Free to be ... Snowed in

As a thank-you gift for hosting her family, my old friend Kirsten sent my kids “Free to Be … You and Me” – both the CD (just songs) and the DVD. We watched it together yesterday, which should have been the last day of school before the holiday break but turned out to be a snow day. I think I enjoyed having a snow day as much as my kids did. Craig didn’t go to work yesterday because the roads were too treacherous, and we turned the day off of school into a family day of playing hooky. My six-year-old had a nasty cough, so even playing outside in the newly fallen snow seemed ill-advised. Instead of scurrying about, as we would have on a typical busy Friday just before a holiday, we lounged in our jammies, played board games, listened to Craig tune his guitar, and foraged for food in our near-empty cupboard (sodium-free lentil soup with crumbled Goldfish crackers, anyone?).

As enjoyable as the day was, the highlight for me was watching “Free to Be … You and Me” with my kids. I learned from reading the insert that the show was created in 1974, when I was four years old. My elementary school showed it during assemblies at least once a year between kindergarten and sixth grade. I knew most of it by heart. Craig claims to have never even heard of it [1]and, I could tell, had to restrain himself from mocking me when my eyes welled up during the opening scene. Of course, the production values are cheesy – it is 35 years old, after all – but the image really got to me: live-action, goofy little 70’s kids in their bell bottoms and stripes travel around and around on a merry-go-round, happily oblivious to the limits of their circular path, until they become animated cartoon figures, riding swift horses that leap off of the merry-go-round and race freely across the countryside.

The kids on horses were my favorite part of the show, but my children liked the talking baby puppets the most. They dissolved into giggles every time Mel Brooks’ voice came out of the little bald baby’s mouth. They were particularly amused when he insisted that he was a girl. “I want to be a cocktail waitress when I grow up. See! I’m a girl!” (Can Mel Brooks' voice sound anything other than sarcastic?) They also enjoyed the story of Atalanta, the fleet princess who refuses to marry unless a suitor beats her in a footrace, but meets her match in young John, who agrees that she should not marry until she travels the world, just as she wishes. My daughter seemed to enjoy the princess element of the story, and my son enjoyed the race scene.

Another scene that I found both entertaining and bizarre was the Michael Jackson song about growing up. He looks like he’s about fifteen in the video (which makes him about 50 years old now – this seems impossible to me). He also looks like a nice, normal kid with fashionably disheveled nappy hair and chocolate-brown skin. What happened to this kid to turn him into the bleached, emaciated recluse that he is today?

For that matter, what happened to Atalanta and those silly babies? The messages in the video (girls can be anything they want to be, it’s OK for boys to play with dolls and cry, everyone is equal and worthy of friendship no matter what they look like) are self-evident, but even now, after more than a third of a century, need reinforcement. Sure, there has been progress – a multiracial president-elect, a greater variety of powerful female role models for my daughter to look up to – but there are still powerful stereotypes that limit our potential and, if we’re not careful, our kids’ potential as individuals. Hollywood starlets are still starving themselves, and tough guys still (usually) finish first.

Watching the video with my kids reminded me of all of the resolutions that I had when I was younger, before I had kids, about the egalitarian Utopia that would be my home. I would work in a high-powered career (with, perhaps, a stay-at-home husband) and also be a perfect hands-on mother who raised her perfect children to be proud of their gender-neutral life choices and have lots of multicultural, socio-economically diverse friends. No Barbie dolls or toy guns in my home, thank you very much, and definitely no Disney movies.

This vision, I must report, is a far cry from the reality of my life. I worked in a “high-powered” job for the first two years of my son’s life, but have been pretty much a full-time stay-at-home mom since then. My kids have some degree of diversity among their friends, but it’s not quite what I imagined it would be. My daughter is crazy about both Disney princesses and Barbie dolls, and, while I have managed to stick to the no-toy-guns resolution, my son is quite adept at swordplay with his collection of light sabers.

I wonder how much my failure to stick to my guns is limiting my kids’ perspective, so that they fall back on the predictable choices when they imagine their futures. When somebody asks my son what he wants to be when he grows up, he says “Football player” – a running back for the Steelers, to be exact. Not a teacher or a fashion designer or a chef. A football player. When somebody asks my daughter, she says “I want to be a Mommy.” The first time she said this, I suppressed my dismay and patiently explained that she can be more than a mommy. “You can be a mommy and a doctor or a mommy and an astronaut or a mommy and an artist.” Upon hearing this, she considered for a moment and then “OK, Mommy and Artist.” The second time, her teacher asked her this question in my presence and again, without missing a beat, she answered “Mommy.” I again launched my counteroffensive but she immediately shut me down. She insisted, “No, just a Mommy.”

Her teacher tried to make me feel better by pointing out that I should feel flattered -- my daughter thinks that being a mommy is the best job in the world. I can’t say I disagree. On a snowy day, with a cupboard filled only with canned soup, cuddled up on the sofa with two warm little flannel-jammied bodies, listening to the strum of a live guitar, I can honestly say that I wish for nothing more for myself. But I don’t want my own complacency to dictate my children’s futures. I want them to learn about all the vast possibilities the world holds for them, to jump off our comfortable suburban merry-go-round, knowing that they are always welcome to jump back on, and follow their own paths across the unrestricted terrain.

But I do wonder what motivation they will have to make that leap. If my daughter is a happy princess enjoying a comfortable ride in a luxury coach, she may not care that she's going in circles. She may never wonder what adventures lie beyond the merry-go-round. Of course, I want her, and my son, to be happy and comfortable (what parent wishes for difficult lives for their children?), but if it's too happy and comfortable, how will they learn how to stand up for themselves, or even how to define their true, authentic selves? Even though I know that, as their parent, it will be hard to watch, I hope that they confront some good solid obstacles as they grow up. Not the kind that could seriously mess them up, like, God forbid, getting really sick or being abused, but some not-too-harmful character-building challenges would be nice. Like only getting scholarships to Princeton when they have their hearts set on Harvard. Yes, that would work.

[1] To be fair, I spoke to two other friends who also claim to have never heard of it. In case you are one of the deprived few, here is a brief description from Wikipedia: “Free to Be… You and Me is a record album and illustrated songbook for children, first released in November 1972, and later in 1974 as a television special, featuring songs and stories from celebrities (credited as "Marlo Thomas and Friends"). Using poetry, songs, and sketches, the basic concept was to salute values such as individuality, tolerance, and happiness with one's identity; a major thematic message is that anyone, whether a boy or a girl, can achieve anything one wants.”

