In honor of the darkling plain I mentioned in my last post, here is the entire poem. I love it, maybe because it's so dark. Let's hear it for my college poetry class, which gave me a little bit of cultural literacy!
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; —on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
--Matthew Arnold, 1867
Friday, September 14, 2012
Discombobulation
In 1989, when I was spending a semester in Morocco, I remember when our small group of American students encountered a large group of American tourists at some archeological site. They were the stereotypical polyester-wearing group of retiree couples, pudged out and a little dazed. One of the men started talking to us, and I remember him saying, in a southern accent that was too genuine to be faked, “Hey, do y’all speak Ar-AY-bic?” When we told him we had indeed learned some of the language on our homestay program, he shook his head in amazement. When we told him we were American, he was even more astonished. “I didn’t know they were American,” he told his wife a couple of times, and then their group stumbled off to some other important site.
I feel like that man right now. I feel like I’ve been tossed bodily into another country, and I’m as dazed and hazy as an unsuspecting tourist. I feel fragile, jagged, and broken. They say that divorce is crazy time, and now I can understand why. I had expected a break, because we finally figured out the money and custody arrangements. Sure, my ex is still angry as heck, but I didn’t expect the process to be so difficult at this point. I guess planning and fighting the battle at least provided focus, and now I’m facing the rest of my life.
We started the custody schedule a couple of weeks ago. He gets the kids around 36% of the time and I have them around 64%. A good deal for me, right? But I’m still suffering. When talking about her divorce, Sandra Tsing Loh described “pieces of flaming jet fuselage that continue to plummet.” I feel that way too…whether it’s pain over losing my in-laws and connections to my ex’s country, or thoughts about how my family of origin remains in pieces since my father’s death last fall, or grief over a friend who I lost – not mortally, thank God, but in the way that female friendships end. It’s all emotional, but it feels physical as well. In yoga class today, I discovered pains that I didn’t even know I had. The breathing and stretching helped, because I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath to ground myself.
If I were to wish for something for Christmas (bad Jew that I am), it would be balance. Because my life is so topsy-turvy right now. My ex had the kids for the past two nights, and I just couldn’t settle down at home in their absence. Luckily on the first night, my son had a Cub Scout meeting that I was able to attend. I saw all 3 kids, and X was pissed about that. But yesterday I didn’t see them at all, although I did speak to them on the phone at night. At home alone, I get these urges to organize and clean, but I’m so tired and I also feel a competing urge to relax and watch mediocre movies. Then I feel guilty because I haven’t taken advantage of my free time. And I feel sad and lonely with the free time. I know I need it, since taking care of 3 kids – ages 9, 7, and 4—does make one tired. But when I have the free time I miss them and want them back.
I feel like my life is a post-conflict darkling plain right now, with only dust and haze where structures once stood. I need to rebuild, but I can’t yet see how the rebuilding will unfold or what I will come up with. For some reason, I’m thinking of the book Harriet the Spy, who connected with her thoughts by writing them down. When someone took her notebook away, her thoughts came out very slowly. “Mad, I feel mad.” “Sad, I am sad.” Stuff like that. I kind of feel that way. Obviously, I can articulate my thoughts, but experience-wise I feel like I know nothing in this new setting. I feel like I’m wandering around like the dazed tourist I met in Morocco, not understanding the context and grabbing out to random strangers. I feel so needy, but also a bit pissed off. I wonder how other people have gotten through this. I know some people who have boyfriends or have even remarried. How does that work? Even before that, they go out dancing or travel to Bermuda for yoga weekends or do dating websites. And even before that, they manage to figure out a budget or get through a weekend without crying. How does it all work? How do I begin to reconstruct, while being so bogged down with emotion and need?
I can always go back to that same Barbara Kingsolver quote I’ve mentioned in past postings. I can follow the Rambo (or JC Superstar) philosophy of “day by day.” Sandra Tsing Loh says, “It is the mundane practicalities that eventually save us.” I mean, how would I normally prepare for a trip? I’d have a passport (my custody agreement?), books (yeah, got those), maybe some contacts (yep, I know some people), a return ticket (oops, not that), and above all, excitement about my travels. Well, I’m not quite there yet. At times I can get glimpses of a time in the future when I could hope to have hope. Sometimes. We’ll see.
I feel like that man right now. I feel like I’ve been tossed bodily into another country, and I’m as dazed and hazy as an unsuspecting tourist. I feel fragile, jagged, and broken. They say that divorce is crazy time, and now I can understand why. I had expected a break, because we finally figured out the money and custody arrangements. Sure, my ex is still angry as heck, but I didn’t expect the process to be so difficult at this point. I guess planning and fighting the battle at least provided focus, and now I’m facing the rest of my life.
We started the custody schedule a couple of weeks ago. He gets the kids around 36% of the time and I have them around 64%. A good deal for me, right? But I’m still suffering. When talking about her divorce, Sandra Tsing Loh described “pieces of flaming jet fuselage that continue to plummet.” I feel that way too…whether it’s pain over losing my in-laws and connections to my ex’s country, or thoughts about how my family of origin remains in pieces since my father’s death last fall, or grief over a friend who I lost – not mortally, thank God, but in the way that female friendships end. It’s all emotional, but it feels physical as well. In yoga class today, I discovered pains that I didn’t even know I had. The breathing and stretching helped, because I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath to ground myself.
If I were to wish for something for Christmas (bad Jew that I am), it would be balance. Because my life is so topsy-turvy right now. My ex had the kids for the past two nights, and I just couldn’t settle down at home in their absence. Luckily on the first night, my son had a Cub Scout meeting that I was able to attend. I saw all 3 kids, and X was pissed about that. But yesterday I didn’t see them at all, although I did speak to them on the phone at night. At home alone, I get these urges to organize and clean, but I’m so tired and I also feel a competing urge to relax and watch mediocre movies. Then I feel guilty because I haven’t taken advantage of my free time. And I feel sad and lonely with the free time. I know I need it, since taking care of 3 kids – ages 9, 7, and 4—does make one tired. But when I have the free time I miss them and want them back.
I feel like my life is a post-conflict darkling plain right now, with only dust and haze where structures once stood. I need to rebuild, but I can’t yet see how the rebuilding will unfold or what I will come up with. For some reason, I’m thinking of the book Harriet the Spy, who connected with her thoughts by writing them down. When someone took her notebook away, her thoughts came out very slowly. “Mad, I feel mad.” “Sad, I am sad.” Stuff like that. I kind of feel that way. Obviously, I can articulate my thoughts, but experience-wise I feel like I know nothing in this new setting. I feel like I’m wandering around like the dazed tourist I met in Morocco, not understanding the context and grabbing out to random strangers. I feel so needy, but also a bit pissed off. I wonder how other people have gotten through this. I know some people who have boyfriends or have even remarried. How does that work? Even before that, they go out dancing or travel to Bermuda for yoga weekends or do dating websites. And even before that, they manage to figure out a budget or get through a weekend without crying. How does it all work? How do I begin to reconstruct, while being so bogged down with emotion and need?
