The World's Largest Fossil.........

Once upon a time not too many years ago, there was this committee (and I know this for sure, even though I wasn't there and have no verification except for the audible result) sitting in the Ohio State House in Columbus, Ohio, and the topic on hand was Commemoration of Our Bicentennial.  The men and women in the stuffy room were hot and tired and just plumb out of brilliant ideas.  But in the back of someone's mind there lurked a residual spark of PR savvy.  "Hey," muttered that person, their voice gaining strength as all red-rimmed eyes turned, "Hey.  What about a radio spot?  The NPR affiliates would eat this up, I know they would.  We could call it the 'Ohio Bicentennial Minute,' and we could air it once a week.  It'd be brilliant!"  And every weary head in the room perked up.  Oh yes.  BRILLIANT!  They all beamed.

So here us Ohioans are, stuck in morning traffic, listening doggedly to the Monday Bicentennial Minute and -- generally -- wincing.  Okay, so Smuckers is native to Ohio.  We have the Wright Brothers.  We have some nice PC bits and pieces like the end point of the Underground Railroad.  But friends.  Friends.  We also have [drum rolllll]....

The World's Largest Fossilized Cockroach.

Yes.  Aren't you proud [not] to be an Ohioan?!?

genealogical tree for cockroaches from UMass's Dept of Biology.  Actual roaches not from my kitchen....

Hummingbird, The Morning After

(faces shielded on purpose; hummingbird on far right (in red, with green-and-gold wings)

So the baby hummingbird debuted in style on-stage at her school's Winter Presentation.  Aside from a prolonged spot-lighted nose-picking episode, everything went well.  And of course her one line was the best-delivered of the lot . 

There's few things in modern American parenting to beat the school presentation atmosphere.  The hushed anticipative audience of adoring friends-and-relatives, the inevitable grousing of the unsettled siblings being shushed.  The incredible progression, as the classes parade across the stage, from fingers-in-mouth preschoolers through prepubescents with all the sassy hubris of their accomplished delivery.  The hiccups as one or another loses lines and everyone looks stricken, the off-notes from missed cues, the occassional shining lovliness from a born actor or singer just finding their wings.  And that final song, with everyone from the tiniest to the tallest all chorusing full-voiced in a well-known school anthem (while someone's three-year-old escapee offers a little comic relief, scurrying giggle-mouthed across the footlights until retrieved by red-faced grinning parent).

When thinking about why I wanted to be a parent, this never crossed my mind.  But it's the things that never crossed that end up the most precious, eh?

Raining Nostalgia

Yesterday, uncharacteristically for the season and my personal timetable, I got out of work long after dark and walked to my car through a rainy evening in the bilious yellow glow of streetlamps.  The cul-de-sac where our warehouses are located was largely deserted, although up the street toward the middle of town the swiiiisssh of the occasional passing vehicle broke the drip-drip of the winter drizzle. 

There’s something about certain sights, sounds, smells and sensations that bring back bygone moments with rapidity and clarity that often causes a stop-and-stare (malgre the astonishment and/or irritation of onlookers – but fortunately for my fragile ego, there were no witnesses to my mid-sidewalk pause last night).

The feel of chill rain on the face, that ochre glow in the air, the me-onliness of the whole dim scene, and of-a-sudden I was back in the one-horse town where I got my undergraduate degree, scurrying through rainy fall weather from living quarters to some evening event.  They turned the stoplights, in that town, after 6, from green/yellow/red to mere warning lights, and the flash-flash-flash of the yellows always evoked a certain sense of solitude and even deep sorrow, for no imaginable reason except that it meant being in a small and out-of-the-way place where few might be expected to pass.  There was, in that town and again momentarily in the midst of my busy working-volunteering-mom life last night, an ineffable feeling of great aloneness, of opportunities almost-missed, of something slightly, even wearyingly, sad.  But there was also something in the air of youth, and expectation, and great vistas just over the near horizon.