Old friends

Based on recent news, it sounds like Illinois politics is like high school politics. Blago is like the captain of the wrestling team, doing whatever it takes to make a lower weight class so he can kick some scrawny kids’ ass, stealing other kids’ papers and cheating on tests so he can keep his GPA above a C- and avoid getting kicked off the team. Obama is the head of student council, respected by peers and teachers for his integrity and wit, uncomfortable with Blago’s hijinks but busy doing his own thing and happy to steer clear of the wrestling team. Every once in awhile they have to get together to plan a pep rally or some such nonsense, but for the most part they travel in different circles.

When I was in high school, I hung out with neither the sports bullies nor the student government geeks. I was one of the parking lot slackers, i.e., the kids who hung out in the parking lot and smoked cigarettes during lunch period and skipped as many classes as possible. My closest friend from high school, Kirsten, just visited with her husband and her three children. It’s surprising how easy it is to fall into some old habits when you’re with old friends. We did a lot of hanging around during high school, watching TV, eating too much, stealing beer, doing all kinds of things that got me into trouble. I think Kirsten probably got in trouble, too, but it didn’t seem like her parents disliked her during our high school years. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was fun to hang out at her house, even when her parents were there. And not because they were the kind of parents who didn’t mind if we drank in their basement (they weren't). They were just easygoing, funny, nice people to be around. I even moved in with her family for a couple of months during a particularly tumultuous period in my own home during senior year. Her parents welcomed me into their home and didn’t ask too many questions. I will always be grateful to them for their kindness during that time.

During earlier, less tumultuous times, maybe sophomore year, when Kirsten and I would hang out at my house, one of our favorite things to do was to make a big bowl of melty Rice Krispie Treats and eat it with a spoon. We didn’t bother with a pan. We weren’t even high during the Rice Krispie Treat phase (that didn’t come until later). We were bored, and it tasted good. My home, for all its flaws, was always well-stocked with junk food.

Needless to say, during her recent visit, my home was better stocked with junk food than it usually is. I went to the grocery store and loaded up on cookies, chips, cheese and crackers, cold cuts and condiments. I don’t often have much junk food in my adult home. These days, it’s Whole Foods all the way. But, you can’t force old friends to eat like rabbits. The culinary tone of the visit was set during their first night in town. We went out to a rib place that we used to frequent, back in the day, called Twin Anchors. I hadn’t remembered that the plates of ribs at this restaurant were Fred Flintstone-sized. I know that, a dozen years ago, they were my first-ever introduction to ribs, and I thought they were delightful. I suppose it’s not a bad thing that my tastes run more towards lighter fare these days. I’m suspect that Kirsten’s tastes do, too, but we had to revisit one of the old haunts. Like I said, old friends, old habits.

Actually, junk food was the only bad old habit we revisited in any serious way. We smoked no cigarettes, ingested no illicit substances, didn’t even drink too much beer. We were in bed before 11:00. Having small kids will knock some bad habits out of you, at least temporarily. It’s necessary for survival – your own and theirs. Even though we played it pretty straight, it still felt slightly subversive to have my old friend in my house with my kids. It’s hard to take yourself seriously as a mommy in the presence of someone who has grooved out with you on the brain-colors of “Terrapin Station.” I haven’t kept in close touch with too many of my friends from those days. Part of it is laziness and distance – I went to high school a thousand miles away from here (literally and figuratively) -- but a bigger part of it is that I have changed so much since then. I hardly recognize the self that I remember. It was a dismal period in my life, and it’s taken a long time to get past it. I went to my twentieth reunion last year, and, when I got home, I dissolved into a puddle from all of the memories that it stirred up. I don’t particularly want to go back and revisit high school anymore.

But being around Kirsten is different. We spent some time as grown-ups living just two city blocks away from each other in Chicago, and Craig and her now-husband Carl became close during that time, as well. She has known me as a shy and insecure kid and as a not-so-shy, reasonably happy adult, and she has been my friend through it all. It was surreal to see her mini-me four-year-old daughter and my own daughter play together. They are crazy about each other. Lots of hugs and zero arguments ensued during twelve straight hours of serious toy-sharing. My continuing friendship with Kirsten hints that, even though I was so different than I am now, the core of my self is the same. Even as a miserable, bored, insecure kid, perhaps there was something there worth cherishing.

Blue Christmas

I just saw an article today in the newspaper about a church that will hold a “Blue Christmas” service this week. The minister will wear blue, and all of the members of the congregation are encouraged to wear blue jeans to church. The point, according to the minister, is that you can’t and shouldn’t try to force jollity during the holidays. This time of year is difficult for people who are going through hard times, who recently lost a loved one or a job, are facing a crisis, or who are feeling just generally down in the dumps. Even when things are going well, something about the holiday season brings out the stress -- too many obligations, too much money to spend, face-to-face interactions with friend and relations who are easier to deal with over the phone or not at all.

Personally, I am a little bit out of sorts. I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving with my family and anticipating another grueling weekend with my parents at Christmas. My post-family-visit recoveries invariably involve mysterious physical symptoms. Sometimes I get a pain in my chest, most of the time it’s severe gastrointestinal discomfort (you don’t want to know the details), but this time it’s an intermittent headache that concentrates just behind my left, but sometimes my right, ear. (I’m encouraged that the headache is bilateral; it makes it less likely to be brain tumor. I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, in case I haven’t mentioned it before.) I’m feeling broke, but I wish I could give gifts to my friends and to all of the underprivileged families that my church has available to “adopt” for Christmas. Home-baked cookies (especially the break-and-bake kind, which is my specialty) don’t really cut it for families who request clothes and shoes (but they may have to suffice for my friends). I also have a deadline looming for a pain-in-the-ass craft project that I let myself get suckered into managing for my kids’ school, which is ironic since, in addition to not being a baker, I am not crafty. A half-painted child-sized table and chairs sits accusingly in my garage, awaiting decoupage and child-size handprints, to be sold to the highest bidder at the school fundraiser. If I weren’t so broke I would just turn it in as-is and buy the damn thing myself.