I can always go back to that same Barbara Kingsolver quote I’ve mentioned in past postings. I can follow the Rambo (or JC Superstar) philosophy of “day by day.” Sandra Tsing Loh says, “It is the mundane practicalities that eventually save us.” I mean, how would I normally prepare for a trip? I’d have a passport (my custody agreement?), books (yeah, got those), maybe some contacts (yep, I know some people), a return ticket (oops, not that), and above all, excitement about my travels. Well, I’m not quite there yet. At times I can get glimpses of a time in the future when I could hope to have hope. Sometimes. We’ll see.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Broken Year
SO much has happened since the last time I wrote. I don't even know where to begin, except to begin by recalling a book I read by Ismail Kadare called Broken April. In this book, something so terrible happened during the month of April that for the narrator, the month was irrecovably split. And that's the sort of thing that I feel has happened to me.
First, at the beginning of August -- Tuesday, August 2, to be exact -- I separated from my husband. If you've been reading this blog, you'll realize that this was nothing sudden or hasty. I'd been struggling with the marriage since even before our first child was born, and once he was born our difficulties became even more clear. In my view, we (especially I) tried and tried. We spent thousands on three different marriage counselors over the course of 4 years. I left him several times and then came back to him, each time hoping that things would change for the better. I pored over books, from Dr. Phil to The Verbally Abusive Relationship (which I disfigured with numerous underlines and exclamation points) to Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. And over and over and over. I tried to be extremely clear to my husband about my concerns and what I thought I needed to have happen to make things work. I tried to listen to his concerns. I gave him examples of what I thought wasn't working (I handed him, in writing, a verbatim transcript of him telling me how horrible I was and how much I hated him and his people), and also gave him examples of what might work. I took us to parenting classes and paid for trips to Serbia. But, after years of trying and then more of avoiding him and of struggling with my own decision, I finally realized that I just couldn't see how it could ever work. So, then I worked on how to get out. During the process, I mourned our marriage and our hopes and our possibilities. I dealt with guilt and fear of many, many things, both realistic and less so. I had support from many wonderful people, and I have to say that although I'm not sure how God works--and that Footprints poem that enchanted some of my high school friends never really grabbed me emotionally--perhaps God made His/Her presence felt in the widely varied support and resources I was blessed with. In any case, I finally changed the locks on August 2, and a whole new chapter began.
It was kind of hard, but, given what happened just about a month after that, my feelings about the separation are kind of muted now. The kids and I stayed with my parents for a few days, then we returned home. My husband refused to see the kids, saying he was too upset. The third week of August, we headed up to the beach, and of course B was very upset about that. I felt guilty, and I remember one morning taking part in a yoga class -- my parents watched the kids -- and crying through half of it, feeling sad that my ex wasn't there, and just working through it all. (Afterward the teacher said I had a "beautiful practice," and I remember feeling kind of guilty about that, because I don't really practice yoga as much as I should or could.) We had a good time with my parents, my dad took my son fishing a few times, and we went out to a couple of bayside restaurants. At one point, we heard about an earthquake, but it must have happened when we were at the beach. Then we learned that a hurricane was coming, and my parents decided to drive their boat across the bay and park it in the safer waters near Bayshore. As they were loading their bags onto the boat, I took photos of them from the pier. I stayed at the beach with the kids, hosted some friends, and we all left early as part of a pre-hurricane evacuation. As we took the ferry across the bay on a beautiful Friday evening with almost flat waters and a gorgeous sunset, I remember my friend saying that it's always deceptively calm before a hurricane.
And when the hurricane did hit, the kids and I were much further west, staying at a storybook bed and breakfast near Lancaster, PA. I sent photos to my parents of the kids with kittens and ponies and chickens.
We went to an ice cream factory and watched the storm on CNN. Then we headed home, to find branches in the yard but little damage. The kids started school that Tuesday, and I have a photo of them, dressed in colorful clothes, shouldering their backpacks, my middle daughter squinting into the sun with a gaptoothed smile, my other two kids smiling broadly into the camera.
And then, on September 1, my father died suddenly, traumatically, and because of that and the events that followed, that photo seems like it's from another world. I got a call from my mom that morning, in which she started off by saying, "Very sad news..." And I don't remember her exact words after that, except it was something like, "Dad died." I don't think I got it at first, because I remember asking, "My dad?" And then I was rushing off to Suburban Hospital (on the way I got ticketed on Cedar Lane by one of those speed cameras), to find my mom in the emergency room with my dad's body on a guerney. And she was saying things like, "Feel him, he's still warm," and she was being friendly and appreciative to the nurses and others who helped us. He had gone out for a walk and had gotten stung by a bee, and we later learned -- weeks later, after the Medical Examiner finished with him -- that he died of an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
So, it was crazy, and my mom, my brother, and I worked hard to deal with the bureaucracy and organize a memorial gathering for him a week later. We were all in over our heads, and it was clear, upon hindsight, that we were all strung out in our own ways. So, it's not surprising that soon after he arrived, my brother and I had a huge, screaming fight, and since then he has not wanted to reconcile with me.
I blogged about some of the issues my brother and I have had, but I later deleted the post, becaues I thought it shared a little too much. It's enough to say that we did have issues, which may even have been festering a bit. I felt like I couldn't approach him about my concerns without being steamrolled, so I didn't have the best feelings about him. Still, he was family, and I had even named him and his wife guardians in my will. I guess I figured that whatever had happened between us would either pass or perhaps we would address it in the future. Instead, in the mischegoss stemming from my dad's death, things just blew up. He had no patience with my kids' presence at my mom's house (even with a babysitter, who was there on the second day), and no thought of compassion for my situation as a newly separated mom of three. On my part, I had no patience for any criticism from him, which I experienced as overbearing and inappropriate. Maybe we just have different ideas of what family should be like...perhaps I'm hoping for a big, warm, accepting group, with kids running around underfoot and everyone pitching in. That's not the kind of house I was raised in, though, so it shouldn't be surprising that my brother reacted the way he did.
Anyway, after my brother and I had our screaming fight, I remember calling my pastor and crying to her over the phone. On the day of the public memorial gathering, horror of horrors, my babysitter didn't show up, and a wonderful woman down the street from my mom watched the kids. And then that evening, before we left, I asked my brother if he wanted to go to dinner and talk about things. He said, well, let me check to see if I'm doing anything with my friends. I said, Josh, does that mean no? And he said, yes, that means no. So, that was that. I arranged for my son to get together with him before he left, but it was so yucky and unpleasant for me...he wouldn't even come into my house to greet my daughter, and she felt awful. I did try to reconcile one more time, though, by arranging for my 2 older kids and I to go down to Houston for his wife's baby shower in November. Unfortunately, just before we were to go down there, my cousin in Seattle passed away, and of course I flew out there for her funeral instead. So, once again, that was that.
And then, later in November, my mother decided that my brother would be the one to help her with her finances, and I wouldn't be involved because Josh didn't feel comfortable meeting with the lawyer in my presence. In addition, I learned from my mom that Josh thinks this estrangement will be a long-term thing. This left me, as the Brits say, gobsmacked. My mom tried to justify it by saying my dad had wanted Josh to help with three accounts because he had given him the passwords, but when I pieced it together I realized that it was a lot more than that and I had definitely been misled over time. Just a couple of weeks earlier, I had asked my mom if she wanted me to come when she met with a financial advisor, and she had seemed kind of put off. My mom refused to talk to me about it, and even when I said we could avoid all of the emotional stuff and laid it out that I have some really good knowledge in this area, she still refused to budge. So...you can say it's sexist, which it is. You can say she's a creature of the 50s and needs a man to take care of her, which she does. You can say it's not a big deal since it's just the finances, which can also be argued. But it's indicative of a broader pattern. The long and short of it is, given these facts and many other details I haven't mentioned, that my mom just doesn't want to be close to me at this point. I guess I had hoped that with my dad gone, she could spend more time with us and I could provide her with a lot of support. But instead, it's like she was there one day and gone the next.
