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Heart of a Butterfly, Skin like a Rhinoceros

Kicking back last night on the sofa with my honey, we hashed out some challenges that had recently reared their ugly little heads.  My hands were flying all over, and his remained in their church roof pose, the one where the tips of the fingers on each hand are steepled together.  It makes him look wise and when he looks wise I think, ok, better listen to this. 

It's not that he's always right, but he's a very thoughtful fella and he comes up with perspectives that have never tipped my horizon.  We had a decision to make and plenty of time in which to do so, but my temperament can be a little premature in its expression, (that's a nice way to say I've had a tendency to blurt and later wish I hadn't) and we were getting a head start on the matter.  He can be every bit as irreverent and hilarious as I can about anything (behind closed doors, very little is off limits) and in no time he had me chuckling and wagging a finger as if to say, "ooh, you SO baad".  It helps, this way of laughing, it helps me and I believe others too, in navigating the uglier aspects of life, to just remember some simple truths:  we're not perfect, we do our best, we try not to hurt anyone but people will be hurt anyway, forgiveness must be swift and sincere, and, above all, he says, keep your heart beating with the beauty of a butterfly, and remember to keep your hide tough.

LAST POST FOR BIG MOTHER

Big Mother has mouthed off her final posting.  She is undergoing extensive interior remodeling and will reappear as Quirky Kirky.  Big Mother was offered a golden parachute retirement and will be taking her leave of this space.  She wishes to thank all of her devoted followers and friends for their patronage and support.  It's been a fun ride. 

Ma Ain Folk

Terrible jag of homesickness came over me last night as I drove away from a friend's book launch party.  There's a line from an old Scottish song about it, that desribes it perfectly: "..and it's aww that I'm longin' fer ma ain folk, be they simple and plain folk...".  There's no place like home no matter how dysfunctional.  In ours, there was love and laughter and horror all mixed together.

Another friend I met at the party is a jazz poet, working out a tv deal on his documentary film.  He handed me some of his publicity materials including  t-shirt, dvd and poster.  The poster is the same as the cover for the dvd and image on the t-shirt.  It's a photo of him in front of a redbrick house, taken in the back garden, all mossy and shrubby, in London.  "Touch of home for you" he grinned, having no idea where I would go with that.  Which was  straight down a path of nostalgia, reliving some of the best parts of my younger days in London.  It stirred something very deep in me, took me by complete surprise.

In the old days I might have gone to a British pub and downed a few, but instead I played a cd of some bagpipes, beating out the rhythms on the steering wheel and weeping.  Couldn't go straight home, so went to TJ's for a small grocery run, noted the Hallowe'en decorations, and that set me back a bit, reminders of my mother's tales of Hallowe'en in Scotland, where it all started, minus the pumpkins.
As I was being checked out, someone shouted over to the man at my cash register, asking if his wife had had the baby yet.  One of those moments that are golden for someone with mild ADD, so I jumped away from Scotland, London, Hallowe'en and into his world instead.  He tells me with a huge smile that the baby is due in a month, their fourth child, hoping for a girl as they have three boys already. I am cheery now and back to the car.

The best way to avoid suffering, is to be here, now, present with what is, I tell myself and smugly drive home thinking the jag of emotion is all dealt with.  It was all my own fault, looking back with longing and planning for the future.  And so forth.  When I got home, things were not actually behind me because I had to lug in the signed copy of my friend's beautiful new book (Opening the Gates of the Heart" by Carolyn CJ Jones,  www.gatelady.com) and the dvd, poster and t-shirt from my other friend, along with the groceries and mail, plus my purse and a sense of envy that my friends are "out there" doing their artist thing and I come home to a phone message about an accident my daughter has had.  I find myself unable to speak and later it gets unloaded with Larry, who, innocent bystander that he is, simply asked "How did it go sweetheart?" to which I initially lie and say 'fine".

This life business ain't easy.  Today I will accept the offer of a massage and get my hair cut.  And of course visit my stitched up daughter and be loving and mommy like, and remind her for the thousandth time of the importance of holding on to her caregiver's arm and not go stomping off on her own.  Larry let me swear my way through my feelings about it last night, and now I feel better.  The fact is "ma ain folk" (my own people, my present day peeps in case you didn't get it yet) are the ones I love best, the ones I want to be with.  There's NO going back.  That way is a vale of tears.

Burka at the ObGyn

Visiting my dermatologist today for my annual redhead's skin cancer checkup, I saw a full length burka wearing pregnant woman coming into the building, accompanied by a bare-armed, bare-headed man, both holding hands with a sweet toddler boy, swinging happily between them.  A happy family picture except for the visual jolt of the blue burka.  I couldn't help wondering about the counter clerk's dilemma when the moment would come for a request for picture id from the expectant mother, and further, how would the obgyn exam be conducted with proper cultural and religious decorum?  I was between bemused and amused just thinking about it all.

There are days when I can well imagine the benefits of covering up from head to toe just to run to the store, when I've slept badly and missed a laundry cycle for clean jeans, so I don the American equivalent by covering up with baseball cap, sunglasses and sweats, not nearly as elegant as a flowing gown, but worn by my free choice.  Having just written that, I see that's arrogant of me,  to presume that the woman I saw today, and others just like her are wearing their burkas under protest.  Why do we presume that?  There are orthodox Jewish women in this northern California county,who choose to cover up their hair and arms with long clothing and wigs.  There are days when that, too, sounds appealing to me.  I'd cover up my arms because they're cosmetically challenged these days and my hair isn't very obedient, so I'd wear a wig, if I wanted or needed to. A friend of mine looks great in her long blond tresses, made in China, and chooses different looks for different moods and seasons. 

One thing that's certainly true is if I actually had covered myself from head to toe when I lived in the tropics years ago, I wouldn't be worried about skin cancer checkups and arms that look as if someone spat tobacco juice through a sieve all over them.  Just makes me think about the wisdom of covering up and the freedom to stay that way if I wanted to.

Ex-Pat Gurus - Trash or Treasure?

We attended a lecture recently given in a major venue, by an acclaimed guru, whose last name happens to rhyme with Oprah - you figure it out.  He began by reminding us, as if we needed it, of the perilous times we live in and how dire the human scene looks today.  He proceeded to enducate us (this is an attempt to educate people and entertain them at the same time -rarely possible, unless you're a pair of crazy car mechanics on public radio) with his singsong lilt, which has the unfortunate soporific effect of putting me into a coma.

Since I was coming and going in various states of consciousness, which, by the way, was one of his topics, I felt I was right at home.  His power point hit some glitches and froze the screen on an early development of a human fetus, which stayed up there staring down at the audience in a way that was hardly endearing, resembling as it did at that stage, more of a caricature creature than a cute human baby.  Dr. Rhymes With Oprah didn't miss a beat, just droned on, sending my brain into more ZZZ waves so I can't actually recall verbatim the specifics, but in general: consciousness is a good thing, but so is deep sleep.  He mentioned the importance of both, several times.  I feel good about that.

My Indian friend was surprised that so many Westerners put so much store by the wisdom of so many gurus from her country.  She tells me "India is far better off if all the gurus were exported to the West".
Hm, I thought, a reverse outsourcing.  Interesting idea. 

DYSPEPSI for breakfast?

I was invited to speak to a political group at a breakfast meeting this morning in my hometown.  The issue was about affordable housing, a subject that affects me directly as a senior and my daughter, who's disabled.  My sweetheart is still paying off student loans, bless him, so he's in the market for affordable anything.  My presence was to put a face on the topic, people who qualify for and need affordable housing look like me, talk like me, have families like mine.  And so forth.  You get the picture.

I had imagined I'd be preaching to the choir, but if I was, they must have been deaf.  The attacks were pointed and swift and I was glad I had a belly full of bacon and eggs to prevent me from getting sick to my stomach.  We were told, in effect, by a couple of well-heeled looking ladies (ok, I didn't actually see their shoes) that local citizenry were opposed to development of affordable housing because of the numbers of poor people who will live there and bring crime to the neighborhood, thus bringing down property values and disturbing everyone's quality of life.   The disabled, seniors and young working families who all qualify for affordable housing were, thankfully, not present to hear themselves portrayed thusly, by fearful and ill-informed but otherwise intelligent people.

I'm not going to argue the issue further today, except to note that one of the women was sloshing down diet Pepsi for breakfast, and repeatedly allowed her cell phone to ring.  Those are enough for me to qualify her as an idiot.  And I'm grateful that the chairperson of the meeting had a firm grip on the proceedings, snipped at the offending cell phone perp, told the other one that our purpose today was NOT to debate the density of units to be developed, but to put a human face on the issue.  She gave me a little pat on the elbow, for which she gets many brownie points in my corner of heaven, while the other will be relegated in her afterlife to a special place reserved by dentists and dieticians for people who supped on too many sodas.  That's only if there's any justice in the afterlife.

Banks - Forget About It, Take It To The Mattress !

I've just about had it with the banks boohooing and blubbering as they have the rest of us in their grinchy mitts.   I've a good mind to take my money and stuff it in my Beautyrest where at least I can see it, under my own terms without a slew of legal mumbo jumbo where I suspect I'm about to be hoodwinked into an agreement that will later be headlined somewhere as "She Should Have Known Better - Victim Pleads Ignorance, Court Says No Excuse".

I recently decided over the phone to have overdraft protection for two accounts from  my savings account.  This seems responsible and reasonable, does it not?  To the bank, however, this was an opportunity to Sell Me Services, for which I would also be, ahem, cough cough, charged.  I received in the mail, an envelope the size of a phone book for a metropolis.  It included two booklets, three pamphlets and eleven (YES I KNOW) addendum slips to the booklets, a two page legal size application form, a form about automatic payments, a cover letter and all that was missing was a request for a pint of my precious O neg blood.  God knows they aren't spreading the wealth, but they're sure spending plenty of cash on legal a--covering.  That's OUR cash by the way folks.

