I am from sandy beaches, from Coppertone and flip flops and beach towels and bike rides from my house to Patricia's and back again.
I am from the house around the corner from the bay, with lilacs out back, a paint-splattered patio with an outdoor shower, with bright yellow walls that curve in over the bed.
I am from the crashing waves and the sweet salt air. I am from the skating rink on Friday nights.
I am from Dad's poems on the refrigerator and melons for appetizers, from Anna Banana and Bob and Susan and Marion and Eugene, too.
I am from the people who talk so easily they forget to listen, and people who don't talk about things that bother them and people who would give you the shirt off their back to keep you warm. I am from people who say "I love you, bup bup."
From not going in the water until an hour after lunch and from vague, rhythmic advice about the importance of girls setting the tone for relationships, ever since the time of Anthony and Cleopatra. From advice that sometimes needed setting aside, and from advice that sometimes comes out of my mouth (but not the part about Anthony and Cleopatra).
I am from Catholicism that didn't stick (although it did supply a love of ritual). I am from show tunes and Girl Scout songs and hours of piano practice. I am from classical music and Celtic music and dreams of travel around the world. I am from the field where my best friend was the first girl in Little League and from the place of hope that thought the ERA and the space program would change my world.
I'm from New York and Ireland, from frozen spinach and fish cakes on Friday. I am from Gino's pizza and bagels with a schmear and regular coffee and tea with the milk put in first.
From stories I can't tell because nobody tells them.
I am from parents who took in their parents, from long-lived parents who have outlived their siblings, from people who slowly, silently, change their minds, who eventually act out of love. From a father who drove me and my friends everywhere, because that's what his father did. From New York Football Giants memorabilia, from photos stored in boxes, somewhere in the house. From silver and china that didn't get used enough. From a kitchen that always had a cuppa and an extra seat and plate. From quiet mysteries and unanswered questions.
**************
This is based on a poem by George Ella Lyon's poem "Where I'm From," which gave Fred First Floyd the idea to create a writing assignment. I've seen this form around before, but this week got the idea from Maggie, who got it from Amanda and Flutter and De. A blogger named Schmutzie is making a link-up. If you're inspired, click on Fred Floyd's name above for the template.
Showing posts with label memes and themes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memes and themes. Show all posts
07 July 2011
31 December 2008
New Year's Meme
As seen around, most recently at Dawn's. Happy New Year, everyone!:
1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Drove more than 1000 miles without another adult in the car (and did all the driving myself--usually I navigate).
1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Drove more than 1000 miles without another adult in the car (and did all the driving myself--usually I navigate).
2. Did you keep your New Years’ Resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I made any New Year's resolutions last year. Some years, I write down my hopes/fears/expectations for the year, but I didn't do that last year.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! Historian Friend had a delightful baby on my half-birthday in February, and Neighbor Friends had a delightful baby in the summer, shortly before we moved.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Quiet Friend. I miss him. This time last year, I was blogging about his medical problems.
5. What countries did you visit?
My only travel was in the US (unless you count Disneyl@and as a world unto itself).
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
A legal marriage to Politica.
7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Election Night. The night we got to Germany. The night Quiet Friend died. I may not always remember the precise dates, but those are all nights I recall with intense clarity, because on each of them, my world changed.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Moving, and getting settled into certain kinds of new routines here in Germany.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Hmmm....not sure here. December's spate of bread failures comes to mind, but surely there was something bigger? Had some family-of-origin boundary/holiday issues.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
A Stokke chair for Curious Girl (on craigslist!) and panniers for my bike, so I can ride to work now.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Curious Girl: an exemplary traveler.
Lesbian Dad: an exemplary blogger and activist, who wrote a lot of beautiful words about marriage this year.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The K of C, the LDS, and everyone else who supported Proposition 8.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Into houses: our current one, and the one we are still trying to sell in Old State.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Marriage fantasies. For the first time in my life, I'm having wedding fantasies, though they are followed by periods of dejection on marriage, too.
The election.
Germany.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
"Best Days of our Lives": the soundtrack to my drive from Old State to Germany (see the link above on question 12).
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier, I think. I'm missing good friends prodigiously right now, but I'm glad we've moved.
ii. thinner or fatter? About the same.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer in terms of income; more cash-strapped in terms of the unsold house. .
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing. Sleeping.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Mindless websurfing (usually too late at night, and addictively unsatisfying). Fretting about personnel matters at home (when it doesn't add anything to my ability to help matters)20. How did you spend Christmas?
At home, with Politica and Curious Girl.
21. What LJ users did you meet?
Like Dawn, I'll amend this to how many online friends did I meet for the first time in 07: Artsweet, Shannon, Dawn, and Jenna. And Rev. Dr. Mom, and That Silly Mommy.
22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
As Dawn said in her answer to this question, I think I fall a little more in love with Politica all the time.
23. How many one-night stands?
I'll quote Dawn here: "This is for the younger blogging set, isn’t it?"
24. What was your favourite TV program?
The Daily Show, Dr. Who, and Xena.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No. I don't really hate anyone.
26. What was the best book you read?
New mystery authors I'm enjoying: Archer Mayer and Sarah Stewart Taylor. One of the most compelling books I've read was Jennifer Boylan's She's Not There, a memoir that Joyce recommended to me (there are uncanny parallels between Joyce and Jenny Boylan, although R!chard Russ0 is not Joyce's best friend, and Joyce (and before her, George) is a friend who grows more likeable over time. The narrator in She's Not There (which is one presentation of the real Jenny Boylan; I'm sure there are tons of things she left out of her transgender narration) got less likeable to me over the course of the book. Some of the major contours of their lives might be the same, but their personalities are quite different).
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
That ocarinas are great fun in the car.
28. What did you want and get?
A house in the neighborhood I wanted to live in.
29. What did you want and not get?
An architecturally interesting house in said neighborhood. An office with a real window.
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
I'm not even sure I saw a film in 2008. No, wait, I did: the post-apocalyptic film with Will Smith in it whose name I forget. I re-saw Charlie Brown movies in 2008 and enjoyed them.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
46 last August, and I was in Charming College Town, celebrating with Historian Friend, her lovely boys, and Curious Girl. Politica was already in Germany, dealing with the house. We had wedding cake for my birthday and Messy Boy's birthday, and I missed Politica. Last week, on a day when I was missing Historian Friend, we designated another day The Official Birthday, and we went out for breakfast at one of my favorite breakfast restaurants.
32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If my best friends and CG's old school had been magically transported here. I miss them, big time.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
If I could describe it, I'd probably have more of one. I have been wearing more earth tones. And I'm happy to have moved to Germany, where my clothes seem to fit in better than they did in Old State. I'm not much for fashion.
34. What kept you sane?
Twitter (which surprised me--when I first read about it, it seemed pretty useless). Politica. The lake. Bike rides. Snuggles. Friends in the computer. Pseudonymousless Friend, Historian Friend, Mississippi Friend.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Not sure. Which blogger riveted me, though: Lesbian Dad. Not sure that counts as fancying (in fact, does one fancy butches? why not? It's an amusing juxtaposition, the fancy and the butch). But her words this fall: quite captivating.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The presidential election, generally, and marriage equality.
