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...
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, June 21, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Just between us
Keeping up the semblance of family unity and being "true to oneself" can make for a tricky juggle. I'm easily offended, known to hold strong opinions and not shy about sharing them either. But that's a burden and I'm ready to set it down.
There's a laundry list of old family grievances I'd like to dispense with without having to sharpen my hatchet first and I'm questioning the wisdom behind the notion that if we just let it all hang out there, confront the offenders, healing magically happens and we're all nicey nice afterwards.
We had lunch with some out of town family members recently and despite an undercurrent of grudges on my part, the experience was full of laughter and lightness. Afterwards, we visited my daughter's ceramics class where she excitedly demonstrated the various stages of production in her current line of gorgeous serving plates. She was doing her best to talk and roll clay at the same time and the clay was suffering. The elders in the group noticed this and sat on our impulse to point out areas of the process where things needed adjustment, leaving this to the teacher. The younger members of the group were not so taciturn and with good humor told my daughter where they thought she needed to adjust the clay. Perhaps because she was so delighted to finally be the center of attention after the lunch during which she ate mostly in silence, she didn't take offense in the same way I know she would have had I been the person to suggest tweaking the clay here and there.
There's just something different about a Mother making a comment and anyone else's doing the same. That's a big pill for a mother to swallow: our opinions and ideas are NOT welcome after a certain age, no matter what muddle the adult child seems to be mired in. We have to wait to be asked and that's bloody hard for someone with my impulses.
So I thought again today about the old family grudge list and how the absence of bringing it up during the lunch and class was such a blessing. What helped was to be honest and speak up to a couple of friends about the grudges and my desire to let them go. These lovely ladies just listened and shared their wisdom about the grudges and completely supported me in my desire to be a peace maker instead of my usual sh-t stirring role. Somehow this diffused the energy and my intention to contribute to a loving experience with the relatives was completely and effortlessly realized.
While it's true that speaking up is important, I believe it's much more important where and how we do the speaking. Right motive, right time, right place and right speech. We cannot get through these tricky patches without trusted confidantes and I had a couple at the right time. Thank you darlings, you know who you are. And for anyone who doesn't yet have a couple of closed-mouthed trusted buddies of any age, go forth and seek ! You shall be richly rewarded.
There's a laundry list of old family grievances I'd like to dispense with without having to sharpen my hatchet first and I'm questioning the wisdom behind the notion that if we just let it all hang out there, confront the offenders, healing magically happens and we're all nicey nice afterwards.
We had lunch with some out of town family members recently and despite an undercurrent of grudges on my part, the experience was full of laughter and lightness. Afterwards, we visited my daughter's ceramics class where she excitedly demonstrated the various stages of production in her current line of gorgeous serving plates. She was doing her best to talk and roll clay at the same time and the clay was suffering. The elders in the group noticed this and sat on our impulse to point out areas of the process where things needed adjustment, leaving this to the teacher. The younger members of the group were not so taciturn and with good humor told my daughter where they thought she needed to adjust the clay. Perhaps because she was so delighted to finally be the center of attention after the lunch during which she ate mostly in silence, she didn't take offense in the same way I know she would have had I been the person to suggest tweaking the clay here and there.
There's just something different about a Mother making a comment and anyone else's doing the same. That's a big pill for a mother to swallow: our opinions and ideas are NOT welcome after a certain age, no matter what muddle the adult child seems to be mired in. We have to wait to be asked and that's bloody hard for someone with my impulses.
So I thought again today about the old family grudge list and how the absence of bringing it up during the lunch and class was such a blessing. What helped was to be honest and speak up to a couple of friends about the grudges and my desire to let them go. These lovely ladies just listened and shared their wisdom about the grudges and completely supported me in my desire to be a peace maker instead of my usual sh-t stirring role. Somehow this diffused the energy and my intention to contribute to a loving experience with the relatives was completely and effortlessly realized.
While it's true that speaking up is important, I believe it's much more important where and how we do the speaking. Right motive, right time, right place and right speech. We cannot get through these tricky patches without trusted confidantes and I had a couple at the right time. Thank you darlings, you know who you are. And for anyone who doesn't yet have a couple of closed-mouthed trusted buddies of any age, go forth and seek ! You shall be richly rewarded.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Lunch with a side of Bitch
Some of you know already that my beloved 38 year old daughter was born with some developmental differences in her brain that affect her gait, speech, intellectual processing, emotions and physical health. Being her mother has been a mixed bag of challenges for me as much as life in general is a huge challenge for her. On the whole, I would say that I'm probably a far better person today than I might otherwise have been. I have been forcibly stretched out of my comfortable ruts of various attitudes and beliefs about people and the meaning of all this experience of being human. Yesterday I lunched with two other mothers who face similar challenges with their children and am today enormously grateful to remember that my life is so full of joy, as I see that theirs is not.
