Class Wars

Last night Ms. 7's all-3rd-grade soccer team, in the sleet and the
near-dark, tied 1-1 with the all-4th-grade opponents who whupped 'em
flat last time.  WhooHooo!  (I mean, not that it's all about winning, or anything; no, definitely not) 
Her team is strong enough to equal the bigger kids, and I'm proud of
them all.  But being a soccer parent has also raised the ragged spectre of a different sort of class war.

I dragged out my high school year book this morning
and showed it to Ms. 7 over her Wheaties.  "See -- this is me when
I was a senior.  I look a lot different, don't I?  And this
guy?  Who do you think he is?"  "I don't know."  "You
see him every Tuesday and Thursday night."  "Uh -- I don't know,
mom."  "He's one of your coaches, honey -- Joey's dad.  He
looks a lot different too, huh?"

Brad, the volunteer coach, and I, jogging in place on the sidelines
and rubbing our icy hands, exchange pleased but uneasy glances over the
heads of our kids.  Brad stubs his cigarette butt out on his boot
and carefully blows the last wisps of smoke downwind.  "She's done
a great
job!" he enthuses to me, his broad weathered face smiling and his
voice over-hearty.  "Joey's the fastest runner we've got!" I
return, equally uncertain.

If Brad and I hadn't sat in home room two desks apart, thirty years
ago, there wouldn't be any issues in our relationship.  If I'd
moved from another state, or he'd attended a different high school, there'd be no problem whatsoever about
bonding over the kids' successes.  We'd share proud parenting and
that would be it.

But Brad and I have a deeper and more complex history than that. 
To me and my friends, back then, he was one of "them," and vice-versa.    "We" scorned how "they" spoke, what they
drove, how they approached learning, and how they spent their leisure hours.  The scorn was entirely
mutual.  And all that learned mistrust and dislike is what trembles uneasily in
the air between us now.

Today, Brad and I would like to like each other.  We'd like our
kids to like each other too.  We'd like our kids to play well
together and enjoy the team together and never look each other in the eye and think: "Them." 

Somehow, though, us two white Protestant Midwestern Americans with
all the good will in the world, across that absurdly wide gulf
of economic status, educational choices, and (most tellingly of all) historical distrust, still find it tougher
than it
should be.  And if there's uneasiness in the air between us two
peas-in-a-pod on the same field standing in the same rain -- how, for
the love of man, can we hope for easy understanding between those with greater differences?

Two Zorros and a Cinderella

The
kids' elementary school hosts an annual haunted house extravaganza in
mid-October.  The zealous speach-and-hearing specialist, his
computer programming son, and two sororities-full of kids from the
local college give the preparation their all for 48 hours before the
fun begins.  There's a 'lights-on' version for the little ones,
then a 'dark-and-scary' time for those of stout heart.  I served
pizza and juice in the cafeteria while the kids enjoyed.  Ms. 7
graduated this year from 'small-and-cute' (still Ms. 4's preference) to
'just-like-Mom.'  Only she stole my hat.  Well, okay. 
It was the spouse's hat, actually.

And yes, it IS a real sword, as I needed to explain to fascinated young males more than once.

The next day there was another sort of fun.  Ripping up the tomato cages, squishily tromping over the
cold, wet ground, boots muck-covered and hands reddened and sore, there
was one delicate white-and-purple morning-glory still glowing in the
wheelbarrow when I trudged the last load toward the compost.

Adrift with the Law

Our corporate lawyer, Jon, is a pretty cool guy.  In his down time
he plays in a jazz band and restores otherwise doomed historic
buildings.  One of them, a gorgeous Georgian, houses his law
office.  His colleagues are equally interesting.  The female partner is
the one to whom you direct any of your friends who are facing messy
divorce.  Jon's male partner has a state-wide reputation as the go-to guy
for really nasty death-penalty cases.  Depending on your take on the
matter, you might not think the drunken lout who ran down the elderly
gentleman, seized the broken body, threw it in the back of his pick-up
and roared off, actually deserves one of the best lawyers available,
but Jon's practice adheres firmly to the premise that everyone has a
right to representation.  Jon never shirks his pro bono
either, which is excellent news for all the local struggling
non-profits, if not for his leisure hours.  Jon's love of detail
and of all the  intricacies of the implied are evident in his
writing, which  circles six times around a topic before narrowing
in at last for the kill.

