FilmFestivus: Movies for the Rest of Us

Aka, Criticizing the Critics

I had a wonderful, warm, elderly, well-respected, much-journeyed South Asian history professor who used to say "thank God the world isn't really like what the economists think it's like."

I would also like to thank goodness that movies aren't really what the critics say they are. It does me in every time--a movie intrigues me, so I read reviews for a better understanding of it. For a long time, it wasn't a problem--I mostly agreed with the critics, and knowing plots and spoilers beforehand only enhanced my understanding of the film versus detracting from it.

However, for about the past 2 years or so, I've been astounded by the mediocrity, cynicism, and sycophantism I see in many reviews. I expect the professionals to help me decide whether I want to see a given movie--but I need to cease the practice, at least until after I've seen the film. Yes, I am breaking with the critics until further notice.

I can pinpoint the time that I started disagreeing with mainstream reviews: it was in 2006, when The Illusionist and The Prestige both came out at the same time. Two movies about magicians, both amazing and memorable films. I daresay The Prestige holds up a little better on subsequent viewings, yet The Illusionist got the lion's share of accolades (Paul Giamatti and Ed Norton being more of the "it" actors at the time than Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, who were more of the new kids on the block). Not to mention, The Prestige is based on an adult English fantasy/sci-fi novel, which made it more prone to niche film than the universal love story of The Illusionist.

The same year, Lady in the Water came out. Unique and ethereal, yet skewered in near totality by film critics. It was not a coincidence that M. Night Shyamalan, darling child who also did Sixth Sense, fell out of good favor with critics after not only getting on Disney's bad side over the film, but blatantly poking fun at them in Lady in the Water.

Unfortunately, Shyamalan has not been able to work his way back into their good graces yet. His latest US film, The Happening, did not receive many reviewers' blessings. Yet, being a Shyamalan fan, I saw The Happening with an open mind and was thoroughly chilled and thrilled by the possibility of eco-terror (not those who spraypaint SUVs mind you--no, this movie is about Mother Nature herself using her army of foliage to drive humankind to mass suicide). The movie struck a fear nerve in me more than most traditional ghost-and-slash horror movies can. Horror is all about finding new possibilities and avenues of fear--and the very timely The Happening, released in the middle of global climate change debate, certainly makes on think about the full range and wrath of environmental rebellion.

2007 was a rather unremarkable year for movies (with Juno garnering the bulk of praise--while a reasonably good movie, it is telling that no others stand out from that year), so fast-forward to 2008, the year of Slumdog Millionaire. I wasn't in a hurry to see it, knowing I would probably find it a turn-off, but you would've thought its cinematic mastery was on par with Citizen Kane according to the reviews. Yet, when I finally saw it, my worst fears about it came true--it was just another movie juxtaposing the immense poverty of India's slums with the fabulous wealth of the nouveau riche there...it was horrifically graphic, and showed the poor as brutish, brutal people prone to criminalism.

Now up to the present--2009 releases. We saw 2 movies based on sheer acclaim--Where the Wild Things Are and Paranormal Activity. Both soul-crushingly boring. In fact, I was incredulous that the movie that got lower marks than the previous two, Julie Julia, turned out to be my favorite in-theater film of the year. It is still hard to understand the unconvincing criticism of Julie Julia--how could anyone fail to be won over by Julia Child's beautiful success story? Fail to empathize with Julie's cubicle angst and quarter-life crisis?

Let's not forget the candy-colored nightmare that was Up. I mean, really--has no one seen the Czech movie Autumn Spring that deals with the problems of aging, and involves an elderly man flying away in a hot air balloon for one last adventure?! Up was Pixar's ingration to its new owner, Disney, in order to atone for its more original, early movies like Monsters, Inc. Unfortunately, Up had all the tilt-a-whirl sickeningly feel that screams "Disney," complete with the obligatory slams on diversity and contemporary society. Existing in a vacuum as much as any Disney film (did the old man not have any friends, family, social interaction, etc?!--the movie led you to believe this man lived a completely solitary existence, with the young boy conveniently walking in to his wide-open life), it screeched over those heart strings in unabashedly maudlin manipulation as only Disney can. Up was not even tailored towards children--its ridiculously false nostalgia was obviously subtly aimed at the parents of the poor tykes who got dragged along to it. Yet Up is hailed by most critics as one of the best, if not the best, movies of the year. Why? Because it is safe...no reviewer risk-taking needed.

I had been waiting for months to see Nine (which was released 2 days ago), yet our plans to see it yesterday were nearly derailed--not by the falling snow, but by poor reviews. We almost followed the herd to see Avatar instead, or worried that maybe we'd be more chic to see Sherlock Holmes. But, forming a new FilmFestivus resolution (see below), we stuck to our guns and saw Nine. Thank God--the critics were once again wrong, (although I must admit, even by the comments of the everyday moviegoer, we who liked Nine are still in the minority).

The old ladies tittering next to us complained ceaselessly about all the cigarette smoking (the movie took place in Rome in the mid-60's people!!!!), sex, and lingerie in the film, almost earning a seat-kicking from Esposo and me. Yet we loved it--it was over-the-top, outrageous, and utterly moving and honest and captured some interesting social mores of the time. The comments of the critics, once again, were so off-base that I wondered to myself about a few of the writers, "have these people lived at all?"

What can be said about those who critique for a living? After all, there is a fine line between critique and criticism, easily crossed when it's all too easy to leave the vision and creative process to others. Why is it so easy to descend into cynicism? My tentative hypothesis is that some critics are too timid to be honest with their own life experiences. Maybe they are so used to watching other people's lives on screen that they do not remember to summon their own. Maybe critics in general (not just of movies) are too comfortable with and accustomed to watching others pour their hearts, minds, and labor into works.

And with this, I declare the start of my own personal FilmFestivus: Movies for the Rest of Us.

Beautiful Disaster: Don Quixote's Thanksgiving

The nightmare before Christmas isn't Halloween afterall--it's Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has always been my least favorite holiday. My memories of it are not exactly radiant--a cold, usually gray time of year in WI, but usually before the magical glow of first snow. As a child, I inwardly grumbled about how vastly inferior a holiday Thanksgiving was compared to the Christmas around the corner due to the glaring absence of presents. In my family, Thanksgiving was a tedious, quiet holiday.

Once I left home for college, I started contriving all sorts of ways to stop celebrating Thanksgiving with my family. I would see them in a month, anyway, and I resented aunts and uncles who came to holidays to get their family card punched and fall into silence for the rest of the year.

I started out by being overseas, and ultimately evolved into the tradition of celebrating the holidays with friends. In my mind, this made the event about people who wanted to be together, not who were obligated to be together.

Then, last year something happened: my son was due to have his second open-heart surgery the day before Thanksgiving, and we were to spend the holiday in the incredibly difficult immediate recovery period in the pediatric intensive care unit.

That event changed everything...I decided that never again would I feel sorry for myself on a holiday. I wouldn't take them, or any day, for granted anymore...if we were merely spending them outside the hospital, that was more than enough. And this year, an exceptional number of heart families I know were spending Thanksgiving in the hospital, some in dire circumstances, and I wondered how we could be so fortunate.

This year, I spent most of November reflecting on all there is in my life to be thankful for. It felt good--in fact, I can't recall a better November. But then, the day itself actually arrived, and I found myself and my son sick and running to the airport first thing in the morning on two hours of sleep. I almost got into an accident, my husband went out of state to visit his family, my son went to his grandparents' house, and my host ended up in the ER with her daughter...things were strained with my best friend, who'd just arrived from DC, and there was a meltdown of conflicting schedules and exhaustion. After 8 hours of driving, I ended up having to return home and completely missed out on Thanksgiving dinner.

I realized that I had measured having a "normal" Thanksgiving this year by whether we would be in the hospital or not. I thought I was returning to "normalcy," but how short memory is! There was never any normalcy to the holidays--not the ones I experienced anyway. Normalcy is actually what is abnormal for me.

