Manifest

Every so often, I make a biting comment about my mother within earshot of the girls. When the words are escaping my mouth, I think nothing of them. They are my thoughts, my complaints, my perspective, my truth.  

The girls see it quite differently though. They love my mom, and their entire extended family fiercely, but from a distance. As children should be, they are only exposed to the best of the best and shielding from the unsavory moments. 

These are the moments that make Matt and I parent the way we do, with our sometimes excessive amounts of hugs and I Love You’s. If there is such a thing. We talk about hopes and frustrations openly. We encourage discord and yelling if for no other reason than to make sure the feelings are liquid and flowing instead of ice slowing turning into immovable burgs. We talk about bodies and femininity as is appropriate with the pre-school set.   

And we talk about how we can talk about anything.

One story that I will certainly tell the girls, when the time comes, is about how many of those things were broken in my childhood. It’s the kind of story that comes up fairly regularly with girlfriends because every so often, anyone can get caught completely off guard by an early cycle.

I was 12 years old when I got my period. It is bit unbelievable (from the raised eyebrows I get from friends), but I didn’t know much about menstruation despite it being 1990. I was the first of my very small group of friends, and must have been one of the first in my grade to get it. It was terrible. I didn’t know what to do, and was afraid to talk to my mom.

She and I didn’t talk about anything.  I take that back, she constantly talked, and I might have been listening, but it wasn’t substantial conversation. Right now, sitting here typing, I can only recall one substantial conversation with her in my entire life. And it was in the last year. She didn’t prepare me. She didn’t warn me. She didn’t even notice anything was wrong with me.

And so I kept my secret, slyly taking maxi pads from under the counter and searching the dryer for forgotten dimes. For six months, I kept my secret, only to be undone by an Aunt who noticed a change in my skin. It was a crass moment, filled with soul crushing shame on my part and screeched words and laughter on hers.

I still remember how I shook, so afraid of my mother’s reaction to the news that her daughter wasn’t a physiological little girl any more.

I remember how her face blanched at the realization, presumably, of her failure.

There was still no conversation. Just the arrival of my own supply of maxi pads on my bed the next day.

And so, Matt and I talk to our girls. About everything. I don’t cover my body in front of them. I don’t like shut doors. We ask about days and friends and loves in the hope that nothing will be big enough to be kept secret.

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This post was inspired by the novel Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton. After witnessing her children's school set ablaze, Grace attempts to find the arsonist as her teenage daughter lies in a coma in Lupton's suspense thriller. Join From Left to Write on April 11 as we discuss Afterwards. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

 

Blurred Lines

Growing up, I thought the world’s population fell into 3 categories:

1. Irish or Polish Catholic

2. Italian Catholic

3. Other

In my little Chicago suburb, we have 3 Catholic churches within a 2 mile triangle radius of each other. You were defined by the church you attended. The Polish church said one of three masses a day in Polish. The Irish church’s Father had a thick brogue. Our family bucked tradition, and attended the church with German roots, but was taken over by a mix of the remaining who had quarreled with the other two parishes. Plus, it was an easier walk from our house than the Irish church.

When I was in my early tweens, my Aunt married into an Italian family, and my experience with cultures that didn’t stew cabbage on a regular basis was expanded. I think I loved my new Uncle from the first moment I met him, pronounced by the fact that he is Clare’s Godfather. Still, some in the family whispered about his parent’s off-the-boat Southern Italian bloodline. He’s not white. What on earth were they talking about?

When I went to college, it was the first time I was put in a situation where not everyone I knew fit into categories 1 and 2. My first assigned roommate was Shaniqua from East Saint Louis. Seriously. While I made jokes about we might be confused with each other since our names were so similar, I was terrified to know that the person I would be sharing a small room with for the next year was coming from such a hard area. She never showed up though. Instead, the day before school started I was assigned a new roommate, Emily, who was a transplant from a blessedly soft suburb much like my own. While we were not best friends by any stretch, we were definitely solid enough that she explained what a perm was. If it wasn’t for her, and later Chris Rock, I would be clueless.

