againsttheglass.com

There is an iconic video that Eddie Murphy did while still on SNL called “White Like Me.” Through the most banal of daily encounters, a newsstand, a bus ride, a trip to the bank, we are treated to an outrageously funny look at what it means to be white and glide through life unencumbered by the obstacles non-whites face. It’s exaggerated, but not untrue. Let me explain.

I am white. Very white. So white that I never really had to deal with the issue of how I felt about people of color until I became an adult. My upbringing did not put me in touch with people of color at all, beyond the men from Haiti that buffed the floors in the hospital where my father was the administrator. I had to move to NYC in my late teens, and get beyond the racism of my family to meet people of color and find out about a world I didn’t really know existed, beyond the race riots in Newark on TV in the 1960s.

That very fact of my upbringing fills me with a kind of horror. And the very fact that, until I was 49, I never really understood even a little about the day-to-day of American people of color is just awful. I still don’t understand — what white person can? But, as the mother of a wonderful little African girl, I have encountered, as Eddie Murphy’s depiction tried to convey, how even the most little things are different for people of color. Very little things in my case, less obstacles than annoyances, but no doubt indications of larger issues afoot in America.

Let’s start with hair and skin care. Yes, every store has a black skin and haircare section. But, it’s a crapshoot as to which store is going to have what product. So, CVS carries Palmer’s Cocoa Butter on one day, but the next week decides it won’t carry it. Also, they don’t carry the full line of products the way they do for, I have to say it, white hair and skin care products.

Why do I say white hair and skin care? Because our commercial and popular culture is no more race-neutral than using “him” in a sentence is gender-neutral. It’s white. Because the hair care section of CVS, or any large pharmacy chain, or big box store with a pharmacy section, has every possible permutation of Olay, Dove, Biolage, Matrix, yada, yada, yada. But how many products by Palmer’s, TCB, Olive Oil, do they carry? From the looks of it, it’s whatever fell off the truck first, and it’s never consistent from store to store. You need to go to Sally’s for a full wall of the stuff. Which means an extra trip to a special store, which is always convenient, particularly for a demographic of overstressed working single mothers, much less this overstressed, but privileged, working married white person. I’ll go on.

Dolls. I go to Target a lot for clothes, housewares, and groceries. Did you ever try to find a black doll in a Target? Don’t hold your breath. There may be one or two tokens lying behind something, or in the less popular types (like the $5 cheapo Barbies) but the black Barbies and Baby Alives are decidedly low-profile in a Target store. And if you find a non-white Barbie, chances are she’s more biracial than anything else. Nothing that matches my Mihiret’s gorgeous dark chocolate skin.

Licensed character linens. My daughter likes anything pink or Barbie. Try finding a black Barbie fleece throw, or sheets, or curtains, or linens with ANY character of color for a girl? One set of Black barbie sheets appear to exist in this world, and they are lame and homely, decidedly non-glamorous, and you have to get them online.

Yea, Dora. White people feel less gullty now that there’s a Dora option. News flash: Dora’s not black. And she is not glamorous like Barbie. When you want glamour, you don’t reach for Dora and her backpack and her hiking shorts.

Kiddie makeup. My daughter likes lip gloss, eye shadow, and nail polish. The makers of these trinkets for kids have decided that pale pastels are appropriate and girly, not too sophisticated. But, black girls just don’t make it with light blue eye shadow and pink lip gloss. The stuff almost doesn’t show up on Mihiret, and when it does, she looks kind of clownish. No dark skin kiddie makeup exists — I’m sure it does online, but, again, WTF?

Here’s the kicker now that I’ve fallen off the PC wagon completely with Barbie and little girl makeup. Want to know the one store where you can consistently, from store to store, find black girl’s products in large volume and variety? Wal-Mart. How does a middle-class white woman like me square that with the “don’t shop at Wal-Mart because it exploits everyone” mentality? Well, like everything else you want to do for your kids, you don’t. If the local toy shops on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall wanted to sell me black toys that weren’t so over-the-top “multicultural” PC black dolls in African clothing instead of western clothing like the white dolls, if they had black dolls that were just playful and glam, I’d buy. But white shopkeepers are so uneasy with these products.

I’m hoping for a line of “Sasha and Malia” products for little girls. Seems like the best branding idea since Mary Kate and Ashley. It could even include a smaller set of anemic pastels for those poor white kids who just can’t pull off the glam hair accessories and dark maroon lip gloss without looking like they’re headed for a public breakdown on “Toddlers and Tiaras.”

Let’s face it. My outrage about these inconveniences is such a small thing compared with what it’s like for any person of color to live in America. But, if these small inconveniences are any indication, Mihiret and I have a lot bigger things to face moving forward through the years on her journey to become a powerful American woman of color. Pray we can take that journey successfully together, and with all due glamour. To all the women of color out there who are rolling your eyes right now, you’re right. I am pathetic

PS: Snapaholics rules!

I’m big on window shopping. Mostly, I like to go out and shop, see all the things I want, not be able to settle on anything, and then buy some things for the kids. It’s easier somehow. I know what would make them smile. Knowing what would make me smile is a much harder nut to crack.

I have written in this space many times about not being able to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. My head spins with all that I could have done, and still could do, with the right amount of effort, long hours of study, perhaps long hours devoted to developing a skill to its height. But, my heart never follows. I look at that hat in the mirror for a while: the architect, the lawyer, the sculptor, the landscape architect. Then, I put it back on the rack. Each one costs too much in terms of time and effort. That’s not to say that I’m allergic to time and effort. It is to say that, as a mother, something in me has shifted that doesn’t want to put that time and effort into ME.