37. Who did you miss?
Quiet Friend. The world is a poorer place without him.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
Joyce, my new/old friend. Runner up: all the great connections here in Germany and we're so grateful for them!
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
Location, location, location. It's good to live in a place you feel connected to.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
If I wait to answer this question, this post may go up sometime in May. But if I hit post now, I'll probably think of a great answer during dinner. So I'll come back to this later.03 July 2008
Yo, Yo!
Early in her pregnancy, when Ianqui was thinking about a nom-de-blog for her baby, she saw a news item about yo evolving as a gender-neutral pronoun. It became the perfect blogname for the baby, and when she announced it, I thought, a) “how cool! bookmark that news item for future teaching use” and b) “Yo, Yo!” would be a great name for a blog post. Great title, but what to follow it? Recommendations for good children’s music (starting with Dan Zanes’ Family Dance, which contains “Yo Yo, Sweet Yo Yo”) or good books (starting with Chris Raschka’s Yo! Yes! and Ring! Yo! leading into Irene Smalls' Don’t Say Ain’t, the beginning of a list of kids’ books that are about language)? I couldn’t get those ideas to go anywhere…but I realized that the best baby shower game I’ve ever played is a great way to welcome Yo, and it’s in keeping with the title-in-search-of-content and Ianqui's carbon-footprint-reducing ethos (a game that generates no stuff!). Now that Yo has arrived, it’s a fine day to teach you all the best baby shower game ever—and Ianqui and Super G can pass the results on to Yo whenever they want. There are already tons of happy comments over at Ianqui's own posts on the subject, and I suppose Ianqui won't be blog-reading quite so frequently. But some of you might want to play along here, and I trust Ianqui won't mind an uninvited burst of bloggy enthusiasm for her wee one.
I learned this game when Uncle Quiet and Tante Mississippi were expecting Curly Haired Cousin, and their department threw a shower, so it has especially sweet memories for me. We also played it at Historian Friend’s shower. In real life, you’d use index cards, one for each guest, numbered 1 to however many you need for everyone present. On this post, we can just use the order of comments. All you have to do is tell a memory from your life from the age on your card/comment position (or something about what your world was like, if you don't remember anything from that year) and then make a wish for Yo for when Yo turns that age (so if you have card #7, or are commenter #7 on this post, you’d tell a memory from when you were 7, and offer a wish for Yo for when Yo is 7). I’ll do age one in the first comment, and anyone else who wants to join in can just do two, three, four, whatever. This is a cool way to learn a little more about other people; it’s interesting to see what different childhoods were like and what kinds of different wishes people offer, corresponding to different ages.
So Yo, Yo! Some wishes for you to soak up are in the comments. Welcome to the world.
I learned this game when Uncle Quiet and Tante Mississippi were expecting Curly Haired Cousin, and their department threw a shower, so it has especially sweet memories for me. We also played it at Historian Friend’s shower. In real life, you’d use index cards, one for each guest, numbered 1 to however many you need for everyone present. On this post, we can just use the order of comments. All you have to do is tell a memory from your life from the age on your card/comment position (or something about what your world was like, if you don't remember anything from that year) and then make a wish for Yo for when Yo turns that age (so if you have card #7, or are commenter #7 on this post, you’d tell a memory from when you were 7, and offer a wish for Yo for when Yo is 7). I’ll do age one in the first comment, and anyone else who wants to join in can just do two, three, four, whatever. This is a cool way to learn a little more about other people; it’s interesting to see what different childhoods were like and what kinds of different wishes people offer, corresponding to different ages.
So Yo, Yo! Some wishes for you to soak up are in the comments. Welcome to the world.
17 May 2008
The Meme of Five
Librarian Mom tagged me with the meme of five, so here goes! Per instructions:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read the player's blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.
What were you doing five years ago?
Let's see, that would be spring of 2003. I was on sabbatical, still getting to know the daughter I'd had in my arms for 4 months. I was going to feeding therapy with Curious Girl every week, having other Early Intervention folks in our home on a regular basis, and about a third of the way through the 43 visits to our pediatrician that would occur in that calendar year. I'd learned how to use a feeding tube, I'd played the cuckoo game with CG about a million times, and I'd spent a lot of time on the floor with her, making eye contact, talking with her, trying to figure her out. At work, I was talking with my chair, getting read to apply for promotion to full professor, and somehow, working on my sabbatical project on changes in writing program philosophy.
What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
(It's 8:00 p.m. as I type this, so I'm going to think about my to-do list more generally)
1. Write an essay that I should have finished last November, the lateness of which is causing me much angst and indecision.
2. Organize receipts for some recent visits to German University so I can get reimbursed.
3. Start some laundry
4. Find things to recycle, freecycle, or donate.
5. Help CG write thank you notes from her birthday party (a fabulous event about which I really should post)
What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Peaches in summer
2. Grapes. Really, lots of fruit, but never melon
3. Bread
4. Crackers and cheese
5. Nice cold milk. Or milkshakes.
What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Invest a bunch of it to ensure CG's future education/security and Politica's access to health care in retirement.
2. Give a bunch of it away--like Librarian Mom, I find it hard to say just what I'd give it to, but clean water, public health (malaria, AIDS, TB), education strike me as good places to start
3. Travel: there are really very few places you couldn't persuade me to visit. I love to travel.
4. Buy an electric car.
5. Hire a landscaper to develop the gardens around our house (and would I move to a better location in Germany? Maybe so; have to think on that one) and help maintain them.
What are five of your bad habits?
1. Staying up too late poking around the internet accomplishing nothing in particular and then being irritated at myself the next morning, doing it again, and then being doubly irritated the next day rather than just forming a new habit.
2. Letting the computer stay on a bit too often when I should be socializing with Politica/CG--I am getting better at the "just let me check my e-mail real fast before we...." but there's room for continued improvement.
3. Failing to focus my day so I get the big thing done first consistently.
4. Staying up too late when I'm alone at night (on the road or at home) because I'm afraid I'll be freaked out by house/neighborhood noises when I try to go to sleep, which only makes me more tired the next day.
5. Reading too quickly (which is sometimes an asset, but sometimes a problem).
What are five places where you have lived?
a small town in southern Ontario, a medium sized city in Michigan, a small city in west Texas, a small town on Long Island, a small town in Vermont
What are five jobs you've had?
1. phone surveyer for the phone company
2. camp counselor
3. library assistant
4. dishwasher
5. writing tutor
Tagging people: I hate tagging people, so if you're reading, and if you like five, have at it!
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read the player's blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.
What were you doing five years ago?
Let's see, that would be spring of 2003. I was on sabbatical, still getting to know the daughter I'd had in my arms for 4 months. I was going to feeding therapy with Curious Girl every week, having other Early Intervention folks in our home on a regular basis, and about a third of the way through the 43 visits to our pediatrician that would occur in that calendar year. I'd learned how to use a feeding tube, I'd played the cuckoo game with CG about a million times, and I'd spent a lot of time on the floor with her, making eye contact, talking with her, trying to figure her out. At work, I was talking with my chair, getting read to apply for promotion to full professor, and somehow, working on my sabbatical project on changes in writing program philosophy.
What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
(It's 8:00 p.m. as I type this, so I'm going to think about my to-do list more generally)
1. Write an essay that I should have finished last November, the lateness of which is causing me much angst and indecision.