Well, I am about to take the package and shove it - probably into my bag first, then onto the desk of some hapless clerk at the bank and spend the next hour getting it all sorted out.  OR, perhaps I'll just take all my money out of the bank and sleep on it.  I haven't decided yet, but the shoving has a strong appeal at this very moment.

George at 84, Every Woman's Dream Guy

Today I was invited to a lunch honoring George, who at 84 years old still loves teaching in the classroom and who gets so emotional when he talks about his love of life, he bursts into tears.  It happened twice today and each time, he won the heart of every woman present, around thirty of us.  Women are just suckers for a man who has the guts or heart, whichever organ may be involved (I'm not going there with you) to stand up in public and break into grateful sobs.  For a woman, this has serious meaning, guys take note.  If you ask us to explain it, you're wasting your time because we can't.   That's because it's a chick thing, this response we cannot control, like when a child is in trouble or  a tall handsome guy stops in mid sentence as his face turns a little pink and his voice catches with emotion.  That's the guy who's going home with the prom queen.  Irresistable.

His wife is a peach of a lady and protective.  Nobody would dream of messing with him or her.  In public, he stood up and shared a haiku he'd written for her:  My wife in her new party dress, I am in love again. Not a dry eye.  We might not want George, as he's taken already, but we all want one just like him.

My son tells me what a turn on it is for some women that he's a guy who knows about tools and how to use them (I'm not going there either). Same with knowing how to dance, he reports, not  exactly with a smug leer, but certainly an air of confidence.

The ideal man, then, is a man who cries openly, writes love poems to his wife and reads them in public, knows all about tools and how to use them and is a good leader on the dance floor.  It's not asking too much guys.  It's not so much about the size of your bank account any longer as women these days are willing to provide well for themselves.  It's all about feelings and skills.  If you're a man who isn't having success with women, just check for these three basics and take classes if necessary.

I could easily tell you about turnoffs, but today's advice  is about turn ons and I'd rather be on a date with an 84 year old like George than some jerk like the Donald, any day.   Comments welcome.

Night Market

We're addicted to grapes in lieu of the fermented juice thereof, having already consumed our lifetime's fair share years ago.  It's high season for red flames and other varieties of the darling sweet globules piled high at the local farmers' markets right now.   In search of a sweet fix, I went to the last night market of the season in  downtown San Rafael where along with fresh produce, the atmosphere thrums with rock and blues bands in two different locations and the odd solo artist, which tonight was a silver bearded gent sawing jauntily on a fiddle next to a donut stand. 

I turned when I heard a friend's familiar accent, admonishing her son for demanding donuts since he's already struggling with his weight.  Meanwhile the boy's aunt and uncle, standing nearby, offered me their warm bags of the mini fried dough babies drenched in honey.   I don't bother going into the whole celiac disease business, it's just a bore, so instead I say something like, "Thanks, I love them but they don't love me back".  I could just as easily say a simple no thanks, but that wouldn't be me.

There's a band rocking hard and sweet, surrounded by a huge crowd and I am shocked to discover the players look about twelve years old.  There's also an older guy in a hat singing at the mike who turns out to be a friend I haven't seen in a while and who's the father of the genius guitar player. In the break we hug, he brags and I slip a fiver into the tip jar.   A two year old with a blond pony tail leaps out of her stroller and cavorts near the band as her  hip, slick and cool looking grandma grooves close by.
A man and woman dance separately, not a couple but matched in their courage for strutting their stuff in front of the crowd.  She lifts her arms and legs high then patters a few tiny steps, then back to the crane like swooping arms.  He's wearing a hat, is tall and thin with pants too short and does a series of quick hops then a twirl. They look like people who might need to take their meds seriously or else.

The market place is where we suburban condo dwellers get to see a little street action in our relatively crime free county, just north of the Golden Gate, without having to actually rub shoulders with potentially scary characters in the city.   I love being a part of it all and am sad tonight is the last time until late spring next year.   I'll miss seeing the families and hearing Spanish, Thai, Chinese, Farsi and Vietnamese all around, reminding me that the world is a huge place and what a miracle it is that we can sometimes all get along so easily when food and music bring us together.  I was struck by the simple truth the old fiddle player displayed on a bumper sticker stuck to his instrument case: No Farms, No Food.  I slipped him a couple of dollars and he winked his thanks as I slung my haul of grapes over my shoulder and loped over to the boy band for a few final moments of a Stones' tune, whooping my appreciation and just glad to be alive.

Fall, another f-word

I started calling the autumn season, fall, after living in America. Something to do with leaves falling rather than empires, a novel idea.  In my youth I remember the seasons in Britain were rarely dependably tied to calendars.  It was either warm and wet or cold and wet, usually the latter.  When going outside, we carried coats over our arms, knowing that just because it was sunny when we left the house in the morning, there could just as easily be an arctic chill by lunchtime.  It was just a matter of wait and see, but be prepared, like a nation of scouts.

As children we learned nursery rhymes about the weather and seasons that were no consolation whatsoever, like this:  "The cold wind will blow and we shall have snow and what will the robin do then, poor thing?  He'll sit in the barn to keep himself warm and hide his head under his wing, poor thing."  The only robins I saw were rouged up cartoons on Christmas cards and we were short on barns around our flat in London, so not much to relate to really. Yet here I am sixty odd years later, stuck with this daft ditty that has not enriched my life one iota.  Perhaps it will leave me in peace now that it's out in the open.

What I do adore about autumn is not unique, everyone else says the same: the blaze of reds and gaudy golds as the trees prepare to hunker down for the winds and storms that have the robins all aflutter;  the nips of chilly air, teasing us through the final blast of Indian summer, reminding us the heat will not be around much longer.  Lovely as all this may appear, for some reason it sends me into a sort of panic.  I wonder if my peasant roots are kicking in to remind me that I'd better bring in the hay and put up some  fruit, none of which I've bothered to actually do, ever,  of course.  Something primal gnaws at me as the season changes for the cooler.   But worse,   I'm also irritated about exactly what to wear and when to switch out the wardrobe from flimsies to cozies.  Same with the bed linens.  It's a dithery situation.  Wearing white after Labor Day and far beyond is fine with me.

It's the time I realize how much I miss having a fireplace, another primal response I'm sure, with the smell of woodsmoke, with its blue haze in late afternoons when the light draws down.  Smoke from fires is now called pollution and prosecution threatens.   While  I've been spared addiction to cigarette smoking, incense and fires still beckon powerfully.  I borrow fireside time with a couple of friends who still use fireplaces in winter and nothing delights me so much as dozing on a sofa at the fireside hearth, with the snap of sparks,  hiss of resin,  and the rattle of disintegrated logs settling into the glowing red firebed.

The flaming of leaves and logs, finishing up the work in the fields - all so romantic, unless one is actually toiling, raking, harvesting, chopping, stacking the cords and sweeping up the hearth.  As I age, the thought of physical toil becomes more unappealing by the hour but toil we must or we weaken further - pardon me as I stifle the whine that's trying to sneak in here.   In truth, the closest I've come to actually toiling in fields was at girl scout summer camp where we pitched tents with old wooden stakes and pegs, wielding wooden mallets, putting up hessian screens around the earthen dugout latrines.  A troop of preteens under the care and command of our Guide Captain, a bucktoothed mustachioed woman of military stride and tone, we accomplished erecting our own basic shelter for a week in the wilderness of a rented field and I felt secure and happy.

Closer to home and far from field latrines, my closet and its contents await further instructions.  The limp and tired out summer togs are screaming, no no, not the cold dark dungeons yet, and the heavy shouldered coats are shaking off their summer hibernation, flapping their sleeves hopefully whenever a wind rattles the door. It's a battle every fall and nobody's the clear winner until Thanksgiving.

Side Effects on Mom

My daughter has just gone home after spending a couple of nights with us.  She's unsteady on her feet and feels lousy.  Today we increased the 7am dose by a small amount, of one of her seizure drugs.  Two hours later she complained of dizziness and after eating breakfast, threw it all up.

The dilemma has repeated itself over the years of whether to report it now to the doctor, only to be told to keep at it until her body adjusts or to just watch and wait.  I'm tempted often to call the doctor and tell him to come over and let him watch and wait with her, holding back her hair as she vomits, passing the kleenex, helping her rinse out her mouth - not really major nursing but distressing enough, especially if it's happening to your baby regardless of age.  It also takes time, it takes love, it takes faith and I feel stretched in all three.

  I hate the side effects as much as she does, knowing that her body is trying to throw off something it thinks is toxic, and no doubt it is.   Feeling helpless and hopeless doesn't improve the quality of life and I don't want to indulge in a bowl of pity.  She's the one with the condition, not I.  She's the one I love and want to see well and happy and all I can do is clip back her hair, rub her back as she's heaving over the porcelain throne, tell her she'll feel better soon, then try my best to believe it.

9/11 Memorial Day Eve

Today is the day before what is now an annual memorial day for the tragedy of terrorist attacks on US soil on September 11th, 2001.  I'm preparing for  all the emotions and thoughts that go with it. Our church (Unity in Marin) is hosting an all day Peace Symposium with speakers and a Kids Peace Camp for which peace is the focus, not revenge. Mother Theresa was reported to have said she wouldn't go to any anti war march but she would go to a peace march.  It is a matter of what one stands for rather than against.