Time and time again, I try to be something I'm not, live a life that is not mine, without remembering that I have been called to live an extraordinary experience. Why do I sometimes continue to try to reject was God has given me, and trade it for the mundane?

The holidays are the perfect time to allow oneself to be distracted from the prize by an iconic Rockwellian image, which makes us wish for what we think we should have versus the greater experience that God has given us.

This year, Thanksgiving was good preparatory training for Christmas. My eyes are set back on the goal, and my armor has been reinforced against drama.

What I can take away from this November, though, is the practice of lasting gratitude. In the coming years, it won't matter at all how we celebrate the actual day, because that's not that point of the holiday anyway. It is, afterall, just a gateway holiday to the coming winter celebrations.

The Perfect Balance, the Golden Mean

A strange story, how Esposo and I ran into each other, and it all began with Lake Michigan's left bank.

Before we ever met, the stage was set when we were children.

Esposo is from a neighboring state, but his uncle also happened to marry a Milwaukee girl and the pair moved to Port Washington--a small city half an hour up the lakeshore from the big city. When Esposo was a child, his parents would bring him on family vacations from Iowa to play on the beaches adjacent to Port Washington.

My father has roots in Port Washington, and I was also taken on weekend trips to play on these beaches.

Esposo and I have pictures, playing as children with our respective families, on the exact same beaches--him a few years older than me and trailing his dad as they tight-roped the places where wave meets sand, me a 4 year old in a green and yellow swimsuit building a sand castle.

We played on the same beaches, 20 years before Esposo would be offered his choice of 2 job locations and choose Milwaukee based on his childhood memories of the place and his uncle's residence here, and we would meet and fall in love.

Sometimes I like to imagine that my 4 year old self looked a bit up the beach and asked the boy Esposo to build sandcastles with me.

Instead, I did 20 years later.

A Stretch of Shoreline

Walking on the Lake Michigan shoreline on a Sunday morning
I met a young man dressed in black
with a pale white face like a mask
a mime either pretending sorrow, or unable to pretend joy anymore.
He looked away, shrugged to the side, cast his glance downward.
Taking a piece of driftwood, he scratched words into the sand
And disappeared where forest met beach.
Approaching his words, I read
“No one cares about me” and
“I’m all alone.”
As the waves at my feet licked his words away
And swallowed them into quiet eternity,
I desperately scanned the edge of forest
But I was alone
and powerless to salvage his shipwrecked words.

Is Italian the Lingua Franca of Heaven?!

Aka random food diary post.

Every time I make risotto, I wonder how my Italian ancestors had the patience. Then I marvel at how I (most impatient person in the history of risotto makers) have the patience, and I chalk it up to the fact that there must be something indescribably comforting about standing over a hot stove and stirring.

Although I have other points of origin making up my heritage, I've always felt most connected, by far, to my Italian side. To begin with, they were the branch of my family that I grew up around, that I spent the most time with. I was my great-grandmother's unabashed favorite, and some of my earliest memories are of the aroma of her home-baked Italian cookies (the very same aroma that gives my brain a punch back in time when I walk into Sciortino's Bakery). Italian cuisine is among my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, and Italian language is the most beautiful human sound to my ears. I rent Italian movies just to hear the language--I turn off the subtitles and attempt to understand it as best as I can. Then there's what esposo refers to as my "Italian temperament," which I probably shouldn't say too much about, lest I fall into the realm of stereotypes. Suffice to say, unemotional, dispassionate, stoic type I am not...and I live for the finer things in life, like my loved ones, loads of olive oil, and the beauty of the natural world :)

And, of all the places I'd like to go, Italy has moved to the top of the list. I've always wanted to go there, but I feel the pull more and more. I've already been to the other places my family came from--Ireland and Poland. The closest I've been to Italy is Greece, where my fav cousin lives, which I also long to go back to for the great food and rocky beaches and clear blue water--this time with esposo!

To me, food is very wrapped up one's personal stories--and this is the wrapping Italian cooking has for me. In my last post, I mentioned getting 95% of my recipes (excluding the ones I've come up with on my own, of course) from Eating Well. Well, last night I tried one that falls into the 5% category: A Sanford D'Amato creation. According to my grandmother, our family and D'Amato's family were friends in past generations, both being of Milwaukee's east side/Riverwest Italian American community. However, those days are long gone--most likely due to the Americanization pressures placed on immigrants for most of the 20th century, and let's face it--white flight had something to do with it too.

Mr D'Amato is one of Milwaukee's premier chefs, and is renowned nationally as well. He has 2 very well-respected restaurants that I know of in the city. His recipes have been appearing lately in the Sunday edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but they've been a little too involved for a parent of a 1-yr old toddler. A daring, toddling infant makes having several open pans on the hot stove, and knives of all sorts out on the counter, rather nerve-racking.

Not to mention,, I'm frankly a bit jealous of him--each of his recipes has appeared with a description of his travels in Italy--the bikes along the sun-kissed coast with his wife, the tiny roadside cafes filled with untold cullinary surprises--Mr D'Amato, you're killin' me!

It's obvious D'Amato, like yours truly, enjoys the good things life has to offer--like any good chef worth his salt (pun intended). That much is obvious from merely glancing at his recipes--not just by the ingredients (9 tablespoons olive oil!?!) and structure alone, but by the very technique, the very construction of each dish.

Yesterday, I set out to prove that I too can make one of his recipes. The one I chose was like nothing I'd ever heard of before: Adriatic Shrimp Soup with Chickpeas and Saffron. I mean, seriously--get a load of that recipe! I was so bedazzled by the sound of it that I paid little attention to what the grocery bill might cost...until I started shopping, that is. Quite the expensive pot of soup, but was it worth it? Oh, yes. And 1 bowl plus crusty bread is enough to fill me up--so really, we will be getting about 8 meals out of it.

I have to admit that I cheated a bit. I knew rapini would be hard to find this time of year, but I at least expected to find mustard greens to use as a substitute. No such luck--I ended up having to go with dandelion greens, which turned out to be a fine choice, adding the bitter contrast to the sweet shrimp and savory fennel bulb. I also bought a cheap knock-off of Sambuca, as esposo hates anise (though I love it)--I wasn't about to spend $28 on an entire bottle of the stuff when all we needed was a couple tablespoons. My budget also only allowed for cheaper powdered Spanish saffron as opposed to the golden threads, and to save time I bought canned chickpeas instead of soaking dry ones overnight. As for the dry white wine--it can be hard to find a white wine dry enough for some recipes (without settling for the same old buttery Chardonnays and citrusy Sauvignon Blancs), so I always go with a dry white bordeaux in these situations, and it hasn't disappointed me yet.

Then, what I really splurged on was the shrimp. Being a vegetarian, and only eating seafood once every couple weeks or so, I feel like I can really afford to spend the extra couple bucks on quality, sustainable meats and seafoods. I went to a local place that I know has exceptional seafood, and bought the fresh, shell-on jumbo shrimp (the recipe calling for peeling the shrimp and steeping the exoskeletons in chicken stock to make the broth).

The result was unbelievable.

The soup practically had me speaking Italian. In my heaven, Italian will be the lingua franca...or at least something as beautiful as Italian. I don't think I can spend eternity speaking English, having to say words like "park" and "eat" and "bake."

No, no...English is not the language of angels.

Eating Superbly Well

Shawn and I share a love of cooking...and of eating. We get a bit competitive in the kitchen, especially because we have differing styles when it comes to crafting dishes. Shawn finds a recipe and follows it exactly, and by some magic (good taste and intuition), what he makes almost always turns out world-class. I take a look at what ingredients I have sitting around and throw them together in impromptu creations--dark chocolate walnut cranberry coconut muffins, bok choy tofu udon soup, etc. When we have people over for dinner, we work on our separate dishes, and to my seething chagrin, Shawn's dishes seem to get the best accolades. "These fried plantains and this Caribbean rice is great. But what Shawn made, the Puerto Rican fish stew, that...that was like something a chef would make. That was amazing. I'll never forget that. That's the best thing I've had in a very long time."