My current constant state of always-almost-late took a much-needed pause, on that lonely rainy street, while I reveled in the backwash of memory.

What weather brings on your own nostalgia-reign?

picture taken from here (can you believe that putting "rainy street picture" into Google turns up a bunch of photos of rainy streets in Ohio?!  What a wonderous thing, the web)

Culture, Class, Chance and Choice (part 2)

(Part 1 was here)

It is 1985.  I am standing in a jam-packed cathedral, attending Mass.  I arrived a little late, so I'm at the back of the press of the standing-room-only.  Nevertheless, even at my average-American-female height I can see over every head in the room.  I am also, immediately on arrival, the focus of every eye. This is because the only other Caucasian in the entire vast edifice is a distinctly European Jesus.

In the curved amphitheater of the sanctuary, Jesus and I are on a level, me at the door, he in his niche behind the font, with his blue robe matching the blue of his eyes, and his beautifully coiffed deep blond hair streaming from a ceramic-white forehead.  My fellow worshipers are Nande tribesman, and this impressive church is nestled into the high-altitude foothills of the Ruwenzori Mountains, highlighted against a backdrop of intensely picturesque village paths winding among thatched huts and interspersed with emerald patches of heavily-laden banana trees.

I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in a country now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, formerly known as "the Belgian Congo," originally colonized as "the personal property of King Leopold II," but first known (before all these white people, in effigy and otherwise, arrived) as an unassociated mass of land in the heart of a vast, achingly beautiful, achingly beautifully different patchwork of terrain:  seacost, savanna, riverside, mountain range, and deep, deep, deeply impenetrable jungle.  Originally, over 200 separate languages were spoken in what is now a purportedly "unified" country.  Two hundred different cultures existed, and warred, and traded, and maintained their individual identities, under as dissimilar circumstances as could possible be imagined contiguously located on one continental mass. 

Under these extreme historical circumstances, it would be easy to assume that my appearance, even living in a hut "among the people" would be intrusive at best, and entirely unwelcome at worst.  But it is not.  I am "notre m'zungu," "our white," as claimed with proprietary pride by my host villagers, in that fascinating multi-lingual dialect (a mishmash of colonial French, East African Swahili, and a smattering of other local words) used to communicate with non-tribesman. 

In this focal point of the African cultural melting pot, I am a curiosity and a potential source of income and status.  I am treated royally whereever I turn: offered the only seat in the vicinity, the best of the meagre repast, the assistance of anyone within eyesight during my rickety bicycle's frequent disintegration on the backroads of this country criss-crossed only by backroads.  I am shown friendship and respect far exceeding any treatment I have received before or since.  And this is not just a vestige of the colonial past.  This open-armed treatment of strangers is a local cultural imperative.  It is a part of what these people are.

My unbroken three-year sojourn in central Africa taught me a million lessons in a million areas; gave me a plethora of intense experience like my little reverie while exchanging glances with the European Jesus over the heads of the devout.  But perhaps most startling for me can be summarized by this:  during in-country language training, attempting to respond to my local trainer's prodding toward sophisticated conversation in French, I halting asked in what ways the country was doing better in its post-colonial phase.  She looked me in the eye.  "C'etait meuix au temps du Belge," "It was better when the Belgians were here," she said.

It took me a long time to understand, not just why this might be true (even in part), but why she would have said so; and how the very fact of her freedom to say so was indicative of a new source of power in a country sorely in need of indigenous power.  As a well-educated, independently-spoken young woman still without partner or children, she was representative of one of the great, rising sources of African power.

I do not know what happened to my formatrice, nor can I say that the plight of my host country has in any way improved since my time there; indeed it is now in perhaps as dire a condition as any since independence. 

But if there was no other lesson learned, I can now say (as devoutly as any believer) that where there is youth, and straight-eyed courage to speak the truth, there is more than a modicum of hope.