2. Organize receipts for some recent visits to German University so I can get reimbursed.
3. Start some laundry
4. Find things to recycle, freecycle, or donate.
5. Help CG write thank you notes from her birthday party (a fabulous event about which I really should post)
What are five snacks you enjoy?
1. Peaches in summer
2. Grapes. Really, lots of fruit, but never melon
3. Bread
4. Crackers and cheese
5. Nice cold milk. Or milkshakes.
What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Invest a bunch of it to ensure CG's future education/security and Politica's access to health care in retirement.
2. Give a bunch of it away--like Librarian Mom, I find it hard to say just what I'd give it to, but clean water, public health (malaria, AIDS, TB), education strike me as good places to start
3. Travel: there are really very few places you couldn't persuade me to visit. I love to travel.
4. Buy an electric car.
5. Hire a landscaper to develop the gardens around our house (and would I move to a better location in Germany? Maybe so; have to think on that one) and help maintain them.
What are five of your bad habits?
1. Staying up too late poking around the internet accomplishing nothing in particular and then being irritated at myself the next morning, doing it again, and then being doubly irritated the next day rather than just forming a new habit.
2. Letting the computer stay on a bit too often when I should be socializing with Politica/CG--I am getting better at the "just let me check my e-mail real fast before we...." but there's room for continued improvement.
3. Failing to focus my day so I get the big thing done first consistently.
4. Staying up too late when I'm alone at night (on the road or at home) because I'm afraid I'll be freaked out by house/neighborhood noises when I try to go to sleep, which only makes me more tired the next day.
5. Reading too quickly (which is sometimes an asset, but sometimes a problem).
What are five places where you have lived?
a small town in southern Ontario, a medium sized city in Michigan, a small city in west Texas, a small town on Long Island, a small town in Vermont
What are five jobs you've had?
1. phone surveyer for the phone company
2. camp counselor
3. library assistant
4. dishwasher
5. writing tutor
Tagging people: I hate tagging people, so if you're reading, and if you like five, have at it!
19 April 2008
Comments and Comment Settings
I wasn't organized enough to participate in Robin's most excellent carnival on blog reader appreciation, but it's never too late to tell people you appreciate their presence and their words. So thank you, readers. I love my readers and commenters (and those of you who read and every now and again delurk). When I check my site meter, I'm even grateful for people I can see are reading and not commenting. You don't mind when I post less often, or more often, and you read through my various blogging moods: more academic for a while, more adoption for a while, more meme-y for a while. Thank you for reading. I read and write much of most days at work, but I enjoy having this space to write in a different voice, about different topics, with people who follow my random strands of consciousness over time.
With all that appreciation in mind, let me ask a question about comment setting on blogger. Aetako notes in the comments on punctuation that my comment settings are changed to prevent anonymous comments: I recently changed the comment settings from "anyone can comment" to "registered users--includes OpenID." I made that change because for the past 20 posts or so, every post I make generates four anonymous Chinese spam comments (at least, I assume it's spam b/c I can't read Chinese!). I got tired of deleting it. Although, come to think of it, the last post generated Chinese spam from a registered-with-blogger user with the userid "you," and I had to delete that, too. I don't know why my little blog attracts these 4-spam Chinese spambots, and I don't know why it bugs me that someone wants to attach spam to some older posts. So maybe I should just go back to letting anyone comment.
Anyone have strong feelings about this? I don't want to discourage people who want to comment here!
With all that appreciation in mind, let me ask a question about comment setting on blogger. Aetako notes in the comments on punctuation that my comment settings are changed to prevent anonymous comments: I recently changed the comment settings from "anyone can comment" to "registered users--includes OpenID." I made that change because for the past 20 posts or so, every post I make generates four anonymous Chinese spam comments (at least, I assume it's spam b/c I can't read Chinese!). I got tired of deleting it. Although, come to think of it, the last post generated Chinese spam from a registered-with-blogger user with the userid "you," and I had to delete that, too. I don't know why my little blog attracts these 4-spam Chinese spambots, and I don't know why it bugs me that someone wants to attach spam to some older posts. So maybe I should just go back to letting anyone comment.
Anyone have strong feelings about this? I don't want to discourage people who want to comment here!
18 April 2008
She's a Comma, I'm a Comma, are you a comma too?
Rev. Dr. Mom is a comma. So am I. What about you?
You Are a Comma |
 You are open minded and extremely optimistic. You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything. You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests. You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time. Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to. (But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.) You excel in: Inspiring people You get along best with: The Question Mark |
12 April 2008
Haiku is more fun than Houses
House indecision reigns (buy now, or wait a bit and risk losing what we kind of like now? buy a smaller house where we could ski/snowshoe from the back door and walk to the center of Cute Little Town?) , so what better than haiku? (via pilgrim/heretic, and you can get your own)
went to sleep planning
to dream about living with
her and i love the
series with the girls
they are not uncommon i
feel closer to joyce
i love cg's teachers
they knew cg was born always
saying we don't
next can't you see
shouted piglet haven't
you got eyes look at
what to do that is
truly at home and somehow
i think the movie
went to sleep planning
to dream about living with
her and i love the
series with the girls
they are not uncommon i
feel closer to joyce
i love cg's teachers
they knew cg was born always
saying we don't
next can't you see
shouted piglet haven't
you got eyes look at
what to do that is
truly at home and somehow
i think the movie
21 December 2007
Looking for the happy
It has been a loooooonnnnnngggggg week in my office at the end of a reasonably long-feeling semester. Yesterday, for the first time since being department chair, and I hope it will be the last, I came home from work feeling like I wanted to burst into tears. (So perhaps the fact that Curious Girl has been bursting into tears at the drop of a hat lately is simply a reflection of my vibe? maybe a contributing factor.)
So I went blog surfing today looking for the happy. And I found some in posts like those, posts that made me smile.
I also found a pay-it-forward project, at Rhymes with Javelin (and Niobe's), a meme that involves bloggers sending happy (in this case, hand-made) gifts out into the world. If you participate as a receiver, you have to make the same offer on your blog, too. Here's the scoop:
And if you're looking for other ways to spread the happy, Magpie has a wonderful post today about 13 ways to use charitable giving (or involvement) to make a difference, and the Clutter Museum has had two posts this week about good causes. To Magpie's list, some other interesting charities I've heard of in presentations lately are Agape International (a Christian organization working with orphanages for HIV+ children and children orphaned due to AIDS in India); this wonderful school in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria and another organization helping children in that same area; and a school for children affected by HIV/AIDS in Uganda. I didn't post for World AIDS day, but it's getting on that time of year when the anniversary of my uncle's death rolls around. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria, and he died of AIDS-related complications four years ago. In between, he had a big impact on me--the first relative to really treat me like a grown-up. I miss him.
So it's a good time of year to spread the happy. I could use it, and I bet you could, too.
So I went blog surfing today looking for the happy. And I found some in posts like those, posts that made me smile.
I also found a pay-it-forward project, at Rhymes with Javelin (and Niobe's), a meme that involves bloggers sending happy (in this case, hand-made) gifts out into the world. If you participate as a receiver, you have to make the same offer on your blog, too. Here's the scoop:
I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.So sign up, and perhaps on a day when you're looking for the happy, the happy will arrive in your mailbox. Well, not the happy, but a happy, anyway.