Yes, precision and good taste are Shawn's strengths. Fearless adventure is mine. I'm not a baker--all those measurements?! When I read "sift," to me that says, "scoop loosely; don't pack." For Shawn, "sift" means "go to the store, buy a flour sifter, and painstakingly sift until my thumb cramps up."

Now that we're deep into fall, I'm in all my farmer's market glory--buying gnarled varieties of squash, selecting new heirloom apples to try, on quests for the perfect purple bell pepper, lugging Canary melons under one arm, and collecting "dragon apples" (heirloom tomatoes--the weirder-looking, the better!) as if they were gems. This may be the one season where Shawn cannot outshine me...and he dare not even try to match my pumpkin-selectin' and pureein' skills...in my homemade pumpkin pie, mulled wine, and spiced cider, I have absolute confidence--yes, Sept and Oct are my favorite "food months" of the year.

I've branched out these past couple years, however, due to Eating Well Magazine. Thanks to these good folks, I've actually come to enjoy collecting and treasuring recipes. While all of their recipes seem to be online, I still find it well-worth it to subscribe to their print magazine, with its sumptious photos, aesthetically-pleasing layout, and informative ecological articles. I like how their recipes are both meat- and vegetarian-friendly, which has really bridged the gap between me and my carnivorous friends/family at dinner gatherings. And, ingredients that I never bought before, I now look for every time they're in season--asparagus, brussels sprouts, watercress...so here is an ode to our top 10 Eating Well recipes, which are guaranteed to make you like such daunting ingredients as Savoy cabbage and fennel. They range from simple sides to more ambitious entrees...all striking in their celebration of the fine things earth has to offer :)

My Top 10 Eating Well Recipes:

1. Puerto Rican Fish Stew (There's really nothing you can do to make this one vegetarian, so this is a great option for pescetarians who have meat-eaters over for dinner--THE singlemost best recipe ever. Serve with fried plantains and Caribbean rice)

2. Shrimp Tamale Casserole with Three Sisters Black Mole (The mole really makes this one, but pesco-friendly tamales are always a treat. Pure vegetarians could subsitute roasted veggies for shrimp)

3. Gnocchi with Tomatoes, Pancetta & Wilted Watercress (Vegetarians, substitute veggie bacon for pancetta. Cook separately and add last, since adding early to the dish will just impart more salt, and the flavor of the veggie bacon will be cooked out)

4. Asparagus Soup (Vegan if veggie broth is substituted for chicken broth)

5. Creamy Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts & Mushrooms (This one made me like brussels sprouts, which I now can enjoy cooked up in just some sherry and served with some parmesan on top)

6. Tuscan Cabbage & Mushrooms (Vegetarians substitute veggie bacon for pancetta, and veggie broth for chicken broth)

7. Asparagus with Curry Butter (This is so easy that's it's become our fav way to cook up fresh asparagus)

8. Spaghetti Squash & Pork Stir-Fry (Vegetarians substitute veggie chicken strips for pork)

9. Roasted Squash & Fennel with Thyme (Vegan)

10. Blue Cheese-Walnut Green Beans (an early summer fav way to cook all those green beans you bought at the farmer's market)

Eat well and prosper!

Alternative Dimension: Time's Tea Party

Last year I heard a woman share a story about her joy at watching her daughter play. Her daughter was in the backyard, setting up an imaginary tea party and unbeknownst to the child, her mother casually kept an eye on her from an upstairs window. After a time, the mother called the daughter in to help set the dinner table, but the memory of her daughter's idyllic tea party stayed with her. She believed that was how God must feel when he sees his children--all of us--at play. Just like a good parent gives the child time for play and time for responsibilities, so God gives us time for play and work as well.

But how many of us adults really take time for play? And of that time, how much of it is spent with unabashed joy and gratitude? How much of it is instead pre-scheduled and structured, more of an appointed obligation with either a hidden purpose or agenda, a "to-do" or "should-do?" How much of it is spent self-consciously and guiltily, instead of with exuberant creativity and imagination, with appreciation for creation?

Most of us today see time as an enemy, not as a gift. We live in opposition to time instead of in harmony with it; we try to stay ahead of it instead of living alongside it. We over-book and hyper-schedule in an attempt to "get ahead" or "stay on top of," all of which results in barely keeping our heads above water.

Many drown in the sea of time instead of floating on its surface, buffeted and overwhelmed by waves and currents--and a drowning person does not have the perspective to see the shore or the horizon. We feel that we should constantly strive to beat out the competition--but won't there always be sales to take advantage of, friends to be made, and money to be earned? Do we truly believe that if we don't get what we want today, we never will? And if so, what does this say about things of eternal value vs the things of this world--status, money, material--that we should not be measuring our life's worth by anyway?

Even if we see finite time as a curse to mankind, I still believe that God wants to take any evil thing that befalls us and turn it to good. Therefore, even if we see finite time as our enemy, we still must see it turned into a gift from God. Yes, time on earth leads us to a bodily death, but if Christians believe death leads to eternal life, can we not look a bit more kindly on time?

What if we see time as a banquet set before us? Is time a bowl of candy to be devoured--rotting us from the inside out, making us crave more until we're sick and unsatisfied? Is a bowl of gruel, sullenly ate without joy, nothing inspiring us to continue partaking but solely getting to the end and being done with it? Or is it a spread as varied as creation itself, with nearly endless possibilities and choices?

I personally think sitting at God's banquet includes an optional tea party. The courses at God's table can fortify and inspire gratitude and wonder in us, or can (if we choose) lead us to excess and greed, or can even lead us into joyless denial and pointless sacrifice. But what about what just is? What purpose does sitting down to tea serve? None, nutritionally. It's purpose exists in really having no purpose--in letting time just be, in taking a break from the other cares, pursuits, and agendas of the world.

Metal Bands: The Terrible Tale of...The Ring

I'm currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1 in the Lord of the Rings series. The tale (at least as it's interpreted in the movies) has come to have special meaning to me, as I hope to post about later in my HLHS blog. That post will probably portray our marriage in a glowing light. However, I realized today that my marriage has also come undone by a ring's seductive power. As much as I admire the fiercely loyal Sam and puely resolute Frodo, we have a long way to go before we can say we aren't corrupted by the shiny power of a metal band. Hopefully esposo is not reading my little blog, but if he is, he can take solace in the fact the this sordid tale will probably cast him in a better light than it will me!

Esposo and I rarely fight. Sure, we disagree sometimes, but we usually work it out through discussion. I had a friend tell me a couple years ago that couples who don't fight have unhealthy marriages. Said friend is now divorced.

Yet, there are times in any marriage where one person (or both) feels like they aren't always listened to. You know, spouse asks you for advice/help and you comply...and they proceed to do the opposite of your recommendation and expect you to resolve the ensuing catastrophe. And you say, "if you had just listened to me...."

It's pretty easy to not listen to me all the time though, as I talk a lot, and we're new parents so there's usually a 1-year old babbling or screeching at the same time. Or, a 1-year old that we're trying not to wake up with barely audible whispers.

Another problem is that I hate hate hate surprises of any kind. There must be a secret control freak slumbering in the innermost core of my being, because I like to know the facts, and I like to know them ahead of time. No matter how "good" the surprise is, I would still rather be informed in advance. Esposo, on the other hand, likes sneaking behind my back and going on secret missions to fulfill quests that he hopes will please his loved ones. He can't stand it when I try to find out what my Christmas gifts are in advance, or when I want to give him his presents or birthday cards a couple days before his birthday so that he's not surprised the day of. I cannot relate to those people who choose not to know the sex of their baby before labor, and a surpise party sounds like a special place reserved in one's own private hell.