Trying to parse how much of that is self-loathing, and how much of that is simply wanting, once and for all, to enjoy my kids and be there for them is hard to say. If there is anything that I’ve worked hard for, consistently, over a period of years, it’s adoption. No amount of paperwork or scrutiny stopped me. It might have slowed me down, but it didn’t stop me.

Trouble is, I find myself in a backwards, upside-down dilemma which is that I finally HAVE the children I did have the energy, and the initiative, to never say no to. But, I am unable to enjoy them due to my unfulfilling, physically and emotionally draining work these days.

What went wrong?

It’s kind of a new spin on what others have experienced. Some folks have lost jobs and homes, are forced to work in jobs they never planned, have seen the planned life not unfold. But, that is due in large part to circumstances beyond their control. In my case, I have built this situation all on my own. I kept an impossible job and reached for adoptive motherhood at the same time, and everyone in the family now pays for it.

I spoke today with one of the deans at my job, and heard insight that seems so simple to many, even retro in a lot of ways, but utterly true for me. I asked her why she chose, as a research scientist, to teach at a liberal arts college instead of take a post at a research institution. What I heard I didn’t expect. I heard those hidden stories that you never hear as a woman in the workplace until you take the time to ask instead of resent someone else’s seeming success.

Turns out, her story is not a lot different from mine. She had a research career, post-docs, teaching posts, and fellowships up the wahzoo before she moved to Virginia with her husband. She said, “she did it for love.” She also said that her kids were her greatest accomplishment.

I felt a pang in my stomach upon hearing that. How I wish I could say that and not feel like I’m betraying every woman in my generation. Yet, all around me, we see women who made the big choices for love; the big choices that skewed the notion of future worldly success in their husband’s direction. Hillary Clinton may be the quintessential symbol of this dilemma. Michele Obama also comes to mind. And that old one, what’s her name? Oh, yea. Eleanor Roosevelt.

I’ve been getting emails lately from a Hillary Clinton-inspired movement — I’m probably on their mailing list as a result of the elections. Two that came in the last two days plucked loudly on my heartstrings, and brought tears to my eyes.

One was a link to, and request for support, for a movement called “No Limits.” Through this pay-parity advocacy site, I found out that I’m earning $20,000 less than men in my profession in my state. 20 years ago, I would have been on that one like a cheap suit. I used to perform a monologue that compared the underwear budgets for women and men, factoring in the disparity in pay, and pointing to how much we invest in relationships, in love, vs. our male counterparts, and how draining it all is. It was complete with charts, graphs, and inscrutably inaccurate calculations that looked great on a spotlit flip-chart. Then I sang a song. A real crowd-pleaser But I don’t think I or anyone watching started wearing only cotton briefs as a result. It was passionately self-centered demagoguery, and I loved it.

Next email, today, was from something with the subject line “WomenCount,” linking to a Web site called
“Women Count.” This is a Web site about the effort to create a Presidential Commission on Women. Again, in my salad days, I would have railed at a NOW-NYC Board meeting about a lobbying effort, gathered the troops, and driven them all to DC to speak to some scared congressional aid about women’s rights. Hey, those were good times

But something happened between then and now. I don’t think it’s Bush, I don’t think it’s my moving to a more conservative state. I think it’s my being older, and having enough perspective to look back and see that some of the work that needs to be done needs to be done by those younger than me who have the energy, the time, and a stake in the outcome enough to give a damn.

I’m not giving up. But I am acknowledging that while I’m a mother of very young kids, I want to be a mother of very young kids. It’s what I worked for. I had lots and lots of unfocused fun until I was 38, and then I got married (in earnest) and finally really WANTED to have kids.

What I didn’t know was that it would take so long. But, it’s here, and my 140 miles on the road every day make me heartsick for them. It’s the reason why I don’t blog as often as I did, why I don’t sleep as much, why I’m depressed, and why, as I type, I cannot get out of my head “I should fold up the laptop and go home.”

Balancing this moment of self-indulgent writing with the pull towards my kids is no small feat. Which gets back to the idea of trying on hats. Right now, I don’t want to try on the lawyer hat, or the architect hat, or any other hat that would require an advanced degree only to be on the second-tier of being taken seriously in some “profession.”

Right now, I just want to work at home again, and eventually, work part-time, make art, and be with my kids. I want to stay put with the fruits of what I HAVE been given in my life, and stop pursuing what my mother wanted for me. She died having her ONLY accomplishment and joy be her kids (and her bottle). But I am not my mother.

I spent a good 20 years having fun in NYC, experimenting at marriage and other permutations of romance, writing songs to make people laugh or cry, helping to build buildings, helping to advance the pro-choice agenda, singing bawdy songs at the top of my lungs with puppets, comics and other troublemakers before being a mother. It was unfocused, and bore no fruit beyond the joy of the memories. Truth is, I don’t need a law degree, or an architecture degree. I just think I do because this artificial world of “work” that consumes far too much of me these days puts me on that track. I need to transcend that NEED TO BE RESPECTED to counter how disrespected my own mother was. I don’t need to live her life, or re-write her story.

When I allow myself the indulgence of imagining a life that requires only that I stay put and treat all I have lovingly, that I grow into who I am rather than who I want to be, I sense what it may be like to be happy for the first time. Unlike me, my kids WILL see their mother happy, if it’s the last thing I do.