I know she's grieving, she's flailing, and she's struggling to live on her own for the first time ever in her 74 years. Still, it's crazy hard for me, being estranged from my husband, trying to move forward with separation, trying to get my work done and get a good rating at work,working hard to give my kids the healthiest atmosphere possible, and trying to keep up with the craziness of being a suburban mom. Given that I'm already being estranged from my brother and his wife and feeling really really sad about not being close to them when they're about to have their first child, as well as facing the possibility of losing the love of my wondeful in-laws, who are really important to the kids, you'd hope enough would be enough. But at the same time, I have to face the fact that my mom is just not here for me now. Even with the kids, she's very limited in what she can give them in terms of facetime. I don't know if that's what she wants, or if that's all she feels she can give right now. So...
I feel like when people say "fallout," I really know what they mean now. When I was younger, my good friend Karen and I used to describe some disastrous relationships as "crash and burns." I would describe what's happened over the past few months as nuclear ("all of this, gone..." as they said in The Terminator), although I know of course there are many many many people in the world who have experienced much much much worse, and I've even worked with some of them in Croatia. I mean, I have my health -- thank God -- my kids, my job, lots and lots of wonderful friends, and even a congregation that brought me meal after meal when this all happened. It's just been very hard, to feel like my family of origin isn't there anymore. If they say crisis brings opportunity, now is my opportunity to a) grow and draw upon my strength, b) gain a better perspective on my childhood and family of origin, and c) grow my own garden, as they say (wishing I could use a different metaphor, though, due to my non-green thumb, but that's the one that's out there...maybe something to do with building, although I can also picture myself bashing myself in the thumb with a hammer).
In any case, it feels SO GOOD to write this all down. Although I'll link to it on Facebook, I'm going to try to block it from anyone who might share it with my sister-in-law (who is a wonderful, intelligent, and loving person, but also a hard person) and my STBX. I'm not even sure I can think of New Years resolutions now, but I did post something on Facebook about wanting to maintain an outlook that everything can be an educational experience. I guess the other thing is faith...that if you keep having the energy to move forward, there are unknown unknowns out there that could be good in ways you never anticipated. And although I feel very alone at times, I know that, on the one hand, I'm not, because I have so many great friends and extended family members, as well as the many people I've never met who have experienced similar feelings. And on the other hand, as someone said in a book I read as a kid, in the long run, we're all alone. And if we're all alone, then maybe, strangely, that brings us all together in some sense.
In any case, the world is now divided into before and after for me, with a huge gaping chasm in between. I feel like I can see the kestrels in Harry Potter, and that will have repurcussions in my thoughts, actions and feelings from here on out. I have more to write, but enough for now. Thanks for listening.
First, at the beginning of August -- Tuesday, August 2, to be exact -- I separated from my husband. If you've been reading this blog, you'll realize that this was nothing sudden or hasty. I'd been struggling with the marriage since even before our first child was born, and once he was born our difficulties became even more clear. In my view, we (especially I) tried and tried. We spent thousands on three different marriage counselors over the course of 4 years. I left him several times and then came back to him, each time hoping that things would change for the better. I pored over books, from Dr. Phil to The Verbally Abusive Relationship (which I disfigured with numerous underlines and exclamation points) to Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. And over and over and over. I tried to be extremely clear to my husband about my concerns and what I thought I needed to have happen to make things work. I tried to listen to his concerns. I gave him examples of what I thought wasn't working (I handed him, in writing, a verbatim transcript of him telling me how horrible I was and how much I hated him and his people), and also gave him examples of what might work. I took us to parenting classes and paid for trips to Serbia. But, after years of trying and then more of avoiding him and of struggling with my own decision, I finally realized that I just couldn't see how it could ever work. So, then I worked on how to get out. During the process, I mourned our marriage and our hopes and our possibilities. I dealt with guilt and fear of many, many things, both realistic and less so. I had support from many wonderful people, and I have to say that although I'm not sure how God works--and that Footprints poem that enchanted some of my high school friends never really grabbed me emotionally--perhaps God made His/Her presence felt in the widely varied support and resources I was blessed with. In any case, I finally changed the locks on August 2, and a whole new chapter began.
It was kind of hard, but, given what happened just about a month after that, my feelings about the separation are kind of muted now. The kids and I stayed with my parents for a few days, then we returned home. My husband refused to see the kids, saying he was too upset. The third week of August, we headed up to the beach, and of course B was very upset about that. I felt guilty, and I remember one morning taking part in a yoga class -- my parents watched the kids -- and crying through half of it, feeling sad that my ex wasn't there, and just working through it all. (Afterward the teacher said I had a "beautiful practice," and I remember feeling kind of guilty about that, because I don't really practice yoga as much as I should or could.) We had a good time with my parents, my dad took my son fishing a few times, and we went out to a couple of bayside restaurants. At one point, we heard about an earthquake, but it must have happened when we were at the beach. Then we learned that a hurricane was coming, and my parents decided to drive their boat across the bay and park it in the safer waters near Bayshore. As they were loading their bags onto the boat, I took photos of them from the pier. I stayed at the beach with the kids, hosted some friends, and we all left early as part of a pre-hurricane evacuation. As we took the ferry across the bay on a beautiful Friday evening with almost flat waters and a gorgeous sunset, I remember my friend saying that it's always deceptively calm before a hurricane.
And when the hurricane did hit, the kids and I were much further west, staying at a storybook bed and breakfast near Lancaster, PA. I sent photos to my parents of the kids with kittens and ponies and chickens.
We went to an ice cream factory and watched the storm on CNN. Then we headed home, to find branches in the yard but little damage. The kids started school that Tuesday, and I have a photo of them, dressed in colorful clothes, shouldering their backpacks, my middle daughter squinting into the sun with a gaptoothed smile, my other two kids smiling broadly into the camera.
And then, on September 1, my father died suddenly, traumatically, and because of that and the events that followed, that photo seems like it's from another world. I got a call from my mom that morning, in which she started off by saying, "Very sad news..." And I don't remember her exact words after that, except it was something like, "Dad died." I don't think I got it at first, because I remember asking, "My dad?" And then I was rushing off to Suburban Hospital (on the way I got ticketed on Cedar Lane by one of those speed cameras), to find my mom in the emergency room with my dad's body on a guerney. And she was saying things like, "Feel him, he's still warm," and she was being friendly and appreciative to the nurses and others who helped us. He had gone out for a walk and had gotten stung by a bee, and we later learned -- weeks later, after the Medical Examiner finished with him -- that he died of an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
So, it was crazy, and my mom, my brother, and I worked hard to deal with the bureaucracy and organize a memorial gathering for him a week later. We were all in over our heads, and it was clear, upon hindsight, that we were all strung out in our own ways. So, it's not surprising that soon after he arrived, my brother and I had a huge, screaming fight, and since then he has not wanted to reconcile with me.