The other problem is that I've had my heart set on a ring for a very long time. At our local jewelry store, I've admired it for a couple years. It is (was) a black pearl (my name means pearl) set on a very thin yellow gold band. "This," I thought, "is a thing of beauty, a special thing." Impregnating my mind with all sorts of symbolic meaning, I liked to think it was a matter of time before esposo would make a present of it.

For Himal's 1st birthday, esposo went behind my back and bought a ring to surprise me. But it was not the black pearl ring. On Himal's birthday, he strode into the room with a huge smile on my face and said "surprise!" handing me a jewely box. I thought, "could it be?!" I opened it, and inside was...a huge, ornately-carved white gold ring with all of our birthstones on it. Now, I have simple tastes, and I don't wear big jewelry. In fact, I hardly have any jewelry at all, especially the kind most people would refer to as "jewelry." Ok, I have none, other than my wedding ring. I don't like rings with a lot of height or width, and I especially do not like white gold. I figure, if you're going to buy gold, it should look like gold. Not to mention, my wedding ring is yellow gold, and I think it looks tacky to mix white and yellow gold on one's fingers.

I was so taken aback. I tried to pretend that I liked it, and that I was pleased about the surprise, but I wasn't. In fact, I felt miserable about it, and resentful. Esposo would ask everyday if I was going to wear the ring, and I'd go retrieve it and pretend I was proud to wear it. But it was huge, and heavy, and banged into everything, and hurt my hand, and got caught on everything. The colors were all wrong and moreover, I just felt like...it wasn't me.

Finally, after a week, I confessed that I did not like the ring and that I would probably never wear it. I then went to the jewelry store with the intent of begging the owner to let me exchange the ring, to put it towards the black pearl ring I really wanted. When I got the store, the black pearl ring was...gone. 2 years of admiring, hoping, waiting...and suddenly it was gone.

I talked to the jewelry store owner about what I could do--explained to him that this ring would only bring me sorrow and that it was affecting my marriage. He finally agreed to let me exchange the ring for another--that is, he would put the stones in another setting. I finally chose a simple design, a much smaller, lighter ring.

It seemed like the end of story. Until the credit card bill arrived. Shockingly, esposo had spent a ton of money on this ill-fated piece of jewely. I don't know what came over me, but fury arose and I let loose all my feelings--that I was appalled he had made this big of a purchase without telling me, and that he had let me exchange a ring of such value for a ring that was maybe 1/3rd the price. I kicked myself for not keeping the original ring and just passing it down as a family heirloom. But most of all, I just felt anger that he hadn't listened to me. That he hadn't bought the ring I actually wanted--than he bought one of those mother's rings, which seemed so trite and unoriginal that it was unfathomable, an unimaginable stereotype. For his part, of course, he said that it was meant to be a gift, and that he was sorry. And I said I was sorry for not liking or appreciating it. But neither of us are really sorry--we're actually, deep down, sorry about what the other did.

So now the ring sits, burning a hole in my mind and jewelry box, just like Frodo's ring seemed to burn a hole in his pocket. A source of loathing or discontent, a source of intentions gone awry. Esposo says to just let it sit there, but in my mind, it will always be the ring I didn't want yet am forced to keep. How to make this situation right? Is this a big learning experience in our marriage--something we all go through, one of those incidents that will always be a legendary source of difference, like the spouse who unforgivably voted for Reagan that one time?! Or like the time, as a child, I was taken out for ice cream and witnessed the ice cream-throwin fight of a century because a husband committed the crime of buying his wife a dish of mint chocolate chip? One of those defining shockers that become the symbolic nexus for all the misunderstandings?

Maybe reading the LOTR series will be more cathartic than I ever imagined.

At Least

Looking down from heaven seems like a terrible burden for one little soul.
When I leave, I won't look back, ever.
I won't leave anything unsaid,
or at least unfelt.
I won't have any reason to look back--
when I leave, I'll be finished.
You don't have to worry about me watching what you're doing
or at least I'll turn away at the things you don't want me to see.
I might not even take any memory of you with me.
But at least I'll take the love with me
because it made me who I am.

In memory...9/11 victims.....

A Life Measured by Seasons--and Hummingbirds

We woke up early yesterday and took our coffee and paper out onto the deck for another peaceful Sunday morning. The crisp 55 degree weather awakened my senses to an early fall. All still looked like summer, and it still sounded like summer--the birds and crickets chirping, the rustling of creatures, the bloom of herbs and annuals. But the apples in the orchard behind us have become a magical red before I even realized it. Soon groups of deer will stop under the trees, gobbling in the early cold months, then pawing at frozen ground for leftovers closer to the year's end.

The seasons this year have caught me by surprise, and so have the hummingbirds. I missed the brief spring migration--the winter was long, and they migrated north before I could muster the courage put their feeders outside. I would have, though, if I had known their tiny bodies were braving such cold. This year as well, I didn't imagine they were migrating south already, but as we read our paper, we heard the immistakable sound of a prehistoric misquito approaching us. The female hummingbird took a tiny sip of the 3-month old sugar residue, then fled when she noticed us sitting a meter away. That got my ass in gear--yelling "hummingbird!" I dashed into the house to replenish the sugar supply.

It's easy to live a seasonal life here in Wisconsin, where we undeniably have four very distinct seasons. But it wasn't until we moved out of the city that I truly felt the seasons as more than just changes in weather. There's a new, comforting predictability in the apples turning red, in the barn owl's mid-summer hoot, in the creek roaring with spring's melted snow. These are events that cannot be written in advance on one's wall calendar--they just happen with the seasons.

I've come to believe that a life measured in years is too abstract--ironic, since we've numbered our days with set minutes and hours. What can we say of 2008? Of 2009? "It was a good year?" "That was the year we...?" What do those statements mean, after all?

I imagine, too, that having a young child makes one live seasonally all the more. After all, a 1-year old child has no concept of years. A newborn baby is almost unrecognizably a different being at 4, 6, 12 months old. It's stunning to think that the toddling, waving, laughing child was unable to even roll over or sit up earlier that year.

When I measure by seasons, life seems more manageable. The seasons offer their own comforts and promises, and I've come to appreciate them all. Winter is no longer just an undesirable part of the year to "get through." Winter now offers me the quiet of a fresh-snow morning, the spell of blue hours at dusk, time to rest with my family on long dark nights, the joy of making slow food such as chili, spiced cider, winter squash, and that good local favorite--WI beer-cheese soup.

Living seasonally helps me accept the natural ebb and flow of relationships, feelings, and lifestages as well. We need not be constant year-round. There are seasons of the mind, of marriage, of obligation, of thought, of friendship. There are seasons for questioning, for exploration, for accepting. There are seasons of family life--and being a wildly impatient person by nature, this helps me accept situations that are temporary but feel like they are permanent.

Eating seasonally has long been a part of my adult life--probably starting with the time I lived in Nepal, during which I observed an environment where people were much more attuned to the land. In the US, where most everything is now available year-round, there is opportunity every day to feast. Foods and meals that were once had in celebration no longer mark the seasons for many people. While I am grateful that I have year-round access to healthy vegetarian food, we buy from the farmer's markets when we can (I wish we had year-round farmer's markets in WI, but as far as I know, the only such one is in Madison), which covers most of spring well into late fall. I find that eating seasonal foods makes me more grateful for the seasonal cycle, and lends a special quality to the dishes themselves.

Living seasonally leads to a rather interesting phenomenon and that is...year-round gratitude for what God has created--the special gifts and possibilities the divine gives to humankind in all situations.

As it draws to an end, summer 2009 will go down as a "purple flower and bumble bee summer:" a summer of no surgeries or hospitalizations. A summer of long walks. A summer of friends and birthdays. A summer of reprieve.