As with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, most of us remember where we were when we got news of the attack.  I was in the kitchen fiddling with dishes and breakfast when my husband rushed in with the dog after their walk.  He'd heard the news on the car radio and said something about a terrorist attack in New York.  I dismissed his anxiety in my usual offhand way, presuming the media had hyped up something that wasn't really all that bad.  "Americans !" I thought, and rolled my eyes at their sense of drama about little things, having no idea what he was really talking about. He turned on the tv and I sauntered in just as the second plane flew into the Twin Towers.  We froze, unable to move or speak.    Like so many millions, were glued, spellbound in horror as events unfolded onscreen.

It is a blur now how the rest of the day proceeded but I recall speaking to my mother in London, both of us in tears.  She said how very, very sorry she was for the American people because they have never had to endure an attack on their own soil, unlike other countries.   She was remembering the years of war when Americans helped abroad but at home, apart from Pearl Harbor, the citizenry were unaffected in their own beds.  I was surprised and moved at her compassion as she's never been especially pro American and during the McCarthy witchhunt era, she was just the opposite. Yet, here she was now, changed by tragedy, as we all inevitably are.

Whatever emerges on Saturday either between Rev Jones from Florida with his proposed or postponed Koran bonfire and the Imam whose vision for an Interfaith Center near Ground Zero, who may or may not meet with him, and all the other events, planned or unplanned, one thing is cleara.   We all want the same.  We want peace, we want it now.  We want freedom, we want it now, and we don't want others telling us what peace and freedom should look like.  Political, religious and territorial disputes are all manmade horrors.  May peace prevail, always.

Peace begins at home.  May yours be filled with peace, on purpose, today and every day.

Trading Troozers, Freedom of the Kilt

Labor Day weekend 2010, four of us joined the thousands who flocked to the 145th Annual Scottish Highland Gathering and Games, in Pleasanton, California.  We sweated and shivered alternately, according to the weather whim of the moment, but mostly we soaked in the wild and whacky scene, to the steady drone of bagpipes and smart drumming of competing bands from around the country.

I was giggling, gawking and omigodding as I tried to imagine my darling parents' comments had they been with me.  Shaved heids (say heed, for head), tattoos, dirks (daggers) and swords of all kinds, from wooden toy ones to the steely sheathed ones, tartan and plaid galore swirled around us in a heady mix of Celtic bravado and California pagent-cult.

Along with the freedom of cross-cultural life in the USA, I celebrated the sight of young and old men alike dropping their pants in favor of wearing free swinging kilts.  You could practically hear the collective sigh of cooling crotches above the cheerful ring of the sales register at the Utilikilts booth (www.utilikilts.com).  Their slogan is simply "We Sell Freedom".  Aye, and the lassies love a lad in a kilt let me tell ye.  In the opinion of many of us, a more manly garb would be hard to find.  The guys at Utilikilts (have the right idea combining the traditional kilt skirt design with army fatigue fabric in camoflage colors, adding pockets big enough to holster a wallet or a drill (guessing on this one) thus completely de-wimping the girlie-man fears some guys might have at the thought of having their johnnies going commando in a skirt.

 I'm plotting a way to get my son to embrace the liberated loins notion, but with little hope, sad to say. The fact that the original role of gentleman-tough, James Bond, was played by Irish-Scot Glaswegian, Sean Connery, is unlikely to cut the mustard with him. He's more likely to google Sean's info and find out he's never had a fling with the kiltish thing and gleefully report the sad finding to me.    A mother can only hope.

Monday Morning Mad

Just read about the immigration sweeps along the north east border region in this morning's New York Times and I'm spitting mad against the continued paranoia and abusive behavior of immigration officials who apparently routinely board trains and buses, wake up sleeping passengers with flashlights and demand proof of citizenship or legal status.  If you don't "look right" (read white) or have acceptable papers on you,  you are grilled and hauled off, according to many victims, witnesses and immigrant rights' advocates. Of course when questioned about the abuse of power and racial profiling, the usual denials are rock solid in defense of upholding the law and homeland security, blah blah blah. Sure, they'll probably catch some illegals, mostly tourists who have overstayed their visas, but NOT terrorists, folks ! If they were catching actual terrorists, it would make the headlines, right?

Arizona's laws are mild in comparison to what is going on up north. It gives new meaning to the term carte blanche (French for white card, blank sheet of paper) where authorites intepret law anyhow they please in the moment, with impunity.  Does this bring back memories of communist bloc or fascist regime oppression?  Step right up, get your free flashbacks...but wait we're HERE and NOW not there and not then,  or are we?  I had to check the dateline on the article twice.

The racial profiling gets to me particularly hard as I imagine authorities confronting my black haired brown eyed Eurasian-mix daughter if she were on a trip by herself to visit relatives in Canada. My blood boils to think of her completely defenseless in her befuddlement, being brain damaged and on heavy anti-seizure medication.  She's a legal citizen but DOESN'T LOOK WHITE, so if she couldn't answer properly or had forgotten her passport or other i.d, she'd be at high risk of being arrested and thrown away for weeks in detention, until her brother or I could track her down. Detainees are often held in centers across country, randomly isolated from family and community, and if released on bond, it is often in odd locations in the middle of the night. The horror of this scenario cannot be overstated. 

When will "America" accept  the FACT that this is not a "white" country (nor by the way a Christian country, different topic, I grant you) ?  It is a mix of everything under the sun and will always be that way.  The blatant Mighty Whitey Thinks He's Righty attitude disgusts me and I'm a whitey immigrant myself.    In reading the report, it is pretty clear that if I were on the same train or bus as a passenger with my daughter,  with my red hair and blue eyes, only one of us would likely be questioned.  The simple answer "Yes I'm a citizen" isn't something she could come up with because she's, how shall we put it nicely,  not as swift on her mental feet as most others.  Her response would probably be "what's a citizen?" I think of all the innocent victims inevitably caught by accident in these intrusive sweeps, conducted by obvious zealots, and my heart screams.   And don't think the developmentally disabled are immune from such harsh treatment !  The daughter of a friend, a citizen of a South American nation, who was visiting legally, and has Down's syndrome and is smart enough to handle traveling alone, was actually handcuffed and detained in a jail cell... enough said, another story.  Common sense and compassion are clearly not highly prized as qualifications among job applicants for immigration officials.

Sometimes I just want to pack a bag and get the hell outta here.  But then I sit down and wait until the feeling passes.  But I'm not able to sit still for long when I know this wonderful country that has been so good to us and millions of others,  has some ugly vicious thugs on the government's payroll, that I PAY FOR.  GRRRR.

Messing Up

When there's been an injustice of some kind, my other half has a standard remark: "That's messed up," he says and shakes his head.  His language is much cleaner than mine.  He tells me I need to work on that, by the way.  Much as I don't respond well to criticism, and think he could be right, this morning a friend and I decided we could write a book called "F-ing Up Out Loud" because we've been there and done that.  'Course, the publishers wouldn't use the f-word, they might even just use cute little asterisks for the first four letters, "****ing Up Out Loud"  which packs a nice visual punch.  People buy often buy books based solely on the cover or title - I certainly do.

Anyone could write a book like that if they were honest with themselves.  The stones we cast against ourselves are usually the biggest and most painful.  When I'm doing that, Larry tells me to put down the big hammer, just use the little one today.  Sounds like tool time for tots.  I know he's just trying to be kind when he sees I can't be.  His parents forgave him endlessly which was both a help and a hindrance perhaps, but my parents used searing wit to slice and dice the Bad Guys.  They wielded the big sword and the big hammer at everything.  Maybe it was just the Irish in them, always fighting. 

Public confession is a risky proposition but I believe it's ultimately healthy and helps others by letting them see they're not alone in their embarrassing behavior.  It's the belief that we are alone, that nobody cares about us, which creates the worst and most common cause of suffering.  Specifically though, my friend and I were examining our fears about being awful mothers, having ****ed up the lives of our most loved and adored family members by being stubborn, short-sighted and self-indulgent. It was not an easy conversation.

Our book wouldn't be a big seller at this early stage of its development.  So far  it would only have about two pages in it: an admission of guilt on one side and an appeal for forgiveness on the other.  We have yet to flesh it out with gory details of various escapades, and we may discover we haven't really got the guts for it and that innocent people might be harmed - which is the opposite of what we want to do any more.    But the title might sell and that's a good start.

Back to School Daze

I'M SO EXCITED I CAN HARDLY SIT DOWN LONG ENOUGH TO WRITE.  I've reconnected with my best friend from high school days thanks to facebook networking.  It feels SO good.  It's a validation of having had a past with people in it who actually cared about you and remember you !! My little ego has had a trip to the groomers and is strutting around all fluffed up like a perky poodle.

We last saw one another over 50 years ago and lost track for no good reason, just the gradual drifting and filling up  of time with new faces and places.  She called my parents years ago but didn't leave any contact information and they didn't think to ask and I was left gasping with frustration at my father's version of the phone call: "she asked if you were there, I said no and we hung up..."  I wanted to hang him up, from a high place, I can tell you.

Meanwhile, she's had four children and I've had three husbands.  We have a lot of catching up to do.
She said she was excited and told me she and another friend have been looking for me for years.  Wow. 

I'm celebrating by have three pieces of french toast for breakfast and too busy eating to write any more for today.    Watch this space.

The Joy of YES

A dear friend seems to be struggling.  I know better than to offer a hand or tissue because it's been made clear that those are neither welcome nor necessary.  When I repeat back the words I thought I heard this friend say, I am told, no, that's not what I said, or no, that's not what I meant to say.  I do my best to stick to words I heard, like a little old recorder.  Just the messenger, not the message.  But it doesn't seem helpful to be a playback recorder,  though who am I to judge?   I also nod and murmur that I am sorry for the pain, for the suffering I see.  Nodding is body language for, yes, yes, yes, I hear you and am not in disagreement with you.  Isn't that what we all want?