I blogged about some of the issues my brother and I have had, but I later deleted the post, becaues I thought it shared a little too much. It's enough to say that we did have issues, which may even have been festering a bit. I felt like I couldn't approach him about my concerns without being steamrolled, so I didn't have the best feelings about him. Still, he was family, and I had even named him and his wife guardians in my will. I guess I figured that whatever had happened between us would either pass or perhaps we would address it in the future. Instead, in the mischegoss stemming from my dad's death, things just blew up. He had no patience with my kids' presence at my mom's house (even with a babysitter, who was there on the second day), and no thought of compassion for my situation as a newly separated mom of three. On my part, I had no patience for any criticism from him, which I experienced as overbearing and inappropriate. Maybe we just have different ideas of what family should be like...perhaps I'm hoping for a big, warm, accepting group, with kids running around underfoot and everyone pitching in. That's not the kind of house I was raised in, though, so it shouldn't be surprising that my brother reacted the way he did.
Anyway, after my brother and I had our screaming fight, I remember calling my pastor and crying to her over the phone. On the day of the public memorial gathering, horror of horrors, my babysitter didn't show up, and a wonderful woman down the street from my mom watched the kids. And then that evening, before we left, I asked my brother if he wanted to go to dinner and talk about things. He said, well, let me check to see if I'm doing anything with my friends. I said, Josh, does that mean no? And he said, yes, that means no. So, that was that. I arranged for my son to get together with him before he left, but it was so yucky and unpleasant for me...he wouldn't even come into my house to greet my daughter, and she felt awful. I did try to reconcile one more time, though, by arranging for my 2 older kids and I to go down to Houston for his wife's baby shower in November. Unfortunately, just before we were to go down there, my cousin in Seattle passed away, and of course I flew out there for her funeral instead. So, once again, that was that.
And then, later in November, my mother decided that my brother would be the one to help her with her finances, and I wouldn't be involved because Josh didn't feel comfortable meeting with the lawyer in my presence. In addition, I learned from my mom that Josh thinks this estrangement will be a long-term thing. This left me, as the Brits say, gobsmacked. My mom tried to justify it by saying my dad had wanted Josh to help with three accounts because he had given him the passwords, but when I pieced it together I realized that it was a lot more than that and I had definitely been misled over time. Just a couple of weeks earlier, I had asked my mom if she wanted me to come when she met with a financial advisor, and she had seemed kind of put off. My mom refused to talk to me about it, and even when I said we could avoid all of the emotional stuff and laid it out that I have some really good knowledge in this area, she still refused to budge. So...you can say it's sexist, which it is. You can say she's a creature of the 50s and needs a man to take care of her, which she does. You can say it's not a big deal since it's just the finances, which can also be argued. But it's indicative of a broader pattern. The long and short of it is, given these facts and many other details I haven't mentioned, that my mom just doesn't want to be close to me at this point. I guess I had hoped that with my dad gone, she could spend more time with us and I could provide her with a lot of support. But instead, it's like she was there one day and gone the next.
I know she's grieving, she's flailing, and she's struggling to live on her own for the first time ever in her 74 years. Still, it's crazy hard for me, being estranged from my husband, trying to move forward with separation, trying to get my work done and get a good rating at work,working hard to give my kids the healthiest atmosphere possible, and trying to keep up with the craziness of being a suburban mom. Given that I'm already being estranged from my brother and his wife and feeling really really sad about not being close to them when they're about to have their first child, as well as facing the possibility of losing the love of my wondeful in-laws, who are really important to the kids, you'd hope enough would be enough. But at the same time, I have to face the fact that my mom is just not here for me now. Even with the kids, she's very limited in what she can give them in terms of facetime. I don't know if that's what she wants, or if that's all she feels she can give right now. So...
I feel like when people say "fallout," I really know what they mean now. When I was younger, my good friend Karen and I used to describe some disastrous relationships as "crash and burns." I would describe what's happened over the past few months as nuclear ("all of this, gone..." as they said in The Terminator), although I know of course there are many many many people in the world who have experienced much much much worse, and I've even worked with some of them in Croatia. I mean, I have my health -- thank God -- my kids, my job, lots and lots of wonderful friends, and even a congregation that brought me meal after meal when this all happened. It's just been very hard, to feel like my family of origin isn't there anymore. If they say crisis brings opportunity, now is my opportunity to a) grow and draw upon my strength, b) gain a better perspective on my childhood and family of origin, and c) grow my own garden, as they say (wishing I could use a different metaphor, though, due to my non-green thumb, but that's the one that's out there...maybe something to do with building, although I can also picture myself bashing myself in the thumb with a hammer).
In any case, it feels SO GOOD to write this all down. Although I'll link to it on Facebook, I'm going to try to block it from anyone who might share it with my sister-in-law (who is a wonderful, intelligent, and loving person, but also a hard person) and my STBX. I'm not even sure I can think of New Years resolutions now, but I did post something on Facebook about wanting to maintain an outlook that everything can be an educational experience. I guess the other thing is faith...that if you keep having the energy to move forward, there are unknown unknowns out there that could be good in ways you never anticipated. And although I feel very alone at times, I know that, on the one hand, I'm not, because I have so many great friends and extended family members, as well as the many people I've never met who have experienced similar feelings. And on the other hand, as someone said in a book I read as a kid, in the long run, we're all alone. And if we're all alone, then maybe, strangely, that brings us all together in some sense.
In any case, the world is now divided into before and after for me, with a huge gaping chasm in between. I feel like I can see the kestrels in Harry Potter, and that will have repurcussions in my thoughts, actions and feelings from here on out. I have more to write, but enough for now. Thanks for listening.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Morbidity and Mortality
When I look back at my last posting (which was way too long ago), I feel like it was the emotional equivalent of a data dump. I feel a sense of shame for exposing myself like that (albeit to the few people who read this blog...). In fact, it reminds me of a book that I read when I was a teenager, called Down a Dark Hall. This book, by Lois Duncan, depicted the tale of a group of teenagers who were sent to a supposedly high-quality boarding school that was actually something far more creepy. The school accepted kids with some kind of hidden artistic or musical gift, then each night – by some kind of evil magical process – they created paintings or musical compositions or some other piece of art in their dreams. In the morning, they didn’t remember much, and they certainly didn’t remember how they created the art. The problem was, after a while the kids would start to burn out. For example, one boy was creating appealing paintings, but after a few months he started to paint horrible, tortured scenes. And that’s what the most recent entry of my blog feels like to me. I feel like it’s gone bad. I don’t think it’s jumped the shark, but I do feel like I need to dig myself out of this morbid place that I’ve become enmeshed in. Then I’ll be able to focus on things like my childhood and adolescent predilection for morbid tales.