When I started taking my Political Science courses, I became friends with a black guy who was a constant in many of my classes. We would study together relatively often, I presume because we were in the small faction that wasn’t already set on the notion of law school. One day, as we sat in an open quad after class going over notes, a group of black girls past us. I was mostly oblivious, but he groaned. Moments later he told me that he couldn’t study with me in the open any more, that the fact we had just been spotted together was going to earn him a lot of grief with his friends. I can’t be seen with a white girl, it ruins my chances with anyone else. What on earth was he talking about? He later apologized, but we never hung out again after that day.

Today, I think I have finally found a place where I can surround myself with like minded people, regardless of race, and more importantly, have been able to incorporate Grace and Clare into environments where they see more that Irish and Polish faces. From the time they were born, they have been cuddled, cared for and honestly loved from faces spanning the world. Mexico, Cameroon, Somalia, Egypt, South Africa, India, Iran, China and Japan on skin. Catholic, Methodist, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim in hearts. I love the fact that culture, outside of our new slice of suburbia, is a constant in their school and lives.

We talk about race occasionally. Most of the time it is about tradition and celebrations, but occasionally, skin color comes up. When playing doll dress up games on my iPhone, Grace often picks black skin colors. She asks if she had dark skin, if she would still have freckles, because dark skin colors are so much more fancy in their pigments; but, then decides that she likes her white skin because she doesn’t want to take the chance of NOT having those freckles anymore.

I know that these experiences won’t stop someone from not wanting to be their friends because of skin color, but I do hope that it isn’t even a factor for friendship for them.

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 This post was inspired by The Black Count. 

Alexandre Dumas' works were heavily influenced by his father, also named Alexandre Dumas. In the biography The Black Count, author Tom Reiss tells how Dumas went from slavery to become the equivalent of a five star general in the French military. Join From Left to Write on October 11 as we discuss the The Black Count. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes

Remembering

I hate all of the 'Where were you?' September 11th posts.
'How did you feel? What were you doing?'

I suppose I was lucky that day, I was safely ensconsed in suburban Chicagoland. I knew nobody in New York or at the Pentagon. But today still riddles me with sorrow.... guilt.

'How did you feel? What were you doing?'
I rarely join in on the conversations. I listen, and smile sympathetically, but I don't contribute. I still feel so guilty about my response to those questions. I guess I should just go ahead and tell my story. Maybe my shoulders will lighten a little bit.

*******************

On September 11, 2001, I was working for a stockbroker.

I hated the job. It was a two man shop, me and him. He was hardly ever in the office, often out playing golf with clients. He was maybe two or three years older than me. I never asked him how old he was, I really didn't want to know. He talked constantly about how much money he was making, knowing that more than a few of his big ticket customers were there because I charmed them while he was out playing golf. I hated the job.

I mostly worked an 8 am - 4pm schedule, skipping lunch so I could leave early. The New York Stock Excahnge opened at 9:30 am which usually gave me an hour and a half to open the office and sort all the voice mail messages and faxes that had come through overnight.

Around 8:50 am a fax came through from headquarters. To my recollection, it said 'The Market will be delayed in opening. It has been reported that a small prop plane as struck a building in downtown NYC.'

And I laughed.

That is my guilt, my sorrow. I was glad for a delay to the start of my day. I laughed for a solid 5 minutes.

Until the next fax came through. And the one after that. And the one after that.

Details came through slowly, or so it felt. The handful of minutes between updates felt like hours. We didn't have a TV in the office and I don't know why it didn't dawn on me to turn on the radio. I just read the supply of faxes that started pouring in, each with an increasing about of information and horror. I started flinching every time I heard the machine kick on.

Per his normal schedule, my stockbroker flew into the parking lot a few minutes after 9:30.

'Have you heard what happened?' he asked,  'This will be bad for buisness. I need to think.' He shut himself in his office behind me.  I sat in shock and read the flow of faxes.

I had laughed.

Around 10am he emerged with a pile of printouts. 'We have to do something. We have to tell people that their money is OK,' he announced. He handed me a stack of papers. It was a list of clients and phone numbers, A-M. 'People need to hear from us. We need to personally call everyone and reassure them their investments are safe.'

