of us). At home we start the process of getting ready for bed. There is the review of all in the backpack, two or three assignments on the monthly homework chart, emptying of the lunch boxes and packs, tossing of dirty clothes in the hamper, an unwind for the girlies in the playroom or in front of the tv while Mommy changes into sweats, takes off makeup, and begins the dinner prep.
Dinner prep usually involves asking the girls what they want, making it, and having them take the next two hours to eat it or move it around their plates. The only thing about which they are certain is the popsicle or ice cream sandwich and thank God for that. Because of these treats, I am able to get them to eat the other food! While they eat, I run the bath, choose clothes that they will reject in the morning, prep the kitchen so that dishes can be put away quickly and easily. There is bathing, lotioning, dressing in pajamas, braiding hair, brushing teeth, storytime, one last trip to the bathroom, choosing stuffed animals or Barbies to sleep with, snuggling in, and finally a quick story acted out by Mommy before lights out. With the lights out we offer up five things a piece that we want to dream about so as to prevent nightmares. We spray good dream potion (water with a bit of glitter in a pink spray bottle) twice and then cuddle, all three of us, in the girls' big bed, say our "I love you's" and I watch and wait for them to go to sleep before I do, sometimes failing in this miserably.
Then it's repeat. For five days. The variations either provide extreme highs, a ballet recital, playdate, sunny afternoon where everyone revels in the sunlight falling on our faces or the breeze in our hair, or beyond miserable lows, a midnight vomiting session that keeps me and the little one up all night, only to finally slumber the last hour before the morning's alarm or again, the little one refusing to get dressed in the morning and wandering naked to the front door expecting to sit in her car seat completely in the buff. In the midst of this full time life, I am trying to complete the first drafts of two books, go back to work in voiceover, print, and on-camera acting, and have something that resembles a life, an effort at which I am not exactly succeeding.
I have spent over two weeks trying to write even this blog post, so tight am I on time and energy. There have been other starts and stops too, ideas that I did not have the commitment for, voice recordings to remind me of things to attempt later, scribbled notes here and there, apologies to friends, colleagues, family for my lack of availability, tears shed for myself when I catch sight of myself in the car window or store mirror and see the shell of me wandering from A to B in the hazy maze of young childrearing.
It's a lonely job this full- time full on caregiving. There is no one to complain to, no one to appeal to. The work is for the pure joy of raising beautiful, well adjusted, confident, able children and each day's little indignities are not even worth sharing, so fleeting and expected they are that all parents have them. But in giving full time, pouring out for the delight, pleasure, and well-being of others, one just might sometimes forget to receive the small gifts that life offers. I am still touched by the sweet gestures of my girls. When they read, dance, say hilarious things, tell me how they love me, remind me of being young and curious, I am moved. When I look at their faces, bright eyed, sweet lipped, flush cheeked, listen to their voices, breathe in their breath and scent of their hair and skin, I am stilled. But in the monotony of the day to day, I am frozen and I don't dare dream of my life before I had a family and hope only to find myself again when we pass this lap.
I know this level of intensity and involvement will give way to other responsibilities and concerns. That there will be mean girls and clothing wars, driving, SATs, team try outs and boys! But I hope the physical stress, the fatigue, the sheer exhaustion of being a mother all the time, full time, full on can relax a bit so that I might share this life with them and have a little for myself.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama:Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Parting the waters/Cultural divide
My oldest daughter Lily has been invited to a swim party this weekend and in discussing who would be going with her, the conversation about swimsuits came up. You see, I don't want to parade myself around new people in a bathing suit and, should everyone in our family be included in this invite, our youngest is going to want to swim too. She is able (years in Barbados and a wonderful swimming teacher at Cool Splashings in St. George ensured that), but cannot get across the pool alone as she is not yet three years old. This leaves my husband as lifeguard and swim companion and herein lies the dilemma.
The swim trunks. Or really, lack thereof. Banana hammock, striped. Tiny little Speedo style swimwear. Not a lot of material and a pool full of Lily's classmates and their parents. I stepped in even when I knew I should not have, even when I have not yet confirmed with this child's parents that all of us are even invited. I hurt his feelings, which I did not foresee, but my thoughts were on Lily and I could not have allowed him to potentially embarrass our child, maybe even himself.
In fairness, I know that this is not at all fair. I have loved him in his skivvies, think he looks great. But we have been in Barbados, France, the Hamptons in those swim trunks, not at a suburban kid's swim party. "Why are Americans so uptight? It is the body. What is wrong with showing the body? These are for swimming. Who can swim in those giant pants?" And to some extent I have agreed with him, at least supported him in the past. " It's just different this time", I said. Sometimes we just don't get each other, don't understand, though we try.
This morning as my husband was walking out the door, I asked, as I often do, "Do you have your keys?" He walked back up the stairs to me and said, "I gave you one already but here you are," and kissed me one more time.
