Deep Clean
It occurred to me this morning that my family must think I’m on a cleaning binge. They must think that mom is cleaning the closets, organizing clothes and shoes and games and toys because that’s what moms do. They must think that I’m delving into the back of the hall closet, the side closet, the basement in an attempt to stay organized. The people at Sacred Heart must think I’m moving; I’ve been there three times to drop-off bags of unwanted items. My spouse must think that I need a lot more consulting work if I’ve got all this “free” time on my hands.
“It’s Saint Brigit’s Day,” Linsey told me yesterday as I dove into another drawer to purge its contents. “Huh?,” I replied, only half listening. She went on to describe St. Brigit’s Day is halfway between the winter solstice and the summer equinox, unofficially symbolizing the beginning of Spring. Apparently it’s the time for regeneration, cleaning, revamping, renewing. It is that time, for me, and I’ve never even heard of Brigit or why she’s a saint. But if she’s turning 40 and her world is upside down, then she’s like me: purging with a purpose. It’s also Imbolc, one of the Wiccan days of fire, but I swear I didn’t burn anything, even though I wanted to torch some of the stuff I’d found in the back of these closets.
I get it: I’m cleaning not because I want to (dear frigging goodness, no), but somehow because I have to. I want to see my world from the inside out in order, I want to open closets I’ve long ago closed and find treasures, not junk. I want to know what’s behind every door and don’t want to be surprised by crap I should have taken care of years earlier just shoved into the back of my closet. I am 23 days from being 40 and I’m cleaning my mental house.
I’m exhausted from sorting, dumping, re-grouping, hauling junk to the curb, all while trying to bring the good stuff to the front, keep it clean and updated and neat, ready-to-wear. It’s pathetically metaphoric. As 2011 settles in, I can feel a year of unrest and growth. I know it’s the year of stirring and leaping and resorting. But I also know that in order to love everything I have in front of me, the junk has to go. So here, a week in to targeting drawers and closets and nooks of my house with a vengeance, I realize that this silent, sorting time, is giving me space to do the same internally.
… and you thought I was just cleaning out the closet? Hardly.
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To Cairo, With Love
I’d been traveling about five months when I got to Cairo on a eerie late afternoon during Ramadan. Americans had been advised to avoid the mid-east region and I’d gotten out of a scary situation in Istambul just days after the USS Cole had been bombed in Yemen. I had chosen Cairo as a safe place to lay low until the high drama of the attack settled down. It also happened to be election time at home in the US and there was a lot of ridicule flinging around the media and streets. I’d heard that in Cairo, I’d be safe.
I landed in Cairo, and, as I walked through the airport, heard an American voice. As a rule traveling, I avoid Americans at all costs. It wasn’t until I walked by him that I realized the man was calling my name. I was, quite literally, shaking and just walked right past him. He stopped me, gave me his card and I kept walking. The card was white and crisp with dark blue writing. It was from the US Embassy in Cairo. They were waiting for me. I think. I’m sure they were there to help. I think. I’m sure they wanted to ensure my safety. I think. I’ll never know, because I bolted as fast as I could, making my way through a rough customs transition and into a parking lot where a man grabbed my backpack, offering a taxi and instead tried to ram his tongue down my throat. Even that didn’t convince me to turn back toward the American dude calling my name. Forget that. I was safer with the Egyptian French-kissing hoodlum.
I’d been sick for a few weeks with a parasite. It took me awhile to figure out that it was something I needed real medical care for and I chose to check in to the best hotel I could find. I loved traveling, but a girl’s got to get a bubble bath and a doctor every now and again. I found myself in the street during an insane rush hour in Cairo. In the middle of the street stood a tall, broad Egyptian man. To this day, I refer to him a “Abuud,” although I never knew his name. He took my backpack, wrapped himself protectively around me, screamed at cars between us, and walked me to the door of The Four Seasons hotel. Finally, I felt safe. Safe in Cairo.
Despite being the season of Ramadan, I was taken care of beautifully over the next several days. I went on a pre-arranged date with a very nice grad student, and despite the fact he took me to “TGI Fridays” on the Nile (no joke), I had a wonderful time. I received medical care from a serious doctor and her nurse. I walked the streets without fear, tried foods, bought goods and drank warm Coke. I laughed at the insanity of the cars bolting without order through the streets, and watched the seemingly organized chaos between people in the stores and grand mall. I was not afraid of the military presence; I liked it. I wrapped myself in the beautiful sound of the call to Muslim prayer and the pure, unfaltering dedication to faith and fasting. I found Cario to be crazy, beautiful, western, eastern, unique.