Slavery Happened Here

For me, as a northerner, slavery seems distant to me. Of course, I know it happened not that long ago and I know it was horrific and that we see the modern evidence and effects of it, but it hits me in the same manner the Holocaust does: that it happened in another place and time. In fact, the Holocaust may seem even a bit more real to me, having had some in my family who actually survived the camps.

As a northerner, other things seem more real to me: inequality certainly is real to me. Segregation is very real to me. The fact that things weren't ever great for black folk in the north either is real to me. But the actual bondage? That doesn't seem as real. It didn't happen on the land I consider to be my home. My family never owned any slaves--almost all of them came to the US around the turn of the 20th century or after WWII, and the few that came earlier settled in the north woods of rural WI.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not an idiot. I know how every single white person in the US has received an unfair benefit or advantage due to slavery, even to this day. It's the slavery itself that seems so abstract in my mind--that while I know it happened, the tie that binds me to it seems indirect and indistinct.

I'm in KY this week and I've been down south several times before, including to the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham and the civil rights marty's memorial and the capital building in Montgomery (which features a prominent portrait of old Governor Wallace). But these sites, too, reminded me more of social inequality than actual slavery (the two, of course, being irrevocably historically connected--but a connection going further back both chronologically and mentally than Jim Crow).

But yesterday on a hike at Mammoth Cave, of all places (not even deep South), the park ranger started talking about the history of slavery on the site--that slaves originally mined the saltpeter from the cave, built the tourist hotels, cooked the food, gave the early cave tours--all for free.

"Who were these slaves? Were these local people who had owned rights to the cave who'd brought them here?" I asked. Yes, the ranger explained to me. Local people who were living on the land discovered the profit to be had from the cave, and exploited it--both the natural resources and the human labor. There is a cemetary along the trail where some of the slaves are buried--most in unmarked graves but for one, who was given a headstone some years after his death by a European.

The unmarked graves astounded me. Why were they unmarked? The ranger said researchers have tried to find out who they were, but they have been unable to. And my first thought was, "well, then they obviously didn't try hard enough." But, of course, these researchers were professionals--is it possibly that these graves represented people whose names have actually been obliterated from human knowledge? What about their families? How is it possible that there isn't someone, somewhere, who has knowledge of who they were? Who might have records, even a diary? It is almost too hard for me to comprehend that no one in this world knows who they were.

It seems like the final injustice to a person's life and memory--an unmarked grave, and obviously it was intentional. A final degradation.

The ranger was white, and to hear her talking about it--I don't know, it just hit me. That on this very land--not just "here" in the US,--people were enslaved. That people were bought, sold, owned, inherited. That a few families reaped immense profit and luxury on the backs of the free labor of many--and I was actually standing on one of the very sites where it occurred, looking at the graves of the very people who acted out this chapter of history. And for those few moments, it felt more real than it ever has.

Feminism and Consumerism: Conjoined Twins?

Feminism is a complicated issue for me, and while I consider myself one on a fundamental level (ie, I believe that women and men are equally human and, as such, both deserving of their equal individual, political, and legal rights), I haven't always approved of what many in our culture consider to be feminism in practice.

Recently, however, I read The Way We Never Were: American Families and Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz, which finally clarified something for me. Namely, that it is once again consumerism that I disapprove of--and that consumerism has infected our idea of feminism to the point that it makes it hard for people (women? Can men be feminists too? I think they can--how many would admit to being such is another question) like me to identify with the current conceptualization of "feminism."

I should back up here and state that I do not believe feminism to be a set of actions to check off on some magic to-do list: going out and getting a degree does not make you a feminist. Not even becoming the first female president of the United States makes you a feminist. Feminism is also a lifestyle and a set of core values. Feminism should be ethical. To put it plainly, feminism is NOT just advancing yourself as a woman. It is not just pursuing your own personal ambitions. I believe this would be a male-centric value (please don't mistake me here--I'm not saying men are in any way bad or evil--I am classifying greater culture behaviors based on a male-centered culture--not on any individual male. I love men--heck, I'm married to one and have given birth to one! I have a great relationship with my dad and several of my good friends are males. I do not dislike men). If one is truly to call herself a feminist--that is, one who believes in the social, political, educational advancement of women--one helps to advance other women, and girls, and even boys and men--why? Because feminism revolves around equality and being fair.

I should also back up even further and say that I do not believe feminism revolves around imitating male behaviors and traits, ie, a reduction of womanhood to the practice of monkeying men. I suppose this would get me into some trouble with would-be critics (were anyone actually reading my little blog) because it could be interpreted as separate-but-equal ideology--and we all know to what extent that was a sham when it came to racial equality in the U.S. A closer analysis, however, would reveal that equality does not necessarily equal sameness. Just as we have diversity between people in the US when it comes to ethnicity, religion, and culture, we can have diversity when it comes to sexuality yet still have equality.

But the above two sticking points for me stem from the mixing of consumerist and feminist precepts--ie, that women should be as free as men to consume to their hearts' desires--not just in the domestic realm. That women should be equally free to pursue wealth and ideals of individuality--also a pillar of a consumer culture. Coontz brings up the point that ever-increasing fragmentation and hyper-individualism is the logical conclusion of consumerism. We see this in the fact that children are becoming "target audiences" at younger and younger ages--being told that they can best create their images through purchases. The idea that women "should" pursue a career and work right through child rearing is often pressed upon them not in order to make them into fulfilled, well-balanced individuals, but to make them into targets for products, images, and lifestyles--not just as individuals, but as moms as well, in order to give their children the "best" objects and amenities on the market.

This ideology strikes me amoral on several levels, not least of which is the fact, as Coontz points out, that working conditions, schedules, and locations are not female- or family-friendly. It's the "do it all" syndrome I addressed (on a societal level) a few posts back. Women are expected to be men in the workplace and this is actually the opposite of equality--it puts women at a disadvantage and on an unlevel playing field. But women, told that they can indeed be equal to men if they just work harder, sleep less, and be smarter, feel pressure to be "just as good if not better." All this--often, not always--to serve the almight bottom line, the household dollar, in a never-ending pursuit of "the next-best thing" and "keeping up with the Jonses."

Furthering the immoral cycle in my mind is the question, "what about the other best things?" You know, the ones like having a parent available to be there and raise you--one who's not stressed out and always rushing. A parent who helps you achieve your dreams and meet your needs, not the other way around. A parent who takes you to story time and the park during the day. A parent who listens, not hyper-schedules you to keep you busy. What about those other best things, like food that doesn't come out of a box, or being at home when you want to be, instead of shuttled off to a group situation all day? I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong to be a dual-earning couple, but what I am saying is that there's something to be said for the things money can't buy. Seriously, would my kid rather have a trip to Disney World, or would he rather have me or my husband fully engaged with him every day? Would he rather have a TV in his room to be sat in front of while I microwave dinner, or would he rather help me make dinner? Would he rather be taught discipline and values from institutions or from his parents? Would he rather be allowed to explore his individuality within the pace of everyday family life, or within the bounds of structured "creative" activities?

I believe consumerist societies, cultures, pursuits, and values ultimately lead nowhere, and are self-destructive. I guess I can feel more comfortable thinking of myself as a feminist now that I have more understanding of where "the movement" dead-ended. For awhile I was wondering, "how can I call myself a feminist if I'm a full-time mom?" But it wasn't feminism that I rejected when I opted to stay home with my son. It was consumerism. I refused to march off to something I didn't believe in under the guise of a corrupted, politically correct -ism. But that's just me. Do I think all dual-income couples with kids are pursuing a materialistic lifestyle? No--my point is that our culture has become locked into a cycle of individual pursuits and purchases, which Coontz shows is not necessarily conduicive to family or community life--or even marriage. I have a post-graduate career (or lack of one!) that I can put on hold, so I am lucky to be able to stay at home with my son for now. I can't possibly say all women should stay home from work when they have children--it's not practical or ethical , let alone feminist. But dads can opt to be full-time parents too...true feminism would approve.