And the only way I can think to dig myself out is to write on. I could erase my blog posting, and maybe I still will, but that wouldn’t change things. And the google could probably still find it, unfortunately. It helps me to write it, and hopefully I can move on soon from this negative place. And, of course, I’m not feeling this negative all the time. But lately I noticed I’ve been feeling sad. When I see young families at Starbucks, for example, I feel sad. I’m sad because with kids ages 8, almost 6, and nearly 3, we’re no longer a young family. We’re essentially a school-age family. And for much of the time when we actually were a young family, I had serious reservations about B. But for some of that time I also had hope. And I believe that one reason I feel sad – am I grieving – is for the loss of that hope. And at the same time I grieve for the fact that I had it, for the fact that I believed naively and hopefully that with some intervention and work, B and I could become a couple facing the same direction, laughing at shared jokes, and enjoying and jointly raising our kids together. I saw a path to us being that happy young family. But how can I live happily with someone who curses when he sees something out of place, kicks my curlers across the room, yells at the kids for what he considers rudeness at the table, assumes that 2 weeks post-partum I’ll drive my friend on icy roads to the Metro because he (B) had too much wine to drive, isn’t willing to take a job that he considers below him (“I didn’t come here to wash floors”) even when our family needed the money, refused to come to our daughter’s baby naming ceremony, makes snide and obscene remarks at the table when I attempt to say grace…okay, I’m devolving to that morbid place again. Thinking about the bad stuff helps to strengthen my resolve, and it helps deflect the sadness.
But the sadness is there. Part of it may just be the sadness of middle age. (Yes, I’m middle aged – that is, if people can live to 90.) Earlier this week, when I walked to the National Gallery during lunch, I was struck by a series of paintings entitled “The Voyage of Life,” by Thomas Cole. They showed an infant in a boat, watched over by a protective spirit, a young man sailing off to find his fortune, a middle aged man in stormy waters faced with obstacles and being helped by faith, and an old man being shown the way to heaven by the same spirit that’s been with him his whole life. I felt a sense of recognition when I saw the middle-aged man. The blurb next to the painting talked about the sense of desolation and sadness that comes when you get to a certain point in life, as well as the rough waters we inevitably encounter. In this painting, the holy spirit is sustaining the main, if he is willing to see it. So, there was some hope there, and the way the artist used light and darkness to portray these ideas was great (to my untutored eye). My point is that perhaps sadness and darkness are things that come with middle age, and you need to incorporate it into your life and welcome it in a productive way. (By productive, I don’t mean industrious. I mean incorporating it in a way that will add meaning to your life and enable you to function and give.) And maybe life isn’t something that gets easier and easier as you achieve more and more. Maybe your achievements are the wisdom, skills, and supports you develop that enable you to deal with life’s inevitable challenges.
Which brings me back to my sad marriage, and the situation with B. The sadness I feel is because of how things are with us and even more so how things could have been but can’t. But it’s also because there is sadness in the world and in life, and it’s okay to feel it. In fact, it’s better to acknowledge it than to run away from it, because accepting it is what helps us to move through it, or perhaps with it.
The mother of a friend of Philip’s, who I’d like to get to know better, uses the following as a tag line on her e-mail – “What to do in Darkness: Go slowly. Consent to it. But don't wallow in it. Know it as a place of germination and growth. Remember the light. Take an outstretched hand if you find one. Exercise unused senses. Find the path by walking it. Practice trust. Watch for dawn.” That definitely resonated with me. To view darkness as a place of germination -- the word “germinate” calls to mind the real-life seeds I keep meaning to plant in my amateurish garden -- means to accept gracefully that life is a process and that it does move on. Maybe these ideas will help me to move out of my place of darkness and morbidity or perhaps to gratefully acknowledge that sunshine can and does co-exist with darkness.
And the only way I can think to dig myself out is to write on. I could erase my blog posting, and maybe I still will, but that wouldn’t change things. And the google could probably still find it, unfortunately. It helps me to write it, and hopefully I can move on soon from this negative place. And, of course, I’m not feeling this negative all the time. But lately I noticed I’ve been feeling sad. When I see young families at Starbucks, for example, I feel sad. I’m sad because with kids ages 8, almost 6, and nearly 3, we’re no longer a young family. We’re essentially a school-age family. And for much of the time when we actually were a young family, I had serious reservations about B. But for some of that time I also had hope. And I believe that one reason I feel sad – am I grieving – is for the loss of that hope. And at the same time I grieve for the fact that I had it, for the fact that I believed naively and hopefully that with some intervention and work, B and I could become a couple facing the same direction, laughing at shared jokes, and enjoying and jointly raising our kids together. I saw a path to us being that happy young family. But how can I live happily with someone who curses when he sees something out of place, kicks my curlers across the room, yells at the kids for what he considers rudeness at the table, assumes that 2 weeks post-partum I’ll drive my friend on icy roads to the Metro because he (B) had too much wine to drive, isn’t willing to take a job that he considers below him (“I didn’t come here to wash floors”) even when our family needed the money, refused to come to our daughter’s baby naming ceremony, makes snide and obscene remarks at the table when I attempt to say grace…okay, I’m devolving to that morbid place again. Thinking about the bad stuff helps to strengthen my resolve, and it helps deflect the sadness.
But the sadness is there. Part of it may just be the sadness of middle age. (Yes, I’m middle aged – that is, if people can live to 90.) Earlier this week, when I walked to the National Gallery during lunch, I was struck by a series of paintings entitled “The Voyage of Life,” by Thomas Cole. They showed an infant in a boat, watched over by a protective spirit, a young man sailing off to find his fortune, a middle aged man in stormy waters faced with obstacles and being helped by faith, and an old man being shown the way to heaven by the same spirit that’s been with him his whole life. I felt a sense of recognition when I saw the middle-aged man. The blurb next to the painting talked about the sense of desolation and sadness that comes when you get to a certain point in life, as well as the rough waters we inevitably encounter. In this painting, the holy spirit is sustaining the main, if he is willing to see it. So, there was some hope there, and the way the artist used light and darkness to portray these ideas was great (to my untutored eye). My point is that perhaps sadness and darkness are things that come with middle age, and you need to incorporate it into your life and welcome it in a productive way. (By productive, I don’t mean industrious. I mean incorporating it in a way that will add meaning to your life and enable you to function and give.) And maybe life isn’t something that gets easier and easier as you achieve more and more. Maybe your achievements are the wisdom, skills, and supports you develop that enable you to deal with life’s inevitable challenges.
Which brings me back to my sad marriage, and the situation with B. The sadness I feel is because of how things are with us and even more so how things could have been but can’t. But it’s also because there is sadness in the world and in life, and it’s okay to feel it. In fact, it’s better to acknowledge it than to run away from it, because accepting it is what helps us to move through it, or perhaps with it.
The mother of a friend of Philip’s, who I’d like to get to know better, uses the following as a tag line on her e-mail – “What to do in Darkness: Go slowly. Consent to it. But don't wallow in it. Know it as a place of germination and growth. Remember the light. Take an outstretched hand if you find one. Exercise unused senses. Find the path by walking it. Practice trust. Watch for dawn.” That definitely resonated with me. To view darkness as a place of germination -- the word “germinate” calls to mind the real-life seeds I keep meaning to plant in my amateurish garden -- means to accept gracefully that life is a process and that it does move on. Maybe these ideas will help me to move out of my place of darkness and morbidity or perhaps to gratefully acknowledge that sunshine can and does co-exist with darkness.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
L'Shana Tova
I read my friend Leah's blog tonight (see This Mama's Dharma -- Grandparents' Day, on the right). It really touched me, particularly her quote about "trudging solo up a hill with a battle ax and full body armor, fighting off my own demons." There's nowhere to share these feelings but here, so here I am. I'm writing as my husband struggles to sleep. Our relationship can certainly be described in terms of fighting our demons, or perhaps by using a desert metaphor -- hard, dry, and lonely. It's hard to say where and how our dysfunctionalism started, because I think we both had the best hopes when we started off on our journey together (other than our unhealthy fear of being alone...but I'm sure that's a force that compels many other wise and unwise relationships). I've struggled and struggled with my marriage for years. I've tried to find an external reason for our problems -- ie, my husband. Granted, he certainly has his own challenges, but deep down inside I feel like my focus on his behavior -- no matter how messed up it may be at times -- is just an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for my own decisions.