And a Light Aside….

My daughter will be playing the Baby Hummingbird in the class winter presentation.  We have all (including the little sister) memorized her one line.  We have also much appreciated her daily theatrical exploits, only some of which involved hummingbirds.

Last night her shrill voice was echoing through the house.  She was playing conductor of a laundry-basket train stuffed with "critters" (including the little sister, in the second car, toy frog in hand, who was periodically told to leave all steering and announcements to the conductor).  The eldest’s hands were cupped megaphone-like around her mouth, and she was making a loud but muffled announcement with startling resemblance to the scarcely audible rumblings from real station loudspeakers:

“ATTENTION everyone on the ANimal EX-PRRREeessss!  We are now coming into the kitchen.  Everyone!  You may touch things carefully.  You may also take a sip of the juice boxes on the table if you like.  Please do NOT sip if you have any germs, even the tiniest cold.  You may observe anything you like.  You may observe the two cats, and some of the ladybugs.  You may examine the complete mess under the table if you like, which is in a dreadful state because the Mommy has not YET swept up….”

At this point I was laughing so uncontrollably that I had to leave my position around the corner for fear of ruining the observation by permitting the observed to realize it.  I escaped upstairs to note it down for posterity.

“…….It’s TIIIIME to go!”  cried the conductor.  “The Animal Express is starting now.  I’m very sorry if you wanted to stay, but it’s TOO LATE.  ALLLL ABOOAARrrd!”

What's your own latest bit of brilliance from the Kid Side?

*hummingbird picture taken from here.

Culture, Class, Chance and Choice (part 1)

I am twelve.  I am in a long, dark, empty corridor.  This is the basement of the middle school, where us kids are sent periodically to use the toilets.  Another student enters the scene.  I barely know her, but we both know that we're not "friend" material.  We can't articulate why we know this; at this age it's just a part of the Secret Knowledge.  She says, with an angry, twisted face:

"You think you're better than I am, don't you?"

I recoil. Of course I do think I'm better, but that's the unspoken part of the Secret Knowledge.   

"I don't!" I gasp, as aghast at this breach of the Secret as at the need to lie.  "No, I don't!"

She advances threateningly.  "You do, and I'm gonna beat you up!"

I didn't get beaten up.  I don't remember, now, whether this is because she is pleased enough with my terror to let me go, or if some adult intervenes.  But the scene replays itself in my mind for all the years between then and now: the years as a misfit child in a new school; as an adolescent with a very firm idea of "them" and "us;" as a young adult discovering an entirely new way of viewing the us/them construct; as a mature adult thinking about the chance (and the choice) of the Secret Knowledge: of our class, and our culture, that underscores our sense of "better" because of our relative position on the scale of education, income, racial background, lifestyle, religion, or some other similar distinction.

It's the adult version of those Secrets that could cause me, if I pass my twelve-year-old nemesis in the grocery aisle today, to exchange a casual harried smile, and, going on my way, to "define" her to myself.  I can assume what she might be like: that her apparance and her sharp words to her kids when they try to grab the snack off the shelf would speak as clearly of less fortunate circumstances in adult language as they did to me when I was twelve.  But maybe she escaped that box.  Maybe it would be me, this time, who pushes my cart away thinking:  "Well.  I bet that rich Dr. so-and-so thinks she's better than me!" 

But we all do it, don't we?  I put you in a box in my brain as I pass by, and you put me in your own brain-box.  And we walk off without thinking much about how we'd boxed, because that's the way it is.

I'm struggling a lot these days with thoughts about class and culture, about chance and choice. 

All the good moral kids' books and videos have a nice little lesson about how we should treat everyone equally and not make assumptions.  I try to treat everyone equally.  But I still make assumptions. I still think "better."  I don't acknowledge it, of course, because that's wrong.  It's unacceptable not to be in denial about the Secret.

What about you? 

