Minkgirl Muses

Last Sunday we went to the Sceance Waa-mee-zum (also known as the Science Museum). This has become a favorite outing. You take the District line from Stamford Brook a pleasant 8 stops to South Kensington, where you alight on an outdoor platform that is perpetually covered in pigeons. After 3 or 4 minutes of the chase-and-scatter routine, it is safe to carry/climb the two short flights to the station lobby, where you can purchase a cheese & onion pasty to fortify you for the 3-block journey to the waa-mee-zum. At the second intersection you are faced with a difficult dilemma.

There are actually two waa-mee-zums to choose from in this location (dinosaurs to the left, bubbles and button-pushing to the right.) Both are housed in gorgeous buildings (one old, one new), and both are miraculously free. If you’ve ever visited Washington D.C., you will have been impressed by the remarkably diverse array of art and culture that is available for free viewing should you feel like interrupting your stroll on the mall. D.C.’s got nothing on London. The number of free waa-mee-zums here is staggering – you’ve got art, culture, science, and obscure topics like the history of the steam engine and the gestation habits of orchids to satisfy your brain and your wallet.

So, on this particular Sunday, we chose the right fork, and headed into a giant building packed with 4 floors of scientific innovation and mystery. We knew we’d made the right choice when upon entering Gman sighed “I looove the waa-mee-zum.” “It’s called a museum, honey.” “Yeah, waa-mee-zum.” After a quick pass through the rocket-ship exhibit, we headed straight down to the basement laboratory. Here Gman joined other intrepid young scientists in testing gravity by dropping plastic beads through a complicated chute system, filling tanks with water and then dumping them to generate electricity, balancing plastic bricks on a fulcrum point, and making bubbles rise in vats of colored oil. I think there is no greater joy than watching children deeply engaged in the serious work of play, as they figure out what makes this old world tick.

Something else I like about the Sceance Waameesum is that it is relatively safe. The kid’s areas are fairly compact and difficult to escape from, so adults can park themselves against an exit wall and have a nice chat, assuming (barring a bit of shoving at the water table) that nothing bad is going to happen for 6 or 7 minutes. I really appreciate these restful moments, the times when I can let down my guard just a little. It also happens when we get together with another family with a toddler, and the adult/kid ratio bumps up to a pleasing 4:2 (I know this is technically the same as 2:1, but somehow it feels like better odds). Constant vigilance has become such a habit that I barely notice it anymore – it seems that I, like all women, have been genetically hardwired to scan the horizon for Huns and the ground for choking hazards.

But the relief I experience when I feel Gman is momentarily safe is so palpable, so sweet, that it often perversely turns my imagination to disaster fantasies (which I don’t normally indulge in), images of me carrying a limp and bloody Gman through burning streets searching for a doctor, a car, water, anything. And usually at some point in this dreadful fantasy, I stop running and look around to survey my options, and when my vision expands I see all the other women all around me carrying their children – some crying, some strangely still – all the other women who would give anything, do anything, promise anything for the tiniest bit of help. And in my mind’s eye, these women are usually wearing head-coverings and dark concealing clothes, these women are Iraqi.

In March 2003, when the US began its bombing campaign in Baghdad, I was on my way to the EXIT Theatre in San Francisco for the dress rehearsal of a play I was directing called (prophetically) A-A-America. It was 6 months before I would become pregnant with Gman, and thoughts of motherhood were pretty far from my mind – I was much more concerned with my artistic life, with my desire for the show to be good, well-reviewed, successful. At about 4:30pm, I stopped at a store on the corner of Eddy & Taylor to buy some water – a store run by two gentlemen of Arab ethnicity – and they were listening to the radio. One of them told me excitedly that the U.S. was going to start bombing Baghdad at 5pm. He sounded excited, happy even. I have no idea what this event meant to him, but he was glued to his radio, waiting, expectant. I collected my water and walked up the street to the theater, tears silently cascading down my cheeks. When I got to the theater, I picked up a paintbrush and started helping others who were already there touching up the set. Someone spoke to me, probably asked if I was ok, but I couldn’t answer. Because my mind was completely flooded with images of Iraqi women - women sitting quietly in dark houses with their children on their laps waiting – waiting for the planes to come and drop bombs on them – waiting to see whether they and their precious children would live through the night.

I have never been able to shake that image – the image of women holding their children and waiting to see what will drop out of the sky on them. It haunts me and hovers right at the edge of my minds eye every time I hear the word “Iraq.” I truly believe that if all men could spend nine grueling months growing, 44 painful hours birthing, and countless years feeding, teaching, and protecting a child, that war would stop. This is not an inventive idea. What I am saying is obvious, so obvious and clichéd even, that it no longer seems possible to fully embrace the truth of it. But it is true that each brown child I see on the nightly news wrapped in a bloody sheet, cradled in his shattered father’s arms, defiantly playful despite being surrounded by piles of rubble and toxic dirt – each of these children is exactly the same as my curly-headed blonde boy with the lithe body and the saucy eyes. Each one is as precious to his or her parents. Each one is as loved. Each one is grieved for with the same explosive intensity that I would spew into the universe if my son was killed or maimed or harmed in anyway.

Why can’t we remember this?

I download podcasts of NPR programs every week – one that I like is Here & Now (weekly news and culture digest produced in Boston.) This week they reported on a strange Congressional Hearing held in mid-April, which was largely uncovered by the media because of the focus on the Virginia Tech shootings. The topic of the hearing was “Extraordinary Rendition in US Counter-Terrorism Policy and its Impact on Transatlantic Relations.” Rendition is the bloodless name given to the policy of seizing terrorist suspects abroad and then extraditing them for interrogation to countries where torture is permissible. Apparently the US has had a “Rendition Program” in place since 1995 (when Clinton was president.)

I heard part of the testimony of Michael Sawyer – former CIA officer in charge of the Bin Laden unit and the one of the original creators of the Rendition Program – speak about his perspective on people who are mistakenly rendered:

Sawyer: “I don’t care what happens to the people who are targeted and rendered…we wouldn’t be operating against them unless they were enemies to the United States…”

Senator: “What about those who were clearly eventually were determined to be innocent.”

Sawyer: “Mistakes are made sir.”

Senator: “It’s just a mistake.”

Sawyer: “If they’re not American, I really don’t care.”

I was taken aback by his unapologetic bluntness. But my next thought was that he is speaking a plain truth – a truth that most of our political and military leaders agree with overtly and which many Americans probably accept secretly. If they’re not American, I really don’t care. What will it take to melt our hearts? How do we overcome this massive failure of empathy to see that Iraqis, and Afghanis, and Iranians, and Pakistanis, and North Koreans are just like us? They want what we want – to put their children to bed each night and be confident that they can keep their promises – “No sweetheart, there’s nothing scary in the night. The night is the same as the day. You’re safe, baby. Go to sleep.”

Be well.

Labels: Community Muses, Mamahood

# posted by Christine Young @ 2:18 AM