What do you have to do?
1. Respond here and give your email address so that I can contact you for your address.
2. Place this on your own blog and also send the first 3 people that respond something.
And if you're looking for other ways to spread the happy, Magpie has a wonderful post today about 13 ways to use charitable giving (or involvement) to make a difference, and the Clutter Museum has had two posts this week about good causes. To Magpie's list, some other interesting charities I've heard of in presentations lately are Agape International (a Christian organization working with orphanages for HIV+ children and children orphaned due to AIDS in India); this wonderful school in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria and another organization helping children in that same area; and a school for children affected by HIV/AIDS in Uganda. I didn't post for World AIDS day, but it's getting on that time of year when the anniversary of my uncle's death rolls around. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria, and he died of AIDS-related complications four years ago. In between, he had a big impact on me--the first relative to really treat me like a grown-up. I miss him.
So it's a good time of year to spread the happy. I could use it, and I bet you could, too.
23 October 2007
I feel one coming on soon.... a la Niobe
Niobe invited her readers to leave comments in her own style. I haven't gotten around to commenting there, but it did inspire this post, which is written about a photo from summer 2006. Curious Girl had a Niobe-like touch with the camera that day.
A summer day, humidity wrapping itself around us like a blanket, although Curious Girl didn't care how sweaty she got in the sling. Cars drove by noisily, running between the gentrified harbor and an edgier older neighborhood, crossing an industrial area on the way. Some friends were held up at gunpoint just a few blocks from here, heading back to the hotel around midnight.
In the morning, people are sleeping. It's a weekend summer day, and few are stirring. We walk, and we see it: the Blue Moon Cafe. The sign seems magical, a symbol of whimsical cheer flowing out onto the rather sad sidewalk.
I can't stop thinking about our friends. They're all fine, although scared, and taking taxis more than usual to get around today. They lost their wallets and their cash, and their jewelry. One saved her wedding ring, quickly stepping on it when the muggers asked them all to toss their jewelry on the sidewalk. She covered it with her foot, and no one noticed.
What about you? What streets have you walked between sadness and charm? What jewelry would you seek to hide? Or would you?
A summer day, humidity wrapping itself around us like a blanket, although Curious Girl didn't care how sweaty she got in the sling. Cars drove by noisily, running between the gentrified harbor and an edgier older neighborhood, crossing an industrial area on the way. Some friends were held up at gunpoint just a few blocks from here, heading back to the hotel around midnight.
In the morning, people are sleeping. It's a weekend summer day, and few are stirring. We walk, and we see it: the Blue Moon Cafe. The sign seems magical, a symbol of whimsical cheer flowing out onto the rather sad sidewalk.
I can't stop thinking about our friends. They're all fine, although scared, and taking taxis more than usual to get around today. They lost their wallets and their cash, and their jewelry. One saved her wedding ring, quickly stepping on it when the muggers asked them all to toss their jewelry on the sidewalk. She covered it with her foot, and no one noticed.
What about you? What streets have you walked between sadness and charm? What jewelry would you seek to hide? Or would you?
17 August 2007
Make New Friends
Courtesy of landismom, I've been introduced to Good Reads, a social book rating service. So if Library Thing isn't taking up all your online book cataloguing-and-commenting energy, check this one out. I've never delved into myspace or facebook; I've been fascinated to see how easily the site enables me to, say, use my gmail address book to invite people to be friends (which I did without really realizing I was doing it--Politica tells me she got an invite and I didn't realize she was in my gmail address book), and then how some friends-of-friends are now contacting me. This commentary marks me as hopelessly behind the times, I realize.
I'm not sure how much I'll use it, and not yet sure how I think it compares to Library Thing (which is set up to be more of a catalogue, not a rating service). But worth checking out, I think.
I'm not sure how much I'll use it, and not yet sure how I think it compares to Library Thing (which is set up to be more of a catalogue, not a rating service). But worth checking out, I think.
22 May 2007
I Am Slow to Meme
S. tagged me ages ago for this one--see Niobe for the most utterly perfect approach to this one.
I am shy about memes.
I am overfull of anxiety after a dental visit today diagnosed mild periodontal disease.
I am woman, hear me roar still makes me smile and remember my incipient feminism. My views of feminism are considerably more complicated and subtle now, but just thinking about that song makes me smile.
I am compiling more lists of posts in my head than actual posts these days. But you knew that already, since if you're still reading you're probably used to my bursts of posts and bursts of silence.
I am not so fond of Popeye: I liked Underdog better.
I am shy about memes.
I am overfull of anxiety after a dental visit today diagnosed mild periodontal disease.
I am woman, hear me roar still makes me smile and remember my incipient feminism. My views of feminism are considerably more complicated and subtle now, but just thinking about that song makes me smile.
I am compiling more lists of posts in my head than actual posts these days. But you knew that already, since if you're still reading you're probably used to my bursts of posts and bursts of silence.
I am not so fond of Popeye: I liked Underdog better.
03 May 2007
The Final Four
On the Twelfth and Last Day of Four, we all contemplate transitions
Curious Girl burst into tears at bedtime, as she tried to sleep. "I'm afraid to be five! I want to be four forever!" When I rubbed her back and asked what she was worried about, she sobbed, "I don't want to talk about it." I held her close and asked if I could guess some things and she nodded. This is always a tricky move, as it has the potential to suggest new worries, but she agreed that she might, just might, be worried because five year olds have to do different things, and she doesn't know what they are. Homework, she volunteered, is a worry. Five year olds have to do homework, she thought. "Not at Posh Progressive School," I reassured her. She decided she might need to consult one of the kindergarten teachers on this point. I told her she can always ask me, or Politica, or her teachers, if she wonders what she should be doing. I told her that she'd simply be five, so whatever she did, however she felt, that is what five should be. She cried some more. "Friend At School is going to be 5, too, and she is taller than I am. Everyone is taller than me."
"You're so full of feelings tonight," I told her. "I love you, always, whatever kind of feelings you have inside." She asked me for another sleepy song, and eventually fell asleep. She kept turning her head and saying, "I love you." Once I said, "I love you too," and she raised her head and said "I was saying 'I love you' to myself." Whatever.....hold on to that self-love, I thought. Now there's a birthday wish for her.
****************
It was a long evening. We ate dinner too late, and CG spiraled out of control with fatigue. "I was mean to Mommy because I was sleepy," she told me once she was settled in her pjs. ("Good self-awareness," Politica later observed. I guess self-control comes later.)
*****************
I have enjoyed writing these fours. Thank you to everyone who's commented! I usually try to follow up on comments when they come in, but this week, I've been writing more posts than comments, and moving onto the next post more than dwelling with the last. But I have been thinking about your comments, and have been so happy to read them. Thanks for sharing these stories with me.
*******************
It's exciting, the final four. Curious Girl was worried when I was turning 44, but we survived it, and have, in fact, taken four-fold pleasures in the fourishness of the year. And I shall retain my fondness for four, and the rest of my 44ishness. Age is a genre, of sorts: there is audience, there is expectation, there is context. Five year olds are expected to go to kindergarten, for example. 45 year olds are expected to be well-behaved. These last sets of posts have been my biggest bloggy genre exploration, and they've shown me how genre can be an aid to invention as well as a limiter of form. That's fun. Way more fun than some of the writing I've been doing at work lately, handling student stress at the end of the term, negotiating with job candidates, working out policy issues with colleagues on campus. Lots of problem-solving with not-always-happy people.