Will this friend be relieved of suffering because I nodded, who knows?  Oprah said once that what we all want in this world is to be heard, to be seen and to know that what we say matters to others.  That is the truth.  The question is who will be the first to give "yes, I see, hear and you matter" to the other?  If we wait for the other to see us first, sometimes the waiting becomes insufferable and we'd rather leave.  When we reach the point of being tired of leaving, what other choice is there now ?  I hope my friend chooses to be the first one to say yes, I see, hear, and yes your feelings matter, followed by unspoken or spoken "and I love you and promise to wait for you".  I want my friend to be happy, for the struggle to cease, for the rope of tug-o-war to be placed gently on the field of peace and for all concerned to walk in the light of love and beauty.  A yes is all it takes.

Joy of Rebelling

Standing up and saying "NO" is such a pleasure. It feels so good to take a stand and speak up. However, the fear of being hurt or being wrong or being opposed often stands in the way, so many of us cower in silence or mutter inside our own demented minds, and that's not such a grand feeling. When others refuse me, or defiantly oppose me, even that's a good thing in a way because I've realized that I admire gutsy people. Courage is a quality that's very attractive in others.

Somehow I feel more secure when I'm around a person who will say no, because it means they are clear about their position and I feel I can trust them to tell their truth. I don't always agree with their alternative perspective, but that's not the point. A friend told me a while back that she felt she could trust me because when she needed help to get to the ER after having a bad reaction to something she was eating in the restaurant we both happened to be in at the same time (with different people) I told her honestly that I couldn't do it and why. It created a bond of trust, she said, because she could see I was taking care of myself and to her, that's an important quality in a friend. I thought about that for a while after she told me this and I began to see the wisdom of that and today, our friendship is stronger.

I had a couple of no's recently and I didn't enjoy or appreciate them at first. I've started a new routine and thought I'd need support to keep it up. I created a new exercise plan in which I dance in my nightie in the living room. I worried that if I asked people to remind me or check up on whether I'd done it, they'd agree and forget or agree reluctantly and feel burdened, and none of that had much appeal, so I resisted asking for any support. I explained my dilemma to my loving partner who listened and told me reasons why he though one might not receive support, such as "I don't want to take responsibility for something you should be doing for yourself". That was disappointing, and I felt hurt and thought that would be the end of it. I was wrong.

Support came in a different way. When I was actually dancing and my sweetie happened to be home at the time, he agreed to join me on the rug for a twirl. We both had fun and said we should do it more often. Now I can see that his no wasn't about refusing me support, it was just his being honest about not taking on more responsibility. He knows how much he can handle and I don't. His type of support was active: he danced with me and we shared some fun. Verbal reminders are just not his thing. I'll take that no with more respect next time.

Selective Blend

Without their permission, I've taken the maternal liberty of including a photo of my son and daughter taken recently at a family wedding. As you may discern, they do not resemble me exactly and neither do they resemble their father exactly. They are, of course, in the middle. But since their father was Chinese and I'm Scots Irish, they have appeared in the world as a blend of both, which causes occasional confusion.

My daughter is short, dark, pretty, and freckled. She battles a tendency to plumpness with a food diary and exercise. My son is lanky, burns red in the sun, has strong, spikey auburn hair, inhales food with abandon, burning his calories efficiently, according to his own assessment. Both have the slender hands, feet and ankles of their father's family. Chopsticks were used before forks, and the first time my son ate a McDonald's french fry, he vomited.

Soon after we immigrated to the States, and when the children were still very young, my blue-eyed Pennsylvania Dutch neighbor, after a little too much wine, invited me to confess who the real father of my son was, because "it couldn't possibly be your husband". She even giggled over the bet she had with her husband that if they could only get me tipsy enough, I was sure to spill the beans. I'm not sure, nor did I care, actually, whether she believed me when I told her that, yes, indeed my red-haired, white-skinned son's father was the same as my dark- haired daughter's and the very same man I was married to. Innate people pleaser that I was at that time, I felt a little bad that I'd disappointed her, but a little horrified too, at her ignorance of the mysterious whim of dominant gene selection. Her own son had blond hair and blue eyes, despite the fact that her husband (and father of her child, which I never doubted) was from Iran and had black hair and dark brown eyes.

Nowadays, my daughter, never one to shy away from a moment of distinction, tells people who meet us for the first time that yes, she really is my daughter and not adopted, even though we don't look alike. Her pediatrician asked me at our first visit whether I knew if she had been breast fed as an infant. When I replied, yes, I had fed her myself, he blushed and stuttered a bit, realizing his misstep in presuming an adoption, based simply upon appearances. I suppose he just wasn't used to seeing mixed race patients unless the blend included African American, the most common, perhaps, at that time in the mid-seventies. Eurasian blends may have been a little exotic for that neck of the backwoods. The backwoods being a mere 20 miles north of San Francisco, by the way. I had imagined myself to be living in a progressive part of California and was shocked to learn otherwise.

With our president being bi-racial, the issue of mixed heritage has surfaced in a refreshing way and its about time. I bought two books on the subject recently: Mixed - Portraits of Multiracial Kids, by Kip Fulbeck, and a companion book by the same author, Part Asian-100% Hapa, published by Chronicle Books. They are small, easy to peruse like an album, with photo portraits of mixed race children and adults, with a few words of commentary by the subjects or family. I presented the one about kids to my daughter to keep her occupied while I had my turn at Scrabble yesterday. She usually has a hard time waiting for me, even though I cheat in her favor and keep the words very simple so she isn't overchallenged to the point of frustration. She struggles enough as it is. We stick to three or four letter words (only clean ones) and we're both less stressed that way. Last night, she couldn't wait for me to be busy with my rack while she seemed mesmerized by photos of kids who look alot like she does. She read the lists of each child's ancestry aloud, in her usual careful and deliberate monotone, which rose in pitch whenever it included Chinese, Scottish or Irish. "Just like me!" she crowed with delight. The book was far more engaging and relevant to her than our game of Scrabble, even though she was winning handily.

I remember the frustration of not finding her a doll that had brown hair and brown eyes when we lived in London for a year, when she was in kindergarten. She attached herself to what was available, a blue-eyed blondie. In later years, not surprisingly, she wanted to dye her hair blond, which I thought a shame as she has the most lovely dark tresses. One day, inevitably, she managed to sneak a dye job, and I have to admit she looked stunning ! She gave it up because of the expense, but not without pouting. She now has a reddish rinse on it, which these days is tame; I am only glad it's not the puce I saw on a young lady at church last week !

I know I can't and shouldn't control what she chooses to do with her appearance and mostly manage to keep my comments to myself. And it's not really her appearance per se that's a serious issue as much as what that represents to her and others of mixed race. Her main concern is having a sense of truly belonging and being accepted and I respect that. While few of us are truly satisfied with our appearance, we all long to know that we are viewed as equal members of society, and deserving of the respect and dignity everyone else is afforded. This becomes a bigger concern for those of mixed heritage whose experiences can often be alienating and painful. It usually starts when they are young and ill prepared to defend themselves.

Stereotyping is the culprit, fear and ignorance perhaps even more so. While statistics and studies reveal the fact that there are plenty of white drug dealers as well as black, and that numerous successful black business owners, living in large homes in safe neighborhoods with happy family lives do exist, or that indeed there are some Chinese kids who are hopeless at math, or who play in garage rock bands, ugly misperceptions persist.

Facts are supposed to be more powerful than fear, or so one would hope in a civilized society. When will we learn to look through appearances and see one another as part of the human race, each of us frail at times, strong at others? Maybe when there are more people like the president in positions of leadership, which might take a while. But sooner than that, when more mothers make playdates an opportunity to share with kids who look different from their own, or maybe when each person just decides to do it, it will happen.

Asking for Advice? Shut up and listen !

This morning, I confessed to a good friend that I was having difficulty asking for support with my, gag, gasp, strangle, e...e....ex....exercise program. I could hardly rasp out the e word. It's a touchy subject with me. I am so filled with resistance, resentment and ridiculous arguments that I'm worn out before I've changed out of my jammies.

I was sitting on the sofa, talking on the phone with this good friend, who's the type who gets up at 5am to go to the gym (notice how that rhymes handily with grim?) when I realized, too late, that this is the wrong type of person, friend or not, to have confessed to. Before I had a chance to whine about exactly why I was resisting, thereby postponing the arrival of the moment when I would actually move anything apart from my mouth, she was streaking ahead with a plan on resistance training and its importance for women our age. I started to say, yes, resistance actually IS the problem, but she burbled on about buying stretchy bands, and how many reps and what is the best position... and well, you may imagine where my mind went, because I can't remember most of what she said. I started to suspect that she wasn't really listening to what I was really asking for. I wanted support not advice on what program to use. Support means to me that I tell you what I'm struggling with and then you ask how exactly I'd like the support, and then I tell you, then you actually do it. Right? Apparently not.

I brought the same subject up to my sweetie, and told him that I was having trouble asking for support for something, without saying what that something was. I said I was struggling with asking because I was afraid people would say yes, then resent doing it and our relationship would somehow be affected negatively, or they'd say yes then forget to do it, or worse, talk me out of needing their support by telling me it wasn't their responsibility to do for me what I should be doing for myself. All of these things have in fact happened before and I just don't want to go through it again. His response was along the lines of the responsibility thing. We ended up arguing a bit and I'd like to think he changed his mind, as I explained further that if it was something I could have handled by myself I wouldn't still be struggling with it. Anyhow, it got complicated.