Happy somewhere in southern Egypt
I traveled to the southernmost part of the country and up the Nile and was struck by the stench and dirtiness of the Nile. I asked about public service announcements that droned on and on — they were to warn Egyptians to not bathe or wash clothes in the Nile. The contamination was causing disease and death. The more remote, the sadder I became. I drove through rural desert, often, with military stops ensuring my safety. This was not Cairo. Not so safe. Area after area was filled with extraordinary history, mind-blowing artifacts and edifices, combined with desolate poverty and signs for Internet cafes. It became confusing.
I had one moment in time where I became angry. I saw a man hitting his children after I’d given them pencils, candy and small Legos. I watched him beat two of them, throwing — literally throwing — one of his children into a makeshift house. The children had black in their mouths, ripped jeans, no shirts. They smelled. I made eye contact with a couple of kids and my adrenalin starting rushing. I saw a nearby white delivery van. I thought I’d steal the kids, throw them in the van, pay with my big American dollar bills, my jewelry, whatever and beg the driver to scram. I’d drive to the embassy and claim refugee status for the kids. I’d adopt them, bring them home and raise them with dental care, clothes and vows that in my home, there would be no beatings by a half-dressed uneducated man. But reality hit me as the van drove off -- it is not my place to force my reality onto those of anyone else.
It still isn’t.
I’ve been watching the destruction of Cairo and Alexandria for seven days — the images of places I’ve been, streets I walked, people that all look familiar. I watch the protests against their leader and against our own leader for not renouncing the Egyptian government and I can’t help but think of that day in Abu Simbel where I learned that my reality is not the reality of others. I know that everyone is awaiting what America will do for the Egyptian people, but the truth is the same today as it was for me in that small town: the Egyptian people must take care of their own reality and we must ensure we are doing our best to respect their quest without forcing our democratic style on them.
The good people, like my “Abuud,” will rise to the top. Those are not the looters, the burners of buildings. The true Egyptians are making human road blocks to protect their national treasures, their history, their culture and museums. The good people of Egypt are where I choose to focus my mind this week. As the city burns and the protests become uprisings and the government becomes uprooted, I am reminded how safe I felt in Egypt, how strong the people are, how full of faith and history the Egyptian youth are. I choose to remember my love of Egypt and how dearly I hold it in my heart today and hopefully, can show to my own children someday, in-tact, full of freedom and peace.
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The Manners Police
Maybe it was over-the-top, or maybe I’m just from a bit of a different generation that my kids, but my childhood was filled with a mix of wild fun and play dotted by perfecting manners and etiquette from the age of 8. I spent endless weekends learning to pour tea (pour from the right, eldest/most senior woman served first) to working on my punch-drinking skills (take white gloves off, lay in lap, keep your head up). In retrospect, it seems a little intense, but I gots me some Emily Post skilz. I want to teach my kids manners that will help them navigate conversation and environment, and demonstrate grace when not nailing each other with Nerf darts.
Four tips I learned in finishing school (HA! DID I JUST TYPE THAT?!), that I’d like to pass along to my kidlets:
1. Ballroom Dancing: The Ode to Commander Unander. Every Friday night my brother and I would go to a hall with other kids in my neighborhood in our dressy clothes. I’d say it was itchy and uncomfortable, but actually, I liked wearing the dresses (below the knee), having my hair done nicely and wearing tiny high heels. The only thing I didn’t really like was the gloves. White gloves aren’t really becoming on anyone, especially on a girl like me with hands like Shaq. Over several years we learned to dance ballroom with a strict, old, washed-up ballroom dancer. “Commander Unander” and his shiny black tuxedo shoes swept me across the room like a feather. I loved it. Learning to dance ballroom was a wonderful gift — I can still walz and foxtrot my way through any wedding reception without wrapping my arms around my date like a drunk prom girl.
2. Table Top Knowledge: AKA Why do I have three forks? I can remember sitting at a fellow manners freak parents’ house for table training. It looked like a dishwasher exploded in front of me, but in truth, it was pretty easy to decipher after just a few times of practice. When in doubt, work from outside by course with your utensils, unless you don’t, then the waiter is likely to save you. Just don’t use the same utensil for multiple courses or take it off the plate and put it on the table (that was the kiss of manners death). It was more than napkins on laps though. A lot of what we learned here was subtle: don’t push a plate away from you, use the butter knife to put butter on plate not on bread, drinks go on the right. So far we’ve got the kids setting the table for dinner as a first step.