Yesterday I was pulling together a suddenly urgent strategic
planning meeting with call-ins from various parts of the globe.  I
caught Jon at his northern lakeside retreat.  The meeting would be
at eleven, I said.  Should we expect to reach him at the cabin or
his
cell, I asked.  Definitely the cell, he said.

Four or five of us in the home office clustered around the conference
phone as our participants materialized over the airwaves.  The
boss, also on vacation, was heard to banish his small children to
another room.  The CFO's signal got clearer as he found a quiet
corner away from the hubbub of his conference.  We got down to
business.

In the midst of a convoluted argument about internecine
warfare internal to our new major client,
suddenly the wind rose.  It swirled almost visibly from the squat
speaker.  A sail flapped viciously.  The winch creaked in
urgent appeal.  It was all we could do not to dash the spray
from our faces and seize the
conference room table in a death grip as it listed to starboard. 

Futilely, our R&D Manager yelled into the swelling gale:  "....suggest you push 'mute,' Jon?!"

The screeching of wind and winch finally died away into a few
breaths of the westerly zephyr, and a sloshing thunk or two against
the bow.

"Sorry," said Jon.  "Had to come about."

Once upon a time, Jon was driving down a winding country road and saw,
out of the corner of his eye, a guy waving a gun and teetering on a dilapidated farmhouse rooftop.  Jon did a
double-take, swiveled his wheel, and spun into the driveway. 
Leaping out of the car, he talked the distraught widower out of both the 'blow-off-head' and 'jump!' options.

Jon's a master negotiator and a cool guy, but I'm pretty much 100% certain he doesn't actually know where his 'mute' is.

"Thinking of You"

With a little less time on my hands even than usual, these last few days, I've nevertheless found myself saying "I'm thinking of you!" a little more than usual.  One friend is lonely and far away.  Another friend is undergoing a series of nasty tests that seem to point to a chronic disease that will make her stress-filled life even harder.  Both an uncle and an aunt are seriously ill and their families are greiving and making difficult and divisive decisions.  And then of course there's my friend-and-colleague WaitingForEpiphany, who's doing some particularly hard waiting just now, in the isolation ward of a cancer clinic, where he's undergoing an autologous stem cell transplant.

I asked Bob to paint me a word picture of the place, so I could better center my thinking-of-him.  It's white and sterile, he said.  Nurses wear standard uniforms.  Patients wear masks to protect them from passing germs.  There's a common room where visitors can gather (no-one under fourteen), and both can use internet services.  He has to come down to that shared space from his room to check email, which these days he's sometimes too tired to do, with those harsh chemicals ravaging his system from the IV stand that's his constant companion.

That all sounds pretty damn grim, but Bob doesn't need to tell me that, all things considered, this whole situation is very good news indeed.  The treatments he's undergoing are becoming more and more common, and more and more successful, all the time.  He's among highly experienced medical staff who understand exactly what he's going through.  His loving wife, a beautiful and vivacious lady, is living blocks away in free housing provided by the National Cancer Association, where she's already made connections among all the other waiting families and regales Bob with tales of this and that fellow patient and their particulars and idiosycracies.  And best of all, Bob has an excellent chance of emerging very much better after this ordeal; weak but with a newly healthy long-term prognosis.

So Bob's supported and loved and knows there's wonderful potential ahead.  But even so.  Even so, there's this:  what's the most difficult thing you ever did?  You know how in the middle of it you felt completely beleaguered and alone and, in the moment, entirely incapable of believing in a bright tomorrow?  I figure Bob's got a moment or two like that, getting himself and his IV stand around those white corridors.  I figure if I were there I'd give him a joke.*  Or a smile.

Or a thought, if that's all I could spare.

*Note: This is a read-and-vote joke site.  Many are pretty offensive, some are just plain stupid, but there's the occasional gem.  If this description makes you cringe, don't click!

Time Passages

Ms. 5:      Isn't that a picture of you and Daddy getting married?

Me:          Yes, honey, and Sunday will be our 17th wedding anniversary!

Her:          Oh, my teacher just had that happen to her!