Another response (aka slap on the wrist) from the fitness freak friend was a reminder that if I expect negative results, that's what I'm going to get. Right, that's why I'm afraid to ask, because of all the negative experiences I've already had. Does this mean I should ask other people, get new friends and family? Or just shut up and listen?

It's becoming clear, that if I make a request, others are obviously going to interpret it a certain way, most likely one that differs from my original intention. So I'll just have to shut up and listen to them. Doesn't mean I'll be doing what they say though. It'll just be a way of maintaining relationship with that person, and realizing we have completely different ideas about what I mean by support.

So, here's exactly what I want: someone to just ask me in a funny, or gentle and loving way whether or not I made time to dance in my nightie in the living room today? That's my chosen aerobic activity, by the way, because I can do it easily and it's fun and it's a start. If it isn't fun, I just won't do it, period. The stretching and pulling thing will be nice to add later, when I'm on a bit of an endorphin high from panting through a hot salsa number, but for now I just want to be the twirl girl and I'd like anyone who cares about me to check in about it, regularly. I suppose I am really asking for a demonstration of caring about what I'm doing, whether it's exercise or not. Bingo, methinks. Pause for blushing and hanging of shameful head.

Now I'm also seriously reviewing how I give support to others, when they ask me. Do I listen carefully? Do I take the trouble to ask them what exactly I can do or say that would be helpful?
Or am I going to run ahead with my own agenda, having diagnosed their problem and decided what they should do about it? Ouch.

Walkie Talkie

Nothing tickles my joy so much as time with a good friend where we open up and tell it "like it is" while on a pleasant walk through a charming neighborhood where the white picket fenced front yards are fragrant with lilies and roses. Imagine this delight made sweeter by warm summer evening air and post sunset golden light. Just a little walk before dinner in a local hotel where the yard fence is decorated with summer straw hats and there's a statue of a poodle at the front door. After dinner, tea comes in an elephant shaped pot and crisp caramel topped creme brulee is delicately served in an espresso coffee cup. The server is discreetly non-intrusive and mindfully attentive. My friend is a regular and obviously well-liked and I was a grateful, admiring tagalong.
We caught up with each others' news, talked about books and movies, shared concerns and joys and when it was over, I could hardly believe that four hours had flowed so effortlessly, in fact timelessly. It was the perfect gal pal date, the kind of evening that makes me glad to be a woman because I couldn't honestly imagine the same effortless experience with a man where somehow there's always the zigzag of ego, a contest, a question about the future, and yes, even sex implied or otherwise. No offense to my sweetie of course, but if all our time together could be as smooth as my chick date, I'd love him even more perhaps.

Holy and Sacred or Unwhole and Scared?

Beautiful churches are nothing new to me. Old hat, ho hum, there goes another marble column, yawn. Growing up in London and getting yanked through major art galleries and museums when I was too young to appreciate them and without any guidance, mind you, my eye was assailed with levels of beauty that set such a high bar, it's been hard to impress it since. The wonders of Venice, Rome, Florence, Japan and Moscow, in my early adult years seemed like nothing to write home about. I was already jaded by the big, glorious, grand, ancient, gold, marble, height. Thanks anyway.

On the living room and bedroom walls at home my mother hung small framed reproductions of her favorite paintings, had a couple of plaster busts of famous classical composers on the mantlepiece. Music and art surrounded me. It was just an every day part of life, I thought nothing about it, took it for granted completely, later scorning the classics for modern and a little embarrassed that we had only reproductions instead of originals, freakin' little snob that I was becoming.

I also remember feeling tired quite often as I slogged through museums on rainy summer school vacation days and I was probably hungry too. Eating wasn't something I did more than once or twice a day, as a result of tight budget at home and my own laziness about cooking. I have since learned that when one is tired and hungry, life's impressions sit differently on the dusty cushion of one's perception. As a teen, I trolled through galleries and museums mostly to fill time, quell boredom. I found myself looking more at the other people than the exhibits. At that time I used the word beautiful almost exclusively to describe clothes, women or scenery. ( The Swiss alps still top my list for natural splendor.) Beauty was strictly relegated to visual experiences where I was still very focused. And eventually, the pains real life began to seep through the surface and I had to learn to grow up.

I began to seek refuge in churches when my soul began hurting, finding comfort in the familiar designs and smells of the interiors, whether the church was in London, Singapore or Northern California. Just sitting there and not talking to anyone, I silently wept, longing for a sense of connection with something to assuage my profound despair and suffering from inevitable disappointments, loss, deprivation and cruelty. It was only then that I opened to the true aspect of beauty, that which brings with it a deep peace.

In the London of my early years, paintings of religious scenes from the Italian Renaissance were nothing more to me than framed wall coverings in a gallery. I simply didn't care for images of Jesus, Mary or any of the saints and martyrs. Now though, blue robed images of Mary holding the baby Jesus could set me off on a weeping binges that relieved much grief, though I didn't know then that tears were a sign of pain that is being healed. But even without that Universal Eternal Mother figure's presence, the lacy linens, flowers, candles, dark wood panels and pews, marble floors, columns, touches of gold, deep reds and blues in stained glass windows. all of these soothed the ache. In their midst, I transformed from scared to whole for a while. The musky fragrance of incense can still do that for me; it makes the inner and outer places feel somehow more holy and my nerves (as my mother used to say) settle for a few moments.

I expected that by this stage in life I'd be "settled and secure" meaning that I'd have been with a loving partner in a longterm career marriage; you may recognize that only-in-the-movies ideal, where the woman is wife and mother, revered for her homemaking skills and is the heart center of the household, while the devoted husband and children live successful careers outside the home, to which they return regularly with respect and affection, reporting on their accomplishments with confidence and cheer. The ideal wife and mother glows, feeling somehow that her life has not been lived in vain. All the scrubbed floors, ironed shirts, baked pies and Sunday roast dinners have amounted to something after all. Perhaps you do, but I don't actually know anyone who has that type of life. Yet in some part of my worldly mind, it's something I think I should have created for myself and have failed at. I realize now how I continue to punish myself for this failure. And, well, it hurts too much, and I'd like it to stop.

Tomorrow, a close friend is flying off to Italy, home of Renaissance religious art and as I think of her whizzing through guidebook destinations, bargaining for souvenir trinkets, scribbling postcards, reporting that everything is just wonderful, will I secretly envy her or will I know that I can stay home and enjoy the same beauty from my desk side, without having to go through the hoopla of airports and jet lag, foreign currency and language barriers ? I'm not sure yet, but
sometimes it's really nice to have " been there and done that" and let it go. Confession, in or out of the church feels good.

If it's too good to be true?

Now what? I was googling away on behalf of a friend, checking out the cost of a book I recommended to her when lo and horrors behold, I find the book title with the word scam attached and a list of articles about online money making scams. I clicked on all the links, trying to silence the chorus of I-told-you-so's, but so far, have nothing conclusive to report about the book in question. I can report, however, that I've developed a sense of rattle in my gut. And what fun is that ? My fun bunny got shot at and is quaking under the covers, and I don't blame it. I'm wheedling as fast as I can, but it won't budge.

To be completely honest, now that I look back on it, there was a chapter in the book that got the rattle rocking a wee bit. It was the one where the leader of a group calls everyone together, drives them into the woods in the middle of the night and with no warning, abandons two of them, who are always sniping at one another, in the belief that they will find their way home and in the process overcome their differences. If you can't get along in the group, she says, you can't get along in the outside world. Which might well be true, but that wasn't what upset me so much as the idea of a trusted leader pulling such a dangerous power trip on unsuspecting women she's hoping will survive to thank her and succeed in the group in future. Bear in mind that one of the women is a young single mother whose child is a mere baby, the other, an out of shape middle aged widow in high heels fergawdsake ! My gut started wanging so loudly by this point in the chapter, that I exhaled loudly enough to cause honeybun next to me to mumble in his sleep. Even he knew something was up.

I haven't found any hard evidence that the advice in this book has been found scam worthy, YET, but my fun bunny's whiskers are twitching, and I want to pay attention. Watch this space.

Darling

Prejudice, contempt prior to investigation is a blight I want out of my life. I didn't fully realize how tarnished my joy had become by this insidious and corrosive attitude until something happened yesterday and I woke up.

It began years ago when I overheard my parents talk about "them" and I learned about "us and them". We, of course were always better than "them". "They" were responsible for all the suffering in the world and "we" were the victims. "They" incorporated a long list of aggressors and general villains such as "the government", "modern medicine", "the Tory party", "the rich", "landlords", "the English". There were others but I can't recall the whole list now. What is the most important realization for me today is that prejudice is a learned attitude, along with its uglier big brother, contempt. Contempt has stalked my unconscious mind as closely as my own shadow is attached to my feet.

What I heard yesterday, jumped from the speaker's lips into my deepest hiding spot, wherever that is, and jolted me for the next two hours. A guest on a tv show was describing how a child, in order to show love for a parent and elicit love and approval from a parent in return will mimic the parent's behavior and attitude in the belief that "if I'm just like my mommy/daddy then I will be loved and they will feel loved". And so it is I began to recognize the ways in which I still mimic my parents, bless them. I know they spoke what was truthful for them, believing that the suffering of the world is caused by specific individuals and groups, and there may be much truth in some of that. The villains may change their spots and my opinion about who's a villain is also subject to change and if something is subject to change, it cannot be held to be an absolute truth. What is worse, however, is the teaching of contempt for anyone or anything. I was taught to be kind and tolerant of only certain groups, the "Us" and stand up and fight against the others, "them", those in power who were abusive and insensitive to the needs of others. Now, I am glad to know that there are times when one must do this important work, taking up arms if necessary and perhaps there is such a thing as The Good Fight or a Just War. History can argue those points better than I. But I am very sorry that I have suffered for so long by holding an attitude of contempt because I have held myself in contempt for some time now over things done and things left undone. And it is no way to live. It is a painful and cruel way to treat anyone. So, as an act of love towards myself today I am going to call myself Darling all day, and tell myself nice things, praise myself for all the extra effort and accomplishments that I will make today. I'm already looking forward to the new me. But first, take a little nap darling, you look tired.