"Your KEYS. Your KEYS, honey."
"Oh, I thought you said a keez."
That one is cute. Though there are times when it just isn't so, when we not only don't hear each other or understand each other's pronunciations, but our cultural differences, ideas, and perspectives shatter peace in the home as we know it and we are both left staring (or glaring)at each other in disbelief.
My husband is French, REALLY French, though truthfully I have never met a French person who wasn't. I love him and think he and his people get a bad rap. They are presumed by all to be arrogant, humorless (or strangely inflicted with a love of Jerry Lewis), unhip snobs and I think that this truly misses the mark. Arrogance, to me, implies a kind of cruelty, the perception that one is so much more superior and f*** you for not being as I am.
I think the French arrogance is more charming than that. They are proud and very well versed in the successes and achievements of their countrymen, and there have been very many successes. Leaders in philosophy, art, music, fashion, cuisine, culture, politics, literature, war, have come from France. Even favorite children's songs that we all hum along to were composed by French musicians and composers. Love that tune, "Somewhere Beyond the Sea"? A Frenchman called Charles Trenet wrote it originally as La Mer. Trying to explain Sodoku to the husband got me so flustered that I sent him to Wikipedia for a better explanation. As soon as he found it he announced, "Ah, yes. I know this. It is based on a French game. Sodoku in the States was founded by some American in the 60s, but you know the French game is from the 18th century, so..." Neither of us plays sodoku and no, I did not know of its origine francaise either.
Our most frequent conversations revolve around food. Quel surprise! And on nearly every point, I agree with him. And that's the thing, it isn't that he is wrong. It's that it feels so good to him to be right that he smears it like a gorgeous French butter all over the place and I, by nature, have to challenge his smug, "You know I'm right" attitude. One of our favorite topics is le pain quotidien. We love baguette, buy it frequently or he lovingly makes his own in our "substandard oven". (His baguette would be much better, as would his pizza were we to have a more suitable oven.) Where in the United States, a stick of baguette, can run you up to $4 US dollars, a baguette in France, one's daily bread, is inexpensive (approximately one Euro) to ensure that all Frenchmen are able to eat an appropriate serving of their beloved pain.
Don't get me wrong, I have been known to tear up a baguette while visiting France and would be hard pressed to share it with a small child, puppy, or nun, the stuff is so fantastic. And I think that it is lovely that the price of a good baguette will never get beyond the means of the average consumer in France. But every.single.time.we eat a baguette,EVERY SINGLE TIME, we talk about how France looks out for "everyman" with this generous offering while the United States could give as crap about the health of the general populace, offering only crap fast food at low cost. I don't think anyone would mistake me as the representative of all that's good in America, but give me a break.
He doesn't wear a beret or a striped shirt, nor does he twist his waxed moustache while peddling a bike with a basket in front. He does love wine and good food (he is a chef after all) and wears his pants up a little too high for a youngish, good-looking man. We have a laugh at our differences and agree that my American black chic mothering style jibes well with the French style being touted at present. He will wait hours for me to get my hair done, listen to me complain about how very few designers, even the beloved French fashion houses do not know how to cut pants for the fuller black behind, has accepted the finger wagging, eye popping, occasional neck roll when he says something that I have found ridiculous, and is genuinely interested in African-American culture, history, and bien sur, cuisine.
I know he finds my attraction to and distrust of the dominant culture a bit confusing and my emotionality, individuality, fast smiles, quick handshakes, and easy handling of social and public situations "very American." He is right to find us (Americans) a bit childish, wide-eyed, self-involved; we are a relatively new country in the grander scheme of things, more like teenagers to the middle life crises of some European nations, and the true kiddies of newer formed nations. We somehow make it work and have managed, as yet, no attempted murders or abandonment.
He is quite logical, head-centered compared to my artistic, organic, heart-centered style. His references are philosophical, historical, intellectual, Wikipedial in nearly ALL conversations. I mean, how many arguments between a husband and wife have this exchange"I am Cartesian! You know this about me." And he is. Square, logical. 1+1=2. But tonight I will appeal to his artistic, creative, and shadow emotional side. Both of us "free to be you and me" except that there is no way I am going to allow him to wear his South of France swimwear to the party. We will try to find a suit before the party with an appropriate length of short and tushie coverage. I know he will capitulate. But I will never hear the end of it.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama:Back to the Suburban Grind.
The swim trunks. Or really, lack thereof. Banana hammock, striped. Tiny little Speedo style swimwear. Not a lot of material and a pool full of Lily's classmates and their parents. I stepped in even when I knew I should not have, even when I have not yet confirmed with this child's parents that all of us are even invited. I hurt his feelings, which I did not foresee, but my thoughts were on Lily and I could not have allowed him to potentially embarrass our child, maybe even himself.