Pen Envy: A Good Man--I Mean Pen--Is Hard To Find

So, I have this little obsession with the Perfect Pen. I select my pens with discernment, and they become my friends as they accompany me through jotted ideas, impromptu lists, and attentive note-taking...and as friends, I am always sorry to see them go.

The problem is, when you're married, your spouse may be the type of person who buys cheap bulk packs of Bic ballpoints and then proceeds to "subconsciously" make off with your own beloved (read: nicer) pen.

I know I'm not the only one with this obsession. In the Mongolian steppe, good pens were hard to find. Most of us in language class had our prized pen from America, the single one we'd stuffed in our carry-on in order to write postcards from Seoul en route. Little did we know that these pens would become closely-guarded treasure.

One day in Bayangol, I found a Perfect Pen on the classroom floor before class. Unable to believe my luck, I took notes with it that day--until lunch, that is, when I heard one of my classmates yell, "Is that my pen?!?!?!!!" "Well, I suppose it is! I found it on the floor earlier." "GIVE. ME. BACK. MY. PEN. That's MY pen. That's my FAVORITE pen."

Apparently, however, things have changed since I last checked the pen aisle. Itching for a trusty, inky sidekick, I ventured unsuspecting into an anonymous big box store today: Day 1 of my quest. I was immediately plunged into a sea of frantic back-to-school shoppers ripping apart the supplies as their lives depended on finding the Perfect Pen.

And so they do. Or, some version thereof, such as the Perfect Popluarity Notebook or Mrs Ironshank's Perfect Scientific Calculator.

The problem was, despite submerging myself into sneezing 9-year olds and hassled parents, my Perfect Pen was nowhere in sight. !!!!!!!!!!!???????????

FIRST OF ALL. There will be no retractables in my life. Retractable is just a nice way to say "piece of crap with a spring that'll rust and a pen that'll invariably leak through the ever-open top or push out and write nonsense all over the inside of your purse." The crisp satisfaction I get from uncapping, and the finality and accomplishment of snapping the cap back on...yes, caps are more sophisticated.

SECONDLY. The rubber grip MUST be ribbed or studded (dirty, I know!) NOT SMOOTH!!!! When it's smooth, it rolls up the...shaft...and what good is that?!

THIRD. The ink must be blue, but the perfect shade of blue. Not too dark. Not too pale.

FOURTH. The point must not be too fine. I'm trying to make a statement here. 0.7 mm is a good size.

FIFTH. Gel ink is ok, but it has to have a roll/ball point. There HAS TO BE a BALL.

SIXTH. The shaft must not be too wide, nor too narrow.

SEVENTH. Long-lasting is a must.

Is that so hard to stock?!!!!!! My quest continues.

Out of the Frying Pan

Driving out east is a rather different beast than driving west, north, or south. First of all, driving east from Milwaukee means inadvertently going through versus around Chicago—a decided congestion disadvantage. Then, one must factor in about $30 extra each way in interstate tolls. Finally, there is a dearth of sites, road stops, tourist traps, and restaurants along the Midwest-east coast route.

Compared to the quiet cool forests and lakes of the north, the landscape changes and tacky roadside trappings of the west, and cultural changes of the south, heading east is thus far not entirely exciting or refreshing.

WI is a lovely state, but to drive to any other notable place from it, one must go through the most boring states—IL, IA, MN, IN, OH—that are only marginally more captivating than the excruciating plains states such as KS, NE, OK, eastern SD, southern MT, etc. Coming to think of it, though, the states I have actually enjoyed driving through are few—KY, TN, ND, western SD, NM, MI, WI. Bearable: AL, FL, CA, MS, MO, WY, CO, UT, NV.

Wishing to avoid hearing yet another Michael Jackson radio eulogy is enabling us to memorize the entire 2-CD Indigo Girls album, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug. Likewise, avoidance strategies against instant and gas station coffee are addicting us to those cute little dark horse cans of Starbucks Double Shots.

Maybe PA will hold more promise, though eastern OH is getting hilly.

And the Sins of the Fathers...

The intangible inheritance parents pass on to their children is the earliest impression of God’s character. Unfair as it may be, as big of a responsibility it is, children learn about God from the way their parents treat them—it’s no coincidence that we often perceive God as a father or mother figure. In the early years, parents are their children’s creators, providers, nurturers, caretakers, and teachers. Parents can give or take away. Their word is (usually) law and their pronouncements are judgments and decrees. Parents can be unfair and mysterious to a child, with ways that are unknown (“because I said so, and I am [God]. Who are you to question?”).

As a young child, your parent pretty much IS God—your primary example of love and relationship. The loving aspects of parenthood are a tiny slice of God’s perfect parenthood. The selfish, fallen aspects are the mark of our human, earthly status.

It took me a very long time to realize how my upbringing was reflected in my relationship with God. Having very critical, unpredictable parents made me perceive a God that was judgmental and unpredictably loving. A God who thought I wasn’t good enough—a capricious and whimsical God. This image of God was dysfunctional, and for years caused me to doubt and distrust God’s nature.

If we take a good look at how we view God, we often find that the picture was influenced by some of our earliest childhood experiences. Maybe for some of us, it felt like God was never around or emotionally unavailable. Maybe we couldn’t live up to his larger-than-life personality or expectations; maybe we never felt good enough. Maybe God was cold and distant, uncaring or selfish—maybe a user…maybe unreliable, egotistical, arrogant, hypocritical.

Only after I became a parent myself did I realize how God might really see me and How He might really Be. First of all, my son is not “perfect,” just as we are not perfect in the eyes of God. He was born with a single ventricle heart. But this does not mean I love my son any less. Indeed, children with special needs are called “special” for a reason. I won’t go so far as to say that “heart parents” love their children more than “normal parents” (after all, I wouldn’t know for sure)—but almost. I’ll stop just short of saying that. My son was born with a defect, as we are all born with the defect of original sin. I think God wants to see us succeed in our spiritual journeys all the more because of our human disadvantage.

Secondly, the life our son is living is not the life we had planned for him, much like God’s original plan for humankind is not what we are all living now. Our original plan for our son was an idyllic babyhood filled with swim classes at the YMCA, baby yoga, and travel—not open-heart surgeries, long hospital stays, and countless medical procedures. Am I disappointed in the situation? Yes. Am I disappointed in my son? No. My son's life is filled with a lot more pain and suffering than I would have ever wanted. Now I understand some of the pain God must feel at our human suffering.

Parents see their children as their most perfect creations. Parents take pride in their scrawny, puny newborns and in their eyes, these newborns are the cutest to ever grace the universe. As our children grow older, we set rules for them that they don’t always understand. Sometimes we become frustrated, angry, or hurt when they are ungrateful or when they disobey us. But we always forgive them when they truly repent, no matter how grave the offense.

So where does this “punish the children for the sins of their fathers” idea come from? Deuteronomy 5:9-10: “I do not leave unpunished the sins of those who hate me, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations. But I lavish my love on those who love me and obey my commands, even for a thousand generations.” I’m not a reverend, but my layperson interpretation of these 2 verses is that love is the greater force here—a force that sets us free from the examples of previous generations.

Maybe what God meant was not that He would exact punishment for its own sake on a sinner’s children, but that repeating the mistakes of one’s parents is punishment enough, and is the intangible inheritance of a human primary example. It is a warning to parents that history repeats itself, and can put subsequent generations at considerable disadvantage. Indeed, to overcome the sins of one’s father or mother, it takes conscious realization, supplication, and a little divine intervention. One of my good friends mentioned years ago that only God could break the patterns families can fall into and pass down through generations, and that we need to consciously ask God to shatter the chains that tie us to our forefathers. It can be something as serious as alcoholism, abuse, depression, and abandonment to more oblique family attributes like disapproval, pride, or sanctimoniousness. Take a good look at what you’ve inherited from your family—then ask God to set you free.