My stomach flip-flopped but I didn't say anything outside of saying that I wasn't comforatable with it. I should have screamed at him, told him what an asshole he was. People were dying and he was worried about money. I didn't say it though. I sat at my desk for 10 minutes and then picked up the phone.

A few numbers in, somebody answered. She answered with a shakey, tear filled voice. I followed my script. She screamed at me. Screamed the things that I should have screamed at my stockbroker. She knew people in those buildings. I deserved those words. The full impact of what was happending and what I had just done fully hit me. I wept uncontrolably.

That is the second fold of my sorrow, my guilt. I blindly followed instructions that I knew weren't right. That I knew were crass and careless.

After I told the stockbroker what happened, he sent me home for the day. And he changed his tactic. He narrowed this list to just his biggest clients and rang with concern about their families and connections on the East Coast.

****************

That is my story, my remembering. It isn't as horrible as it could be, as many are. But, it could be so much easier to tell, if only my actions that day were more thought out, more careful. I made someone's life worse that day, their heart ache more.

And you know what?  10 years later, I don't feel a shred better for having written this.

Happy Feet

I have a dent in my forehead.

It's only noticeable when I raise my eyebrows, and if I'm raising my eyebrows at you there is probably too much going on to notice an imperfection in my scull. I received it as a consolidation prize for walking / falling into the corner of the dishwasher when I was 3 years old. Shortly after that incident my mom signed me up for dance classes.

I will admit those classes served me well. I am a klutz to the extreme. I tend to look down when I'm walking to avoid tripping. The 10 years of tap-jazz-ballet-pointe, has spared me from a lot of injury that could have been much, much worse.

******
Case in point:

Clare's new hobby is throwing my cookbooks on the floor.

I will admit they are very colorful, ideally located at toddler height and ripe for tossing, so I can't really blame her. On Sunday night, I didn't immediately clean up her thrown book pile. I let it sit until after dinner. Grace was playing on the floor and I was carrying Clare down the single step to our slightly sunken family room. The books lay in our path just on the other side of that step. I was looking down at them. Grace called my name, and suddenly I was no longer looking down at them.

And I stepped on a banana peel book. One foot in motion on the sunken, wooden floored book and one foot stationary on the tile above. While holding a writhing 20lb child.

Was my thunk loud? Yes.
Am I injured? Yes.
Did I have enough grace not to drop the baby? YES!

******
And that, combined with her incessent begging lately, is the reason why Gracie will also be starting to dance classes on Tuesday.

The class is 20 minutes of tap, followed by 20 minutes of ballet, followed by 15 minutes of creative movement where I assume they just let the kids run around in circles and do the alligator on the floor. Her shoes came yesterday. A full test run was required.

Fully outfitted in tights, leotard and ballet slippers, she jumped into her daddy's arms for an impromptu Swan Lake-esque lift.

She then asked me how she actually does ballet, and I showed my little girl how to put her arms and feet into first and second position, complete with pliés.

Ahhhhh.

OK, maybe her enrollment in these classes are as much for me as they are her.

Big Things in Little Packages

Lil' Rick was the dog I didn't really want.

I wanted a BIG dog. A Great Dane or a Bullmastiff. Something that weighed as much as a human, could do some significant damage to an intruder and had a heart and spirit as big as their body.

Instead, we got a Corgi.

During the normal course of a work day we were usually offered Corgis' several times. See, a coworkers wife showed dogs. Think the Thanksgiving Day Westminster Dog Show. The people who trot the fancy dogs around the ring. That was what she did- she trained, groomed and showed fancy pedigreed dogs as a profession. (Yeah, a little crazy, I know.) Anyway, once these fancy dogs won enough blue ribbons to be dubbed 'champions' and then went on to breed enough future champions, they were often abandonded by their true owners.

Hence, our possession of Lil' Rick. Champion of Corgi's with a google-able name, daddy to many more little champion Corgi's, and master of none of the tricks normal people expect your dog to preform whe the phrase 'show dog' is uttered.

When we finally broke down and agreed to a visit to meet the dog selected for us. I was by no means enchanted with him.