Blah blah blah. My complaints and my pottymouth bore even me.

But, that’s not to say there aren’t some devastatingly wonderful moments. When I picked up my kids from school the other day, my four-year-old daughter ran over to me, caressed my cheek, and sighed, “You’re the best mommy in the world.” She is definitely in a mommy-loving phase, and I am loving every minute of it. I want to bottle it so I can take a swig when she is sixteen and telling me she hates me for taking her phone away. My six-year-old made me proud as punch today during his basketball practice, only his second one ever, with his Sisyphean persistence. He lacks some fundamental dribbling skills compared to the other kids, but he didn’t get frustrated or give up. He just kept trying, again and again, to run a zig-zag around the orange cones, each time losing the ball with a little bit less frequency then the last time. I was almost in tears as I looked on among the other proud parents.

Of course, these good moments have nothing to do with the holiday season, per se. They just stand out in stark relief to all the bullshit annoyances. Don’t get me wrong; I love the smell of the pine, the Christmas caroling, the twinkling lights, and the happy anticipation of Christmas morning. The good comes with the bad, but maybe that makes the good seem even better.

In fact, maybe that’s the point of the season. One of my good friends has invited me for the past couple of years to an all-women’s candlelight Advent service at her church. It is a beautiful, empowering service that celebrates our distinctive roles as wives, mothers, and friends. The readings at this service are surprisingly non-traditional for an Episcopal service. One of them celebrates the “goddess” in all of us and beseeches this “goddess” to help us celebrate and love our bodies. This seems subversively pagan to a recovering Catholic such as myself, and it makes me want to hug the minister who includes it every year. During the service, we sing only one hymn, and we sing it twice: “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” For a Christmas carol, it’s quite dark. I could be wrong, as I’m not a musician, but I think it’s played in a minor key, like a dirge, and the lyrics are written from the perspective of captive Hebrews who are begging God to send someone to save them from hellish tyranny. Even the chorus, which begins with “Rejoice, Rejoice”, sounds grim. By the end of the fourth verse, I was longing for a little “Joy to the World”.

Speaking of music, a funny thing happened during the service (well, funny to me). Keep in mind, the theme of the service was “Quiet”, as in “Let’s all share a quiet moment and appreciate the true meaning of the season.” There were signs posted around the vestibule saying “Hush, Quiet, It’s Advent.” We all entered the nave in silence, and the lights were dimmed to enhance the ambience. A line from one of the readings entreated God to help us to harness technology and not to be a slave to it. At the precise moment that this line was read, a cell phone, evidently programmed to high volume, rang out “I Can’t Fight this Feeling Anymore” by REO Speedwagon. The phone belonged to an acquaintance sitting directly behind me, who couldn’t find the phone in her purse, dropped it on the stone floor when she finally dug it out, and muttered “Oh my God” several times before she found the off button. The woman who owned the phone is not a close friend, but I know her well enough to suspect that she will continue to regularly replay this moment in her head for some time to come, and it will take her even longer to see the humor in it. I learned from another friend sitting next to her that a kindly older woman sitting directly behind her leaned over, put her hand on her shoulder, and whispered, “It’s OK. Let it drift away.”

It’s probably no accident that Christmas comes during the darkest week of the year (at least in our hemisphere), and has a traditional association with snow. The snow makes everything quiet and still, and it also serves as a blank backdrop, like a Hollywood green screen, onto which we project all of the noisy complications in our lives. Or, perhaps, like that wonderful final line of James Joyce’s “The Dead”, the snow reminds us of how close we are to the “descent of (our) last end”. Maybe we need to embrace the anxious moments inherent in the season, which are inherent in our human experience, to fully perceive the transcendent joy of Christmas.

A Very Muslim Thanksgiving

I just returned from Thanksgiving weekend with my family. They live 500 miles away, which is a perfect distance because it isn’t too far for a quarterly road trip but it is too far away for impromptu drop-ins. Every visit with my parents and siblings is rife with family-dysfunction landmines, no matter how peaceful relations seem to be leading up to the visit. This trip was no different, so I’ll be processing the psychic aftershocks for weeks to come. The origins of these land-mines will be explored in the forthcoming thinly-veiled autobiographical novel, so I won’t delve too deeply here. Suffice it to say that, despite my high hopes, the family peace continues to be almost as tenuous as that between the Sunni and the Shi’a.

One diversion from the traditional sources of family tension was the anticipation of my younger sister’s impending nuptials, which is a joyous occasion, to be sure, but also a new source of tension. My sister is a cool and funky lady. She is an acupuncturist who is into yoga, meditation, art, and music. She’s independent, sensitive, and smart, and she holds very high yet idiosyncratic standards for her friends and potential partners. She once called me distraught because her then-boyfriend (now-fiance) did some kind of trippy visual meditation during a Zen mindfulness meditation group and, consequently, she didn’t know if she could trust him. Coming from a conservative middle-class Catholic background and living in a blue-collar city, she is quite a cocktail, and she has had some problems connecting with guys. The fellow whom she is planning to marry is a bit out of the mainstream himself. He is a Syrian Muslim who sometimes goes to Catholic mass and, as mentioned, attends Buddhist meditation groups. He is great with kids and pets, does Internet design for a living, plans to go back to school for an MBA, and runs marathons. He is a millennial man.

My sister surprised my mom this Thanksgiving by inviting her fiance’s family – three siblings and his mother -- for dinner at the last minute. There was plenty of food, and on such a family-oriented holiday it was perfectly appropriate to share a meal with the future family. Despite some panicky grumbling, my mom did a surprisingly good job of rolling with it. She explained a bit defensively that she hadn’t invited them herself because she didn’t know whether the fiance’s family celebrates Thanksgiving since they are Muslims. Rather than explaining that Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday and that everyone can give thanks without worrying about breaking the rules, I took a breath and congratulated her on being so flexible and welcoming to my sister’s future in-laws.