Is a long marriage passive, or active?

I'm not sure, but we celebrated (as we seldom do -- usually it's a case
of "Hey -- didn't we have an anniversary last week?"  "Oh -- yeah,
maybe.  Or, no -- I think it was the week before.") by canoing a
local lake, where the winds, chiller than that other October, rippled
the water and ruffled the edges of the pines; where, seated for lunch,
the paddling-sweat died and we sipped hot sweet tea and hurried back
into the boat.

And there was a Great Blue, in that pre-flight moment just when my camera batteries died.  But I think it's probably better to keep the flight in memory-only anyway.

How Did I....

....the
PE Class Dunce, the one who tied for last place in the 600 yard dash,
the one they always teased about being unable to hit a wiffle ball at
three yards, the one whose basketball got away and stuck under the
bleachers, whose one-piece gym costume faded to
algae-pale-sick-green, who threw the bowling ball
backwards (nearly neutering the kid behind), who couldn't turn a cartwheel, who fell
off the low beam, failed the stair test, tripped on the bat....

....end up a Happy Double Soccer Mom?

I dunno, but I think I like it.

Parsing the Pledge

Last week I rose and recited the Pledge of Allegiance for
the first time since elementary school. 
It’s been a very long time, but my feelings in the event were precisely the
same:  a sense of deep unease that I
would speak too loudly, muddle the words, place my hand in the wrong place, or
make some other inappropriate sound or motion that would mark me out.  Given that I was standing with 22 knee-high
kindergarteners, including my own youngest, I was already marked out.  Otherwise, I think I did okay.

Then the local paper ran a front-page article on the Pledge
yesterday, with the requisite picture of round-faced kids with hands on hearts,
and the requisite quotes from all the local principles about “voluntary, but we
hope …. patriotism….etc.”

With the exception of my recitation stage fright, I never
used to think about the Pledge at all. 
Never question it, never wondered what it meant, never wondered why we
did it.  But now my sense of unease grows
incrementally every time it’s mentioned.

It’s not just the ‘under God’ bit.  Sure, I’m a nonbeliever; but it’s the
believers, not the non-believers, who ought to be concerned when us atheists
and other pagan riff-raff go around using the name of their Lord in vain.  Personally, I figure that if there is a God,
when I’m up there on the judgment block, my choice to mumble ‘under God’ rather
than declare my nonbelief publicly won’t figure immensely in my long list of
sins and transgressions.

Rather, I’m thinking about the meaning of mass rote recitation
in the context of today’s cultural complexity.

A long time ago, in a much more hierarchical society, when
there were big bosses; and before that, kings; and before that, clan chiefs;
the peons had to do whatever the Chief said. 
Speak when you are spoken to.  Run
if he says run.  Fight if he says fight.  Die if he says die. 

During my three years in a central African village, small
earnest schoolchildren stood daily, under orders to recite their loyalty to
their kleptocratic dictator.  Today he is
dead, and their country, under a new name, still struggles hopelessly in its
own mire of conflicting patriotism and belief.

Standing here in America in the context of today’s complex
and highly differentially governed global village, as a citizen of the most
powerful, influential and dangerous country on earth, the simple ability to
recite the mantra and follow orders is not only insufficient; but that concept
(Stand.  Deliver.  Sit.) could do no less that imperil our very future. 

Instead of promulgating the ability to conform, we should
encourage critical thought and creativity. 
If we need to spend five daily minutes on patriotism and belief, let’s have
five kids a day name one deed they performed in the name of those ideals.  Or cite one public figure who in their
opinion has, or has not, demonstrated such strength of purpose.  Or suggest one action that might help find
resolution between all the conflicting patriots and believers who make our
global social construct so tenuous.

Every kindergartener can "repeat after me."  Every kindergartener can also think
critically.  Encourage our young citizens
to develop the latter skill, and we’ve already performed our own patriotic deed
of the day.

After the Deluge

Why is my primary reaction a mounting anger, surmounting even growing
dismay at the human tragedy?  It's not because I strongly
believe that a different political administration, with deeper pockets
and a different foreign policy, would have been substantially quicker
and more careful in their response.  It's not necessarily because
the civil engineers and their bureaucratic masters could have made
stronger, higher walls if they'd allocated more money and time. 
It's not even because the original French trader-settlers went for
"location, location, location" instead of a more prescient
geomorphological
logic.