One of the many things I love about motherhood is that--frequent meltdowns aside--Curious Girl is a font of happiness. It comes with the territory of four. And so, for this final four, I say: hold onto that four. Find it deep inside, and connect with it when much bigger concerns drag at you. Four is happy. And four is always part of every later number. You still have your four. Just ask Curious Girl.
Curious Girl burst into tears at bedtime, as she tried to sleep. "I'm afraid to be five! I want to be four forever!" When I rubbed her back and asked what she was worried about, she sobbed, "I don't want to talk about it." I held her close and asked if I could guess some things and she nodded. This is always a tricky move, as it has the potential to suggest new worries, but she agreed that she might, just might, be worried because five year olds have to do different things, and she doesn't know what they are. Homework, she volunteered, is a worry. Five year olds have to do homework, she thought. "Not at Posh Progressive School," I reassured her. She decided she might need to consult one of the kindergarten teachers on this point. I told her she can always ask me, or Politica, or her teachers, if she wonders what she should be doing. I told her that she'd simply be five, so whatever she did, however she felt, that is what five should be. She cried some more. "Friend At School is going to be 5, too, and she is taller than I am. Everyone is taller than me."
"You're so full of feelings tonight," I told her. "I love you, always, whatever kind of feelings you have inside." She asked me for another sleepy song, and eventually fell asleep. She kept turning her head and saying, "I love you." Once I said, "I love you too," and she raised her head and said "I was saying 'I love you' to myself." Whatever.....hold on to that self-love, I thought. Now there's a birthday wish for her.
****************
It was a long evening. We ate dinner too late, and CG spiraled out of control with fatigue. "I was mean to Mommy because I was sleepy," she told me once she was settled in her pjs. ("Good self-awareness," Politica later observed. I guess self-control comes later.)
*****************
I have enjoyed writing these fours. Thank you to everyone who's commented! I usually try to follow up on comments when they come in, but this week, I've been writing more posts than comments, and moving onto the next post more than dwelling with the last. But I have been thinking about your comments, and have been so happy to read them. Thanks for sharing these stories with me.
*******************
It's exciting, the final four. Curious Girl was worried when I was turning 44, but we survived it, and have, in fact, taken four-fold pleasures in the fourishness of the year. And I shall retain my fondness for four, and the rest of my 44ishness. Age is a genre, of sorts: there is audience, there is expectation, there is context. Five year olds are expected to go to kindergarten, for example. 45 year olds are expected to be well-behaved. These last sets of posts have been my biggest bloggy genre exploration, and they've shown me how genre can be an aid to invention as well as a limiter of form. That's fun. Way more fun than some of the writing I've been doing at work lately, handling student stress at the end of the term, negotiating with job candidates, working out policy issues with colleagues on campus. Lots of problem-solving with not-always-happy people.
One of the many things I love about motherhood is that--frequent meltdowns aside--Curious Girl is a font of happiness. It comes with the territory of four. And so, for this final four, I say: hold onto that four. Find it deep inside, and connect with it when much bigger concerns drag at you. Four is happy. And four is always part of every later number. You still have your four. Just ask Curious Girl.
02 May 2007
Not Four
On the Eleventh, and penultimate, Day of Four , I think about what makes four
We are three in our family, not four, but Curious Girl is convinced she is getting a baby sister soon. From the Tooth Fairy, no less. She is quite insistent that the Tooth Fairy brings " a real baby sister." (Wikipedia gives no hint of this power, so clearly, it's not true. I have to say, googling the tooth fairy brings up an interesting array of sites, like this one. But I digress.)
Curious Girl would love a little sister. We have a little sister around the house most days--sometimes the stuffed hippo with a Christmas hat (currently wearing one of CG's baby onesies) is pressed into service as the baby sister, sometimes it's a stuffed cat, rarely the doll, and sometimes the baby is invisible. Sometimes CG is the big sister, sometimes she is the mama, and sometimes she wants me to be the big sister along with her, or to play mama to her and the baby. Other days, CG is the big sister while baby sister is out at school or the babysitters. And in all this play, Curious Girl is invariably solicitous, generous and creative. She feeds baby, takes baby to the doctor, transforms herself into a surgeon to place a feeding tube in baby, or stays with the baby the whole time while some unfortunate task must be completed. It's great.
Politica and I didn't go into our adoption intending to have one child, or any particular number of children. We'd thought about adopting two at once, very briefly, and decided that was not a good move for the children who would be involved. But we never had a vision of how our family would be sized. We each have small families (one sibling each); I'm close to my sister, but Politica's relationship with her sister is really an argument for having only one child. This is an argument that doesn't have much cultural credibility; as soon as Curious Girl turned two, people started asking when we were going to adopt again, or when she would have a sibling. (Some of those conversations have included lectures on the Importance of Siblings or the Problems of the Only Child, which I appreciate about as much as all the advice I ever got from relative strangers telling me my child would eat when she was hungry enough. Thanks, no.)
We've thought about siblings for Curious Girl, other children for us. It's tempting. Parenting Curious Girl is one of the very best parts of my life. I love the family we have become and the way all three of us come to know each other. I love the Politica I am coming to know in this family, and I like myself these days. Part of it is maturity, part of it is effective therapy in my thirties, but a lot of it is parenting. I love it. So it's tempting to do it some more, again.
But I don't think that's in the cards. When I write down or talk about the reasons, it sounds so cold and calculating. But basically, it boils down to the fact that I like the family we have. We're busy, but not too busy. Politica and I work, and I like that we work. We have time for Curious Girl, and I like that, too. We have a pretty good balance between all of us, and it works.
When I try to explain the specifics more, I fear that I sound like I'm saying "I just don't want to cut back on my work to have another child." The truth is, I don't want to cut back on my work. I like that Politica and I each have our own health insurance, each have our own independent paycheck. That makes our family more secure, espeically given the hazy legal standings our relationship has here. But it's not just the money, it's the pleasure of my career. I like what I do, and I think it makes a small bit of difference in the world. I like what it gives me. I also like my CG-days, the day I have spent home with her since I went back to work after her first 9 months home. I like being home, I like being at work.
But it's hard to be firm about deciding to stop. Sometimes I think if we had more money, if I were ten years younger, if Politica had fewer chronic health problems, if, if, if, perhaps I'd have another child. (And oddly, if it became possible to adopt one of CG's biological siblings, assuming there are any and are available for adoption, we'd add to the family in a heartbeat: not sure what that does to all the above arguments or my sense that families are chosen, but there it is.) But if, if, if....then I'd be a different person. I wouldn't be me, here, now.
And for all the reasons that it may be good for Curious Girl to have a sibling, it is also good for her to have a balanced, happy family as she grows.