Tonight I'm feeling lonely. It's the holiest day of the Jewish year (or is that Yom Kippor? So sue me, it's one of the two holiest days anyway.), and I'm with a partner with whom I simply cannot share this holiday. It's not that I'm going off to temple or anything, but it would be nice to share a spiritual connection. But we simply don't have that, not for my want of trying. So, instead I invited my parents over, and we had apples and honey by candle light. (I lit a candle shaped like sushi that my mom gave me for Christmas years ago...talk about multiple influences.) As I write this, I feel like I'm reconnecting with the world, and I feel less lonely. That's part of the magical nature of writing. But even though I'm not feeling so much like bitching and whining anymore, I'm going to share the song that's been going through my mind, by the Police. (Isn't Sting lovely?)
I wish I knew more about this holiday. Maybe someday when I can afford tickets to a high holiday celebration, I'll eventually know more (snark snark). Obviously, it's the new year, and there's the idea of starting again and taking stock of things. As I take stock, of course I'm grateful for my kids, my parents, my job, the fact that I'm living in a peaceful place (although the world isn't peaceful), and even for my husband, messed up as our situation is. I'm grateful for my health, my mind, the beauty of nature, and for common and random acts of kindness.
When I was in Croatia, my boyfriend at the time, a local guy who had a broad view of the world, got his hands on a video about a group of black southern gospel singers. We watched it together, and the images that stuck in my mind are of a bunch of overweight people eating Chinese food and singing beautiful songs. It somehow overlaps with a visit I made to my husband's cousin near Lynchburg, VA, when we went to what passes for a Chinese restaurant there on a Sunday morning. But one song in this video still stays with me. In it, men and women are singing, "We're blessed, we're blessed, we're blessed," over and over. It was pretty amazing to me, because aside from their singing talents, these were just regular people with -- I assume -- regular problems. They weren't especially blessed or lucky, but actually they were, simply because they acknowledged and affirmed it. It's amazing how uplifting something like that can be. I want to continue to keep our blessings in mind this year, because I think it puts me in a better place.
Another thing I want to do is to try to be honest with myself and others about my feelings and also about my marriage. I think being in this dissatisfied, ambivalent place isolates me and also protects me in a bad way. It makes me hold back from potential friends, because I feel like I'm not who they want me to be. I'm not happy in my marriage, but I'm also not in the process of separation. In a word, as stated above, I'm struggling. I'm in this in-between place, and I need to accept myself where I am. Acknowledging this reality will hopefully help me move forward in one way or another. So, I'm not going to hide it anymore, although of course I won't go blabbing about it either. I'll just try to work things out on these virtual pages, and hope that someone is actually reading them.
I wanted to share two great quotes here, just because they both touch me. The first is a poem from Spoon River Anthology called "George Gray," by Edgar Lee Masters. I remember reading it in 11th grade when I was 17, and feeling like it could apply to me if I didn't act. Basically, Spoon River anthology is a collection of gravestone etchings from a fictitious town called Spoon River. The one that resonated with me goes like this:
I fear that I'm a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid. I've traveled and worked in far-off places on my own, building a life wherever I am. I've made the courageous decisions to get married and have 3 kids. Nonetheless, I still feel like I'm running away from my feelings and myself. When I was a kid, I was taught that expressing and even feeling my feelings was wrong. When I was a teenager, I tried to use food as a drug to drown my feelings. (Indeed, I think that addictions of various sorts run on my mother's side of the family.) Starting in my 20s, I sought to "settle down" in a "relationship" to prove that I belonged, eventually ending up in my own highly productive but sadly dysfunctional marriage. Even now, I feel that I overschedule and immerse myself in loving my kids partly to escape my own feelings and fears. I'm sure that this is all normal to some extent, but it doesn't feel that healthy to me.
When I was in Bosnia, my first interpreter said to me, "You're scared, aren't you?" He didn't mean I was scared of being in Bosnia (which I wasn't) or scared because I locked the doors of the car (a habit from living in DC). He meant I was scared overall. He meant I was scared of life. And he was right. I've been very good at moving forward and taking the plunge even though I'm scared. I effing amaze myself, in fact. Nonetheless, I'm still running away from myself. I want to turn myself to face me. I want to catch up with myself, take a deep breath, look into my own eyes, smile, and chill. I want to put on my big girl panties and say, "Eff this, it's all okay." I want to be able to face the future without being undermined by anxiety or fear. And sometimes -- like now -- I think I can do it. I think it's a work in progress, and it's a long-distance endeavor rather than a sprint. Perhaps putting the words down here will help make it happen.
The second quote I wanted to share is by one of my favorite authors. I had this quote read aloud at my wedding, and it continues to resonate with me. It's from Barbara Kingsolver's High Tide in Tucson:
"Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job or a limb or a loved one, a graduation, bringing a new baby home: it’s impossible to think at first how this all will be possible. Eventually, what moves it all forward is the subterranean ebb and flow of being alive among the living.
"In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again….
L'Shana Tova, everyone!
Tonight I'm feeling lonely. It's the holiest day of the Jewish year (or is that Yom Kippor? So sue me, it's one of the two holiest days anyway.), and I'm with a partner with whom I simply cannot share this holiday. It's not that I'm going off to temple or anything, but it would be nice to share a spiritual connection. But we simply don't have that, not for my want of trying. So, instead I invited my parents over, and we had apples and honey by candle light. (I lit a candle shaped like sushi that my mom gave me for Christmas years ago...talk about multiple influences.) As I write this, I feel like I'm reconnecting with the world, and I feel less lonely. That's part of the magical nature of writing. But even though I'm not feeling so much like bitching and whining anymore, I'm going to share the song that's been going through my mind, by the Police. (Isn't Sting lovely?)
I wish I knew more about this holiday. Maybe someday when I can afford tickets to a high holiday celebration, I'll eventually know more (snark snark). Obviously, it's the new year, and there's the idea of starting again and taking stock of things. As I take stock, of course I'm grateful for my kids, my parents, my job, the fact that I'm living in a peaceful place (although the world isn't peaceful), and even for my husband, messed up as our situation is. I'm grateful for my health, my mind, the beauty of nature, and for common and random acts of kindness.
When I was in Croatia, my boyfriend at the time, a local guy who had a broad view of the world, got his hands on a video about a group of black southern gospel singers. We watched it together, and the images that stuck in my mind are of a bunch of overweight people eating Chinese food and singing beautiful songs. It somehow overlaps with a visit I made to my husband's cousin near Lynchburg, VA, when we went to what passes for a Chinese restaurant there on a Sunday morning. But one song in this video still stays with me. In it, men and women are singing, "We're blessed, we're blessed, we're blessed," over and over. It was pretty amazing to me, because aside from their singing talents, these were just regular people with -- I assume -- regular problems. They weren't especially blessed or lucky, but actually they were, simply because they acknowledged and affirmed it. It's amazing how uplifting something like that can be. I want to continue to keep our blessings in mind this year, because I think it puts me in a better place.