One of these mothers probably drinks a little too much and the other has told me she knows her husband does drink too much. I found out over 25 years ago that my drinking was out of control and was making me physically mentally and emotionally very ill. I drank for many reasons and sometimes for no reason at all. When I did drink, it was often ugly for those around me and when I didn't drink the world and life seemed unbearably ugly to me.
What I realized yesterday is that I am free in mind and body in a way that so many apparently are not. I saw and heard in these two women the pain and suffering of frustration at the way things are, a rant about how things should be changed, and complaints what's not right with this or that. Both women are bright and well educated, but these days that doesn't dazzle me as it used to. It doesn't seem to have added much to their peace of mind or sense of aliveness and joy.
I'm not all that well educated myself, in the formal sense with letters and credits after my name. I aspire to completing some of my formal college studies one of these days. Meanwhile, I managed to claw my way into the world of business, then a life in the theatre for several years took me to some exquisite heights of success and dreams of greater fame and fortune. Then an ugly divorce humbled me, took me back to square one and I'm enjoying yet another do-over, thank you Universe.
At the painful point of pruning on the stem of my life, a new shoot seems to be thriving. Amid the inevitable thorns, now and again a sweet surprise blooms, like a moment of profound joy and gratitude for being alive and grateful for being the mother of my gorgeous and irritatingly slow daughter and her brilliant and charming brother. And for not having to slug down anything that alters my brain or body because I'm just fine without, I will never be able to express enough gratitude.
One of these mothers probably drinks a little too much and the other has told me she knows her husband does drink too much. I found out over 25 years ago that my drinking was out of control and was making me physically mentally and emotionally very ill. I drank for many reasons and sometimes for no reason at all. When I did drink, it was often ugly for those around me and when I didn't drink the world and life seemed unbearably ugly to me.
What I realized yesterday is that I am free in mind and body in a way that so many apparently are not. I saw and heard in these two women the pain and suffering of frustration at the way things are, a rant about how things should be changed, and complaints what's not right with this or that. Both women are bright and well educated, but these days that doesn't dazzle me as it used to. It doesn't seem to have added much to their peace of mind or sense of aliveness and joy.
I'm not all that well educated myself, in the formal sense with letters and credits after my name. I aspire to completing some of my formal college studies one of these days. Meanwhile, I managed to claw my way into the world of business, then a life in the theatre for several years took me to some exquisite heights of success and dreams of greater fame and fortune. Then an ugly divorce humbled me, took me back to square one and I'm enjoying yet another do-over, thank you Universe.
At the painful point of pruning on the stem of my life, a new shoot seems to be thriving. Amid the inevitable thorns, now and again a sweet surprise blooms, like a moment of profound joy and gratitude for being alive and grateful for being the mother of my gorgeous and irritatingly slow daughter and her brilliant and charming brother. And for not having to slug down anything that alters my brain or body because I'm just fine without, I will never be able to express enough gratitude.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Crazy
As I was standing in line at the post office recently, a grey-haired bespectacled man, sixtyish, wearing generic Mervyn's style shirt and slacks, nothing odd to look at really, suddenly and loudly "went postal".
"I didn't fight for my country in the jungles of Vietnam just to lose my rights at the post office !" he yelled. A chilly blanket of silence fell over us, all eyes riveted on him, his gaze directed to a vague space between the counter and the ceiling, as we waited to see what would happen next.
He simply walked out of the post office leaving behind a palpable group sense of relief as we nervously grinned, shook our heads, with some of us muttering things like "what was that all about?"
I hate to imagine just how easily it could have turned into a violent confrontation if he'd been bearing his rightful arms, or a weapon of any kind, as proponents of carrying firearms in plain view would have it. As it was, and I'm grateful for it, the only arms were either bare or dressed.
I don't know what was upsetting him, exactly, but I have come to recognize the importance of compassion for the stranger. We simply cannot know what a person's history is just by looking. I believe I get better clues, though, by listening. You could just say the guy was nuts, poor fella. You could just say that guy's too nuts to be out in public and he should be locked up for everyone's safety, including his own. You could just say a thousand things, but the simplest I heard one day as we drove past a homeless man with a cardboard sign, begging for money at a stop light, was when my daughter prayed aloud: "God bless him, even if we don't give him any money today, we bless our brother anyway, amen."