All Flash and no Cash?

For years now I've comforted myself by feeling superior to people who focus on making money, as if somehow it's dishonorable to want to be financially successful. It's a throwback to the days when our impoverished but smart and savvy family was held in place by the beliefs of an outdated class system. People were supposed to "know their place" and we were judged worthy or otherwise depending on our accent, education, manners, and probably other criteria I was unaware of back then. Times they are a-changin' and the clatter of shackles being cast off is music to my ears.

I've confused wealth with greed. I've confused wealth with snobbery. I've confused wealth with social injustice. I've confused wealth with aggression. I've been confused about wealth for a long time.

Recently I received a book called "Cash in a Flash" which is the first book of its kind that has actually enthused me. I didn't go out and force myself to buy it, it was part of a gift included in the price of a retreat I attended a few months ago. I was attracted to the retreat and the retreat answered many unidentified desires. I spent plenty of cash during my stay there as there were several independent vendors plying their trade, including clothes and hats for which I have a great affection - I was going to write "weakness" but that is no longer how I view my extreme appreciation for creative style expressed as artistic body wear. I began, in my old way of thinking, to feel guilty about my "self indulgence" and suffered what is sometimes called buyers' remorse, though the purchases are a source of great pleasure and I haven't gone bankrupt. It's like peeing all over new shoes.

The book and its wisdom was distributed to a few thousand individuals and I have no way of knowing how many of us will actually not only read the book but act on the plan outlined.
The action part is often the greatest challenge for me, but I know I am up to it, more than ready for it. It's not even a challenge that I'm afraid might hurt, it's the kind of challenge that has my mind rubbing its little hands together, anticipating something simply great. Maybe, like yours, my mind loves some challenges and despairs over others. This time, we can't wait to get going, like a puppy recognizing shoes and leash as signals for playtime outdoors, where the good smells are.

The flash of realization that I am actually ready, willing and able to move ahead after years of doldrums only sets my pace at a higher rate. Wealth is something I actually already possess, because it's not a thing, it's an attitude about what already exists. I have a wealth of resources in the form of ideas, friends, contacts, love, not to mention a stunningly gorgeous wardrobe to go with. So stand by for cash flow reports, because my buckets are lined up.

Guardian Angel? Get in line.

Once in a while you think you're having a bad day and then you watch someone else's day dissolve into chaos and realize how grateful you are that it's just not your turn, but when it is, you hope your angels are watching and come to the rescue. Two days ago I witnessed both the dissolving and the angels appearing.

I happened to be trapped in my car, accidentally I must add, by the premature hosing down of my car at the local rehab/halfway house weekend $5 carwash deal. The guys who do the washing take turns, divvy up the take at the end of the day, look like they've been lifting weights in a prison yard for a while, or something similar. Mostly young, stripped down for the carwash, they smoke between cars, have a radio on full volume blasting rap and hiphop. Customers are usually repeat locals willing to help out the guys and get a great but inexpensive hand wash on their car. I go a couple of times a year at most and this was one of my days. Being trapped in the car I decided to enjoy just sitting there while the guys did their sudsy rub down on the car and I indulged a fantasy of myself being massaged and gently washed, while listening to my own public radio station. All of a sudden, for no reason I could think of, I was compelled to check my rearview mirror and watched as a car turning into the driveway of the carwash was rear ended by another car which had swerved hard but not quickly enough. The noise of the impact had all the guys on red alert, like a herd of zebra when a lion lopes onto the scene, their heads flicked up as one, and they slowly moved up to the cars, checking things out.

I turned off my radio, stepped out of the still wet and sudsy car and walked along with the guys to see if there was anything I could do to help. I recognized one of the drivers, a friend, who was trying to get information from the other driver, a young guy, wearing a shirt, tie and well pressed pants as if on his way to church or a job interview, who was pacing and holding his hands to his head in despair. His car, an expensive German import had its hood buckled into a sharp A and oil was flooding the ground underneath it. My friend's car had a hole gouged in the steel bumper and the rear wheel well had buckled onto the back tire and she was trying, now, to wrench it free so she could drive the car without stripping the tire. She was in a state, but didn't realize it. She didn't have her glasses, wasn't writing or reading numbers accurately, had written down the date of her insurance policy instead of the number of the policy, thought it had expired, was leaving a message for her husband to come and help, and all in a calm voice. But I knew she wasn't herself. "Oh, it's you, I can't believe it." She seemed relieved to see a friendly face.
I told her to take a breath, gave her a hug, rubbed her back a little and told her it was all going to be ok. "You're an angel, an angel" she kept saying. I didn't feel like one, but I was glad to be there.

Meanwhile the guys in their shorts and bare tops were talking to the young guy, walked him over to their rest area, lent him a cell phone so he could call his girlfriend, and told him everything would be ok. They were being angels to the guy, whether they knew it or not. Turns out the guy had just been released from jail that morning, was borrowing his girlfriend's car, and now this. Turns out he also was driving on a suspended license and her insurance was only month to month, so the story isn't over yet. But it'll turn out all right. Nobody was seriously injured, some serious lessons were to be learned, no doubt, but for those of us who were hand holding and back rubbing, the lesson was also clear. It was just our turn that day to be on one side of the mess, tomorrow it might be different.

The Sound of One Shoe Shopping

I once attended a church where they resolved the old Buddhist co-an about the sound of one hand clapping by applauding silently with one hand stuck in the air making little wafting motions, like traffic police for fairies, I used to think but never said. It made a polite acknowledgment of appreciation without the usual un-churchy sort of hand clapping you'd want to give if you were in a club. Now I go to a church where after certain songs or talks we sound exactly as if we're in a club, including foot stomping and whooping. I love it.

One hand clapping is odd enough, but I've been perusing a "single shoe only" website all morning and I'm cross eyed. I'm having to shoe shop for my daughter whose feet require mismatched shoe sizes. This time it's harder because we're not buying generic tennies or sandals at a cheap outlet where we can splurge on two pairs of shoes just to get one pair that fits her properly without going broke. She'd like a nice dressy pair for a wedding. There's a size and half difference between her two feet and one is a little slender in the heel too, so the style has to be carefully considered. Sling-backs would, for example, be tantamount to a guaranteed visit to the er with serious stitches if not broken bones from a certain trip and fall. Alas, she already does those very well thank you, without the help of shoes.

This search led a friend to refer me to a shoe site she thought would be helpful on ebay. It's dedicated to those who need only one shoe. If you're lucky, you might find a single pair of mismatched sizes and save a tidy sum. Especially if you're looking for Prada or Manolo Blah-blahs, which sell on ebay for a mere $99 per shoe !! Well, we're not quite in that market, and I began to wonder who would be? Perhaps I'm off base here (and it wouldn't be the first time) but if your shoe budget is in the $100 plus range, per shoe, then you'd probably be able to afford a prosthetic copy of the other leg/foot, if you wanted to match the appearance of your bi- ped peer group, in which case buying a whole pair in the first place would make sense. As it is, the site doesn't make sense to mismatched sized shoppers unless there's an equal selection of left and right shoes, but, mysteriously, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm thinking then, that the factory must have damaged or overrun some of the shoes in production and they're hoping to recoup some of the loss before a total write-off, to which I say good luck buddy. Not all the shoes were $99, to be fair, there were some un-designer offerings as low as $6 each, but unless there are rights as well as lefts, those solo Manolo's may be destined to whatever fate has in store for unclaimed halves of a pair. I'm trying hard not to imagine a cartoon version of The After Life of Footwear with a featured song (with apologies to Fats Domino): "My Shoe Heaven."

I so appreciate that my friend had only the best of intentions in referring me to ebay, bless her, but I'm still shoeless and left with more questions - maybe I should refer my dilemma to a Buddhist minded teacher for further consideration. Waiting for the other shoe to drop is one thing, but I'm not at all sure about this one shoe shop stop. Will the shoe drop before I do?

Ye Olde Country

Last night, I was laughing so hard in bed, I had to leap out of it and run downstairs where I let the tears and guffaws flow freely, without disturbing my partner, who, as I now realize too late, could probably snooze uninterrupted through a total bedroom remodel. I might just as well have snorted and heaved in the comfort of the bed. However, the culprit, an endearing and hilarious tome about life in Britain, "Notes From a Small Island" by Bill Bryson an American who lived there for 20 years, was down to its final few pages. I couldn't not finish it right then and there and I suspected, and I was right (that's nice for a change) that as much howling laughter as there was, it would likely be balanced by some sentimental weepy bits at the end and I wanted ample tissues and nose blowing room without having to explain myself. So downstairs I stayed, where the sofa doesn't get the same rapid fire hiccup motion going as when I laugh in bed. Nothing makes it worse than trying NOT to explode when the funny bone gets a good whack, so for the sake of maintaining the integrity of my spine and rib cage alignment, I felt justified in abandoning my partner for an hour at midnight.

