Friday, November 23, 2007
THANKSGIVING
We celebrated thanksgiving yesterday - in true expat style - by having some Brits over for a voyeuristic feast. They were fascinated by the whole affair and had a lot of questions: "Do you give gifts?," "What are yams?," "Is this a celebration of Independence from Britain?"
Their queries made me consider the holiday in a new light, as I explained that it is actually a harvest festival celebrating the memory of the good first harvest that Native Americans helped early settlers achieve and the promise of a winter of plenty instead of starvation. That last part really caught my attention as I said it, and made me finally understand why this holiday is perhaps the most significant one in the American calendar. The Thanksgiving feast isn't just about giving thanks for what we have, it's also about demonstrating to ourselves and our families that we are going to be okay in the future - we have enough to get through the dark time of winter - we will survive. Looking at it in that light, our tradition of over-eating on this day seems less like gluttony and more like a celebration of human potential.
I remember when my sister lived in Africa, she told me how important feast days were in the local community. People who didn't quite have enough to eat on a regular basis would save up their money and spend it all on an occasional blow-out feast, rather than spending it little by little and eating more each day. She said this confused her at first, but ultimately she realized that the joy of feasting was greater than that of an extra daily helping. Feasting makes us feel full and satisfied in a special way - it is something to look forward to - to revel in. And a sense of abundance (even a short-lived one) pushes back the tendrils of mortal dread that perpetually linger in the backs of our minds, waiting for a dark day to sprout.
So while I once considered it foolish to spend 8 hours cooking for the 20-minute pleasure of eating a big meal among friends and family, I am a new convert to the symbolic value of the feast. As I peel potatoes and layer them w/ salt, pepper, nutmeg and cream (my grandmother's recipe for Potatoes Dauphinaise), I am not just making a savory side-dish, I am manifesting the love my grandmother had for her family and that I have for mine in sensory form. And the smell and taste of this dish carry with them a wave of memories, of childhood afternoons spent at other tables, with everyone wearing their best clothes, and football on in the background, and the general warmth and ease of a day when nothing was expected except that we eat and lie around and enjoy each other's company.
I hope you had a good thanksgiving, that you were with people you love (or at least like), and that you too were calmed and coddled by the familiar smells and tastes. I leave you with the beautiful words of my friend Yosha, who eloquently captures what is best about this season:
Be well.
"Holidays. Little girls (and boys!). The familiar pressure of weather, blankets, families; the density that accumulates at the bottom of the year. We gather what comfort we can and keep it close, hunker down in our pocket of safety, and get slow and rich and sweet and sleepy. It's good to be alive, and to know each other."
Photo by caldjr
Labels: Community Muses, Family Life
Monday, November 12, 2007
LADY O
My son's heart is broken today. I heard it split and fray like a guitar-string late last night, as he came wailing down the hall wracked with the imagined terrors of a dream. He was crying too hard to tell me what he saw, but he begged me to come back to his room with him, and it took him a long time to settle down. I spent the better part of an hour snoozing on the floor next to his bed (something my body is ill-suited for these days), with his hand resting on my belly (his fetishistic security blanket). When I finally left him, he was sleeping face down in a baby-style crouch with his butt in the air, breathing hard.
This morning on the way to school he told me that he dreamed that he and Lady O went to the zoo, and that they were sooo excited to be there. Lady O is his best friend and first crush - who moved to Boston a few days ago. The two became buddies at their preschool, and even though she is nearly a year older than he is, they really hit it off. Their match was based on the fact that she's an active tom-girl and he's a verbal and expressive boy. So it worked. She kind of bossed him around and he loved it. Their relationship gave me a pleasant preview of the kind of strong and assured women who I think will capture his heart in the future. It also showed me just how deep and fierce Gman's passions run. In a conversation a few weeks ago, when we were discussing our favorite things, I told Gman he was my favorite person. He replied with "O is my favorite person. I like her soooo much. I wish she could play at my house everyday."