There are days when this same daughter makes me plain crazy and then there are days when I'm just crazy about her.
"I didn't fight for my country in the jungles of Vietnam just to lose my rights at the post office !" he yelled. A chilly blanket of silence fell over us, all eyes riveted on him, his gaze directed to a vague space between the counter and the ceiling, as we waited to see what would happen next.
He simply walked out of the post office leaving behind a palpable group sense of relief as we nervously grinned, shook our heads, with some of us muttering things like "what was that all about?"
I hate to imagine just how easily it could have turned into a violent confrontation if he'd been bearing his rightful arms, or a weapon of any kind, as proponents of carrying firearms in plain view would have it. As it was, and I'm grateful for it, the only arms were either bare or dressed.
I don't know what was upsetting him, exactly, but I have come to recognize the importance of compassion for the stranger. We simply cannot know what a person's history is just by looking. I believe I get better clues, though, by listening. You could just say the guy was nuts, poor fella. You could just say that guy's too nuts to be out in public and he should be locked up for everyone's safety, including his own. You could just say a thousand things, but the simplest I heard one day as we drove past a homeless man with a cardboard sign, begging for money at a stop light, was when my daughter prayed aloud: "God bless him, even if we don't give him any money today, we bless our brother anyway, amen."
There are days when this same daughter makes me plain crazy and then there are days when I'm just crazy about her.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Ex-Treme
Addiction is a crafty bugger. It changes expression: from booze to chocolate, to overspending, grandiose greed and ambition, cake, Ben & Jerry's vanilla pints in front of the tv, being in a bad mood, being in any mood. The latest is Treme, the tv series about life in New Orleans three months after Katrina. Thanks to a popup ad across the bottom of my tv screen, I discovered I'd missed the start date of the series a whopping 8 weeks into it. In true addict fashion I decided to make up for lost time by zoning out for 5 whole hours. I wasn't honest or open about it either - the key to deciding whether a behavior is an addiction or not is the impulse to keep it a secret, and I didn't let anyone know I'd succumbed because I felt ashamed of wasting so much time on being a spectator to other people's drama and not actively participating in my own life. Some of you may think I'm being a bit hard on myself, but the recovered addicts among you, if any, will recognize the symptoms of a fellow sufferer.
What do I get out of the addictive behavior? It starts with a rush of pleasure, followed by a period of dreamy numbness, which I am compelled to repeat despite the potential negative side effects. Side effects include debt, poor health, social isolation, depression, guilt and more social isolation and the distorted thinking that somehow I'm special and the "rules" don't apply to me.
Which means I will go to any length to indulge my addiction to pleasure and fantasy. Addiction being the cunning foe it is, has a great talent for justification of the behavior: "everyone" does it, it's not such a bad thing, it's "normal", I "deserve" this special time because my life is full of enough stress so I need a little something to make it sweeter, etc.
The idea of small reasonable amounts of anything just doesn't appeal to an addict. For me the most painful part of addiction is the power struggle that goes on between my ears. It's like the bitch slap scene from the movie Chinatown where Faye Dunaway's character goes back and forth with the famous "my mother - my daughter" script line. My impulses, instincts and compulsions somehow collide and I'm hurt in ways I don't realize at the time. I've had to learn to change this weakness in my character, let's call it the inability to follow sensible directions, which no longer serves me in any constructive way whatsoever, except to keep me humble when I recognize I am not the Almighty in charge of the Universe. And that's a good thing. I have a Treme hangover today and I hope to feel better after this confession and a good walk.
What do I get out of the addictive behavior? It starts with a rush of pleasure, followed by a period of dreamy numbness, which I am compelled to repeat despite the potential negative side effects. Side effects include debt, poor health, social isolation, depression, guilt and more social isolation and the distorted thinking that somehow I'm special and the "rules" don't apply to me.
Which means I will go to any length to indulge my addiction to pleasure and fantasy. Addiction being the cunning foe it is, has a great talent for justification of the behavior: "everyone" does it, it's not such a bad thing, it's "normal", I "deserve" this special time because my life is full of enough stress so I need a little something to make it sweeter, etc.