Instead, my anger is quintessentially American:  "this doesn't happen in my country."  Screaming hoards and starving babies and floating corpses don't happen here.  The complete and virtually instant disintegration of the social contract doesn't affect my people.  Flaming houses afloat in a toxic sea isn't in my backyard.

Oh, but it does, says [insert name of your particular fate/higher
power].  The evils of our peculiarly
American-bred hubris will come home to roost more and more often in the coming
years; regardless, I think, of the perspicacity and speed with which we
manage this current crisis.

Innards and Good Viewing

Following minor exploratory surgery yesterday (so far, the reports indicate that everything’s okay with my innards.  Ancillary anecdotal medical information indicates that the incision necessary to insert innard-examining cameras is, in the aftermath, only slightly more painful than the incision for the IV, but that anesthesia still makes you sick.  Eeeww.  But if that’s all I have to complain about, I’m in fine fettle) my husband kindly got me two videos to keep my mind off my roiling tummy.

“Rabbit-Proof Fence” is spare-of-plot but brilliantly shot; a dramatization of the true-to-life 1500 mile trek made in 1931 by a teenaged Australian Aboriginal girl and her younger siblings escaping a children's internment camp that for many decades tried to recreate 'half-castes' into the white cultural image.  I think my husband got me the film because Kenneth Brannagh was on the cover, although with his usual aplomb the role he plays is as insightful a depiction as one is likely to find, on-screen, of the villainy of those who believe the mere accident of white skin and blue eyes impart both personal superiority and mastery over others.  For all us light-skinned folk who tend to hear about Rwanda, the Middle East, Banana Republics, or any of the myriad other racially or ethnically-motivated historical events and then go on about our calm lives, we should probably periodically check out a backgrounder.

On a lighter note, I'd always wanted to rent "Bridget Jones' Diary" just because there is a certain laughable brilliance about a directorial staff who dreams up a street-side mano-a-mano between two of Britain's most appealing Merchant/Ivory-league actors.  the sheer idiocy of Hugh Grant and Colin Firth attempting to flatten each other's copper-plate features, however, pales in comparison to the audacity of the screenwriter's wholly plagiarized update of Firth's heartthrob role in the BBC version of "Pride and Prejudice," up to and including naming the character 'Darcy,' and penning his diffident delivery of a deeply hilarious person-insult-cum-declaraction of love.  In short, this movie was this English major's perfect, mindless, after-surgery lollipop.

But if you know me, you know I can't leave it there, because there was that whole thing about Renee Zellweger's willingness to 'fatten' herself up (141 on 5'5"?  Is fat?) for the role of the plump tongue-tied blonde.  Guys, guys, guys.  Do you truly prefer her emaciated to zaftig?  Gads.   But never mind.  I don't care if you spend more time ogling Embeth Davidtz' pin-thin lawyer than Renee's bimbo's expansive cleavage.  I was too busy imbibing Hugh's naughty-boy twinkle and Colin's strut to notice.

You Know You’re Middle-Aged When….

When I was a young professional, I was female in a pot-bellied-middle-year-guy's world.  Then I worked in a mostly-women office (didn't get on well; I LIKE being the only Alpha female, thank you ).  Now I'm back with the men, and when I first took the job the guys were, give-or-take a
decade or so, my own age.  Some had
grown kids and some were in the just-getting-married stage, but I thought of them all as peers. 

But last week, with most of the same-aged guys off at a
conference, I found myself surrounded by – well – GUY-KIDS.  They’re young 20-somethings.  They talk knowledgeably and at length about singers
I’ve never heard of.  They smoke and
drink gallons of coffee without apology or parenthetical remarks about how they
know it’s bad for their health.  They
compare sports injuries and (mostly out of my earshot) dating strategies.

And when they approach my desk, with that hesitant,
semi-abashed, uh-oh-I’m-caught-now expression that I’m beginning to recognize, I know
it’s only a matter of time before one of them forgets himself and instead of opening with “Uh – Faith? 
Sorry to bother you, but…” he'll let slip:  “Uh – Mom?”