And she pretty much did play with him everyday, because I picked her up from school about 3 days a week, since her mom needed coverage for some part-time work. And we frequently went on outings together on days off. In the week before Lady O moved, I think they saw each other 8 out of 10 days. So it was quite a shift - a rending - when they separated. And even though Gman has already weathered separation from a number of people he loved - he said goodbye to another best friend M back in SF last winter, his grandmother this summer, and various aunts and uncles and other beloveds appear and disappear in his life regularly - even though he understands where she has gone and that he will no longer see her everyday, he still craves her like a drug. And I cannot tell him how long that pain will last - who can know? And even if I could, he doesn't understand time yet anyway - tomorrow is as mysterious to him as last week or next year. He lives in the eternal present. And in today's present he has lost something very very precious to him.
I wish there was something that I could do to ease his pain. I can help him write her a post-card, broker an occasional awkward phone conversation, and remind him that she still loves him even though she is far away. But I know these measures are small, too hopelessly small to contain or soothe the flood of feeling he is experiencing, but which he has no words for. And of course, one of the strangest feature of this whole situation is the fact that most likely Gman will not remember Lady O at all when he's an older child. In fact, most of the blessed little life he has lived to this point will fade into oblivion as he grows up, because the part of his brain that stores memory is still developing. At best, he might have a handful of mental snapshots of his life here in London, enhanced by our actual photos and stories, but he probably won't really remember it as something that happened to him, it will be more like a movie he saw once.
I know time is the only cure here. In a few weeks, her image will fade in his mind and other friends or activities will claim his attention. He will survive this experience and learn from it more about how life works. But that's a little sad for me too - because life is full of hardships and suffering, and I would like to keep the wool pulled over his eyes about that score a little longer. I was looking at his little body the other day and marveling over the fact that he already has an inner life - an internal landscape that I have no control over - one in which he relives and processes what he sees and experiences around him. And sometimes the landscape is ugly and scary and painful. Sometimes it causes him to wake up screaming. And all I can do is stroke him in the dark, whisper soothing nothings, and hope that in the morning that joyful light will be burning brightly again in his eyes.
Be well.
This morning on the way to school he told me that he dreamed that he and Lady O went to the zoo, and that they were sooo excited to be there. Lady O is his best friend and first crush - who moved to Boston a few days ago. The two became buddies at their preschool, and even though she is nearly a year older than he is, they really hit it off. Their match was based on the fact that she's an active tom-girl and he's a verbal and expressive boy. So it worked. She kind of bossed him around and he loved it. Their relationship gave me a pleasant preview of the kind of strong and assured women who I think will capture his heart in the future. It also showed me just how deep and fierce Gman's passions run. In a conversation a few weeks ago, when we were discussing our favorite things, I told Gman he was my favorite person. He replied with "O is my favorite person. I like her soooo much. I wish she could play at my house everyday."
And she pretty much did play with him everyday, because I picked her up from school about 3 days a week, since her mom needed coverage for some part-time work. And we frequently went on outings together on days off. In the week before Lady O moved, I think they saw each other 8 out of 10 days. So it was quite a shift - a rending - when they separated. And even though Gman has already weathered separation from a number of people he loved - he said goodbye to another best friend M back in SF last winter, his grandmother this summer, and various aunts and uncles and other beloveds appear and disappear in his life regularly - even though he understands where she has gone and that he will no longer see her everyday, he still craves her like a drug. And I cannot tell him how long that pain will last - who can know? And even if I could, he doesn't understand time yet anyway - tomorrow is as mysterious to him as last week or next year. He lives in the eternal present. And in today's present he has lost something very very precious to him.
I wish there was something that I could do to ease his pain. I can help him write her a post-card, broker an occasional awkward phone conversation, and remind him that she still loves him even though she is far away. But I know these measures are small, too hopelessly small to contain or soothe the flood of feeling he is experiencing, but which he has no words for. And of course, one of the strangest feature of this whole situation is the fact that most likely Gman will not remember Lady O at all when he's an older child. In fact, most of the blessed little life he has lived to this point will fade into oblivion as he grows up, because the part of his brain that stores memory is still developing. At best, he might have a handful of mental snapshots of his life here in London, enhanced by our actual photos and stories, but he probably won't really remember it as something that happened to him, it will be more like a movie he saw once.