The last hat I wear will be the happy hat. That one I can afford.

When my son Blake first began speaking, my wonder was accompanied by a pang of sadness. I was going to miss the seemingly endless, undefinable ways that non-verbal language connects two human brains. We would begin to be bound by the limits of words and syntax. As much as I love writing, I am keenly aware that words never seem to contain the boundariless qualities of music, like the music sung and played between a baby and his parents.

Baby sounds communicate so much more directly the need for a hug, the joy of play, the frustration of an unmet need. Once we get to words, things change. Once that child makes the connection between word and meaning, and potential for larger ideas to be conveyed and understood, the baby train officially leaves the station.

On this next leg of our trip, we would have to learn a new way to connect. Learning words and syntax is not an organic thing for many kids. For Blake, it’s always been something of a challenge, for reasons to numerous to mention. So, we went from ease to years now of struggle, pain, triumph, setbacks, and now, breakthrough.

We sat last night in the recliner together, of course with Mihiret kibbitzing from the arm of the chair as she is known to do just a bit. He sat and read to me two of his books, “Tat is Sad,” and “Tat and Mat.” Yes, they are beginning readers and yes, it’s not great literature, but it was the best darned read I’ve had in a while.

In those books were the unlocked secrets of how words string together to make an idea. Words like in, the, at, and this, we take for granted. Being able to visually recognize, read, and then take in their function in a sentence is an extraordinary feat for the human brain. The written word is giving Blake a sense of grounding in the spoken language with which he has struggled.

We have always told Blake that new worlds will open up to him once he’s reading. He’ll be able to read Web pages, play big-kid video games, read the news with me, look things up, read signs, and, yes, read books that are now read to him.

What I had forgotten was that last transition from non-verbal to verbal and how painful that was. This transition, from spoken to printed word, is a joy. It’s the beginning of Blake’s completing the incomplete circle of human language. The words spoken by a small child can sometimes be strung together into poetry, at times an unintended poetry. Ultimately, spoken language alone has limits in what it can convey about the ideas with which he struggles. Out of a sense of his own personal curiosity, my kindergarten-aged son is trying to learn about evolution and the Big Bang. You need books, the Web, and lots of new words in the dictionary to prop up the conversations we have about these concepts. You need to be able to read the exhibits and dioramas at the museums to get these big ideas to string into new understanding.

The intended poetry that will arise from his stringing together the mysteries of life through a thorough immersion in language in all its forms can only become richer as his command of the written and printed word develops. I am so proud of my little boy, my baby, my window into what it is to be fully human. Blake, as I sing to you all the time, you are my sunshine.

We have a new direction to run to with our torches and pitchforks. An unwed mother of six, living with her parents and collecting disability, has IVF and gives birth to 8 more. Who do we get most outraged at (because we LOVE that stuff!)? The mother? The doctor? Misguided folks who consider mental difficulties as a viable excuse rather than an unheeded cry for help? The American Fertilocracy? Brangelina?

I’m not outraged, unfortunately. I’m just darned sad in my heart, and simultaneously vindicated. My own experience with IVF left me highly suspicious about the cultural, marketing, and ethical underpinnings of the fertility industry as practiced.

Fertility services, packaged with graphics of happy white babies and pseudo-medical, sanitized euphemisms like “family balancing” and “selective reduction,” is sold to us like a product, not like a therapy. The appeal is one of luxury commodity, something you just gotta have if you can afford it. It preys on those of us who long to see that little one staring up at us with eyes just like ours, and a nose just like our spouse. And as with any product we are being sold, it promises happiness and a transcendence beyond our all-too-insufficient selves.

This is not to denigrate those who have given birth from IVF, or the children that have arisen from this procedure. Each life is beautiful, each person imperfect, and many well-meaning and full of love. And, after a child arrives, the reality of that life to a loving parent can make all that gave rise to it fade away. This current tragic case does not say that pursuing ART (assistive reproductive technologies) is a bad thing. The technology itself is wondrous, but the way we are sold it is like we are sold Crest White Strips: to correct an insufficiency with ourselves. You know, the old narcissistic-insecurity pitch.

Many plastic surgeons require psychological screenings for people prior to obtaining plastic surgery. In my experience with IVF, performed at one of the most respected institutions in the world (Cornell-NY Presbyterian), psychological screening, treatment, or counseling was not even mentioned until I asked. When I asked about it, the doctor (a perfectly nice, albeit, emotionally absent guy) kind of off-handedly said that they had a counselor on staff and, he guessed, we could talk with them, if we wanted to…and stuff. It would cost extra. I paraphrase, but you get the point. It not only was provided on an ad hoc, as-requested basis, it was not even near being a required part of the treatment. It was an extra.

The regimen was to get the daily hormone shots, get the daily blood drawn, sign the check, sign the release forms, get the eggs out and back in. There was absolutely, positively not a single conversation about emotional preparation, how to handle it if it didn’t work out, how to handle it if it did work out.

The overall sense was that people who can afford this kind of procedure had sufficient resources and support systems in place to fill in the more human gaps that the technology of fertility could not do. But I wonder to this day if I had undergone counseling as a required part of the treatment, would my stress level not have been so high, and would I have conceived? Would it not have taken me so long to emotionally recover from the disappointment of having “failed?” Would someone have discovered that, although I was chronologically in the range where the doctors needed to rush it (about to turn 41, the stats drop off), perhaps waiting a year until my husband and I were settled in a new home may have been better? (Either way, I am joyous I didn’t give birth because, if I did, I would not have my Blake and Mihiret, and that very idea makes me shudder, they are so in my DNA at this point.)