And so for now, we are three, with a fourth joining us in play. I think we'll stay that way, and most days, I'm so sure that's the way to be. Some days, I'm sad about that; some days, I'm not sure. And maybe that's the way of it, that no matter how many children we have, there's a sense that perhaps one more might be fun. I've read a lot of posts about people who wanted another child and couldn't have one, and fewer posts about how people know when their families are done growing. I'm not sure I'm explaining our choices very well here, but I hope to hear a few more stories from others. How do you know when the family is the right size?
We are three in our family, not four, but Curious Girl is convinced she is getting a baby sister soon. From the Tooth Fairy, no less. She is quite insistent that the Tooth Fairy brings " a real baby sister." (Wikipedia gives no hint of this power, so clearly, it's not true. I have to say, googling the tooth fairy brings up an interesting array of sites, like this one. But I digress.)
Curious Girl would love a little sister. We have a little sister around the house most days--sometimes the stuffed hippo with a Christmas hat (currently wearing one of CG's baby onesies) is pressed into service as the baby sister, sometimes it's a stuffed cat, rarely the doll, and sometimes the baby is invisible. Sometimes CG is the big sister, sometimes she is the mama, and sometimes she wants me to be the big sister along with her, or to play mama to her and the baby. Other days, CG is the big sister while baby sister is out at school or the babysitters. And in all this play, Curious Girl is invariably solicitous, generous and creative. She feeds baby, takes baby to the doctor, transforms herself into a surgeon to place a feeding tube in baby, or stays with the baby the whole time while some unfortunate task must be completed. It's great.
Politica and I didn't go into our adoption intending to have one child, or any particular number of children. We'd thought about adopting two at once, very briefly, and decided that was not a good move for the children who would be involved. But we never had a vision of how our family would be sized. We each have small families (one sibling each); I'm close to my sister, but Politica's relationship with her sister is really an argument for having only one child. This is an argument that doesn't have much cultural credibility; as soon as Curious Girl turned two, people started asking when we were going to adopt again, or when she would have a sibling. (Some of those conversations have included lectures on the Importance of Siblings or the Problems of the Only Child, which I appreciate about as much as all the advice I ever got from relative strangers telling me my child would eat when she was hungry enough. Thanks, no.)
We've thought about siblings for Curious Girl, other children for us. It's tempting. Parenting Curious Girl is one of the very best parts of my life. I love the family we have become and the way all three of us come to know each other. I love the Politica I am coming to know in this family, and I like myself these days. Part of it is maturity, part of it is effective therapy in my thirties, but a lot of it is parenting. I love it. So it's tempting to do it some more, again.
But I don't think that's in the cards. When I write down or talk about the reasons, it sounds so cold and calculating. But basically, it boils down to the fact that I like the family we have. We're busy, but not too busy. Politica and I work, and I like that we work. We have time for Curious Girl, and I like that, too. We have a pretty good balance between all of us, and it works.
When I try to explain the specifics more, I fear that I sound like I'm saying "I just don't want to cut back on my work to have another child." The truth is, I don't want to cut back on my work. I like that Politica and I each have our own health insurance, each have our own independent paycheck. That makes our family more secure, espeically given the hazy legal standings our relationship has here. But it's not just the money, it's the pleasure of my career. I like what I do, and I think it makes a small bit of difference in the world. I like what it gives me. I also like my CG-days, the day I have spent home with her since I went back to work after her first 9 months home. I like being home, I like being at work.
But it's hard to be firm about deciding to stop. Sometimes I think if we had more money, if I were ten years younger, if Politica had fewer chronic health problems, if, if, if, perhaps I'd have another child. (And oddly, if it became possible to adopt one of CG's biological siblings, assuming there are any and are available for adoption, we'd add to the family in a heartbeat: not sure what that does to all the above arguments or my sense that families are chosen, but there it is.) But if, if, if....then I'd be a different person. I wouldn't be me, here, now.
And for all the reasons that it may be good for Curious Girl to have a sibling, it is also good for her to have a balanced, happy family as she grows.
And so for now, we are three, with a fourth joining us in play. I think we'll stay that way, and most days, I'm so sure that's the way to be. Some days, I'm sad about that; some days, I'm not sure. And maybe that's the way of it, that no matter how many children we have, there's a sense that perhaps one more might be fun. I've read a lot of posts about people who wanted another child and couldn't have one, and fewer posts about how people know when their families are done growing. I'm not sure I'm explaining our choices very well here, but I hope to hear a few more stories from others. How do you know when the family is the right size?
01 May 2007
Of forebears and hockey night in Canada
On the Tenth Day of Four
I think-as I do every day--about Curious Girl as she makes her way in the world, telling her own stories her own way
Later this month, Curious Girl will be the student of the week in her class. She'll get to bring a special snack one day and have a guest reader come in to share a special book. Her teachers have suggested it's a good week to do some talking about where she was born, and our family, and adoption. Whether it's because of that, or just her regular birthday reflective angst, Curious Girl has been thinking a lot. She told me the other day that she wants to bring her book about when she was a baby to school, so her friends can see the pictures in it. That's her lifebook, the story of her life that Politica and I have written and illustrated (which really isn't written for her friends, so we'll deal with privacy issues another day). That morning, she asked me to read it to her, so I did. It sits next to her bed. Sometimes we read it often; sometimes weeks go by without anyone picking it up.
That morning I told her that she could write her own lifebook, too. So we loaded up Powerpoint on the computer in the family room, and she dictated and I typed. She came up with something like:
This was my first time encouraging her tell her own story as a narrative. CG talks about being a baby or being adopted quite frequently, and she thinks a lot about her first parents, especially her mother. Around her birthday, she particularly seems to ponder her birth. She likes hearing the story as we know it, and she has lots of questions (and lots of imagined conversation about what she said to J. when she was born or what she said to the doctors, or what she said to the other babies around that day). But this was the first time I helped her to tell her story (as opposed to helping her tell a fact, like the name of her home city). The first thing she said, beyond the fact that she was a baby, was about me and Politica. That was sweet, but that's not how her story goes. We don't enter until later, and I don't want her to erase those months. Not that I have a lot of story to give her about those months, but I don't want her sense of self to be all bound up in her adoptive parents. I want her to know that she, herself, existed in those months before she met us.
So I said to her, "what about telling something about how you were born? About S. and J?" She looked at me, nodding. "I grew in J's uterus." My turn to nod. "They were....." she trailed off. "They were your parents," I said to her. "Your mama and your daddy. They made you. An egg from J., and sperm from S., and it made you!"
"But you are...J....they are..... Mommy and Mama..." she said, uncertainly, and then looked up at me. "You both are!"
Four parents. We both are.
Now, we are all parents in different ways. Politica and I are here, with her, watching her grow, helping her grow, loving her day in and day out. We talk, we write, we tell stories. J. and S. are mysterious figures. They are here, in her, daily, their gifts to her blossoming as she grows. Curious Girl's body comes from them. Her talents, her personality, her looks. We may never know exactly how she maps against that first family, whether they would look at her with a sense of familiarity or whether they would look at her and wonder "how does she fit in with us?" We may well never know their stories, how they came together, what kind of ties they have to each other, what other family stories they could tell. But they are parents, who brought her life into the world.
Curious Girl makes sense of this the best she can. "Why couldn't J. take care of me when I was a baby?" "She couldn't take care of a baby when you were born," I say. "I don't know why. Maybe she didn't have enough money. Maybe she didn't have enough food. Maybe she didn't have enough help. But it had nothing to do with you, " I say. Usually CG changes the subject then, but I can tell, she's starting to think more deeply about what adoption means.