Another thing I want to do is to try to be honest with myself and others about my feelings and also about my marriage. I think being in this dissatisfied, ambivalent place isolates me and also protects me in a bad way. It makes me hold back from potential friends, because I feel like I'm not who they want me to be. I'm not happy in my marriage, but I'm also not in the process of separation. In a word, as stated above, I'm struggling. I'm in this in-between place, and I need to accept myself where I am. Acknowledging this reality will hopefully help me move forward in one way or another. So, I'm not going to hide it anymore, although of course I won't go blabbing about it either. I'll just try to work things out on these virtual pages, and hope that someone is actually reading them.
I wanted to share two great quotes here, just because they both touch me. The first is a poem from Spoon River Anthology called "George Gray," by Edgar Lee Masters. I remember reading it in 11th grade when I was 17, and feeling like it could apply to me if I didn't act. Basically, Spoon River anthology is a collection of gravestone etchings from a fictitious town called Spoon River. The one that resonated with me goes like this:
| George Gray I have studied many times The marble which was chiseled for me -- A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor. In truth it pictures not my destination But my life. For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment; Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid; Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances. Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life. And now I know that we must lift the sail And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat. To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire -- It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid. |
When I was in Bosnia, my first interpreter said to me, "You're scared, aren't you?" He didn't mean I was scared of being in Bosnia (which I wasn't) or scared because I locked the doors of the car (a habit from living in DC). He meant I was scared overall. He meant I was scared of life. And he was right. I've been very good at moving forward and taking the plunge even though I'm scared. I effing amaze myself, in fact. Nonetheless, I'm still running away from myself. I want to turn myself to face me. I want to catch up with myself, take a deep breath, look into my own eyes, smile, and chill. I want to put on my big girl panties and say, "Eff this, it's all okay." I want to be able to face the future without being undermined by anxiety or fear. And sometimes -- like now -- I think I can do it. I think it's a work in progress, and it's a long-distance endeavor rather than a sprint. Perhaps putting the words down here will help make it happen.
The second quote I wanted to share is by one of my favorite authors. I had this quote read aloud at my wedding, and it continues to resonate with me. It's from Barbara Kingsolver's High Tide in Tucson:
"Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job or a limb or a loved one, a graduation, bringing a new baby home: it’s impossible to think at first how this all will be possible. Eventually, what moves it all forward is the subterranean ebb and flow of being alive among the living.
"In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again….
“We hold fast to the old passions of endurance that buckle and creak beneath us, dovetailed, tight as a good wooden boat to carry us onward. And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another–that is surely the basic instinct…If the whole living world has to turn on the single point of remaining alive, that pointed endurance is the poetry of hope. The thing with feathers.”
L'Shana Tova, everyone!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Sick Day
Am home today with Angelina because she has a stomach virus...the same one Sofia had on Friday afternoon, when she threw up at camp. Oh well...I also have a cold, so I'm feeling kind of hazy and dazed.
Am learning all sorts of new things, like how when a child throws up on a remote control, you should never try to wash it. Now we have a dysfunctional remote control and a child who can't watch Dora. Oh man...
That said, here is what I'm grateful for today:
- My kids, and the fact that they're generally healthy.
- Am reading Nicholas Kristoff's "Half the Sky," and I'm grateful that I'm living in a society that values women, relatively speaking.
- That the New York Times on-line isn't charging for it's content....yet.
- That my mom is going to pick up the 2 older kids and bring me some delicious cherry tomatoes later on today.
- That even a former Reagan-era Director of the Office of Management and Budget thinks the Republicans now have it dangerously wrong on the economy. See this article. I wonder if anyone will listen to him?
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Spiritual Supermarket
Sofia: Mommy, am I Jewish?
Me: You’re Jewish and Christian. I’m Jewish, and Tati is Christian.
Sofia: Do we go to church?
Me: We go to the Inter-Faith Families Project.
Sofia: Well, I want to go to church sometime, or to some party, so I can wear a fancy dress.
I think this all comes from Miss Odilie, Sofia’s pre-K teacher, who “doesn’t believe in pants” and doesn’t celebrate Halloween because it goes against the teachings of her church. Sofia comes home from Pre-K from time to time saying, “Mommy, tomorrow I need to wear a church dress,” to dress up for picture day or some other event. I don’t mind if she’s exposed to this, as long as it’s not the only way she’s exposed to religion and spirituality. And at her pre-K holiday party, they always have something Jewish and also something Latino, since a plurality of the kids is Latino. At the first holiday concert I went to there, the pre-K sang, “Must Be Santa,” the dreidel song, and some Spanish holiday song. So, I was happy about that.
Overall, I think I like the mix. What does that mean? It means that I feel comfortable being around a mix of cultures and backgrounds, and the area where we live is great for that. My husband has said several times, “It’s not a supermarket,” but I think it can be. For me, the ideal way to expose my kids to religion and culture would be analogous to Trader Joe’s. Lots of different influences, and even the development of some creative new food.
The thing is, though, Trader Joe’s also has its own values system. (Maybe the ultimate value is profit, as discussed in this article today, but the way they choose to make a profit is to respond to the values of their target market.) For example, they don’t use additives or preservatives, even though that real Inca Kola in Peru or gyoza in China would be chock full of them. Another value is reasonable prices, which attracts a certain demographic. In much the same way, I want my kids to learn about different religions and cultures, but I want it to be within the context of values I’m comfortable with. Thus, they can learn about Noah’s ark, but let’s have it taught to them in such a way that it’s not presented as God punishing the evildoers. Or the idea of gender-neutral language in prayers. I want my kids to learn about Jewish holidays, but I don’t feel strongly about abstaining from pork or about circumcision. Stuff like this is not value-neutral or universal. It’s what I believe is right for my kids to learn, based on my own values and upbringing. It’s my own choice at the supermarket. In that sense, how am I different from Miss Odilie, who doesn’t let her son Marcos dress up like Spiderman on Halloween?
I keep thinking about an acquaintance of mine, who I haven’t seen in a while. She has 2 sons, who are a little older than Philip. She lives in a wildly colorful house, with Mexican murals and multicolored floor tiles. She’s from Texas, and only speaks to her kids in Spanish even though she’s Jewish and Anglo. She sends her kids to Hebrew School, but is married to her college sweetheart (after 20 years and a nebbish first marriage for both), who is a Born Again Christian. Somehow, it all works out. I went to their house for a Rosh Hashanah party last year, and I remember her husband singing “Apples and Honey for Rosh Hashanah” while he played the little piano in their living room. It felt so right to me, and in its melting pot nature I think it’s something uniquely American.