We are all talking about what a horrible freeloader Nadya Suleman is, we take sides about who the ultimate culprit is. The ultimate culprit, in my opinion, is the commodity society we are in that allows medical treatment to be sold like a product. We are so busy being awestruck by what medicine can do that we turn a blind eye to the way it sells itself to us. Did you see those doctors at the press conference following the birth? They were so utterly disengaged from the ultimate human reality of just happened, using the entire thing as a promotional photo-op for the fertility treatment product suite.

This woman is sick, and has my pity, anger, and compassion. She really screwed up (yea, it’s her right by virtue of writing that check in a free market society, but she really screwed up) and she needs a good shrink, and a real friend, very badly. These children have little chance of thriving, and that is a travesty. But while we are pointing fingers, let’s point a few at ourselves. When parenthood is seen as an entitlement the way it is in our society, when not being able to conceive is seen as a disability, when we feel like we can purchase fertility no questions asked like a new car, when we feel that plunking down windfall money can make up for the voids in our empty hearts, this is what you get.

So, once again, put away the torches and pitchforks. Righteous indignation or not, we’ve all got work to do to make this a better world for these 14 kids, and, as much as you have to grit your teeth, try to understand these sadly sick women who feel compelled to keep making them for all the wrong reasons. We love to talk about these “awful” people, but, we need less talk ABOUT these women, and more conversations WITH them before this happens again. It’s called a society, it costs nothing, and it may be the best medicine we can provide each other to cure this sense of alienation that affects us all, and makes us try to buy happiness. Me included.

It’s a technique for not getting too bogged down in the “poor-me’s”. Making a gratitude list, when I’m not irritated about it, is a way to skew my thinking about my life so that the narrative of “what if” doesn’t bog me down. My drug of choice, after all, remains self-pity.

So, here it is, once again. My gratitude list:

1. I have two beautiful, unique, and amazing children.
2. My son, Blake, is doing remarkably well in school this year.
3. I have a faithful husband who loves me.
4. I have seven great brothers and sisters (plus their spouses and kids, and their kids)
5. I am healthy and look (relatively) young for my age.
6. I have a job.
7. My current job has allowed me to meet some of the smartest, funniest people I’ve ever known.
8. I have a cute, little house in a good school district.
9. My husband is a hard-working genius.
10. My siblings have been there for me in a big way over this past difficult year.
11. I visited Ethiopia and brought home a new daughter.
12. I was blessed not to have to face relinquishing a child, as Mihiret’s birth father was forced to do.
13. I am literate, technology-aware, and can write well.
14. There are many places in the U.S. I can move and still have family nearby.
15. I face a life of choices I can make, versus those who have difficult choices thrust upon them.

I pray to God that he fills me with the gratitude from this list, and clears away the bitterness in my heart about all that I do not have that I want. I pray for the guidance to understand why life feels so hard right now, and what I can do to change that. Amen.

Mihiret had her first ballet class today. There’s a lot of history in my sending her for ballet, and none of it hers. As with all things in life, we plan one war with the goals and tactics of the previous one. But, this time, darn it, this time…we’re gonna win!

Mihiret is a girlie-girl who also doubles with a mean right hook. That is, she’s not a tomboy. She’s a girl who takes no baloney from anyone. From the moment she came home, flashy clothing has caught her eye. Sparkly stuff, usually hideous, usually matched with other sparkly stuff. Striped tights and flowered skirts, she really makes an impression.

So, shopping for her ballet clothes, I was torn. I always wanted to take ballet as a kid, but my mother said I wasn’t suited for it (?). Of course, in my mind, she was saying my legs were too fat. But I always dreamed of the pale pink leotard with the pale pink tights and pale pink ribbony shoes. That whole anemic waif thing had appeal for me. That was how I envisioned Mihiret’s ballet outfit.

Target had other ideas. They were all out of the pale pink stuff, and all that was left was Disney princesses and black. Then, there was the hot pink and purple with the rhinestones. So, I stood there going through the rack, knowing that no other store in town carried ballet stuff (no other store I can afford) and having to make a choice. Whatever the choice was, I knew that she would look different from the other girls, but, I had to choose something because her first lesson was just a couple of hours away.

I calculated that Mihiret would probably like the Disney Princess in pale pink, but, I don’t want to brand my kids with Disney clothes other than underwear or pajamas. So, that left the black stuff OR the hot pink or purple with rhinestones. Knowing Mihiret as I do, and the glee she has at anything pink and gaudy, it was the hot pink with the rhinestones. I pictured how she would look at it when I showed it to her, probably thrilled at how tacky it was. I put aside my fears that she would look different from the others. I suspected that my drive to do that was based on MY childhood desire to be the pale pink ballerina. Fate was denying me that option, and I would instead embrace the full Mihiret for who she really was. I’d put her out there, tackiness and all, and just celebrate it.

As I suspected, she was thrilled with it, and ran into the dressing room with me and Blake so she could put it on before the class. Of course, she looked absolutely adorable and gorgeous. Her amazing skin looks beautiful next to a bright, saturated color.