He was released from the dog pens with a fury. He ran into the room with a streak of orange fur. He jumped on furniture. He jumped on people. I backed away and sat down in a chair. He spied me and ran full speed in my direction to cover me in Corgi kisses. But he didn't stop soon enough. He launched himself into the air and only stopped due to a nose to nose collision. The tip of his snout to the bridge of my nose. Oh-my-God did it hurt.

I didn't want to take him, but Matt was taken with him. One week later we brought home our 5 year old puppy. We weren't always the best parents.

Over the last two years, Rick started having old age issues. Cateracts, bad teeth, arthritis, hearing loss. Last Christmas he started coughing. Several hundred dollars in vet visits couldn't bring a diagnosis. Allergies? The medicine didn't work. Fungal infection? The antibiotics didn't help. Cancer? What was the point of more tests to tell us something we couldn't do anything about.

Over the last few months he'd taken to coughing under our bed at 2am. We started putting him in the laundry room overnight. We always felt horrible about it, but sleep in this house is a fleeting, precious thing.

Last night was Lil' Rick's final night with us. I'm glad he spent it under our bed. Today when Matt got home from work, Rick was cold. The wag of his happy old-man body was gone.

13 years old. 91 in dog years. That's a pretty good run. I hope the last 8 were his favorite.


We'll miss you Lil' Rick.

Tomato, Tomahto

Growing up, our gardens was my favorite part of summer.

The smell of the roses at noon and honeysuckle at night. Veggies galore. Peppers, melons, herbs and tomatoes.

Oh, the tomatoes. I would plunk myself right in the middle of the tomato area with a salt shaker for lunch. One summer I broke out with an incredible rash, that only intensified as the days went on. Diagnosis: tomato allergy. I'm fairly certain I had eaten little else for the previous week. Even after some heavy doses of Benadryl and laying off the fruits for a few days, the rash would return every time I ate anything tomato- ketchup, pasta sauce, soup- which was a major problem in my tomato heavy diet. No worries though, by the next year I was fine and realized I needed to bring a loaf of bread to the garden with me.

As an adult, I seem to be perpetually trying to recreate that rash. Every year I grow more tomatoes than I know what to do with. And every year I seem to plant more than the year before.

This was today's haul:

And the plants are still FULL. I only picked the ripest of the bunch. I may be starting a big batch of tomato sauce tomorrow and canning. Anyone want some?

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

After all the snow and gloom, the sun has finally come out.

It was shocking to see the brilliant gleam bouncing against the white of the snow and through our windows. I'd almost forgotten what it looked like, and why this is my favorite possession in the house.

The chandelier was a birthday gift from Matt years ago. I had coveted it for months and bought it for me on the sly. It was a point of contention when we sold our townhouse and moved to our current single family. The buyers thought it was a fixture that would stay with the house. I thought I would rather stay in the house then leave my beloved piece of wrought iron behind.

I won. (Obviously) Over the years, Matt's dad has taken up the tradition of gifting me the new annual Swarovski crystal Christmas ornament.

Last year I decided they were too beautiful to only put on a tree for a little over a month. Now they permanently reside on my chandelier, filling our dining room with a million rainbows on sunny afternoons.

Ahh... the calm after all the storms. And we are greeted with rainbows.

.

Divine Plans

When Matt and I were preparing for our wedding, we met with the pastor who wed us for an informal pre-marital session.

I was beyond nervous, but the pastor was beyond nice. Before arriving that day he had asked Matt and I to fill out a survey, keeping our answers confidential from each other. In the spirit of the exercise we did. Even the portion titled ‘Sexual Relations’. Trust me, it was excruciating.

I honestly can’t remember much of the three hour discussion outside of one blip. When we got to the sex portion of our survey, it was the one segment where our answers were 100% identical. It was full of questions like:

“Does your partner fulfill your needs emotionally?”
“Does your partner fulfill your needs sexually?”
“Do you feel pressured to perform sexual acts?”
“Do you see yourself with children in the future?”
“How many children would you like to have?”

Our answers?
YES
YES
NO
NO
ZERO

Matt and I had no intention of having children. I didn’t want children because of my diabetes and all the ‘what ifs?’ that surrounded pregnancy, for me and a child. Matt didn’t want kids because he said he was absolutely happy with our lives as it is.