3. Host Management: Don’t Bite the Hand that Feeds. As a kid, my parents took me everywhere — from dinner parties to galas. There’s only one whale at any soiree: the hostess. Once you get the gist that it’s all about paying respect to her, you’ve got it made. Bring a gift (Not flowers or food, but instead a small gift like a homemade card from kids or special soaps); look in her eye, give her a compliment about her home or food; and most of all, don’t do anything without the hostess doing it first. By that I mean don’t put any food in your mouth until she has. Neeeeevvver.
4. Food: Not See-Food. I don’t think I ever chewed a piece of food with my mouth open. I never remember doing it, anyway. My son, Thing 1, has never breached the open mouth gap, either. My dear Thing 2, however, is a see-food eater. Oh man, the battle. One thing I remember learning was a sure-fire way to help curb this food nightmare was to tell the kids to take very small bites. It helps, but it’s not full-proof. Counting to 10 while chewing is another trick. I’m all about learning opportunities, but this one I have no tolerance for. Chew with your mouth closed or don’t sit at my table.
I’ve come to understand that it’s not popular to teach etiquette to children in 2011 — I guess it comes off as snobby or wanna-be high class. I see it differently than that. I spent eight years as a kid going through manners training and in the end, I apply more of it today than most of high school classes put together. I want my kids to grow up with tools that will carry them from the house down the street to The White House and every little cottage along the way.
This post was inspired by the smarty pants team at the Yahoo! Motherboard. (#ymotherboard)
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The Truant Mom
I remember rambling along in a long yellow bus filled with 60 second and third graders heading to the La Brea Tar Pits. Another month, another trip to see and touch the history, social science and life we’d been learning about in school. I saw tide pools, art exhibits at LACMA, Olvera Street and more. Learning used to include a vital tactile element. Today, my kids learn to test, not learn to learn. And certainly with the sad, sorry state of California schools, we are not teaching or learning for the benefit of building a whole child.
I refuse to allow my children’s education to be reduced to filling in bubble exams. Call me truant. I’m not going to stand for a lesser education for my kids because the California economy has held our schools hostage, reducing their education to test taking frenzies.
So. I’m a truant mom, taking my kids’ education into my own hands and taking advantage monthly to support their public school education with what used to be best practices: Shark “hunting” at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Fleet Week tour of military ships in San Francisco, a hands-on experience of planets and space at the Academy of Sciences, building claymation videos at Zeum to demonstrate art and computer science, and, the Impressionists exhibit at the DeYoung museum yesterday.
I’m not a home schooling type. It’s not my thing; it’s not the kids’ thing. But yesterday… yesterday was magic. We named our day: GO-GONE (in nod to Gauguin). Here’s how we spent the day:
8 a.m. — Spell out Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Gauguin for kids and have them research the artists they will see today. We used Yahoo! Kids to do the research.
9 a.m. — Draw and paint. Kids used Impressionist book to gain inspiration on drawing. We made paper airplanes and banners using colors of the artists. We talked about cubism — how a cone can be a tree and a circle its fruit. We drew what we thought was cubist in style.
10 a.m. — Meeting! We ate French crepes at a patisserie nearby in honor of the Muse d’Orsay (where the Impressionist collection is on loan from), and discussed one thing about each artist we knew. We cut out pictures of our favorite things we wanted to see. Van Gogh was the most popular: Sunflowers, Starry Night, the Artist’s Room. The kids knew that Cezanne had two sisters: Maria and Rose (my aunt and mother’s names, respectively). These tiny tidbits of information excited them.
11 a.m. — We head to the bookstore to find kid-friendly books on impressionist artists. Two books of Van Gogh led the kids to be bounding around the store talking about the Sunflowers and can’t wait to get to see them later today.
2 p.m. — The De Young exhibit is packed. The kids get their own maps, their own audio tour head sets (Thing 1 called it the “Mini DJ”). They hit the exhibit with excitement. One piece by another Impressionist featured a straw hat. My kid told me, “This is by Van Gogh.” When I told him it wasn’t, he told me, “Then why is Van Gogh’s hat in the bottom right corner of the painting?” A man standing nearby tapped me on the shoulder, “You have got to be kidding!,” he told me. I beamed — beamed! — with pride.