We had a lovely dinner. The fiance’s family was warm and gracious and seemed to enjoy the food and the company. There were a few variations to our typical Thanksgiving dinner. The fiance’s mother and younger sister wore hijabs and remained behind for a few minutes to perform private prayers before joining the rest of us at the dinner table. The grace that my dad mumbled when we were all sitting together was a little more stilted and generic than usual. The Muslim guests abstained from drinking the wine that my father poured generously for my family (except for my mom, who is in AA). Otherwise, though, the experience of sharing a holiday with a Muslim family seemed more mundane that I would have expected. We played pool, watched football, and worked on puzzles with the kids. We all groaned about being too full of pie and complained about the weather and the economy.

In one of those funny little cosmic coincidences, my husband and I turned on "The Simpsons" for the first time in a long, long time when we got home from our trip, and the show was about Bart’s new Muslim friend, Bashir. Marge and Homer invite Bashir’s family to dinner, but Homer’s motives are less than friendly – he grills Bashir’s parents about their connections with terrorists and offends them so much that they leave in the middle of dinner. In his effort to make amends, Homer breaks into their home and goes all Jack Bauer on them, hacking into their computer and searching through their mail. This was funny, because prior to our Thanksgiving meal together I could imagine my parents behaving similarly, if slightly less excessively. They are both pretty freaked out about my sister’s marriage.

I haven’t spoken to her about it, but I’m sure my sister recognizes my parents’ apprehension. I found a book that she bought for them called “The Muslim Next Door,” which I picked up and started to read. It is a memoir, written by a young Muslim woman who grew up in Suburbia USA, which demystifies some of the questions and misperceptions about Islam, particularly as it relates to life in the Western world. One thing that I thought was interesting in the book is the way that the author explains that Islam is a religion of orthopraxy, or one that emphasizes behavior and conduct, as opposed to orthodoxy, which emphasizes faith and belief in the way that most versions of Christianity do. Basically, Muslims must wear their religion on their sleeves. Just saying that they believe in the Koran, or even believing that they believe in the Koran, doesn’t count. They can’t skip Ramadan or refuse to wear a hijab and then go to confession to wash away their sins. Islam is not just an individual belief, but it permeates family relationships, the educational system, and the legal system in the countries where it represents the majority. This outward demonstration of belief challenges the deny-and-repress, don’t-ask-don’t-tell religious attitude that permeates most of our day-to-day relationships in this country.

This can be awkward and inconvenient, and it can challenge our personal beliefs. Waiting for my sister’s future mother- and sister-in-law to say their private prayers while we all stood around the Thanksgiving table was a little uncomfortable. The kids were hungry and cranky, and the grownups didn’t really know what to say to each other. The publicly private display of piety made us all feel like heathens, which probably accounts for my dad’s mumbled version of grace. My sister and her fiancé visited us for a weekend at the beginning of Ramadan this past summer, and her fiancé was too tired from fasting during the day to do much more than sleep on the beach. He also needed special food for his pre-sunrise and post-sunset meals, and it felt weird to have him sit at meals with us but not eat. This was all kind of a hassle, and it made us non-Muslims feel a little bit like jerks for not fasting with him.

When it comes down to it, though, I think, or hope, that even my parents recognize that our lives will all be enriched by stretching the family boundaries to include different global perspectives. Every family merger challenges the status quo, no matter how similar the families seem to be on the outside. A family's fate becomes tied to that of relative strangers by a sacred bond between members of the two clans. My brother’s wife’s family has a similar religious background and values to those of my parents. They live in Mexico City and don’t speak English very well, though, which initially caused my parents a great deal of consternation. My parents are still puzzled and irritated by the language barrier (Sample conversation between my mom and my brother about his two-year-old bilingual son: Mom -- "It's cute how Derek makes up his own words for things." Big brother -- "He's not making them up, Mom; he's speaking Spanish."). But they enjoy having family in Mexico, which is a great place to visit. As far as my own challenge to the status quo, my husband's family is highly functional. All of the healthy, joyful communication among these in-laws probably made my parents very uncomfortable at first, but I think they have found a way to live with it.

It's a slow evolutionary process. While every addition to the family brings about its own new sources of tension, it seems to dilute the old sources of tension and send them a little bit further into the background. The family disputes that used to be more akin to atom bombs have now become mere land mines. Hopefully, over time, these land mines will become just shimmering fireworks as the creative destruction of my parents’ family unit approaches its peaceful conclusion.

Grace

I had a moment of grace today. My husband worked on the lights on the Christmas tree with my daughter’s help while my son, who just had his first piano lesson, sat at the piano and played a halting, one-handed version of the chorus from “Ode to Joy.” Coincidentally, “Ode to Joy” is the song that my husband and I listened to as we marched hand-in-hand out of the church where we got married. I enjoyed the scene from the kitchen while I cooked Sunday dinner. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Community organizing

My in-laws are very cool people. They both just recently retired – my mother-in-law from teaching and my father-in-law from a career in journalism – but you would never know it from how busy they are. And they’re not just busy with stamp collecting or Alaskan cruises. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If you’ve worked for forty years and have decided that stamps and cruises are your thing, then God bless. You’ve earned the right to spend your time any way you want to, short of torturing small animals or grandchildren.) One of the things that they are busy with is community organizing. Remember the sneer on Rudy Guiliani’s face when he spat out that term during the Republican convention a couple of months ago? “Barack Obama was a community organizer.” Pause, sneer, snort. “What is that?” Applause. What an ass he was. I enjoyed the editorializing in response to that speech: “Jesus was a community organizer” and “Our nation was founded by a band of community organizers.” Community organizers do good work.

One of the projects in which my in-laws are involved is an attempt to get a college-prep charter high school approved to be built in a nearby town. The town is less than ten miles away from the upscale town where we live, but it couldn’t be more different in its demographics and income levels. It is impoverished old industrial town and, I’m estimating, inhabited by about 80% black people and Latinos. They have scant resources, huge classes, high dropout rates, and low test scores. My mother-in-law recently invited me to go to a meeting to “learn more about” the charter school proposal. I am in fact concerned about education reform, so I eagerly accepted the invitation. I figured I would be listening to a presentation, perhaps offering some perspective or advice or otherwise getting involved in working on a strategic plan. I like watching presentations and working on strategic plans. These activities are fun and interesting to me.