For the first time this week, she got mad and said she wished things had been different. "I want to go to Long-Haired Teacher's house," she said in tears. (She went there for 3 days of mini camp during spring break, and much fun was had.) "I think her house is bigger than ours, because it has a play basement. Neighbor Friends have a play basement, and Long-Haired Teacher has a play basement, and everyone has a play basement except us." I allowed as how play basements are fun, and in fact, I had always wanted a play basement while I was growing up, but had none. Then the zinger:
"I wish when I was a baby and I came to your house, it had a play basement. We could play hockey. Hockey is fun." Tears, tears, tears.
Hockey is fun, and I admit, I miss hockey. The fans of our minor league team are too crass and I won't go to games here (not that the Ranger fans are likely much better these days, but I have fond memories of being in Madison Square Garden with my dad when I was growing up). I miss Hockey Night in Canada coverage. But what does CG know of hockey? Not much, as far as I can tell, although perhaps it is true that she has played hockey in a friend's basement.
I'm a trained English professor, so I'm good at finding what my students call the Hidden Meaning in things. So I don't think CG was really crying about the hockey. I think she's figuring out that she misses her first parents. She's figuring out that she is getting older, and might separate more from me and Politica. She's starting to realize that her life might have been different if different choices had been made. That's sad and scary and happy and anxious. She loves us. She loves S. and J., or at least the idea of S. and J. She misses her dead grandmother, and she misses her, too.
And that's all OK. Nicole, at Paragraphein, has a wonderful post about the complicated emotions of adoption. It's not all roses, it's not all bleak, and people who talk about how placing children for adoption makes birth mothers happy, or how adoption leads to angry grownup adoptees, are way oversimplifying things. Curious Girl is starting to find that out, and testing out her own story in her own words. She'll add to it, and make her own sense of her four parents, her two families, her two countries, her past and future.
It's hard, watching her be sad, watching her struggle with these big questions. But it's also awe-inspiring, to see the complications she can juggle and the questions she can pose. I'm glad she's getting the language to talk about herself. Maybe someday, definitely someday, she'll need to talk to others about it. But for now, I'm glad she talks to me.
"You both are." You bet.
I think-as I do every day--about Curious Girl as she makes her way in the world, telling her own stories her own way
Later this month, Curious Girl will be the student of the week in her class. She'll get to bring a special snack one day and have a guest reader come in to share a special book. Her teachers have suggested it's a good week to do some talking about where she was born, and our family, and adoption. Whether it's because of that, or just her regular birthday reflective angst, Curious Girl has been thinking a lot. She told me the other day that she wants to bring her book about when she was a baby to school, so her friends can see the pictures in it. That's her lifebook, the story of her life that Politica and I have written and illustrated (which really isn't written for her friends, so we'll deal with privacy issues another day). That morning, she asked me to read it to her, so I did. It sits next to her bed. Sometimes we read it often; sometimes weeks go by without anyone picking it up.
That morning I told her that she could write her own lifebook, too. So we loaded up Powerpoint on the computer in the family room, and she dictated and I typed. She came up with something like:
My Life Came True, by Curious Girl.
I was a baby in Where I Was Born.
I didn't know Mama and Mommy. But they came to get me, and then I met them. I didn't know Mama and Mommy before.
J. and S. are very special to me. I liked them and I like them forever.
I miss them. I love them.
I miss them. I love them.
This was my first time encouraging her tell her own story as a narrative. CG talks about being a baby or being adopted quite frequently, and she thinks a lot about her first parents, especially her mother. Around her birthday, she particularly seems to ponder her birth. She likes hearing the story as we know it, and she has lots of questions (and lots of imagined conversation about what she said to J. when she was born or what she said to the doctors, or what she said to the other babies around that day). But this was the first time I helped her to tell her story (as opposed to helping her tell a fact, like the name of her home city). The first thing she said, beyond the fact that she was a baby, was about me and Politica. That was sweet, but that's not how her story goes. We don't enter until later, and I don't want her to erase those months. Not that I have a lot of story to give her about those months, but I don't want her sense of self to be all bound up in her adoptive parents. I want her to know that she, herself, existed in those months before she met us.
So I said to her, "what about telling something about how you were born? About S. and J?" She looked at me, nodding. "I grew in J's uterus." My turn to nod. "They were....." she trailed off. "They were your parents," I said to her. "Your mama and your daddy. They made you. An egg from J., and sperm from S., and it made you!"
"But you are...J....they are..... Mommy and Mama..." she said, uncertainly, and then looked up at me. "You both are!"
Four parents. We both are.
Now, we are all parents in different ways. Politica and I are here, with her, watching her grow, helping her grow, loving her day in and day out. We talk, we write, we tell stories. J. and S. are mysterious figures. They are here, in her, daily, their gifts to her blossoming as she grows. Curious Girl's body comes from them. Her talents, her personality, her looks. We may never know exactly how she maps against that first family, whether they would look at her with a sense of familiarity or whether they would look at her and wonder "how does she fit in with us?" We may well never know their stories, how they came together, what kind of ties they have to each other, what other family stories they could tell. But they are parents, who brought her life into the world.
Curious Girl makes sense of this the best she can. "Why couldn't J. take care of me when I was a baby?" "She couldn't take care of a baby when you were born," I say. "I don't know why. Maybe she didn't have enough money. Maybe she didn't have enough food. Maybe she didn't have enough help. But it had nothing to do with you, " I say. Usually CG changes the subject then, but I can tell, she's starting to think more deeply about what adoption means.
For the first time this week, she got mad and said she wished things had been different. "I want to go to Long-Haired Teacher's house," she said in tears. (She went there for 3 days of mini camp during spring break, and much fun was had.) "I think her house is bigger than ours, because it has a play basement. Neighbor Friends have a play basement, and Long-Haired Teacher has a play basement, and everyone has a play basement except us." I allowed as how play basements are fun, and in fact, I had always wanted a play basement while I was growing up, but had none. Then the zinger:
"I wish when I was a baby and I came to your house, it had a play basement. We could play hockey. Hockey is fun." Tears, tears, tears.
Hockey is fun, and I admit, I miss hockey. The fans of our minor league team are too crass and I won't go to games here (not that the Ranger fans are likely much better these days, but I have fond memories of being in Madison Square Garden with my dad when I was growing up). I miss Hockey Night in Canada coverage. But what does CG know of hockey? Not much, as far as I can tell, although perhaps it is true that she has played hockey in a friend's basement.
I'm a trained English professor, so I'm good at finding what my students call the Hidden Meaning in things. So I don't think CG was really crying about the hockey. I think she's figuring out that she misses her first parents. She's figuring out that she is getting older, and might separate more from me and Politica. She's starting to realize that her life might have been different if different choices had been made. That's sad and scary and happy and anxious. She loves us. She loves S. and J., or at least the idea of S. and J. She misses her dead grandmother, and she misses her, too.