All the other girls wore pale pink. My imagined expression of Mihiret’s Mihiretness became instead an opportunity for her to stick out even more than she already does. I take immense joy in how beautiful she is, and how unique, but as a kid in a new country, maybe she doesn’t enjoy it so much. Maybe she’s just finding her way. So, even as I was enjoying seeing her in her little sparkly dance clothes doing the hokey pokey, I was as anxious as anxious could be about what she might have been feeling amidst all the pale skin and pale clothes. Here I was, wanting to celebrate her desire to be girly, rather than squash it, and maybe she wanted something else.

Which is where I get to the terms of the previous war — my lifetime struggle to define what is feminine, and what is over the top girly. Trying to strike a balance in service to pleasing someone, most likely my Mom.

My first holy communion was one of those awful days that had such promise (especially when you’re 7 and Catholic and it’s 1968). The reason seems dumb in retrospect, but at the time, it was a devastating thing that informed a lot of my body image, self image, sense of being a “pretty” girl, and all that.

The first holy communion, back then (don’t know about these days) was a chance to look like a bride. It was no holds barred lace, crinoline, plastic pearls, matching purse, white rosary beads, all in white, including a bridal veil. The reason for this particular look has never been clear to me, and in retrospect seems borderline pornographic, but that’s for another post. When my turn came after my four older sisters, I could not wait to get that dress and all the plastic accessories.

My mom and I went to her favorite clothing store at the time. It was store called Ohrbach’s, and the clothing was somewhere between a current-day Macy’s and a JC Penneys. To my Jersey City mom, Ohrbach’s was the upper middle road shopping experience. To me, Ohrbach’s meant Mom was going to get me something really nice. After all, we weren’t going to Alexander’s or E.J. Korvettes.

The communion ceremony was to be in the fall, in early October. Those wonderful holy communion dresses were all frilly and light, not at all about warmth. But what little girl would care? We went to Ohrbach’s, to the girls’ department, and I saw the rack of those communion dresses. But, even at the age of 7, I had learned not to assert what I wanted lest I be dismissed or shamed for picking the wrong thing, or being too extravagant. So, I waited for my Mom to rifle through the stuff, hoping she’d pick the frilliest thing imaginable.

It was not to be. My mother picked out a woolen white dress with long sleeves and accordion pleats. Truly, in an adult’s eyes, it was a cute dress. It was well-made, smart, and, most of all to my Mom, PRACTICAL. I’d wear it again. And then, for the shoes, I was eyeing these great white patent leather strapped numbers. Mom picked out black. It was PRACTICAL — those white shoes would never stay clean. We were then to order the veil and the purse from the school, and there were a few choices. For the veil, I wanted the one with the most pearls. Mom picked out the one that was plain and elegant, saying the pearls were “cheesy.” No purse because I wouldn’t need it.

What strikes me in these memories is my silence. I didn’t whine, I didn’t ask for anything other than what I got. I learned that my impulses to have the extras were wrong, that my taste for girly things was cheesy, that the things I wanted were not practical, that I could not make the right choices. I didn’t want to play my hand at wanting the girly things out of fear of being shamed.

This haunts me to this day every time I buy clothing, every time I attempt makeup, every time I buy a pair of earrings. I own very, very little jewelry. I always own a practical, single purse. I have a closet full of tailored separates. For the first few years in AA, I found out that most folks thought I was gay because all I wore were jeans and blazers. This explained, I suppose, why no guys asked me out

So, I want to make girly-girly stuff as on-the-table as the classics. I don’t want to shame Mihiret in any way. Buying her what appeared to be something consistent with her spirit, I was trying really hard to make sure she’d be fully herself, or my idea of what is fully herself. Did I do good?

I could have kept my mouth shut after Mihiret’s class, but I had to know if she was traumatized by looking so different. I had to give her a chance to feel unashamed about expressing how she felt about how she looked.

“Mihiret, you were the prettiest girl in the room and you danced so beautifully. Do you want to wear this outfit next week, or wear what the other girls are wearing?”

“Other girls” was her response, pointing at the pale pink girls leaving the dance floor next to her.

Well, I probably can’t afford that anytime soon, but said we can look together some time when we have some money. Also, I felt a little sad to see that her drive to just be tacky gorgeous, in this context, shifted a bit to wanting to fit in. But I truly understand. Most importantly, I understand that how a little girl looks relative to her peers can be of tremendous importance to her. And with all compassion towards my Mom, having to clothe 8 kids may lead you to make decisions that were more practical than fanciful. And she may have just been too bloody exhausted to affirm my choices with all those other kids to take care of. For my part, I have to strike a balance between wanting to soothe that little girl from 1968, or, 40 years later, do the best I can to give my daughter a voice in how she looks, who she is, and ultimately, the life choices she makes.

Sometimes, the likelihood of a functional, confident adulthood rests on a tacky white plastic Communion purse, or a pale pink leotard. For a child, personal taste and desires are a cypher for deeper impulses to shape their world and their place in it. For Mihiret, in a strange culture with a majority of people who don’t look like her, this meaningful symbol of self that we call “taste” may have more meaning than it ever has for me.

You know the saying: “Get something to fall back on, and you will fall back.” In my case, it all goes back to my unwillingness to rebel against my parents’ discouragement of a career as musician and performer. I needed a realistic career to fall back on, and I indeed have always fallen back.

The problem with the fall back is that, if you are a person of passion (and I was born with more than my share), you lack the ability that normal folks have to detach from work and then go home and have a life. At those times in my life when I was pursuing creative work, when I was in a comedy band, when I was writing songs, I was able to take on hourly, temp, and freelance work and maintain detachment. The passion went into my band and my silly, funny songs I was writing and performing during my years in NYC.