The idea of small reasonable amounts of anything just doesn't appeal to an addict. For me the most painful part of addiction is the power struggle that goes on between my ears. It's like the bitch slap scene from the movie Chinatown where Faye Dunaway's character goes back and forth with the famous "my mother - my daughter" script line. My impulses, instincts and compulsions somehow collide and I'm hurt in ways I don't realize at the time. I've had to learn to change this weakness in my character, let's call it the inability to follow sensible directions, which no longer serves me in any constructive way whatsoever, except to keep me humble when I recognize I am not the Almighty in charge of the Universe. And that's a good thing. I have a Treme hangover today and I hope to feel better after this confession and a good walk.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Fair Trade
There's a family wedding this summer. We updated our passports and bought the plane tickets, the easy parts. I've used the occasion as an excuse to indulge in a personal economic stimulus progam and lavished a couple of new hats on myself. The artisan creation in fine sculpted straw is the color of blood orange juice. The other, a bargain price wide brim Chinese cheapie, machine made in a color described on the label as mustard. I can't decide which outfit and hat ensemble to wear, after which there follows the dilemma of the matching shoes. Gold-plated problems. I should be ashamed of myself I suppose, but I'm not. Maybe I'm just a hat slut. I used to have a collection of vintage cocktail hats with veils and bows, all casualties of the great clean sweep following a painful divorce. But like a pesky dandelion, the hat madness has a tenacious taproot, and continues to hijack my budget.
While I'm trussed and bound up in the fantasy world of personal adornment, the bride to be seems to have succumbed in similar fashion to the fantasy world of happily-ever-after-because-we-have- the-right-man, house, china, furniture, cookware. The happy (I hope) couple are registered in a couple of places, which is a great convenience for the gift buyers and takes a lot of guts on the part of the couple who unwittingly exposed themselves to commentary from miserly and self-righteous curmudgeons like myself on their taste and lifestyle choices. And much as I love them and don't begrudge them their wishlist, I do feel sorry, in a way, that SO MUCH MONEY will be spent on no doubt lovely china and glassware and other trappings of their idea of the properly feathered nest, when I am so keenly aware that millions don't have enough decent food, water and shelter. It goes against the grain from a moral standpoint, and from my cynic's position which is that the couple's successful marriage and happiness does not depend on expensive STUFF. I speak from hard won experience, alas. I've discovered that you have to be happy BEFORE the stuff and that happiness is an attitude one has to cultivate if you didn't grow up in a happy household. Stuff is nice, of course, I like my stuff a lot.
I'll go along with the gifts, after all, I've already generously donated to my own wardrobe to celebrate the occasion (an excuse, I know) because I support the couple's intention, which is to create a life of happiness together. If decent dishware helps, who am I to judge? To even the score, though, I secretly plan to make an equivalent charitable contribution to a group of African ladies who are struggling to overcome circumstances unimaginable to us pampered and privileged suburbanites. It's the only way I can wear fancy hats and eat off shiny platters with a somewhat easy mind for a few hours. Happiness is sometimes as simple as a clear conscience.
While I'm trussed and bound up in the fantasy world of personal adornment, the bride to be seems to have succumbed in similar fashion to the fantasy world of happily-ever-after-because-we-have- the-right-man, house, china, furniture, cookware. The happy (I hope) couple are registered in a couple of places, which is a great convenience for the gift buyers and takes a lot of guts on the part of the couple who unwittingly exposed themselves to commentary from miserly and self-righteous curmudgeons like myself on their taste and lifestyle choices. And much as I love them and don't begrudge them their wishlist, I do feel sorry, in a way, that SO MUCH MONEY will be spent on no doubt lovely china and glassware and other trappings of their idea of the properly feathered nest, when I am so keenly aware that millions don't have enough decent food, water and shelter. It goes against the grain from a moral standpoint, and from my cynic's position which is that the couple's successful marriage and happiness does not depend on expensive STUFF. I speak from hard won experience, alas. I've discovered that you have to be happy BEFORE the stuff and that happiness is an attitude one has to cultivate if you didn't grow up in a happy household. Stuff is nice, of course, I like my stuff a lot.
I'll go along with the gifts, after all, I've already generously donated to my own wardrobe to celebrate the occasion (an excuse, I know) because I support the couple's intention, which is to create a life of happiness together. If decent dishware helps, who am I to judge? To even the score, though, I secretly plan to make an equivalent charitable contribution to a group of African ladies who are struggling to overcome circumstances unimaginable to us pampered and privileged suburbanites. It's the only way I can wear fancy hats and eat off shiny platters with a somewhat easy mind for a few hours. Happiness is sometimes as simple as a clear conscience.
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