After my in-laws picked me up to drive to the meeting, I learned a little more about where we were heading, and I realized that I need to ask more questions the next time I am invited to a meeting by community organizers. It wasn’t exactly a strategic planning session. It was a demonstration to demand that the charter school be approved by the town’s school board at its monthly meeting. We met in a church basement with about two- or three-hundred other people, mostly families from that community but also a number of people from surrounding areas who were there with church groups or social service organizations. In the church basement, a light-skinned black woman in red boots and a red wrap gave us our instructions – stick with the group as we walked together to the high school for a school board meeting, sit together in the middle of the auditorium, cheer for the charter school proposal presenters, and leave together at exactly 8:30 PM, whether or not the school board meeting was over. Then another woman, more cheerleader-ish than the first woman and also wearing red, stood up and led the “pep rally” portion of the meeting, encouraging the crowd to chant, whoop, and holler good-naturedly as we walked the two blocks to the school.

Before I knew it, I was handed a red t-shirt and swept out the door with the crowd. We walked to the high school together, marching and chanting:
What do we want: CHARTER SCHOOLS!
When do we want it: NOW!
This was a bit out of my comfort zone. As my husband pointed out after I told him about the demonstration, “You usually don’t like to dive right into things.” My typical style is to observe and gather information before I become a vocal proponent of something. I’ve never been involved in a march or a protest. I have, though, knocked on doors and gotten into verbal scuffles over political issues, but only after I’ve done my homework. There was no time for homework in this situation. These families wanted a charter school now, and I was there to help. Marching and chanting were the kinds of help they needed at that moment.

After we arrived at the meeting and settled into our seats, the school district’s superintendent introduced a number of school board members and district officers, who were sitting in a row up on the stage in front of us. The president of the school board, seated in the middle like a Grand Inquisitor, was a white woman who looked a little bit like a toad. She sternly reminded the audience members of the rules and time limits for guest speakers. She seemed particularly surly in her admonishment to parents of young children that they take unruly children outside so they wouldn’t disturb the proceedings. Then, after a brief introduction of the charter school leadership team, the head of the charter school company, a small, youngish white woman wearing a pantsuit and boasting both a PhD and a great vocabulary stood at a microphone on the floor of the auditorium and began to address her remarks to the members of the school board.

As if on cue, every child under the age of five (there were at least ten in the auditorium) promptly started to throw tantrums, except for the sweet little boy in the row right in front of me. He seemed to be around four, the same age as my daughter, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. He didn’t have any crayons or toys, but he amused himself by looking around at the crowd and giving his mother hugs and kisses. He was at that wonderful age when he was in love with his mama, just like my daughter is right now. Ten times a day my little girl sighs, “Mama, I love you,” or “You are so pwetty.” I wish I could bottle these moments up to uncork and savor when she is a teenager, stomping and slamming doors.

After a number of parents shuffled their wailing toddlers out of the hall, the presentation continued and evolved into a Q and A between the charter school leadership team and the school board about finances and taxes. The school board clearly opposed the charter school on the basis of the lost tax revenue that it would entail for the main high school in the community. As planned, our group of two- or three-hundred red-shirt wearing fellow demonstrators rose and left the auditorium en masse before the meeting adjourned, so I don’t know if things started to look up for the charter school team, but the board didn’t seem very happy with the plan at the time we left.

Despite my marching and chanting, I still don’t know how I feel about the charter school plan that was presented that night. I can’t imagine how helpless it must feel to have a child in a crappy, dangerous school and to have such limited resources that they are stuck there, without any alternatives. Charter schools offer alternatives, and for that reason I hope that the school board approves it. The families who were demonstrating for their right to provide their children with a better education deserve to win their battle.

The flip side, though, is that charter schools come at a cost to the other schools in the district. What happens to the students who don’t have the motivation or the family support to apply to the charter school? I would like to think that introducing some competition into the system raises everybody’s game, but I don’t know if the rules of capitalism apply to schools. (Given what’s happening in our economy, I don’t even know if the rules of capitalism apply to capitalism.) It goes without saying, though, that raising the level of educational opportunities for all children is good for everyone in our society, and that every kid deserves a good education.

With apologies to quantum physicists…

I just broke down and took my kids to see High School Musical 3 today. Not that they really had to twist my arm - I enjoyed High School Musical and HSM2 way more than I should have. The show lost some of its magic for me in its leap to the big screen, though. The songs weren’t as catchy, the characters didn’t grow or surprise me (except when the gay guy invited a girl to the prom- not really growth, but a bit of a surprise), and there was no conflict. Although my kids loved it, proclaiming it their favorite of the series, I think even they felt a little bored by Troy and Gabriella’s lack of edginess. As soon as he climbed into his car seat afterward, my six-year-old asked if we could listen to the Eels, which we have in the CD player. Specifically, he wanted to hear “Dog Faced Boy,” and, craving a little subversiveness myself (let’s face it – despite having a couple of harmless songs on Shrek movie soundtracks, Mark Everett is a deeply disturbed individual), I quickly obliged, and we all happily sang along during the drive home from the theater.

Coming home from the school today
Crying all along the way
Ain't no way for a boy to be
Begging ma to shave me please…

Ma won't shave me
Jesus can't save me
Dog faced boy

Life ain't pretty for a dog faced boy

Upon reflection, maybe I should remove the Eels from the car CD changer until the kids are both out of elementary school.

The Eels CD made me think about a documentary that my husband and I saw about Mark Everett’s father, Hugh Everett, who was a famous and influential physicist until he committed suicide when Mark was in college. I imagine that this family dynamic, combined with a gene pool fed by crazy genius genes – Mark Everett’s schizophrenic sister also committed suicide -- has something to do with the dour tone of most of the Eels’ music.

Dr. Everett was a pioneer in the field of quantum physics who hypothesized the idea of alternate universes. Somehow this relates to string theory. I can’t even pretend to understand the theory or its implications beyond the most basic level.(1) I think the idea is that rather than the traditionally accepted four dimensions of reality -- three space dimensions plus one time dimension – there are actually somewhere between seven and twelve dimensions. This is the only way to explain the funky, illogical ways that various subatomic particles and objects in space behave. Dr. Everett pushed this idea further to suggest that, in these alternate dimensions, alternate versions of ourselves may be living entirely different lives than the ones that we are aware of.

This idea is beyond creepy to me. Four dimensions is quite enough for me to handle, thank you very much. (Perhaps this is one reason I'm having a hard time with fiction writing.) Not only that, but string theorists seem to be a little too goofy to take seriously as scientists. Their research is peppered with terms like “graviton” and “fuzzball,” which makes it sound like these guys are just messing with us. Are they scientists or Austin Powers villains?