But life in Virginia is different. There is no such creative outlet at the ready, and the isolation of being a mother and breadwinner leaves little opportunity to pursue anything outside the home other than my primary job. Bottom line: If the job is okay, Mommy’s okay. If it’s not, Mommy is not okay.

Mommy is not okay.

I have lots of voices in my head like “how dare you complain about your job when so many have lost theirs,” and I appreciate that. My AA gratitude list is long, but my job, due to a change in management and philosophy, a canceling of my long-standing telecommuting arrangement, a dismantling of all the progress I have made for the institution in the past 9 years, and an atmosphere that has everyone on the job looking down and frightened, has become untenable for me. I come home now late at night, beaten down by the 70-mile commute, beaten down by all that happens when I am there, with little to give my kids, and utterly hopeless.

I have become a “yes” man, something I am so NOT wired for. I was a “yes” man when I was a kid. I can’t do it now and stay sober — that passion thing again.

My Dad was no yes man. He was truly kind of a jerk, but, he was a jerk with integrity. He was willing to quit his job when there were 8 mouths to feed at a time when he was being asked to make unethical choices on the job. But, he had a full-time wife and a vacation home to live in. If I quit, we lose the house, and the kids lose big. This is not the time in our history to be cavalier about a job.

Getting a job in Charlottesville has become a pipe dream. Breaking into UVA is nothing less than a potentially heroic feat, and I think I may lack the landed-gentry DNA that seems to be a requirement to work there — my ancestors clocked no hours at Foxfield. In the absence of a clear place in what appears to be a culture of who-you-know and correct breeding, I face an even longer commute to DC as I look for alternate employment to fall back during these seemingly interminable years my husband is completing his PhD.

I had not planned the fallback career to last this long. I took on my current job to keep things going for us for a while, and now it’s been nearly a decade. Not that I’m still lusting after a performing career, but I am longing for meaningful work. I am not one of those women for whom full-time motherhood would be fulfilling, much as I appreciate that it is for many. My brain and my heart simply needs connection with the outside world and a personal fulfillment independent of my children.

With this fallback life, I need the fallback position that will not kill my soul. In this current culture of despair, yearning for meaning seems a luxury. But I yearn nonetheless.

OBAMA!!

I just had to get that out.

I’ve written in this space about belonging to the generation sandwiched between the Boomers and Gen X. Our generation is now labeled in Wikipedia (the online version of an all-knowing god) as “Generation Jones.” (This is really, really dumb, and is thus consistent with the clothes from our generation). Finally, it is acknowledged that those of us who were parsing the Weekly Reader during the Vietnam draft lottery were not exactly Boomers. And those of us who came of age during Second Wave feminism, Glam Rock and the nascient “ecology” movement could not be characterized as Alex P. Keaton Gen X-ers.

Our generation had crappy music, uninspired clothing, and a bad early 1980s job market to enter into. We saw the prosperity of the Boomers rise, and then the opportunities for the Gen Xers follow us. But there was no “hook,” no ideology of free love or free markets to drive our lives by. We generally had to choose between the two generations surrounding us, and just go with it. Boomers with better drugs or Gen-Xers with more insecurity.

Of course, one of the problems with these generational categories is that they seem to increasingly be described in terms of popular culture. Perhaps, that IS the American culture at this point. Despite this, I see this being played out with Obama.

I thought this even before I Googled Wikipedia, so it still counts: Barack is a quintessential Generation Jonesian.

It is intriguing to me that the rhetoric surrounding his approach is increasingly stating how he is non-ideological, he is pragmatic. David Brooks said Obama’s approach would be more about process than ideology, based on the notion from the inauguration speech’s reference to it not being the size of the government, but the magic you make with it.

I think this is not simply an accident of a calculatedly ambitious guy (I say that with all admiration. Too many qualified folks out there who lack calculated ambition and deprive us of the fruits of their talents.). This lack of a uniting ideology is part of the Generation Jones experience.

There was no great movement to hold us together. We kind of lived somewhat off the fruits of the 1960s, and simply worked to advance things incrementally from there. There was no watershed moment like Kent State, the Freedom Rides, or Woodstock. I mean, No Nukes just had no legs, and James Taylor was no Bob Dylan. We were ideologized-out by 1978. But, many of us were stained by the aspirations of the 60s and just couldn’t wash it out enough to join the Reagan Revolution along with Alex P. Keaton and his Gen-X friends.

Without an ideology, we learned pragmatism. Although it may sound less glamorous in a way, I believe in the merits of a life driven by solving problems consciously instead of judging every move based on its consistency with abstract theologies or political affiliations. In a way, I feel badly for those above and below my generation. It must be hard to live with the weight of not living up to the 60s ideals, or going bust after evangelizing the virtues of the unregulated free markets.

Us Jonesers have nothing to prove. We can wear what we want, vote for whom we want, go to whatever church we want (or not), and not worry about betraying some abstract ideal that no one ever lived up to anyway. I’m much more interested in the results of sound decision-making than in the theories that drove them. FDR was exceedingly pragmatic, in spite of the liberal trappings of his legacy.

President Obama, I cried along with everyone else today (while shushing my kids repeatedly like any good American). Thank god the theocracy, and the well-meaning Utopians, have momentarily left the room, or at least toned it down enough to actually be helpful.

Let’s see some Generation Jones pragmatic problem solving, with an eye on compassion and love. That’s all the ideology you need.