And that's all OK. Nicole, at Paragraphein, has a wonderful post about the complicated emotions of adoption. It's not all roses, it's not all bleak, and people who talk about how placing children for adoption makes birth mothers happy, or how adoption leads to angry grownup adoptees, are way oversimplifying things. Curious Girl is starting to find that out, and testing out her own story in her own words. She'll add to it, and make her own sense of her four parents, her two families, her two countries, her past and future.
It's hard, watching her be sad, watching her struggle with these big questions. But it's also awe-inspiring, to see the complications she can juggle and the questions she can pose. I'm glad she's getting the language to talk about herself. Maybe someday, definitely someday, she'll need to talk to others about it. But for now, I'm glad she talks to me.
"You both are." You bet.
30 April 2007
Four Playlists or Albums in My iTunes that Probably Aren't in Yours
1. Food songs (Phantom, I'll happily send you a CD when next you need to post about weighty matters)
2. Broadway
3. Susan's hip music (gifts from Politica, which don't make me any more hip)
4. Jazz Mandolin (he's great!)
2. Broadway
3. Susan's hip music (gifts from Politica, which don't make me any more hip)
4. Jazz Mandolin (he's great!)
29 April 2007
Four-Sided Foods
On the Eighth Day of Four, I continue to think about four-sided shapes and their relatives.
Tonight, we had dinner from a rectangular box: Kraft dinner. Curious Girl is a big fan of macaroni and cheese, and I like it, too. The Wikipedia entry on KD is actually quite informative about the way KD is a term and product with a very different usage/history in Canada than the US; it's a term that worked its way into my lexicon while I lived in Ontario and still varies freely with the American macaroni and cheese.
Another rectangular food I like: gjetost. A brown Norwegian goat cheese I first discovered when Politica took me to Norway in 1995. It's amazing on a dark or grainy bread, and I've been happy to find it in some speciality groceries here lately.
Ice cream sandwiches are something I enjoy eating again with Curious Girl (all the more so these days when she will actually eat one). They are more enjoyable in theory than in actuality, since the cake part is not too tasty and usually the ice cream is not too good, either. CG talked me into buying a box of small tofutti sandwiches at Whole Paycheck last week, and they are a major disappointment. But a rectangular one.
My favorite store-bought cookies are fig newtons, which are almost rectangular.
So what polyhedric pleasures lurk in your pantries?
Tonight, we had dinner from a rectangular box: Kraft dinner. Curious Girl is a big fan of macaroni and cheese, and I like it, too. The Wikipedia entry on KD is actually quite informative about the way KD is a term and product with a very different usage/history in Canada than the US; it's a term that worked its way into my lexicon while I lived in Ontario and still varies freely with the American macaroni and cheese.
Another rectangular food I like: gjetost. A brown Norwegian goat cheese I first discovered when Politica took me to Norway in 1995. It's amazing on a dark or grainy bread, and I've been happy to find it in some speciality groceries here lately.
Ice cream sandwiches are something I enjoy eating again with Curious Girl (all the more so these days when she will actually eat one). They are more enjoyable in theory than in actuality, since the cake part is not too tasty and usually the ice cream is not too good, either. CG talked me into buying a box of small tofutti sandwiches at Whole Paycheck last week, and they are a major disappointment. But a rectangular one.
My favorite store-bought cookies are fig newtons, which are almost rectangular.
So what polyhedric pleasures lurk in your pantries?
30 November 2006
For the Good of Bloggy Science, with a nod to Fancy Day
Via Jody, Julie, Mel, Bardiac and others, here's a call to help a graduate student with his MLA paper. Scott Eric Kaufman wants to measure how fast a meme spreads, so to help him out, please mention his post and then ping technorati. Strictly speaking this seems more like a chain letter than a meme, but I am finding it interesting to see how each of the bloggers I've read has framed his experiment. I don't often do memes, but I like the way the genre of each meme reveals different things about the writers who do them. So far, Jody's story about Elba writing about being thankful for her cat (which she doesn't own, but can spell) is my favorite aspect of this meme. Now there's a story someone at MLA should be pondering.
MLA is the big literary conference, and also the conference at which many schools interview preliminary candidates for jobs. I'm not a literary specialist, so I've only ever attended MLA when I've been on the job market. Consequently, my associations with MLA are rather stress-filled. So a panel on academic bloggers seems like a good thing--much less stuffy and much more connected to issues in my own professional work than most of the work that will be presented. Reading blogs has actually gotten me thinking about literary scholarship in new ways, since many of the academic bloggers I read are literary types, and that's good.
So help out a graduate student get his paper done, and don't forget to ping technorati when you're done..
Another meme that Curious Girl totally enjoyed was Fancy Day. I'll have a picture tomorrow. It was totally fun. "Annika was fancy yesterday. Today is Fancy Day in Our State," Curious Girl was busy telling everyone who would listen. Remember, any day can be fancy day, so get out those clothes you're thinking you need a special event to wear.
MLA is the big literary conference, and also the conference at which many schools interview preliminary candidates for jobs. I'm not a literary specialist, so I've only ever attended MLA when I've been on the job market. Consequently, my associations with MLA are rather stress-filled. So a panel on academic bloggers seems like a good thing--much less stuffy and much more connected to issues in my own professional work than most of the work that will be presented. Reading blogs has actually gotten me thinking about literary scholarship in new ways, since many of the academic bloggers I read are literary types, and that's good.
So help out a graduate student get his paper done, and don't forget to ping technorati when you're done..
Another meme that Curious Girl totally enjoyed was Fancy Day. I'll have a picture tomorrow. It was totally fun. "Annika was fancy yesterday. Today is Fancy Day in Our State," Curious Girl was busy telling everyone who would listen. Remember, any day can be fancy day, so get out those clothes you're thinking you need a special event to wear.
06 November 2006
Toes
Curious Girl will be all over LG's toe meme once she wakes up and finds out about it. Here's one of the photos she took towards the end of the summer, and I presciently created a Curious Girl's foot series set in my flickr account. One of the things we love about the digital camera is how easy it is to let her play with photography.
I like the shapes the show up in her photos (like the A at left in this one). She's standing on our new deck, made of recycled material. I love its texture. And her adorable feet, so sturdy for carrying her around the world.
09 February 2006
Two Memes in One Post Before a Flight
We're heading East to visit my father-in-law, so not much blogging until Monday or so. So let me leave a meme for the moment. First, Blogfriend Meme-ry via Another Dammed Medievalist:
And if anyone wants to play some music and imagine me, think french horn, apparently:
via Phantom and PPB and Jody:
In real life, I'm a pianist, but I do like French horns. But I don't think I'm that deep and luxurious in my delivery.
Anyway, see you all next week.
If there is someone on your blogroll who makes your world a better place just because that person exists and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence on your blog.No naming names (since, a la the discussion at Pilgrim/Heretics--which I commented on! and it was just as fun as several of you assured me it would be--it's tacky to name names when so many folks are deserving. Let's just say I'm grateful for all my blog buddies who make me think about teaching, adoption, parenting, the world.
And if anyone wants to play some music and imagine me, think french horn, apparently:
via Phantom and PPB and Jody:
 | You scored as French Horn. French Horn, eh? go practice. right now.
If you were in an orchestra, what instrument would match your personality? created with QuizFarm.com |
In real life, I'm a pianist, but I do like French horns. But I don't think I'm that deep and luxurious in my delivery.
Anyway, see you all next week.
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