After reading about Bryson's experiences and why he loves the Brits so, I began to realize why I've struggled so hard to enjoy living in other places. I've managed to adapt, yes, but have I really loved where I'm living? No, honestly not. What a relief to understand why, at long last. Having been an ex-pat for lo these past 43 years, I've often wondered why I felt bereft and forlorn and out of place. It's not just that there's really no place like home, no matter how dysfunctional it might have been (mine was about a 4 on the Richter scale with 8 being reserved for households like Frank McCourt's)there's no country quite like the British Isles and no people on earth to match the eccentric natives thereof. So it turns out I've simply been homesick all these years.

Alas, I no longer own a key that fits the lock of any dwelling place in the name of myself or family. On visits there of course I'd find friends and family who'd let me doss down for a few nights, but it's not the same. It hit me: there's no going back home, period. But since it's a nice place to visit, I hope to do so sooner than later. Meanwhile, I'll have to brush up on my Glaswegian, since Bryson's visit to a Glasgow pub, far and away the funniest episode in the whole book, reminded me how out of touch I've become, and how linguistically rich is my family's heritage. So I'm getting ready, I think, finally, to worship at some of the old ancestral shrines, unless they're in seedy pubs, which a few of them are. I've not been "home" since my parents died in recent years and I've been pouting in a most unbecoming way about being a homeless orphan, poor wee thing, which of course I am not really, except for brief moments on the therapist's couch. I'll be breaking in my renewed passport in Canada next week, but second stop has to be the Olde Country methinks.

Personal and Private

I'm becoming, or recognizing that I've already been for some time, one of "those" people. You probably know a few. Those annoying people who nitpick and whine about others who also nitpick and whine. I try to comfort myself through this painful awareness by hoping it's just a stage I'm passing through on the way to being liberated from neuroses. I imagine, hopefully, that the day will come when I will no longer reflexively cringe at such common things as faulty grammar; people who talk too loudly in any setting; mothers who, oblivious to the rest of us, block the aisle at the farmers' market when they double park their strollers for a chat; pet owners who imagine their guests don't mind having their privates assaulted by Fido's eager snout at the front door. And so on.

My list of pet peeves is probably no weirder or longer than most, as if that's an excuse to have one at all. It would probably be more useful, being spiritually correct for a moment, for me to wonder where my annoying habits might rank on others' lists, but that's not as much fun as just whining about something and finding a sympathetic ear. I love it when the other person echoes my sentiment with a nod and heartfelt "I know !" It's a sweet moment of connection, two whiners sharing the same airspace.

Some peeves have become friendship wreckers though. I finally had to give up what was a long and at time hilarious friendship with a New Yorker because I just couldn't get past the way she treated waiters. Since we were both foodies and ate lunch out fairly often, I had to weigh in, eventually, on the side of the waiters. Perhaps I was mistaken, but I interpreted her high-handed dismissive manner as a symptom of an attitude of exclusiveness. It just didn't sit right with me, anyhow, so we broke up.

Another friend is on thin ice at the moment because whenever we go out to eat she changes the table or the seating at least once because of lighting, heating or noise issues, then proceeds to grill the waiter about the menu, then makes substitutes, then often changes the order again. It's a nightmare for me, never mind the waiter.

A couple of years ago, following a colonoscopy and blood tests, I was diagnosed with a condition known as celiac disease, which is an allergy to gluten. This means that now I have to grill the waiter about ingredients, in a nice way, of course, and sometimes have to make substitutes. I go to great lengths to be funny and charming and apologetic when I do this because it's a health issue that I have to take seriously but I'm determined not to become one of "those" people. I've started to resent people who don't have a medical diagnosis but who jump on the bandwagon with whatever the most recent popular allergy discovery might be, just in case they have it too. I think they're doing it just as an excuse to make themselves a little special perhaps. I know at least three women who claim they are sensitive to this and that but they're sorta loosey goosey about it, sometimes eating freely and sometimes being picky. This messes it up for those of us who have serious medical allergies and I wish they'd find another way to distinguish themselves, for heaven's sake. Just relish being like everyone else, grateful that you don't really have to know every damned aspect of how those fries are really made - frozen and lightly floured or cut from fresh potatoes on a board not used for cutting bread, for example.

There's a fine line sometimes between the urge to be special and being a bloody nuisance to everyone else and I can't say I tread it very graciously, so I suppose I should just shut up and let people be themselves.

Sometimes I wonder if my irritation is just another of those European/American culture clashes where notions of manners, privacy, courtesy and consideration are viewed so differently. Like saying hi to perfect strangers on the street. You'd never do that in London, though you'd greet a known neighbor with a civil "good morning". Big cities, the burbs and the country have entirely different ways of relating to others in the neighborhood or in an anonymous crowd. The Japanese, Chinese, Dutch and British are seen as notoriously "reserved" because, so I read once, they inhabit very crowded countries and in order to preserve a sense of personal privacy, they do not acknowledge strangers readily. I suppose I've continued to operate from some unconscious etiquette manual imprinted on me in London and later Tokyo because I find it intrusive at times when total strangers insist on talking to me or greeting me as we pass on the street.

So forgive me for being reserved or picky about menus, I have come by it honestly. I wish I could be more forgiving of others' foibles and blind spots: I want my friends to lock up their noisy nosey dogs in another room when I come to visit; I'd like to write a stroller etiquette manual to raise awareness that there are mothers and others sharing space; I'd like to be silent when out walking, enjoying the scenery or thinking through a piece of work without having to acknowledge a stranger's mindless greeting. I'll respect your rights of way in tight spaces, your right to peace and quiet and privacy, and I'll listen with a sympathetic ear to anything that bothers you if you'll do the same for me. And if you're abusive and a pain in the butt princess however, it's gonna be over soon, sweetie. So if we really are all mirrors for one another, I've got to check the size of my tiara and butt before whining about yours, I suppose. That's only if I want to grow. All this business about growing is another pet peeve however...

Happy 96th Amma!

Today, my children's paternal grandmother, Helen Shiao Bei Yen (nee Mao) turns 96. My children call her Amma, equivalent of Grandma. She lives in a retirement home in Singapore and we haven't seen or spoken to her often since coming to live in America 35 years ago. She's mentally alert, devoted to her Christian beliefs, and though I'm not sure if she still reads them, she used to study her bible and peruse the Reader's Digest in English, her second language, regularly. She told me when she was ninety, that she has no idea why God hasn't taken her yet and asks God about it quite often.

I continue to feel a strong bond with my children's grandmother, grateful for her kindness to me in the early years of my marriage to her son. These days any news about her is infrequent, and most often given to my son from one of his aunts. Since divorcing my children's father over 30 years ago, I'm not officially considered family. On my Chinese former in-laws' family tree, next to my children's names, there's a blank space where their mother's name should be, as if they were dropped by an anonymous stork. My ex and I both laughed when he told me about it. ,

The stories I know about Amma's life came either from my ex-husband, whose memory wasn't completely reliable, or from speaking directly with her. I learned that she was from a good family, a modern Shanghainese, educated, English-speaking with an English and Chinese name, and who had married for love. She met her husband in an English class. He told me he thought her "very cute" and a photo of her as a young woman shows a petite, slender figure, wearing traditional high-collared Chinese dress, posing very shyly for the camera. I see her features in my own daughter's petite height and slender hands and feet.

As a widow, Amma decided, against her children's wishes, to live in a retirement home. In a traditional Chinese family, it probably didn't look good if your mother chose not to live with you. But, perhaps remembering her non-traditional background as a modern Shanghainese, she was showing her true mettle, now that she no longer had her life proscribed by her husband's demands, which were considerable. So to those who may have mistaken her for an obedient, submissive woman, this decision probably came as a shock. It might even have given the appearance of rejection of family in favor of her own independence. Rejection was something she knew about, all too well.

During the late 1930's, as a young wife and mother of a toddler (her firstborn son, my children's father)Helen Shiao Bei Yen left Shanghai to join her husband, Menjen, in what was then called Malaya. He was a young civil engineer assigned to the construction of a hospital in Johore Baru, across the straits from the island city of Singapore. Although the Japanese were already thoroughly engaged in the brutal occupation of many parts of China, the couple may have felt relatively safe overseas for a while. Eventually, however, as the Japanese extended the aggressive arm of the Empire of the Rising Sun towards Malaya, following their occupation of British Hong Kong, the overseas Chinese community began to plan evacuation.

Menjen decided to stay behind in Malaya and continue the hospital building project, reasoning that the Japanese would not destroy a facility that could benefit them and would spare those involved with it. He decided to place his wife, now pregnant, and their young son in the protective custody of an older gentleman, a family friend. They joined others on a flight to what they hoped would be a relatively safe region in northern China. Nobody could have foreseen what was to follow.

As she sat drinking tea in my living room in America, years later, Amma called this her "terrible time". Before going into detail, she told me" You know, Caroline, you are the only one nowadays who ask me to talk about these things. Nobody ever ask me." Looking back on it, I suppose her children might simply have been reluctant to put their mother through any painful reliving of the past. In my usual way of being curious about people's personal histories, I had overlooked the possibility that she might have been reluctant to talk about the past, and she was smiling and certainly seemed calm as she spoke. She put down her teacup and continued.

Soon after the evacuees' plane departed from Malaya, the trusted family friend abandoned her. When she recovered from the shock of this, she somehow found a place to stay until her daughter was born and then decided the only way they could possibly survive was to rejoin the rest of the family in Shanghai. This entailed an epic and dangerous journey through war torn countryside, including travel by wheelbarrow at times, until she finally arrived at her husband's family home late at night. Starving, exhausted and lice-ridden, with her young son holding her hand and the baby strapped to her back, she was met with the harsh query "Oh, no baby ?" as if her infant daughter must have died instead of being merely hidden from view, and, no, she could not stay with them. To be turned away in this cruel and almost unheard of manner by family, was a stunning blow which has stayed with her. Although as a Christian she forgives, as a woman she remembers, though there's no bitterness in her voice. She glossed over the humiliation of showing up at her brother's house, the struggle to survive, make a meager living and keep her children alive. My ex-husband remembered coming home alone to their tiny room after school, adding boiled water from a thermos flask to the dried milk his mother had spooned into a glass for him, as he waited for her to come home from work.