I spent my childhood years in Suffern, NY. It’s a little town just over the Jersey border, known to most as a sign along the NY Thruway on the way upstate. For some strange reason, I did not blog about this last October — perhaps because I was occupied with Mihiret more at that time, perhaps because the feelings were so tender and so raw that even I could not yet write about them :).

On October 5 of this year, I went to a reunion. Not a high school reunion, or a college reunion. This was my 35 year elementary school reunion with folks I had not seen since graduating from Suffern’s Sacred Heart School. Apparently, elementary school reunions are not common. To anyone who thinks this was strange, I have to say, I highly recommend it.

I’ve been to high school reunions and they are dreadful. Here’s my theory on that: Just like when you regress to emotional toddler-hood upon entering your parents’ home as an adult, with a high school reunion, you are transported into that self-conscious, awkward, person you were in the school cafeteria. You’re a teenager again.

You may think you want to be a teenager again, but nostalgia has a way of fuzzing out the more painful parts of life. During my high school years, my mother, uncensored and insensitive genius that she was, always told me, “Everyone is going to tell you these are the best years of your life. Don’t believe it! These are the worst years of your life.” She was right. High school years sucked, and returning to them in the form of a reunion with all the kids that marred your heart and soul for 4 agonizing years is not my idea of a good time.

But elementary school, that’s different. In those eight years at Sacred Heart, I found an academic and creative oasis where my soul and mind could flourish, far away from the alcoholic chaos of my home. It was my refuge, it was where my heart shone brightly, where I could be the smartest kid in the class, where I could be the star of the school play, and still have kids who like me before they got old enough to learn the power of shunning, resentment, and jealousy. These were the years when everyone was so guileless, when friends united and separated organically like one-celled organisms, where I was joyfully oblivious to anything but what was happening at that very moment.

Meeting these people was simply stunning. Many stayed in Suffern, or in Rockland County, and have raised their kids there. These were the ones of whom I was most envious. It’s funny, but ten years ago I may have been judgmental about them for not venturing forth and trying something new. Now, at my age, I see the value that staying put and holding down roots can have. Their kids are going to Sacred Heart, reliving what we lived in that frozen-in-time town (just ask the NY Times). For all my venturing forth and living a young adulthood of chaotic experimentation, I arrived to sobriety with one need: to put down roots. Meeting these great classmates of mine made me ask the proverbial question: Why did I ever pull the roots up to begin with?

Well, of course I know why. When the heart is restless, it needs to move. And my heart at the age of 18 was exceedingly restless. I wanted to divorce myself as quickly as I could from my home of 15 years and re-invent myself as an urban, intellectual sophisticated artist or something. It’s only with 20/20 hindsight that I now see all the trite stuff about “no matter where you go, there you are” and all that. Truth is, I’ve never been so happy since the days when life was centered around Sacred Heart School and all the security I found in those classrooms, in the Lafayette Theatre, in the trips to the Nanuet Mall, in the parades along Lafayette Avenue where I carried the American flag for my school (always the showoff).

I never really wanted fame and fortune. If I did, I would have it. It’s taken all these years, capped off with a trip to this magical reunion, to figure out that all this time I just wanted to be settled and happy. at the close of those remarkable, guileless years where all was dreamed and little was accounted for, I learned about things like ambition and accomplishment, expectations placed on the class Valedictorian to tread some sort of career path that others could parse as appropriately scaled to your potential. The eyes that gazed upon the trajectory of my life were no longer my own. I no longer was conscious of or focused on the next thing. I gave that right away to someone else: my parents, my husband-du-jour. I looked to them for the map to a successful life and it was never quite clear. This school or that? This career or that? Have I got it right yet? Can I stop now, or try that? What is wrong with me that I don’t like doing this after you paid all that tuition? I should be a success. After all, I was the smartest girl in the class!

Ten years ago, I would have been ashamed to meet with these folks. Ashamed that I didn’t have enough to show relative to their expectations for me. Now, I’ve grown too involved in being a mother that I didn’t feel all that shame so much. Besides, I could not have been more wrong. These were lovely people, absolutely open to finding out about each other in a way that I’ve never experienced at a high school reunion. Some even married each other and divorced each other, and we all sat and laughed about it. No one held an image of me in their heads, combing the papers each day to see if I was famous yet. Imagine that? I wasn’t the center of their Universe. What a goddamn relief!

We did produce two stars, neither of which came. One was Joe Lockhart, my classmate of eight years and Press Secretary to Bill Clinton. Joe said he would show but then didn’t come. I had a big crush on Joe in 7th grade (to this day, brains trump looks every time, apologies to Joe). We were at a party, I was wearing orange hip-huggers with a macrame belt, and looking (to my mind) terrifically cool. They started to play spin the bottle (sounds quaint, but in 1972, this was dangerous territory). I wanted so much to get with Joe, but then bowed out before the first spin. I said to myself it was “immoral,” but I think I was just scared to death. Joe, wherever you are, I’m sure you live to this day with the disappointment

The other star from our class is Robert Ellsworth, known to the world as “Bobby Blitz,” metal singer/songwriter. He was a bit more polite about not showing. He was on tour, and sent his regrets ahead of time. Robert was always a skinny little silly guy with snot in his nose and cartridge pen ink in his shirt pocket. He was the last one I would have pegged to become some sort of buff metal guy. His best friend was among those still remaining in Suffern, a great, funny guy named Kevin O’Hara who was always in the cool circle of guys and with whom I believe I actually spoke for the first time this year. Kevin told stories about Bobby having a stroke onstage, and he apparently wanted to continue. He’s a cancer surviver as well. Robert (I’m sorry, “Bobby”) is resilient as hell apparently, and a great (if somewhat crazy) guy. For all of his world travels and fame, purportedly he still calls Suffern “home.”