Get Your Kicks on…I-76

The day we went out towards Philadelphia, Michael Jackson died. Thus our tour of the Rust Belt was by default and involuntarily set to the FM tune of Michael Jackson, country, and Christian pop songs. There was a brief musical reprieve when we became ensnarled in jumble of Chicago traffic and construction. Rolling along at the speed of a stagecoach in 94 degree heat, we were at least compensated by some energetic Middle Eastern and African folk ballads.

They made me crave a big old schawrma sandwich, however—not a convenient craving for a vegetarian or dinnertime in small town Ohio. Our own dining option in the Ohio river town (Perrysville??) was a “Mexican restaurant” that looked like any brick bar in northern WI or Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Heavy metal blasting, neon beer signs nailed into brick walls, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” clips playing on flat screen TVs tuned to CNN. The local beer, presumably made with Lake Erie water, tasted suspiciously like Budweiser. My bean tostada showed up beef. Sigh.

I had counted at least 20 deer grazing along the interstate in the 50 or so miles before our 10 pm dinner stop, so we opted to stay in rivertown. Never again will I stay in a hotel 60 yards from the freeway, in a room next to a slamming exit door. I got little sleep, and very grudgingly ate my continental muffin and grimaced through a few desperate sips of instant coffee.

Hopefully this day of our trip will be better. The carnival of horrors that was Gary, Indiana haunts me hundreds of miles later, inspiring unwelcome thoughts on the sacrifices of industrialization. Maybe Gary is what many parts of China now look like.

Northern Indiana had otherwise been surprisingly idyllic and rural, western Ohio like the bottom of a flat frying pan.

The Woman Who "Does It All--" Another myth reborn

Last week's mail brought me a copy of my local YMCA's summer programming. The back cover had a picture of a hip mom-woman wearing earrings, lipstick, pink tank top, and boxing gloves. The caption read, "Your kids think you can do it all. Prove them right."

Why is it that we are bombarded with catch phrases and images of women who "do it all," but not men? Have you ever heard of a guy who "does it all?"

Here's Dylan. He works full time, got a promotion last month, picksu p the kids from school and has supper on the table by 6 pm. He's a soccer coach, goes to church, and grills on the weekends. He pays careful attention to appearance--notice how physically fit and stylish he is. He keeps his lawn mowed and won the Best Dad of the Year Award. And he does this all by his 10 pm bedtime! Oh, and he's a great husband too!

Right.

So why do we hold moms to the female version of this standard? Because it is yet another enslaving, unattainable myth to keep women in check, of course.

Let's see...the 1950's woman who "did it all:" Here's Donna. She irons her husband's clothes for work the next day, keeps the bannister free of dust, and vacuums the home every single day with her shiny new Hoover. She prepares home-cooked meals 3x per day. She can't wait for her children to come home from school for lunch. She is a Sunday school teacher, and always has a jello mold ready for the neighborhood parties. She does all this, and more, in heels, a skirt, and a wave in her hair. She is the family's teacher, nurse, referee, cheerleader, and mentor. She is a great mom and wife--she makes her kids and husband proud!

People. Please. This cultural standard/ideal is defined for us and force-fed as if it's a lifestyle we should actually want to lead. Like all unattainable ideals, a revolution comes along and overthrows it, swinging society into a backlash (like the feminist rejection of the June Cleaver image, and the subsequent march to work).

I want to know more about this mythical YMCA mom in the pink tank top and boxing gloves who has to keep up the appearance of doing it all. I really am interested in what she does and if she does it well. Does she ever go on a date to a foreign film and discuss it in-depth with her husband over coffee? Does she have meaningful relationships? Does she garden? Does she cook with creativity and passion? Does she ever hand-write a thank-you card? Does she ever take her family for a quiet hike on a lakeshore? Does she cultivate an inner thought life? Does she read classics? Is she still in love with her man? Does she ever get exhausted and want to tell those around her that she is sick of people thinking she can do it all?

I feel kinda sorry for her.

Hm. It seems all isn't "all," afterall. It seems, rather, that "all" is defined for us as holding down a job (bring in that money), having a family (like a good little woman), and looking good (still gotta please that man!).

I don't think anyone can do it "all." I don't think anyone should want to.

I wonder what the next revolution will look like when this myth is rejected and reincarnated in a new form.

Keepin' It Real in the Trenches

So, this blog is all about a little corner of momspace I've carved out for myself; thus I suppose it's fitting that this post refers to "the mommy wars." Someone I know mentioned this phenomenon to me last week, so I have done a bit of reading to get acquainted with the debate. It seems the mommy wars refer to one's decision to either be a stay at home mom or a working mom, thus politicizing a highly individual choice.

I also found that some feel the mommy wars are nothing more than a media/marketing campaign, or an intellectual debate fought primarily in the sociological realm. "Real" or not, what IS clear is that, once again, women's minds and bodies are not their own but political and ideological battlefields.

I can tell you which decision is right for our family, but I cannot tell which is right for your family. I cannot tell you which side of the DMZ you should be on. But I can, after thinking about my own experiences, tell both sides to get real.

Let's start with working moms (don't worry ladies, I will get to the stay at home crew too). I generally feel like Switzerland--have no real beef with working moms, and have not been targeted for their aggression either. However, let's get one thing straight: I heard a working mom state on public radio recently, "I do everything a stay at home mom does, PLUS work full time!"

I am so sorry, honey, but you are seriously deluded and it is time for you to get real. If you want or have to work, that's fine, but you must own up to the consequences and realities--and that includes the fact that you are paying someone else to care for your child for almost all his/her waking hours. Let's take a conservative commute time estimate of 30 min each way for you to get from home to daycare to work. Let's say you work the typical schedule of 8-5. That would mean you are away from home 10 hours of the day, not even counting any errands you might run before or after work, or any extracurricular activities.

That is 10 hours of the day that your home is not being lived in. 10 hours of not feeding your own baby, changing diapers, cleaning up spit up, teaching ABCs and colors, reading to your child, preparing and cleaning up after messy meals, and managing your child's daily joys and crises. Do not even tell me that you do the job that I do. Do not pretend that you can cram those missing 10 hours of heavy-duty daytime parenting into getting ready in the morning, dinner, and getting ready for bed. In the medical field, you would be an on-call doctor, not the one working all night in the emergency room--not even working at the walk-in clinic or pulling office hours--at least, not until you pick up your child in the evening.

Do not pretend you can provide the quality of care a good stay at home parent does after a long day of work. Get real and answer honestly: do you come home to read to and play with your child--or do you come home and jump into opening mail, doing housework, and checking your email? After talking with moms who have done both--stay at home and work--I have been told, "I feel guilty because when I was working, the last thing I wanted to do was come home and parent. All I wanted to do after a long day of work was sit down and relax."

Ok, now that I have offended the working crowd, let's move on to the stay at home moms. Stay at homers, you too must get real and be honest. First of all, do not act like a martyr or that you are a prisoner to your family. Unless you belong to some austere religious sect or have a very special situation (say, a special needs child who requires intensive in-home care), no one has forced you to be at home. You *can* go to work anytime you like.

Also, opting to be a stay at home mom does not automatically make you a better parent than the working one. I think all of us moms have met terrible stay at home parents, great working parents, and vice versa. Please do not pretend you deserve a medal for round-the-clock parenting if I see you sitting on the couch and screaming at your kids all day.

Finally, you do not need to pity working moms because they are our sisters who *have* to work. Many of them choose to and want to. Not everyone is cut out for 24-hour, 7 days per week mommying. And I commend them for knowing themselves well enough to do what they feel is best for their family.

After all, your kid is more likely to suffer from having an unhappy, resentful mother than a working one.

