I Feel The Earth Move…
…under my feet. I feel the sky tumbling down. I feel my heart start to tremble; whenever you’re around.” The lyrics to Carol King’s song keeps going through my head. I’ve been singing it for two days while the horrible disaster in Haiti unfolds before my very finger tips across the web. I laughed out-loud at a still image of a woman in her bra and underwear carrying her child through the rubble — “D’oh!,” I said audibly. And last night I watched hours of CNN’s earthquake coverage not for the story or for the massiveness of it all, but because I couldn’t stop looking at how hot Anderson Cooper looked in his ragged in-the-trenches garb. Really, honestly, what the hell is wrong with me?
I suppose coping mechanisms for disaster happen all the time. As the aid flies in toward the complete devastation zone, I think about the survivors more than I think of the dead. Not the ones that might survive or that we’ll see plucked from the rubble, but the ones who survived just fine. I have lived in California most of my life, where earthquakes are common and I’ve survived just fine but not without being shaken to my core with fear. On January 17, 1994 at 4:31 a.m., my world rattled when the Northridge quake hit my community with an angry fervor.
The mattress on my bed slid off the frame as the picture above my bed crashed onto my back. I tried to scramble out of my apartment while the seemingly endless jerking motion pushed me into the wall. The contents of my apartment were literally flying across the room. I climbed over the toppled heaps on my floor and made it to my front door. From there I could tell the power was out and a smell of sweet gas in the air. I ran down the hall toward the emergency exit, not even noticing the cuts on my feet. Before making it to the stairs, the earth shook so severely that I was knocked into a doorway of another apartment. There I found a dozen or so Vietnamese students I’d never met, huddling in the door jams, crying and shaking. We all held each other in the deepest dark I’ve ever known. I will never forget the smell. Moments later, we held hands as we tried to get down the fire escape. The stairs had separated from the building. Together we made our way down the damaged exit and ran to an open parking lot with hundreds of other apartment dwellers. I looked around in complete shock and fear and then, started uncontrollably laughing. Everyone was in their underwear! For some reason, this struck me as hilarious! Coping mechanisms, like I said before, are your brain’s way of not simply dying of fear.
In the end, my apartment was orange tagged. Most of my stuff was gone, but really, I didn’t have much anyway. And the clothes I did get out of my apartment were donated, since I couldn’t get the smell of gas out of the fabric. It made me gag. For years — literally years — I woke up at 4:31 a.m.
What will the survivors be like after the dust settles in Haiti? How long will they wake at 6:21 a.m. with the deepest fear? Will the smells change the way they breathe forever? What is the life ahead for them? I simply got a new apartment and decked it out with new things. What if there was nowhere to go? What if I couldn’t get rid of my soiled clothes because those were the only ones I had left. During the Northridge quake, we rationed food and water. Some people were selling batteries, bread and milk at a 500-percent markup; others were standing in the street handing out the items for free. There are good and bad people everywhere. Just like Haiti, the dregs and heroes of society will rise during crisis.
There is so much that Haiti will need. There are so many places to give, so many resources, social media communities and volunteer groups that will help. I feel so hopeless for them all. Not surprisingly, I woke at 4:31 a.m. this morning. For now, all I can offer is the empathy I have for the survivors’ fear, for the rattling noise ringing in their ears.
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Fear of Fear
As a child I slept under my trundle bed — that’s right, I said, *under* the trundle bed. I would spend my nights dreaming of how to close up the windows in my house and that if for some reason I was not found by the boogey man, how I’d escape and save my family from being killed. And that was just one fear. I had the fear of my life, the life of my family and of the world. I lived a life afraid just as afraid of strangers as of lighting and thunder. I’ve always had a fear of tall men and an equal fear of being fat. I’m afraid of dogs and terrorism. To this day, I am afraid of the dark. Above all, I’m afraid of Fear itself.
Fear turns to paranoia when you have children. Stranger Danger! Choking Hazards! Swimming Pools!
How do I teach my children about being cautious but not paralyzingly afraid? I tell them the danger of strangers when staying at Aunty and Uncle’s Bed & Breakfast. Appropriate, right? My children respond by not speaking to a soul, hanging to the apron of their aunty, cautiously tip-toe around. We discuss earthquake safety (go to the door-jam, don’t run upstairs, don’t hide under anything) in our best, most calming voices. They were so afraid that they slept in the same bed and jumped up several times when a truck went by or a door shut in fear that the earth was crumbling. I tell them to wash their hands at school and they respond by carrying anti-bac wipes and not touching anything in their classrooms without washing their hands. Clearly the balance is off.
Children, I believe, will respond to what their parents do not tell them, but show them. I work so hard to not share my fear of fears with my kids. Maybe I’m not doing anything wrong. Maybe they’re just wired this way. What if I didn’t educate them about speaking to strangers, of swimming without a grown-up nearby, of earthquake safety? Then I’d be a shitty mom. So where’s the line?
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Box Readers
Box Readers
Sitting on the floor of Safeway might seems a bit, um, odd? But that’s exactly what we did yesterday when hitting the inevitable sugar-cereals-versus-healthy cereals weekly debate. I’d just had it altogether with the constant arguing over food. I sat down on the ground and had the kids bring me a box of Cheerios. I showed them the nutrition labels (again) and pointed out that Cheerios was going to be the sugar threshold of cereals in the house.