Tell me about when you first ran into the meaning of class and culture, and what you thought then -- and now.

Encouraging the Uninterested....?

So here's the dilemma:  my six-year-old is good at stuff.  Well -- at some stuff.  She is NOT good at social stuff.  But she's good at academic stuff, and hand-eye stuff, and physical stuff.  I myself was never good at physical stuff.  I couldn't, in fact, hit a barn door from ten feet (verified fact:  we had a barn door, and I tried.  Missed).  And since parenting is "all about me," of course I've delightedly sent my daughter to dance class and gymnastics class and even tried encouraging soccer.  Her teachers and coaches, seeing years of fees and extra lessons glittering along their bottom line, enthusiastically praised her talent and talked about advancing her to the next level.

But she don't wanna. 

I do insist that she finish out a series if we've paid for it -- the month's gymnastics lessons; the quarter's dance.  But then she's bored of it, and although she performs well on the floor, she's not enthused in planning for more sessions.

It's not that she doesn't engage in wonderful imaginative play with her dolls, or create beautiful intricate little sketches on any available piece of paper, or happily swing up and down and backwards and forwards on the monkey bars with her friends.  She's not disinterested in life in general.  She's just not been bitten by the I-want-to-be-a-Mia-Hamm; I-want-to-be-a-Nadia bug.

So what do all you experienced parents (and kids-of-parents, too) think?  Work harder at fostering the physical?  Or walk on past this path, because it's her life and her choice, after all?

Nutcracker

We went to the Nutcracker.........although it wasn't quite like this.  The name of the troupe was "Village Productions," and featured lots of under-tens in their first public display of tutu, scattering across the stage in what presumably was a choreographed  moment but more resembled a box of spilled cocoa-puffs; some bunched, some atop one another, others tossed alone along the edges.

Still, my own under-tens were as goggle-eyed as if it were the Moscow Ballet.  My practical-minded six-year-old wanted to know if this were still the dream?  And this?  And this?  She's a big one for plot.  My three-year-old, marvelously entranced throughout the length of the production, just ate it all up with her wide baby blues. 

When we got home, they demanded dance music, and we pranced clunkily around the miniscule livingroom with our arms waving, munching peanuts as an after-show snack.

Which is definitely what "acquisition of culture" is all about, in my opinion!

image lifted from here.

Lights

photos courtesy of my brother.

I admit to being more than scroogish about the holiday season, especially as practiced in America's rich, kitsch-filled heartland .....

But still.  There's something about the twinkling multicolored glory on our huge spruce, of a brisk, snow-scattered morning, that brings a little jot of excitement to my worried heart.  Something about that slant of light from the rising sun that echoes the man-man glitter in just the right heart-throbbing fashion to brighten the eye on both counts.

Something about it that rekindles the jump-for-joy excitement of my earliest memories, staring agog at all the panoply of the season. 

Yes.

Are You Game? 

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat!  Please to put a story in the ol' Xangan's hat?  

Rules:  add your own piece to the story line. You must USE THE LAST COMMENT TO CONTINUE THE STORY.  You can (are encouraged to) play multiple times, but never right after yourself.  Suggestive is okay, gruesome or x-rated is not.  Most important rule:  HAVE FUN!  

START:  "Sadie lay on her back in the snowbank and looked up into the grey sky.  A line of geese streamed across her vision like a very lengthy bit of visual hallucination -- little black dots stringing, precisely, from left to right and vanishing thereafter.  Had she been able to, she would have turned her head to follow their flight path -- but the solidity of the snow on either side, and the fact that a very large, unweildy and increasingly uncomfortable potbellied pig lay astraddle her solar plexis, prevented her from doing so.  The pig's snout was inches from her nose, and neither of them were in the least happy about it.  'The trouble is,' Saide remarked sotto voce (because she could hardly breath) to the pig, 'The biggest trouble is that I can't remember how we GOT in this fix to begin with..........'"