For awhile, I thought we as women could say "we've arrived" when we reached the point where we can choose to either stay at home or go to work. When no one forced us to stay at home, nor did they force us to hand over our children to paid providers and march off to work. Now I realize that I was wrong. We have not arrived.

No, we will be able to say "we've arrived" when we are both free to choose, and free to do so without guilt and feeling like we need to explain and justify ourselves for our decision.

Transplant

The quiet forests of this place
masked a raging battle for souls and hearts.
When I leave here, don't uproot me. Rather,
let me be a cutting grafted onto a new horizon
and let my roots remain behind, buried.
Let the pines that stand sentinel at the lakeshore
Guard them silently, as a grave
And then let me never come back here.
Never let me return.

Returning to Literary Sources: Boccaccio's Decameron

Last month when swine flu jumped the species barrier and subsequently spread across the world, I was reminded of a literary work I've been meaning to take on for years: Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. Its heft has been sitting on my shelf, taking up the width of 2-3 regular books, its black spine with tiny Penguin logo unobtrusively blending in amongst the more garish titles.

Having become interested in pandemic and epidemiology after reading There Is No Me Without You (about the tragic spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa), I've been following the evolution and spread of the H1N1 fairly closely. While not hysterical about it by any means, I am concerned about the possibility of major pandemic in the near future. And, as I always do in times of doubt and uncertainty, I turn to research and reading to try to gain a sense of understanding and precedent.

So, what was the experience in the 1300's, when the Black Death was raging across the known world, killing at least 1/3rd of Europe's population? Enter The Decameron, the premise of which revolves around 10 citizens of Florence fleeing the plague-infested city and holing up in the countryside. I have been trying to read gathered research from this time as well, but it is difficult to draw conclusions now that there is debate over whether bubonic plague was indeed the Black Death. However, I do see some similarities in the attempts to prevent the spread--quarantine, of course, and the instruction to think pleasant thoughts (ie, today's equivalent of stress making one more susceptible to disease). All these attempts, despite the best minds of the day believing the Black Death to be caused by vapors ("miasma") emanating from ill-fated planetary allignment.

In the event of a serious pandemic in our lifetimes, I get a glimpse of the hysteria we may be in store for by looking back to the Black Death. Certainly, I would hope it would not involve burning the houses of Jewish folks down, but think of deploying the military, curfews, quarantines, maybe even martial law? Deciding (as was talked about a couple years ago by a special task force) not to treat certain people--those over a certain age, those with dementia, trauma victims, and those with lung disease, heart failure, or "poorly-controlled diabetes?" Sounds pretty subjective to me--I can see mob attacks over who gets access to treatment. All that is just on the government level. To be honest, real racism could indeed break out if a particular group would be blamed for the strain's origins. Maybe burning homes of certain groups is not so far-fetched after all...

Anyway, the task of reading The Decameron is daunting, which is why I have not attempted it until now. A 22-page table of contents, a preface which boasts the phrase "occaisional emendations of a distinctly minor complexion" in the very first sentence, bibliographies, author's introduction, maps, 67 pgs of notes, 2 indeces, and the icing on the cake: a 113-pg translator's introduction. I figure the translator earned it, as he states translating The Decameron spanned 2 marriages and "half a lifetime." And I am one of those people who HAS to read introductions, footnotes, and notes. I am on pg xxxi...which is to say, not even page "1."

Merited Holidays

So, this year I am the recipient of a new holiday called Mother's Day. Since this means I get an extra present ;) I started thinking about other holidays for which I've received gifts, and realized that I particularly savor the ones that honor achievements.

For instance, Christmas is pleasant as a general seasonal coziness and spirit, but as far as gifts go, Jesus was the one who got born (like that--"got born?"). I didn't really do anything. So why am I getting all these gifts?!

Birthdays: this time it was me who got born. But I don't remember it. And my mom did most of the work.

Wedding: Big deal. Having not even embarked on the marriage yet, talk to me in 25 years. If we're still together, maybe I'll think of this in terms of achievement and merit.

Baby shower: Felt proud, but let's face it. The gifts were for the baby, not me, despite all my delusions.

Graduations: now looking back on it, I've always felt proud of receiving graduation gifts (yeah, a high school, undergrad, and grad under my belt), knowing I really earned a bit of honor and celebration.

This first Mother's Day, I truly feel a sense of accomplishment, that I am worthy and deserving of a gift or laurel. It is not merely a feeling of participation in unabashed consumerism. I have earned it.

Speaking of unabashed consumerism, of which parties and celebrations have often become very thinly-veiled mediums, I've been asked about Himal's 1st birthday party. Ok...what?! Suddenly I'm being asked about themes! Didn't we just do "themes" last year for the baby shower and the nursery (oh, who am I kidding...there's no nursery...there's his room with some Winnie the Pooh stuff on the walls)? Unbeknownst to me (existing in foolish if blissful oblivion!), I've been informed by more seasoned parent-friends that kids' birthday parties are the current barometer of coolness. Forget the right shoes...in middle and upper middle class USA, suddenly it is the production of a birthday party that measures one's place in the world.

The thought of participating in such an atrocity raised 2 questions in my mind:

1) Why would I do this? and
2) Again, why would I do this?

Of course we'll honor Himal's 1st birthday. Of course we will!!! I already have the cake in my mind's eye--heart-shaped of course. Because as you may or may not know, Himal's got a pretty serious heart condition. It's going to be a celebration of a triumph...a triumph of making it through the first year...and it will be more meaningful than any store-bought theme.

Spring Cleaning the Interior Life

The fine arts elevate the mind, but they are difficult to take in when you have a 9-month old. I can hear the fusses and "ba-ba's!" echoing in the contemplative silence of the art museum, see the actors on stage distracted by the crying in the middle of aisle H, and sense the disapproval of the concert attendees when mom wrestles with baby in the middle of Concerto No. 9.

Still, it is part of our civic duty to nurture a rich interior life--and Indreni cannot solely derive this from watching The Fashion Show or reading Slate online. Not even from listening to NPR or delving into literature. No, these media may inform or instruct/entertain and educate, but not necessarily elevate.

I'd been beginning to worry about ADD...ART Deficit Disorder since Himal was born. So today, when the 'rents offered to watch Himal, and Qu'Esposo was stranded in southern Missouri due to some tornado storm, I made a break for the Haggerty. Not only is it free, but the museum building is a work of art itself--plus its current exhibit features 10 WI artists and parking is relatively easy compared to the MAM, UWM, or 3rd Ward gallery environs.

In the silence of the museum, I could breathe and linger...again, something that hasn't been occuring much lately. The exhibits ranged from the unsettling, such as Xiaohong Zhang's and George Williams,' to whimsically disconcerting (Anne Kingsbury's). I copied down Kingsbury's line, "When Day by Day Became Ever After." And the transformation took place. In 45 minutes, I felt like myself again. The dust and cobwebs clouding my mind were swept out.

Every time I think I know my city (and I do think of Milw as MY city!), it surprises me yet again with its hidden joys. I took some time to stroll around the Marquette campus, never having realized before how beautiful the grounds are in spring, with flowering crab apple trees and tulips in profusion, and architecture that I really should have been appreciating all along. Then, to my amazement I approached a tiny medieval chapel that mentally transported me to the Anglo-Saxon countryside. I couldn't believe it was authentic, but walking inside I found out that it is the St Joan of Arc Chapel, which was built in 15th-century France, destroyed in WWI, and transported in pieces to the Marquette Campus in 1964.

Are you kidding me?!?!!!! I just stepped into a 15th century French chapel!!!!! In the middle of downtown Milwaukee!!!!!!!

BONUS!!!!!!!!

Tweeting in twitspeak

I'm now on twitter, and wondering just how far down the rabbit hole I'm willing to go...1st friendster/myspace, then facebook...now tweeting in twitspeak to tweeple and bleeple...one step away from bebo.