Evidently string theorists are engaged in an academic war with other physicists who think that string theory is a load of hooey. The other school of thought (don’t know what it’s called, but I'm sure it has a catchy name) posits that four dimensions are in fact enough to explain everything in the universe. There was a profile of one of the four-dimension science guys in The New Yorker about six months ago. Again, I can’t remember his name, but he was a renegade kind of guy, a “maverick”, if you will, who dropped out of the Ivy League and for several years lived in a trailer by the beach, surfed for half the day and thought about math for the rest of the day until he refined his theory and made it presentable to the scientific community. Compared to string theory, his theory was simple and earthbound, and it was like a hand grenade thrown into the field of quantum physics.

The debate still rages on, I’m sure, in terms that are way beyond my comprehension level. But one of the things that I think is cool about the debate, or the way that the New Yorker piece explained it, is that all these science guys seem to know that their work is, at least for the foreseeable future, purely theoretical and can be neither proven nor disproven. They are really engaged in a debate about faith, not science. They are trying to understand the world, and they value one theory over another based on how “beautiful” it is. By “beautiful”, they mean aesthetically pleasing. Really, this was how the scientists who were interviewed explained their motivations and values. Not being a mathematician, I’ve never experienced math as a beautiful thing, but I think I understand what they mean. They appreciate harmony, symmetry, balance, and a satisfying sense of resolution in their theories. They want to be surprised, but they need their theories to engage with their intuitive understanding of the world. In the absence of “proof,” they need their equations and hypotheses to connect with them on both an intellectual and an emotional level.

I think that when you experience this kind of connection with something in the world, whether it's a movie, a scenic vista, a math equation, or a song, it illuminates some truth of human experience and our connection to each other. This is true whether it expresses deep sadness or joy, hope or despair, or the promise of resolution to a baffling conundrum. I believe that these connections also illuminate a connection to a higher power that provides an intrinsic order and meaning towards which we all strive.(2) "Beautiful" in this sense is very different from "pretty", which may be nice to look at but illuminates nothing. I love it that my children seem intuitively to distinguish the soulful, despairing beauty of Eels songs from the prettiness of the kids in High School Musical. But I may need to be more careful about introducing too much of the darker side of beauty too soon so I don't blow their minds before they reach second grade.

(1) Even Wikipedia can’t boil string theory down into a concise framework; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory, which is indecipherable.

(2) It occurs to me that perhaps string theory allows for this higher power idea and that it exists on the additional dimensions that string theorists infer. Maybe science and spirituality are in fact approaching an explicit synthesis, not just an implicit one. OK, now I am blowing my own mind.

Blog dork

In case anyone is wondering, I am doing this blog thing for a few reasons. Number one, because it makes my ramblings seem more important if I can imagine that there might someday be an audience for them. I even imagine my kids or future unborn grandchildren stumbling across this someday in cyberspace. The problem with that is that I need to watch what I write. Don’t want the kids to know everything, after all, even if they are adults when they read this.

Another is to practice writing for my in-progress thinly veiled autobiographical novel. I know, you can’t wait to read about my awkward middle school years and my flag-twirling period in high school, but you’re just going to have to be patient. Getting the ideas out of my head and onto a screen is a bit like giving birth – not as physically taxing, obviously, but accompanied by a little bit of the feeling I had during my 24-plus hours of labor with my first child. Lots and lots of teeth grinding with nothing much worthwhile to show for it, just another centimeter dilated after three hours of hard labor. Hopefully, the more I work on this, the easier it will become, just like it is easier to pop out the sixth baby than the first one. (Or so I’ve heard. I have no intention of finding out firsthand.) I was thinking that if I am writing for an audience, even an imaginary one since I may never tell anybody my blog address, I might be more motivated to write more and write better.

The biggest reason, though, is that it makes me happy. Oddly and inexplicably happy. I drive my kids to school or wait in the checkout line at the grocery store and instead of being annoyed with traffic or slow cashiers I think about what to write next.

But, besides all of those reasons, the initial shot in the arm for my first entry really did come from the election of Barack Obama (hooray – still a thrill). I was just rereading that entry and it seems to be hopelessly schmaltzy and sentimental. And, to my post-modern self-reflexive horror, I wrote in unabashed, heartfelt adulatory tones about Oprah. This is particularly embarrassing to me at the moment because I decided yesterday that I should do some reconnaissance into this so-called blogosphere into which I am dipping my toes. There are huge numbers of women bloggers out there, writing about home and kids, who have funny and interesting things to say. One of them in particular, whose entry about buying a minivan made me laugh out loud, wrote in her profile the following:

“...That is right about when I realized I had become a boring suburban housewife. Secret shame? My first post was about my life changing epiphany during an Oprah show. That day’s show was: How not to be a lame-assed housewife watching Oprah.”1

OK, I don’t spend a lot of time watching Oprah. None, really, in a typical week. Maybe if I am stuck at home because of three feet of snow or a flu outbreak. I really do admire her, though. And I am still unapologetically psyched about Obama, so I forgive myself for my earnestness in that entry. I’m just embarrassed to be a blogging mama cliché, writing about Oprah in my very first entry ever. My inclination is to go back, delete it from the blog, print it out, and put the letter in a box for my kids to read when they are old enough to understand it but not old enough to be embarrassed by it. At the very least, I’d like to revise it to make it a little less dorky. But, I’m going to swallow my pride and let it stand. I did, in fact, write what I wanted my kids to know about, and, ultimately, I’m more of a serious, earnest, dorky person than an funny, ironic, cool person. But that’s mostly OK with me, even if it’s a little embarrassing sometimes.

1. I’m nothing if not a rule follower. This is my footnote for the quote that shamed me. I’m not sure of the proper way to cite a blog, but I’ll adapt the classic MLA format: Anne Nahn, “About,”[ http://annenahm.com/?page_id=2], September 2008.