A few years after we were married I changed my mind. I did want a child. Technology had changed to the point where I could keep my blood sugar almost perfect, and my AC1 in the non-diabetic range. Plus, new research was showing that the genetic predisposition for type I diabetes was dominant on the fathers side, not the mothers.

When I told Matt I wanted to have a baby, he looked at me with shining eyes and laughed. Defensive, I questioned the laughter. He responded that he thought this would happen some day and that this is how he KNOWS there is a God. God had flipped on my baby making switch and he was on board. While he loved our life together as it is, he would also love any baby we made together with the same passion.

Gracie was born two years ago yesterday, October 12, 2007.

And in 7 more months, she will no longer be an only child.

The switch has been flipped again.

Don’t get too excited though. We are super gluing it in the OFF position after this baby comes.

The Junkie Monkey is Back

Matt has worked for three different Agencies during our years in Maryland.

The second Agency has posts all over the world and as such, Matt was expected to carry a blackberry at all times, day and night, incase something happened in Zimbabwe that needed his immediate attention.

*It NEVER did.*

He kept the blackberry by the bedside for the first month or so. The thing would inevitably start buzzing at 3am, not because there was a crisis, but because someone in China decided to send an email. You can’t really be mad at the schmuck in China, it was work related and it was broad daylight there, but I could be mad at Matt for keeping the thing 2 feet from his head and not getting any sleep. So the blackberry was banished to kitchen.

Like most work-a-holics, the crackberry really is just that. He can’t help himself. He hears the siren song of the buzz and is drawn. It is actually better when it buzzes, instead of being rendered completely silent, because in silence comes paranoia. What if? What if?!! So he checks it every 5 minutes.

Any you know what? There is ALWAYS a freaking email. I can go all day without a single email. Matt can’t seem to go 2 minutes without one.

Anyway, when he left that agency, he turned in the blackberry. I was thrilled. He hand withdrawal shakes for awhile.

At his now job, they have decided to feed the addict. The crackberry is back.

Matt told me that a few of the guys he regularly has lunch with have a nickname for him, ‘Meetings’. I know, it is far from clever, but it really is quite accurate. His office quickly recognized that he is smarter than the average bear and much, much smarter than the typical government employee, so he was assigned special projects. Which lead to more special projects. Which has led to multiple meetings daily. Which has lead to some fairly high level meeting and projects. Meeting and projects that will soon affect the daily lives of the American taxpayer. Which has lead to invitations for him to speak at conferences.

Which has led to this…. the crackberry.

It was determined that since his brilliant mind is away from the office so much, they wanted to still be in touch with him and presented Matt with a shiny, still in the box new blackberry.

Super.

The one plus to it though, is that it has internet. Matt pulled up Google for me without hesitation to show off his new toy. If he can pull up Google though, that means accessing my Google Reader isn’t that much of a stretch. And if the Reader is ok, Blogspot is a Google creation…. So maybe you will be getting up to date reports from our Outer Banks vacation next week.

Faith

I grew up with religion. Catholic religion. My brother and I were the only cousins out of… oh about 40… on my dad 100% Irish side of the family that didn’t go to Catholic school K-12.

There are 3 reasons for this:
1) My mom attended Catholic school K-2nd grade. When lessons in penmanship began, she was regularly beaten with a ruler for being left handed. 3rd grade my grandparents moved her to public school.
2) My dad attended Catholic school K-11th grade. During grades 9-11 he apparently spent vast amounts of time digging holes, refilling those holes and bathing the meanest Saint Barnard (the school mascot) as punishment for his antics. For his final paper in religion class he wrote and in depth analysis of the failings of the Catholic Church and called the Pope a fraud. He was asked to leave the premises and never return. He attended public school grade 12.
3) Catholic school is expensive.

Despite these ill feelings, my mom still made sure we were raised in the church. For the most part, as a child, I liked it. We went to mass every Sunday. We stayed after for CCD and catechism classes. I sang in the children’s choir, despite not being able to carry a tune. I stood in front of the entire congregation and did readings. I did these things because I wanted to, because Father asked me to and I could not say no to such a beautiful heart.