I’ve also struck up a friendship with a woman named Michelle Ward-Brent who was among the popular girls, and thus not in my immediate social circle (if I had one, and I don’t think I did) in school. Turns out she and I have a lot in common, and I spent this past Saturday hanging out with her in her Maryland home. Filling in the blanks of each other’s distant memories, we found intersections between her mother and mine, between us and others in our class, that I was previously unaware of. Apparently there was a lot more sexual action back then than I knew about (remember, I was the “immoral” spin-the-bottle girl). Who knew? Well, everyone but me, it appears.

The day after, I drove around Suffern photographing my old house and the place where my mother bought me a piano with her tax refund check — one of the red letter days of my life. The place is closed, but not inhabited in a while, and apparently haunted with the ghosts of me and the others who found their musical voice inside its walls in the late 60s, perhaps “Bobby Blitz” among them.

Suffern, it is nice to get to know you again. I’ll take Blake and Mihiret to a movie at the Lafayette theatre some day. They may never get to go to Sacred Heart School, or paint a storefront window downtown at Halloween, or walk to the Rolling Pin bakery on a Saturday morning, I can at least share with them a little of my time-frozen and joyful childhood memories. To all in the Sacred Heart School class of 1973, thank you for giving me back a big piece of my heart. You are phenomenal.

Today marks my 16th year of sobriety. Whenever my anniversary comes up, I’m always taken back to the time when I first gave up and gave in. It all seemed pretty simple, if difficult, then. “Don’t drink and go to meetings.” I had a stupid sobriety job and a lot of free time on my hands when not at work. So, it was two to three meetings a day, followed by coffee at a diner, followed by going home late at night, too tired to think of going to the liquor store. My days, and many nights, were all about staying sober. I didn’t own much, I didn’t make much, I was responsible to no one but myself. It was lonely, but it was also exceedingly free.

Here I am living on the other side of the bridge back to life promised by sobriety, and I admit to being in alien territory. It is the territory marked by emotions-in-the-raw. Nothing to take the edge off, especially since the only vices I have left (substance-wise) are artificial sweeteners and caffiene. I had to get rid of the food thing this year, and the corner I’ve painted myself into without a ready addiction to fall back on, like copious amounts of white flour and sugar, my ability to negotiate the world truly sober is limited at best.

In a kind of celebratory mood, I took Mihiret today for her first hair braiding, one of many to come. She looks, of course, adorable. I took her and Blake for ice cream afterwards — they were so good to sit through the 50 minutes it took to do her whole head in those little cornrows. They were wonderful, and I felt the credits roll up on the movie of my life: drunken loser to awesome mom of two great and quirky kids. But life resists the final credits. There are always, it seems, alternate endings tacked on, like a DVD special feature.

This alternate ending was the inevitable Blake evening manic meltdown, culminating in this case by his spitting on the floor in the mall while riding the little merry-go-round, then climbing off the horse nearly knocking the other kids off. Then, there was the inevitable dragging him and Mihiret to the car to get them out of the public eye while the meltdown continued. This was followed by the usual kicking and punching in the car, the calling me stupid and “dammit” (Blake thinks that’s a noun) while Mihiret screams “Blake too loud” while bursting into tears. Then there is, of course, arriving home to having to keep them separated just to keep the decibel level manageable.

And, to top it all off, with all my expectations about how another year sober should be marked being completely dashed, Mommy loses it and starts yelling at the top of her lungs. I felt just complete despair, this utter “what is wrong with my life” stuff that marks the moment before you pick up a drink. A dry drunk moment, you could say, since I’m just too darned stubborn to break my streak at this point.

I was waiting for my husband to come home so I could go to a meeting to celebrate and get my 16 year coin (they call them “chips” here, but I keep to the New York term “coin”). But I was in no mood for a meeting by the time he got home. I decided instead to take myself out for a drive, to get a slice of pizza and window shop for an hour or so to clear my head.

Well gosh darn it if I made a wrong turn and headed into the shopping center without a pizza joint. So, I settled for a Five Guys burger. I ordered the burger, and then I hear “Hi!” from behind me. A woman from my Tuesday meeting, who has 32 years of sobriety, greeted me. We wound up sitting together and talking about my emotional dilemna, my disillusionment with the quality of my sobriety and the state of my parenting. She gave my the kind of advice you only get from an AA person: not advice, just a re-direction of sorts to bring all your own unhappiness back to you, and to tell you how they take their own unhappiness and give it to their higher power. Darned if I didn’t get to a meeting in spite of myself.

So, there was no coin, but there was experience, strength, and hope. And relief. I went to Target and tried on size 4 jeans (one pair of size 2!) and size small dresses and was grateful that they all fit so well now that I’ve lost the weight — even the clingy knit things that are just too sexy to wear at my age except in the privacy of a harshly lit fitting room while squinting my eyes to smooth out the deeply shadowed wrinkles on my face looking at me in the mirror. Even though I didn’t have the money to buy anything, it sure felt good to be thin, even after that Five Guys burger (no, I didn’t get the fries). I found my gratitude for the day.

I got home and the kids were asleep. After all the chaos and despair of earlier in the evening, you’d think I would be relieved. But, I was sad. I missed them already.

I’m never happy, am I?