Too much perspective

I spoke to a friend yesterday whose father was just diagnosed with cancer, and another friend today whose father-in-law just died last week. The second friend, the one who just lost her father-in-law, said that he had been in the hospital but had been improving and was planning on coming home. The night before he was to be released, he died, instantly, in his sleep. That was a source of comfort to my friend and her husband, as was the fact that her mother-in-law had also died a couple of years ago. “Even though my husband feels like an orphan,” she said, “at least he knows that his dad and mom are together now.”

It’s funny, in a sad way, to hear about a forty-year-old man feeling like an orphan. I have an image of this man, a rather large man, wearing knickers and tatty shoes, with a smudged face and an entreaty for more porridge. “Please, suh, may I have more?” But I get it. Every week it seems that I hear about another friends’ parent who is sick, or updates about those who have been sick and are declining. My own parents have had some serious health scares during this past year. If the phone rings at an odd time, I jump, wondering if this will be the call that everyone gets eventually, the one that tells you that you are an orphan.

I’m at that age where this is becoming increasingly likely. I’m also at that age where I’m starting to understand and respect who my parents are as people, not just as aids (or impediments) to my own well-being. Maybe this isn’t an age thing but just a maturity thing. Whatever it is, it’s disorienting, frightening, and liberating at the same time. No more excuses. No more blaming them for my own failures and insecurities (although they do still deserve some credit for the good things that have come my way). It’s all on me.

Ok, now I’m getting depressed thinking about my parents dying, and I don’t want them to ever read this and know how much I think about it. What I do want them to know, though, is that I am enjoying getting to know them as fellow adults. As with any friendship, it has been a trying as well as a rewarding relationship, but definitely more rewarding than it was in the past. I have seen both of my parents incredibly scared at times over the past year. I have seen them vulnerable and in need of help. They have seen close friends and family members die and have faced their own mortality head-on. I’ve also seen them emerge from their challenges stronger and more at peace than they were before, perhaps ever were in their adult lives. Too much f***ing perspective can do wonders for the soul.

My mom just sent me a little spiritual book called “Acceptance” that she told me changed her life. The theme of the booklet is the “Serenity Prayer”: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Basically, if you can’t change what bothers or upsets you, then learn to live with it and ask God to help. We can’t change the fact that our parents will eventually die, that we will all eventually be orphans, at least technically. But, we can learn to accept our own place in this world as adults. We can accept the baton that they are passing to us and head (slowly) towards the finish line, striding on our own two feet.

Wish lists

Christmas is fast approaching, and with it, all of the expectations for the limitless reservoir of gifts waiting to be delivered from the North Pole. My six-year-old son already has a list of twenty Lego’s sets that he wants. He hasn’t even started thinking about all of the other genres of toys, games, and sporting goods that he would like to find under the tree this year. My four-year-old daughter is more modest in her expectations, in quantity if not in quality. Her wish list only has four items on it, but these items are pretty ambitious. She would like a new kitchen (so would I!) and a horse (me too!). When my husband and I pointed out that the gifts on their lists are very expensive, my son patiently explained to us that they don’t cost Santa any money. Notwithstanding business lesson inherent in the overhead costs of legions of elves and a major manufacturing operation, it seems that a more age-appropriate lesson for my children this year is one of frugality and charity.

We are in a recession, after all, and we have just been exhorted by our inspirational president-elect to start making some sacrifices. We are coming down from a decade-long capitalistic binge, and we are all pretty hung over. The remedy this time isn’t a little hair o’ the dog. We’ve got to kick this thing cold turkey. Twelve steps all the way, baby. And, just as a recovering addict needs to reach out and help others in order to progress through treatment, I’m feeling a need to reach out to people who have been hit harder by the recession than we have. I want to go help at a soup kitchen, pack up Thanksgiving dinners to drop off at our church, buy new coats for children who don’t have enough warm clothes. I don’t feel like power shopping at the mall for multiple sets of Lego’s this year. To be honest, I have never been an enthusiastic power shopper. I’m finding that the pressure to tighten our belts and to make some sacrifices for the common good is oddly liberating.

The question is, how do I explain this to my kids? How do I instill a charitable inclination into them? Is there a certain level of maturity that’s required before you feel better about giving than receiving? My children have been inundated with stuff, practically all their hearts’ desires, since they were born. Their voracity for new loot isn’t their fault. They’re like crack babies, innocent victims of their parents’ failings. Their lifestyles are relatively modest compared to some of their friends in our well-heeled community. The age in years of our home computer is approaching double digits, we embrace hand-me-downs and leftovers, I can count on one hand our trips on airplanes since since they were born. But, we have a roof over our heads, good food to eat, and nice warm clothes to wear. We have lots of toys, a fancy school, ballet, soccer, chess, and piano lessons. We have more than enough.

I remember when I was little, maybe around seven or eight, my parents “adopted” a real live poor family for the holidays. From our church, we received a list of things that the family needed, clothing and household goods, and went shopping for these items, along with the makings for a holiday dinner. We packed all of these treasures into several boxes, drove to the other side of town (actually pretty close to where my father had grown up), and delivered them to a small grey brick ranch house with a postage stamp lawn made of dirt. A short, bald man in a white tee shirt answered the door. He accepted the boxes from my father while our family stood awkwardly on the cement front steps. I don’t remember coming away from this experience feeling good. I remember feeling weird and relieved when I got back to my own comfortable house. It might have helped if my family had discussed the experience – my parents weren’t big talkers when I was growing up – but I suspect that a brief awkward encounter on somebody’s front porch may not be enough to convey a sense of shared humanity and responsibility.

My goal for this holiday season will be to test this theory and do good for others in a way that my kids will feel good about. I don’t want the impact to be abstract to them, but I also don’t want it to be too awkward or frightening. I’d like to give them a taste of the joy of giving so that they want to keep doing more of it. My other goal will be to pare down the Christmas lists. Crack babies can’t give up their parents’ vices cold turkey – they need to be carefully weaned. I’m not sure how I’ll accomplish these goals and keep the peace in our home, but I need to remember not to underestimate the kids. They are sometimes very wise, and often very generous. If I let them in on the decisions and ask them for ideas for how to be more charitable, I am going to trust that they will embrace the spirit of the season – the giving spirit, not the shopping spirit - even if it means getting fewer Legos this year.