In fairness, I know that this is not at all fair. I have loved him in his skivvies, think he looks great. But we have been in Barbados, France, the Hamptons in those swim trunks, not at a suburban kid's swim party. "Why are Americans so uptight? It is the body. What is wrong with showing the body? These are for swimming. Who can swim in those giant pants?" And to some extent I have agreed with him, at least supported him in the past. " It's just different this time", I said. Sometimes we just don't get each other, don't understand, though we try.
This morning as my husband was walking out the door, I asked, as I often do, "Do you have your keys?" He walked back up the stairs to me and said, "I gave you one already but here you are," and kissed me one more time.
"Your KEYS. Your KEYS, honey."
"Oh, I thought you said a keez."
That one is cute. Though there are times when it just isn't so, when we not only don't hear each other or understand each other's pronunciations, but our cultural differences, ideas, and perspectives shatter peace in the home as we know it and we are both left staring (or glaring)at each other in disbelief.
My husband is French, REALLY French, though truthfully I have never met a French person who wasn't. I love him and think he and his people get a bad rap. They are presumed by all to be arrogant, humorless (or strangely inflicted with a love of Jerry Lewis), unhip snobs and I think that this truly misses the mark. Arrogance, to me, implies a kind of cruelty, the perception that one is so much more superior and f*** you for not being as I am.
I think the French arrogance is more charming than that. They are proud and very well versed in the successes and achievements of their countrymen, and there have been very many successes. Leaders in philosophy, art, music, fashion, cuisine, culture, politics, literature, war, have come from France. Even favorite children's songs that we all hum along to were composed by French musicians and composers. Love that tune, "Somewhere Beyond the Sea"? A Frenchman called Charles Trenet wrote it originally as La Mer. Trying to explain Sodoku to the husband got me so flustered that I sent him to Wikipedia for a better explanation. As soon as he found it he announced, "Ah, yes. I know this. It is based on a French game. Sodoku in the States was founded by some American in the 60s, but you know the French game is from the 18th century, so..." Neither of us plays sodoku and no, I did not know of its origine francaise either.
Our most frequent conversations revolve around food. Quel surprise! And on nearly every point, I agree with him. And that's the thing, it isn't that he is wrong. It's that it feels so good to him to be right that he smears it like a gorgeous French butter all over the place and I, by nature, have to challenge his smug, "You know I'm right" attitude. One of our favorite topics is le pain quotidien. We love baguette, buy it frequently or he lovingly makes his own in our "substandard oven". (His baguette would be much better, as would his pizza were we to have a more suitable oven.) Where in the United States, a stick of baguette, can run you up to $4 US dollars, a baguette in France, one's daily bread, is inexpensive (approximately one Euro) to ensure that all Frenchmen are able to eat an appropriate serving of their beloved pain.
Don't get me wrong, I have been known to tear up a baguette while visiting France and would be hard pressed to share it with a small child, puppy, or nun, the stuff is so fantastic. And I think that it is lovely that the price of a good baguette will never get beyond the means of the average consumer in France. But every.single.time.we eat a baguette,EVERY SINGLE TIME, we talk about how France looks out for "everyman" with this generous offering while the United States could give as crap about the health of the general populace, offering only crap fast food at low cost. I don't think anyone would mistake me as the representative of all that's good in America, but give me a break.
He doesn't wear a beret or a striped shirt, nor does he twist his waxed moustache while peddling a bike with a basket in front. He does love wine and good food (he is a chef after all) and wears his pants up a little too high for a youngish, good-looking man. We have a laugh at our differences and agree that my American black chic mothering style jibes well with the French style being touted at present. He will wait hours for me to get my hair done, listen to me complain about how very few designers, even the beloved French fashion houses do not know how to cut pants for the fuller black behind, has accepted the finger wagging, eye popping, occasional neck roll when he says something that I have found ridiculous, and is genuinely interested in African-American culture, history, and bien sur, cuisine.
I know he finds my attraction to and distrust of the dominant culture a bit confusing and my emotionality, individuality, fast smiles, quick handshakes, and easy handling of social and public situations "very American." He is right to find us (Americans) a bit childish, wide-eyed, self-involved; we are a relatively new country in the grander scheme of things, more like teenagers to the middle life crises of some European nations, and the true kiddies of newer formed nations. We somehow make it work and have managed, as yet, no attempted murders or abandonment.
He is quite logical, head-centered compared to my artistic, organic, heart-centered style. His references are philosophical, historical, intellectual, Wikipedial in nearly ALL conversations. I mean, how many arguments between a husband and wife have this exchange"I am Cartesian! You know this about me." And he is. Square, logical. 1+1=2. But tonight I will appeal to his artistic, creative, and shadow emotional side. Both of us "free to be you and me" except that there is no way I am going to allow him to wear his South of France swimwear to the party. We will try to find a suit before the party with an appropriate length of short and tushie coverage. I know he will capitulate. But I will never hear the end of it.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama:Back to the Suburban Grind.
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