I invited the kids to bring over boxes of cereal they were interested in. Cocoa Krispies (afterall, they must be *just like* Rice Krispies but with cocoa?), both Rice and Corn Chex, Kix and Trix. They brought Cinnamon Life and Golden Grahams. They brought Fruity Cheerios and Raisin Bran. Soon we were all heckling at the boxes: “Kix, you silly people isn’t for kids, it’s for a sug-ar high!,” says my daughter. Corn Chex and Rice Chex have vastly different nutritional values (rice is better). Some “healthy” cereals were low in fat and carbs but slamming high in sodium. The big kicker was SmartStart which for being smart is pretty dang stupid. The cereal that boasts anti-oxidants and a nice and healthy label is heaped full of sugar. One of my favorite sites, Nutrition Data demonstrates just how UNhealthy SmartStart is: two stars for weight loss, but four stars for weight gain; a heaping 43 grams of carbs (14 g sugar) and almost 300 g of sodium. It has almost double the sugar of Fruity Cheerios (a FruitLoops competitor). What is smart about this? Huh? I’m renaming it StupidStart.
I gave the kids a choice: they could pick a cereal with little to no nutritional value and high sugar content (ie: StupidStart) and it would count as their treat for the day, or, they could pick one of the healthier alternatives *and* get to go to Powells to fill the treat drawer. I know that in the end, the intake of sugar is the same, but I wanted to make the choices clear. I’d rather the kids know what they are eating than assume that all cereals are created equal. They both picked out healthier cereals and proudly walked around the store, each with a box of cereal: Rice Chex and Special K.
The actual nutrition wasn’t the point, it was the lesson about understanding our food and how to understand our food and how to make choices of food. Of all the ways kids are influenced by food choices, our seem to make the right decisions by choice. Nutrition labels are a great way to demonstrate choices. I’m proud of theirs.
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Earthquakeville
We live directly between these two seismic activity sites. Red highlights earthquakes over 4.0. Red indicates the past hour; blue the past day.Putting batteries in the flashlights. After living through Northridge and losing almost everything in that quake, I’m a bit shaky over earthquakes.
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Racial Profiling — So What?
About a decade ago, I spent the year traveling. I saw over 25 countries. I witnessed true poverty, true faith, true colors I’d never imagined. I did everything imaginable to keep my identity quiet — an American woman traveling alone made my family cringe. Not the woman part; not the traveling part; but the American part.
During my travels I found myself racially profiled again and again. My EuroRail pass notwithstanding, I found myself open to scrutiny and double-checks where other travelers barely flashed their passports at a passing train conductor. Even in western Europe I was racially profiled, which I found not the least bit funny. Moving east, it got progressively more serious and at times, I was afraid of being a traveling American.
Now, life was different then. I spent about a month in the in the mid-East. I was trying to get from Istambul to Jordan when the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen. I was encouraged to detour to Egypt instead. When I got off the plane in Cairo, an American-looking agent stood inside the security area calling my name over and over. He gave me his card and asked me if I knew any Americans. I just nodded my head. Hell if I was going to answer to a stranger in barely pre-September 11 mid-east. Hellno.
Everywhere I went there was racial profiling. On airplanes I was double-screened. People asked if I was American or Canadian. After getting called out on a fake Australian accent, I told people I was Canadian. I learned that my backpack needed to be completely nondescript and I worked to keep it without any kind of symbolism at all. In Abu Simba, I bought the Eye of Horace and kept it on my backpack the rest of the trip. As the Egyptian symbol for safe travels, it was the only personal identifier I kept on me at all times. In some cafes there was a price for Americans and a price for Europeans. I used Spanish as my primary language, even in the mid-east where its not often spoken. I figured that was better than English any day. Once I caught on to being racially profiled, I prepared for it. I knew I’d be asked for my passport twice if others were asked once. I knew my backpack would be subject to search and more than a half-dozen times, I’d find my pack was rifled-through between the time I put it on the plane and picked it up at the next destination.
At first the racial profiling pissed me off. What the heck? And, how did they know I was an American? I never wore tennis shoes (the clear sign of an American); I didn’t travel with jeans (too heavy and too western, although I made friends with a slew of Turks that lived in their Levis and drove Chevys). I wore no jewelery. I read Somerset’s The Razor’s Edge which can hardly be known as an American favorite. I suppose it doesn’t matter just how they knew to double-screen me at every pass, but it never ceased to surprise me that I got screened every time. Eventually, after watching and learning and living the dangers of the world during the horribly embarrassing presidential election of George Bush, I began to screen Americans myself. Loud, overwhelming, stomping creatures full of entitilitis and fat guts.
I am reminded again during this latest surge of securing air travel that racial profiling is unavoidable. It happened to me because I looked different, smelled different (some people in Asia told me I smelled like rotten milk) and, no matter what I did to blend in, was different. That’s what’s happening in American air travel this week. The media is displaying this as a violation of rights, of being racist, being paranoid. Women in headscarves are complaining about being stopped over and over. Men wearing traditional Muslim garb are getting double-checked at every transportation port. I can’t help but shake my head at the double-standard. Well, friends, this is what happens when we have someone of a certain religious profile try to blow up airplanes: you get a little leery of this racial profile.
I finished my travels just before September 11, 2001. I had a hard time transitioning back to American culture and I found myself suspicious of our country. Don’t get my wrong, when I landed in Los Angeles for the first time, I got on my hands and knees and kissed the ground. I cried. I adore my country. But I didn’t adore what I saw some over zealous Americans do in their travels internationally or in the obvious (from where I was, at least) corrupt election process we had in the name of democracy. This week, I am empathetic toward the people who are being racially profiled because of one insane dude, but it’s what any responsible country would do. It happens. It happened to me. It can make you mad if you like, or you can understand that it’s not personal. Because really, it’s not.
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Side Gigs