A letter to my kids, November 5, 2008

To my precious perfect children,

I would like you to understand, someday, when you are a little bit older, what an important day it is today. You are very lucky kids, for lots of reasons, but one of the best reasons to be a kid right now is that the first president that you will remember in your lifetime will Barack Hussein Obama. To me and daddy, and to your grandmas and grandpas, this is a very unusual name for a president to have. But, like a 70-degree November day, it’s not unusual to you. There are things in this world that you take for granted, and I hope you always will be able to. I want you to understand, though, why this day is so significant because I think it is important to be grateful for our blessings.

It is remarkable to me that you have friends who were born in China, India, and Poland. You have an aunt who was born in Mexico, a cousin who is Austrian, and a soon-to-be uncle who is a Syrian Kurd. Your world is filled with people with different colored skin and different ways of speaking. You both notice physical differences, but you point them out in ways that are entirely descriptive, with no shade of judgment attached to your observations. “The doctor had brown skin” you will say, or “The police officer is a lady.” What I would like you to understand is that there are still people alive who remember when women didn’t have the right to vote, or who heard their parents talk about life under slavery. Grandpa remembers having friends in high school who weren’t allowed to swim in the same pool as he was because they had brown skin. Can you imagine not being allowed to play with your friends who have different colored skin? What if I told you that Asher or Ella or Max wasn’t allowed to go to the beach or the playground with us? Can you imagine how Asher, Ella, and Max would feel? That is what life was like for your grandpas and grandmas and their friends when they were growing up.

When daddy and I were kids, in the places where we grew up, there were no specific rules against brown people going where white people went. But we didn’t really have friends or classmates who looked much different than we did. When we were kids, we didn’t have many teachers, doctors, or ministers who had brown skin or different-sounding names. This isn’t something that I will complain about; I don’t have the right to complain about it. I wasn’t the one being shut out of opportunities. Once I was old enough to make my own decisions, I could have sought out more opportunities to meet other kinds of people than those with whom I went to school or who lived in my neighborhood. You will not have to seek these opportunities. They will come to you. Your world will be a place of diversity and openness. You will have the opportunity to choose your friends and colleagues based on the content of their character, not on the color of their skin. Your lives will be, are being, enhanced by the incipient fruition of Dr. King’s dream.

I am so happy for you, and for me, and for all of us. So I celebrated today in a quiet way. I took a walk to the lake. The sun is shining and it’s still 70 degrees, just like it was yesterday, which is very unusual for November in northern Illinois. You haven’t lived through enough Novembers in Chicago to know that it shouldn’t be 70 degrees. I am choosing to view the weather optimistically today – I am choosing hope – and seeing it as a divine sign that we are at the dawn of a bright and shining new era rather than as evidence of global warming. The older I get the more I believe that the world presents us with signs and benchmarks, hints that we are on the right track or the wrong track. We just need to be open and alert to them, ask God to help us understand them, and trust our instincts.

On a typical day, I would have gone running, but I’m not crazy about running –it’s more a chore than recreation for me - and I want to enjoy this day as much as possible. As I was walking through the fallen leaves, I still saw some Obama yard signs, but all the other political signs were gone. One of the Obama signs had a yellow happy face Mylar balloon tied to it. This sight made me laugh and peer into the house with the sign in front of it, hoping to make contact with its owner to share a thumbs-up or a fist bump. It also made me cry a little bit.

I am a happy crier- I cry more easily from elation than from sadness - and I have been welling up on and off all day today. Oprah made me sob this morning with her “Hope Won” tee shirt and her exuberance. I don’t usually watch Oprah, but I saw her crying on TV last night while she watched Barack Obama give his acceptance speech at the rally in Grant Park and I made a point of watching her show today because I knew she would be celebrating. I was envious when a CNN anchorwoman spoke today about her neighborhood in New York City, where neighbors previously unknown to each other spontaneously came outside for a celebration when the victory was announced last night. Lake Bluff is no New York, but your dad and I did get to celebrate with some of our friends at an election party, where we hugged and cried and watched spellbound as Obama made his acceptance speech. As is typical of me, I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the moment. I felt a little numb, and I couldn’t quite believe the election was over. It takes me awhile to process happiness, so today is when the happiness is really taking hold.

Watching Oprah today made me think about the class she taught when I was in business school. She taught at Northwestern for two years, in between tapings of her show. Everyone, of course, wanted to take her class, even though we made fun of ourselves for being so frivolous. I was one of the lucky ones who got in. We had guest speakers every week, most of whom were A-list celebrities in the worlds of business and politics. Coretta Scott King was one of these guests. I wish I could remember exactly what she said, but I do remember the sense of calm confidence she exuded, and how much more impressed everyone in the class was by her than by the Fortune 500 CEOs who also spoke. One of my proudest possessions is the final paper that I wrote for that class, on which Oprah herself wrote margin comments and an “A”. I am a sucker for smart celebrities. My other proudest possession is a pair of t-shirts signed by the entire lineup of Wilco, whose songs make me swoon, and my favorite brush with fame was my encounter with Maya Angelou (you’ll learn who she is soon enough). I couldn’t care less about Paris Hilton or Brad Pitt, but I stutter and blush in the presence of eloquence (ironic, isn't it?).

I learned from Oprah’s class the best leaders are visionary, inclusive, and empowering to the people around them, with the highest expectations of themselves and others. I believe that this describes our new president-elect. Barack’s campaign inspired people to take ownership and feel like a part of history, to feel as if those of us who supported him had some control over our country’s future. Our destiny would no longer be dictated by a small group of shadowy, powerful men, which is the way it’s been for the last eight years, since before either of you was born. Daddy and I, your grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, we were all inspired to knock on doors, make phone calls, and donate money and supplies to the campaign, and we all feel like we played a small part in moving history forward. This makes Obama’s victory even sweeter for us. We feel proud, not just of our country and our city, where Obama learned to be a civic leader, but of ourselves.

I am happy for you that you will be able to take some things for granted. You will see yourselves as citizens of the world, not only citizens of our country. And, you will have, I hope, many reasons to be proud of your country. Your native worldviews will be inclusive, not exclusive or divisive. As you grow, though, I hope that you will be vigilant and critical of the signs of divisiveness that has characterized our world in the past. I want you to learn about history so that you can avoid its mistakes. And I want you to always behave in a way that makes you proud of yourselves, because real pride can only come from inside of yourself, from doing what you know is right, not from what you see when you look in the mirror.