I know time is the only cure here. In a few weeks, her image will fade in his mind and other friends or activities will claim his attention. He will survive this experience and learn from it more about how life works. But that's a little sad for me too - because life is full of hardships and suffering, and I would like to keep the wool pulled over his eyes about that score a little longer. I was looking at his little body the other day and marveling over the fact that he already has an inner life - an internal landscape that I have no control over - one in which he relives and processes what he sees and experiences around him. And sometimes the landscape is ugly and scary and painful. Sometimes it causes him to wake up screaming. And all I can do is stroke him in the dark, whisper soothing nothings, and hope that in the morning that joyful light will be burning brightly again in his eyes.
Be well.
Labels: Family Life, Mamahood, time
Thursday, November 08, 2007
PAR-EE
We went to Paris last weekend - Lord Limescale and I - alone. It was our last hurrah, a final opportunity for romantic revelry before we fully succumb to the joyous riot of double-parenthood. And it was a revelation to be just ourselves for 48 hours. I didn't bend over once, and my belly thanked me for it. We sucked the marrow out of the juicy chicken that is made from sleep, sex and serious eating. We walked and walked along the beautiful autumnal Seine and up and down the hills of Monmartre, and I felt fine - no aches and pains, no sciatica, no irritating pounding in my head from all the extra blood shushing around.
Paris is truly a great city - maybe the best city. I like London, but Paris beats the pants off anything the Big Smoke can offer. The best part about being there was how it is exactly the same as it was when I first visited 20 years ago. Paris has succeeded in retaining the charm and originality of its inherent character, rather than succumbing to the contemporary plague of marketing ads that cover every square inch of public space and the nauseatingly ubiquitous chain stores that seem to have completely taken over London. Okay, we did see a couple of Starbucks, but they were on really touristy streets, and they had small signs! I look forward to returning to Paris in another 20 years and finding the same bistro we had dinner at this time and being served the same menu, possibly by the same waiter!
Here are a few of the highlights from our 48 hours of freedom:
1) Walking through the quaint narrow streets of Ile St-Louis while floodlights from riverboats cast dappled shadows on the whitewashed buildings.
2) Sharing an entire bottle of vin rouge w/ Lord Limescale over dinner and having no one look at me funny.
3) Looking out over the city from the top of the Pompidou.
4) Eating raclette in a tiny family-run restaurant in Montmartre.
5) Eating fresh croissants while riding a boat up the Seine on a gloriously sunny morning.
6) Eating oysters and a huge plate of cheese for lunch.
7) Seeing an amazing breakdancing show on the street.
8) Going to a jazz club in a basement in the Latin quarter and squeezing into a tiny room with 300 other people, some of whom were doing the lindy hop in about 10 square centimeters.
9) Going back to bed.
10) Getting exactly what I ordered in French and actually being able to hear the difference this time between "on y va" and "en hiver".
If you've never been to Paris, you should go. I don't think it matters when, with whom, or for how long. There is something so elementally good about the city, that its pleasures transcend economics, weather, and less than well-suited traveling companions. The first time I went was in the blazing heat of August when I was 20. I was visiting a friend - a fellow student - who promised me he had a place for me to stay. This turned out to be false. His plan was that I go to Shakespeare & Co. and charm the notorious womanizer George into letting me crash on the floor of one of the communal apartments upstairs. I used all my money to book a flea-bitten motel instead, subsisting only on baguettes, but nonetheless I had a delicious time wandering the streets in the heat. The second time I visited with David. I was 25, and it was our first trip together anywhere. We were living in SF, and discovered it was cheaper to fly to Paris for Xmas than it was to fly to New York! It happened to be the first year in 10 that it snowed in the city, and we were freezing the whole time, but we didn't care because we were in love. The last time before this one was 5 years ago at the tale end of our 3-week European tour. We were tired of traveling, it was Bastille Day and everything was shut, but we still spent an idyllic afternoon lying in the grass underneath the Eiffel tower.
Paris is a city for dreaming. I dreamed of Pickle while we were there this time. And while I can't remember what she looked like, I know I dreamed of how she's gestating in a rich international soup - San Francisco - Edinburgh - Florence - Washington DC - Paris - and how little bits and pieces from all these cultures are going to be embedded in her like bits of colored glass in asphalt - making her journey through life just a little bit more sparkly.
Be well.
Labels: My Favorite Things, Rebirth