After my confirmation, my attendance started to slip. I was in high school after all. In college my attendance was almost non existent. I only went when my friend Bill asked me to go with him, and I am fairly sure he only went as penitence for all the drinking and carousing he did the rest of the week.

It was also in these years that I started to doubt so much of the teachings I accepted without question in my childhood. Particularly the Catholic Church’s hard line stance on a person’s right to choose- their partners and their bodies.

But I always seem to go back. In a fit of rage Matt and I decided to be married by a Methodist minister instead of the priest I wanted, but after much debate we still had Gracie baptized Catholic. When she starts kindergarten we will enroll her in CCD classes too.

We haven’t been to mass in months though. It’s odd because on some level I really do love going. I love the music and voices, the smell of flowers and incense, the routine. It is comfortable and never changes. Watching Kennedy’s burial on CNN this past Saturday, I sat on the couch eating a freeze pop and absent mindedly participating in the service. I’m sure others at home were doing the same thing.

I still find myself struggling with what I believe, but I know that I do believe. I guess that is one of the beautiful things about structured religion: It always welcomes you back with open arms.

Civility

My mom is in town. She flew out on Wednesday for the sole purpose of getting as much face time with her granddaughter as possible. Given this, we were afforded a night out.

Matt and I went to my new favorite restaurant, the Brick Ridge Inn. This place is fabulous. Understated elegance, the rustic charm of an old school house now surrounded by beds of wildflowers and the herbs used in the kitchen, all the produce they serve comes from local farmers markets, affordable wine, and courses that make you want to lick the plate. I am still full the next morning.

But that is not what this story is about.

As my senior year progressed and my University had be selected my mom put down an ultimatum. I was not going to be allowed to go unless I chose a major. So I chose. Speech Communications with a specialization in Public Relations. You want to know how I settled on this? General Hospital. There was a character in the soap opera who career was ‘public relations’. I had no idea what that meant, but it looked glamorous, you know being a soap and all. Mom apparently never made the connection between my choice and the TV show, so off I went.

The major consisted of a lot of public speaking, interpersonal relations and journalism classes. It was interesting, but easy. I zipped through at a pace to allow graduation in 3 years. I wasn’t going to let that happen, there were still a lot more parties to go to. So I added a second major of Political Science. I loved it. It was pre-law and American government courses galore. Honestly, this time I took the classes as a conversation building block. I had always doted on my Great Uncle Jim and I thought the more I knew about government, the better perspective I would have on our conversations. He died just before I graduated college, but I know he was pleased with me. The Poly Sci classes wound up serving me well in the end, as my career was made possible by those American government classes.

One of the big things I learned during that last year of college though that was I don’t like talking politics. It is so emotional. Some people thrive on that raw nerve, heart on a platter conversation. I avoid it. I am a big believer that unless you ABSOLUTELY know (and are sensitive to) the views of your companion, religion and politics are not for polite company. Thank you Miss. Manners.

So moments after Matt and I placed our order, a table of 6 was seated next to us. Despite the stomach turning wafts of old lady perfume, I paid no attention to the table of late 50/early 60-somethings.

Then they started in on Politics.

At first it was humorously (from our prospective) boastful. Some guy was claiming to be 3 times removed from the Kennedy family. “I went to a Kennedy event and Eunice was seating at the next table. The wait staff came around taking orders and I said, ‘I have Kennedy blood damnit and I want a lobster!’ – Well, OK, I didn’t quite say it like that, but you get the picture.” They discussed Teddy’s passing and Chappaquiddick and all the great things he did while in Congress.

But then, they moved onto September 11th. I couldn’t believe it. They moved onto such a sensitive topic with the same jovial tone. The same hardy attitude while telling there own ‘When I Heard the News’ stories. It was horrible.

To quash the scene we wanted to make, we started loudly discussing all the times we were seating next to obnoxious people in restaurants. The ocean front Bahamas restaurant when we were seating next to a NYC couple exchanging rattlesnake gifts for their anniversary; the lady who valued her $40 buffet admission more than the modesty (and sanitation) of not having menstrual fluid soak though the back of her dress; the old lady in Vegas the ate ¾ of her dinner and then complained about it…..

This was just a different kind of tacky. So distasteful.