My husband, on the other hand, feels totally uncomfortable with all of this. His view is that you are who you are, and you should know who you are. I think he thinks this way because he grew up in what was then Yugoslavia, where there really wasn’t choice. On the one hand, he had a very strong Serbian Orthodox Christian identity, and his grandfather had him baptized in secret. On the other hand, there was the official state position to de-emphasize religion and to strongly emphasize other group-think things related to the state. I think that all of that added up to a widely held view that to be religious – or to be non-religious and political – meant playing the game and not questioning the tenets that were issued from up-high. You could choose not to participate, but you weren’t able to pick and choose and fill your own spiritual shopping bag. You got what you got and you didn’t get upset, or you could just withdraw from the game. And if you were religious, you didn’t question what you were. Instead of Trader Joe’s, you had your local corner store, and that was that.
Another way to look at it is through the prism of a menu. My husband simply doesn’t order off the menu in restaurants, and he still gets flustered when asked about choices – rare or medium? Regular or decaf? White or wheat? You should just take what the restaurant has and not ask for more. You don’t want to insult the chef, after all, and in Montenegro the waiter might beat you up. My mother, on the other hand, will ask the waiter to create totally new dishes. I report with some chagrin that I clearly take after her. The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. So, while my mother goes to Costa Rica and forces my father to order a low cholesterol meal for her in Spanish, I’ve been known to ask a restaurant to change its music if it’s too loud or too sad. And it’s the same for religion/spirituality with me. I like to pick and choose the right mix.
We’ll see what the kids pick up from the influences we’re having on them. I love the eclectic and value-rich form and content of IFFP, and although he doesn’t consider himself religions, Bojan strongly wants the kids to learn about the history, culture, and ritual of the Serbian Orthodox Church. (He will probably argue with me about all of this, but this is how I see it.) I’m sure Sofia will have lots of opportunities to wear her “church dress,” hopefully in many different venues. In addition to IFFP and the DC-area Serbian Church, I would love to take her and the other kids to a synagogue, a mosque, a Day of the Dead celebration, a Diwali party, and who knows what else. We’ll keep our eyes and minds open, within limits.
Things I’m grateful for:
--that I have a seat on this overcrowded Metro train
--that my parents are able to pinch hit when there are problems with the Metro, like today
--my job (getting repetitive, are we?)
--the many interesting people I’ve been exposed to over the years
--that I got to try a new restaurant today
Me: You’re Jewish and Christian. I’m Jewish, and Tati is Christian.
Sofia: Do we go to church?
Me: We go to the Inter-Faith Families Project.
Sofia: Well, I want to go to church sometime, or to some party, so I can wear a fancy dress.
I think this all comes from Miss Odilie, Sofia’s pre-K teacher, who “doesn’t believe in pants” and doesn’t celebrate Halloween because it goes against the teachings of her church. Sofia comes home from Pre-K from time to time saying, “Mommy, tomorrow I need to wear a church dress,” to dress up for picture day or some other event. I don’t mind if she’s exposed to this, as long as it’s not the only way she’s exposed to religion and spirituality. And at her pre-K holiday party, they always have something Jewish and also something Latino, since a plurality of the kids is Latino. At the first holiday concert I went to there, the pre-K sang, “Must Be Santa,” the dreidel song, and some Spanish holiday song. So, I was happy about that.
Overall, I think I like the mix. What does that mean? It means that I feel comfortable being around a mix of cultures and backgrounds, and the area where we live is great for that. My husband has said several times, “It’s not a supermarket,” but I think it can be. For me, the ideal way to expose my kids to religion and culture would be analogous to Trader Joe’s. Lots of different influences, and even the development of some creative new food.
The thing is, though, Trader Joe’s also has its own values system. (Maybe the ultimate value is profit, as discussed in this article today, but the way they choose to make a profit is to respond to the values of their target market.) For example, they don’t use additives or preservatives, even though that real Inca Kola in Peru or gyoza in China would be chock full of them. Another value is reasonable prices, which attracts a certain demographic. In much the same way, I want my kids to learn about different religions and cultures, but I want it to be within the context of values I’m comfortable with. Thus, they can learn about Noah’s ark, but let’s have it taught to them in such a way that it’s not presented as God punishing the evildoers. Or the idea of gender-neutral language in prayers. I want my kids to learn about Jewish holidays, but I don’t feel strongly about abstaining from pork or about circumcision. Stuff like this is not value-neutral or universal. It’s what I believe is right for my kids to learn, based on my own values and upbringing. It’s my own choice at the supermarket. In that sense, how am I different from Miss Odilie, who doesn’t let her son Marcos dress up like Spiderman on Halloween?
I keep thinking about an acquaintance of mine, who I haven’t seen in a while. She has 2 sons, who are a little older than Philip. She lives in a wildly colorful house, with Mexican murals and multicolored floor tiles. She’s from Texas, and only speaks to her kids in Spanish even though she’s Jewish and Anglo. She sends her kids to Hebrew School, but is married to her college sweetheart (after 20 years and a nebbish first marriage for both), who is a Born Again Christian. Somehow, it all works out. I went to their house for a Rosh Hashanah party last year, and I remember her husband singing “Apples and Honey for Rosh Hashanah” while he played the little piano in their living room. It felt so right to me, and in its melting pot nature I think it’s something uniquely American.
My husband, on the other hand, feels totally uncomfortable with all of this. His view is that you are who you are, and you should know who you are. I think he thinks this way because he grew up in what was then Yugoslavia, where there really wasn’t choice. On the one hand, he had a very strong Serbian Orthodox Christian identity, and his grandfather had him baptized in secret. On the other hand, there was the official state position to de-emphasize religion and to strongly emphasize other group-think things related to the state. I think that all of that added up to a widely held view that to be religious – or to be non-religious and political – meant playing the game and not questioning the tenets that were issued from up-high. You could choose not to participate, but you weren’t able to pick and choose and fill your own spiritual shopping bag. You got what you got and you didn’t get upset, or you could just withdraw from the game. And if you were religious, you didn’t question what you were. Instead of Trader Joe’s, you had your local corner store, and that was that.
Another way to look at it is through the prism of a menu. My husband simply doesn’t order off the menu in restaurants, and he still gets flustered when asked about choices – rare or medium? Regular or decaf? White or wheat? You should just take what the restaurant has and not ask for more. You don’t want to insult the chef, after all, and in Montenegro the waiter might beat you up. My mother, on the other hand, will ask the waiter to create totally new dishes. I report with some chagrin that I clearly take after her. The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. So, while my mother goes to Costa Rica and forces my father to order a low cholesterol meal for her in Spanish, I’ve been known to ask a restaurant to change its music if it’s too loud or too sad. And it’s the same for religion/spirituality with me. I like to pick and choose the right mix.
We’ll see what the kids pick up from the influences we’re having on them. I love the eclectic and value-rich form and content of IFFP, and although he doesn’t consider himself religions, Bojan strongly wants the kids to learn about the history, culture, and ritual of the Serbian Orthodox Church. (He will probably argue with me about all of this, but this is how I see it.) I’m sure Sofia will have lots of opportunities to wear her “church dress,” hopefully in many different venues. In addition to IFFP and the DC-area Serbian Church, I would love to take her and the other kids to a synagogue, a mosque, a Day of the Dead celebration, a Diwali party, and who knows what else. We’ll keep our eyes and minds open, within limits.
Things I’m grateful for:
--that I have a seat on this overcrowded Metro train
--that my parents are able to pinch hit when there are problems with the Metro, like today
--my job (getting repetitive, are we?)
--the many interesting people I’ve been exposed to over the years
--that I got to try a new restaurant today
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