After the official ending of the war and the ensuing chaos in China as Mao Tse Tung and the Communists took power, the family was re-united in Singapore. Things were far from happily ever after, however, as told by my children's father who vividly recalled the reunion. After the ship's docking and meeting his father, they went straight to a coffee shop instead of home. He remembered drinking sarsee, an herbal soda like root beer, as his parents were talking, though he doesn't remember what was said exactly. His mother wept as she listened to her husband's words. They then went home to meet and live with the woman who had been taken as a second wife during their wartime absence. They were instructed to call her Auntie. She was pregnant and she lived in one part of the house while they lived in another part.

The Chinese custom of taking of a second wife, though very painful for Amma, may have been understandable considering the prolonged separation and irregularity of wartime communication between China and Singapore. After all, for years they hadn't even known who was alive or dead. As she told me this part of the story, she sat a little straighter, smiled and clenched a ladylike fist:" I decide to fight" she says. There it was again, that unexpected flash of resolve, borne of the recent miseries of survival in China. She wanted to make it clear to her husband and the other woman, exactly who was the number one wife in the house. She was soon pregnant again. However she did it, eventually she established herself successfully as the rightful female head of household and "Auntie" and her daughter eventually moved out to live elsewhere. Not quite end of story, but a good ending to that particular chapter.

My Chinese mother-in-law graciously accepted me and my children into her home when we arrived from Tokyo, me expecting my second child and with a toddler son, even though I was a "second wife" and on top of that, horrors, a white woman. She told me to call her Mother, which I do to this day. She perhaps recognized my struggles with the tropical climate, the Asian culture and the sense of loneliness and homesickness of a young mother away from her own country, married to a charismatic, temperamental man. She surprised me by admitting that her son's temperament and behavior had sometimes been a challenge for her, too.

After we moved out of her home and lived in a remote seaside apartment, she sent us groceries because she knew I couldn't get out of the house easily to buy them or often didn't have enough money. She did her best to love and accept my strange looking mixed race Eurasian babies, though couldn't help herself from gloating a little, just once, as she carried my dark-haired newborn daughter home from the hospital, "Now this one is Chinese". My son's appearance, when younger, had favored his Caucasian forebears with fine, wavy, red hair, unlike the stiff, black brush-like manes of his Chinese cousins. It's not hard to imagine there may have been some doubt expressed by others about my son's true lineage, for while both his father and I knew the truth, we were aware of the raised eyebrows. Mother Helen was discreet and kind enough to keep any such gossip if she heard it, away from me. I regret that I did not learn the art of discretion from her sooner and there's been some family damage to this day, as a result.

I plan to call her at 7am Singapore time, since she told me this was best for her, early in the morning when it's cool still, when most people have been awake and active for a couple of hours. She will have eaten breakfast, be dressed and probably finished her morning devotions by that time. I wonder if she still asks God about why she hasn't been "taken" yet. I'm not arguing with God though. The world could use more women like her.

The Balking Two-step

There's a long form due to be filled out and I'm balking at clearing the kitchen table and converting it to a desk space so I can get to it. I hate doing both: filling out government agency forms and converting the dining table to a desk. So I'm writing instead. When I've finished writing, I'll make myself a chocolate sandwich for lunch. Then I might take a nap, though I should take a walk. So now I'm shoulding on myself and this will call for more chocolate. You see where this is leading. No place good.

Under this balking lurks the ugly fear that if I make a single mistake on that form, my daughter's subsidized housing benefit will in some way be jeopardized and it'll all be MY fault. Fingers pointed in one's own direction are way sharper than those aimed at the other guys. So does this really mean that I'm just chicken-shit about acting responsibly and am a secret perfectionist to boot? I may never know and maybe I can't be bothered to know. Ok. Now you can add lazy to the list you might be keeping of my faults. Well, stuff your list into a sandwich for all I care.

Writing is something I can't stop myself from doing. It's also something I balk at because I'm afraid what I write is basically just rubbish, a waste of time to either think about, read or write about in the first place. I'm caught in the impulsive two step where I hardly go anywhere except around in a circle. I should add some music and just twirl myself out of it. But that involves choosing a style of music 'cos I'll get a little off track if it's the wrong type: blues will have me fantasizing about love and sorrow, and this is, frankly, not a good time for any of that; swing might trigger a weeping fit over my recently departed sax playing daddy and yesterday was the first Fathers' Day since his memorial a couple of months ago; that leaves rock, which leads back to my teens and early years in Japan as a pampered corporate fatcat's wife, ok, not good memories either. So never mind the music and dance part.

That leaves just sitting around with a cup of tea, taking a break, "just chill" as Larry puts it. Ok, ok. So write first, then chill with a cup of tea, skip the chocolate sandwich in favor of a tuna salad after I fill out the form. Stay tuned.

145th Juneteenth

Juneteenth, is a celebration to commemorate the announcement in Galveston, Texas of the end of slavery, on June 19th 1865 two and a half years after Lincoln's proclamation of January 1st 1863. The reasons for the delay are varied, none involving the best intention in favor of the slaves, you can be sure.

Coming from England via Japan and Singapore to live in America on purpose, as a green card holding "alien resident", Juneteenth was not on any calendar I'd ever seen. I learned about it through the current man in my life, who happens to be a descendant of slaves. He hasn't spoken much about celebrating today and he's not one to mark holidays and calendars with too much detail in any case. We may make some token barbecue and go dancing, we may not. I'm still a little shy of being at large gatherings where I'm the racial minority and where I'm aware of some latent hostility towards white women based on the mythical notion that white women are"taking all our good black men". He laughs it off in his usual easygoing way when I try to talk about this so I deal with it by taking extra care of my appearance in such settings. I don't feel free to be too sloppy with hair, clothes and makeup on the days when I feel I'm under the scrutiny of a lot of black women. I know, I know, it's all ego and all mental, but I can't seem to rise above it yet. Maybe one day; meanwhile I adhere to the time-tested chick way: if you can't beat it, dress up!! (And p.s. hats help).

A few months into our relationship, Larry bought me an original and now mostly unglued paperback copy of The Autobiography of Malcom X, written with Alex Haley. Reading it shocked me awake to attitudes and experiences about which I was then, and presume most of my white friends even today are still, utterly ignorant. This little book, with its yellowed pages and dried out glue grabbed my conscience and shook it till my teeth rattled. It seared a permanent mark on some deep part of me (though less harsh than being branded like cattle, as slaves often were) and painful as it can be at times, I'm grateful for an elevated perspective that helps me navigate the troubled waters of racism and socio-economic injustice.

Perhaps most white people imagine that because Obama was elected president the days of racism must surely be over. You should pardon our cynical sniggers and eye rolling. The subtle and sometimes shamelessly open ways in which we all suffer from both positive and negative discrimination are beyond the scope of this modest forum, but trust me, we still have a long way to go. Just ask Tory, a large and gentle 37 year old black guy from Chicago, married to a white woman, father of three bright and beautiful daughters who was arrested in front of his toddler because of a vehicle registration glitch. The arrest took place in a very liberal enclave of a very liberal county in northern California in a parking lot, in broad daylight. In addition to his terrified daughter, other witnesses included his mother-in-law's best friend, the one who had actually sold him the car a few days earlier and whose attempt to intervene was met with the snarled police order to " Get that bitch outta here!"

Yes dearies, we may think the world is one way and then we find, surprise surprise, that there's more to it. So I salute the freedom, the courage and the outrage of all slaves, past and present. I'm concerned though, about the naive among us who are unconsciously enslaved to the belief that all is well in the great racial divide. If your social circle is racially well integrated, you may know otherwise, and if it isn't yet, for whatever reason, consider easing yourself a little out of your comfort zone to befriend a family of people who don't "look just like" you . This won't always be easy.

A few days ago, a good-hearted woman I know from church confessed that she'd tried once, years ago, to befriend a black woman and her family, but it hadn't gone well for some reason. "I guess black people just have a chip on their shoulder", she concluded. I couldn't let that one just sit there so I suggested that just because a white person decides to befriend a black person for the sake of acting like a liberal, open-minded person, it doesn't mean the black person is obliged to welcome the offer or be grateful for it. It helps when making friends if you have interests in common, otherwise it's just down right patronizing and insulting. "Hm, " she said.

While some people may well have a chip on their shoulder others can't abide the stink of phony friendship and condescension and why should they have to? Just to make a white person feel better? Reaching across any boundary is a risky business, but keep at it, with a good heart and wonderful surprises may await.

As a postscript, I just received an email from a friend whose family is frustrated by lack of social services they need, both medical and economic. The email complains that "only in America" are there homeless with no shelter, mentally ill with no treatment and seniors without necessary medicines while support is poured into places like Haiti. On the surface, that doesn't look racist but when I examine it a little further I have to wonder. Knowing a little about the family background, level of education, life style choices, it's interesting to me that they pick on aid to Haiti, a poor, predominantly black country. I may have a little chip on my shoulder, but I'm looking at this and while I want to be supportive of my friend's justifiable frustration, I'm sad when I see fingers pointed to "reasons" why her family might be suffering. It ain't that simple, honey, I tried to tell her. But she was too angry to listen. Makes me sad. Slavery is all around us, in the minds of so many, and there's no law against it. May liberation be close at end.