4 p.m. — We write stories on our Un Dia del Museo — an essay in Spanish on our day at the museum. Words come flowing from the kids — writing pouring from their minds to the page.
My babies fell into bed last night, exhausted and filled-up with colors and images and textures drifting them to sleep quickly. I am reminded again that parenthood cannot afford to be a complacent role. I literally saw my children learning by observance, growing from experience and applying their in-school learnings to real world beauty. I’m a truant mom. And I’m okay with that.
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Polar Opposites
I didn’t go to the rally to Restore Sanity, nor any Tea Party Express shindig. I don’t do politics outside my little world where I know I won’t get shot, yelled at or eyes rolled. I’m just not that much of a glutton for conflict.
I have more friends who are not Democrats than I do ones who are; and I like it that way. I have hard-core Republican friends (as in lawn signs and cocktail party fundraisers) for the likes of the most serious right-wing conservatives in our political circle today. I have several very close friends who are die-hard Libertarians. They are the gun-wielding, don’t tread on me type folks. I like my people. I like my world of scale and scope and perspective.
I like my world because we live in a mutually respectful environment of variety, opinion, banter and belief. I have a dear friend who met me on a street corner with a cup of coffee while I was holding a sign to protest Prop 8. He kept me company, chatted about our weekend with our respective twins and then left. He voted in favor of Prop 8. We had dinner the next weekend.
Another family — serious Palin fans — went to rally after rally in support of the first female vice-president. We had one thing in common: the advancement of women in politics. What we didn’t have in common was just whom should fill that tall order. When it didn’t pan out for them, I understood their disappointment. I was thrilled (dear goodness, don’t get me wrong), but respected their passion.
I have a Republican friend who voted for Obama in the past election (and contributed to his campaign). I watched him on election night as he cried in my livingroom watching history happen. Some things, I thought, are bigger than politics.
Polarizing politics are just that: polarizing. It takes a strong will, a stronger belief in the Good of people to really try our hand at civilized debate. Without polar opposites there is no middle ground — a sacred place where we can meet peacefully.
Take a clue, Washington. Most of us are out here living civilly, living together within the boundaries of passion, belief and over-riding respect.
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House of Blues
I went on Twitter and DMed @la_gringa with capitalized swear words describing the latest in a fitful rage from our house upon us, it’s lowly unsuspecting dwellers.
This time, it’s the dishwasher that went from silent rinse cycle to Jabba-the-Hutt moans within minutes. And then it wouldn’t turn off. At all. I went to go outside to the power box, but I couldn’t. Why, you might ask? Because the side door is broken. Not the lock, the door. An expensive door, no less. An expensive door whose company (obviously for building shitty doors) went out of businesses. So now we need a new side door and a dishwasher/Jabba-the-Hutt killer.
Of course this is barely on the heels of the window this morning where my daughter exclaimed, “Oh look mommy, it rained in the kitchen.” Frigging million-year-old uninsulated windows just were no match for a winter’s night and a heating duct right next to it. No worries, the window (and most of them now in our home) are non-functional. The quaint 100-year-old house look isn’t so quaint when it all falls apart. Today I counted: only five of the 22 windows in our downstairs can actually open. The others are all broken, sealed shut or have busted pulleys (yes, that old). Oh, and the five that work? Four of them are poorly replaced windows with missing screens on most, the other one I jammed unlocked for safety.
I’d escape it all to my upstairs abode for a good marathon of Dog, the Bounty Hunter, but the TV there suddenly no longer has sound. I guess the LG is sick of the political rhetoric too and finally cut off the volume to save me from myself. Ah, maybe I’ll take a warm shower to relieve the stress of a falling apart house — oh wait, that won’t work, the (relatively new) grout is all dissolved away and new mold creeps in daily. I think I’ll pass on the cozy shower and go for a bath — nope. The drain stopper is broken and the towel rack fell down because the old lathen plaster can’t hold a screw. I’d use the downstairs shower, but it was constructed improperly and will flood the floor. I am convinced that a blind Bob-the-Builder and his estranged lover, Handy Manny built this house.
I feel like running away before I’m reminded that this house is more than most will ever have, with neighbors and friends surrounding me that I couldn’t dream of having. I hate my house until I remember that my children live one block from their grandparents and can walk to school. I loathe being here until I realize that if it weren’t for this home, we’d have never had all the fun that caused all this ruckus to start with.
Today though, I wish I had a little shack on the beach reading novels and watching the sunset while Mr. Roper fixed the leaky faucets.
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Side Gigs
