Over on the other side of the room, a blue-clad mini-person is gurgling peacefully (for once), safe in the knowledge that I absolutely adore him, and I wonder what kind of person I've become. A mother, yes, but not the kind of mother I thought I'd be.
I spent the first twenty years of life firmly convinced that I never wanted to have children. My mother, for all her fun, child-messy artistic-ness, is one of the most psychologically frightening individuals I have ever met. Especially for a child. I always feared that having children, with the demands they place on people (like me and her) with little patience, would drive me to her end of violent rages and an unceasing fury beating against the world that had never given her everything she wanted.
But now? My son spent a month in intensive care after being born 7 weeks early, and I craved him every moment of it. I crawled into a corner of my bedroom and cried that I didn't deserve him--after all, I'd spent my pregnancy worrying only about myself, about what kind of time I would have for myself after he was born (such a huge issue for an introvert), and whether I would ever have time to work, and whether I would resent him when I didn't. I do resent it, sometimes. But most of the time I don't care. I know I'll get back to my work, which isn't, after all, time-dependent. I sit on my essays for years sometimes before they're ready for publication.
Even when the fat little hobbit drives me to frenzied madness with his crying, I can take a deep breath outside, clutch my hair, come back in, and nurse him until he calms down. I'm not my mother! What a releif! But someone I don't know has emerged from a background, and I'm still prodding around her limits. She appreciates people a little more, since she was so dependent on the kindness of friends during a brutal couple of months. She panics sometimes at the prospect of never having a day to herself again. She hasn't yet thrown the baby out the window, which, as a friend of mine said, automatically makes you a good parent. She snaps at people when she's short on sleep (that's not new). And she's walking a narrow, rickety fence, balancing the hormonal reaction that makes her say she'd do anything for her little boy, give up anything for him; and the repeated statement before her pregnancy that she thought she could only make a good mother if she made her own self (work, fulfillment, human-ness) a priority even over her children. My mother didn't, for all her complete self-absorbtion. She didn't try to make anything for herself, and that fueled her anger. To give this little human a good life, I have to give myself one, too.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
To See My Mother
Nero, also known as Little Black Cat, or Trouble, or Miss Query, or Shred-it, will be holding the fort and keeping my books warm. As the most petite of our four cats, she is, of course, Alpha Cat. She likes to hang out on my shoulder while I'm doing dishes (with claws like fishhooks) and sneak into boxes to shred papers.
I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks, visiting my mother and the country of my heart. The country will soothe me, I hope (if not too many vacation-home McMansions have been built in the last year), to counteract the unfortunate fact that my mother will drive me wild.
Mothers ... when someone said that there are only seven plots in the world, I think they forgot to mention that mothers are an entire genre unto their own. My own mother is currently eccentric, brilliant, sometimes a little silly, a hypochondriac, a beautiful writer, a visionary (in that she can "see" the world with the clarity of a Buddha), a guitar and piano player, an artist. She calls herself the Mad Duchess and is working on a musical about the evil benzene ring of oil. All this is an improvement over what she was for most of my life, especially when I was little and always scared of her.
A woman of genius, all her friends knew, and still do. A woman of violence and temper and never-quenched needs for love and affirmation (and financial support), few ever discovered. Those who did, scat. Except for my father, who had his own weak personality and a thwarted view that he had caused her madness; and of course except her children, who had no choice.
My mother was also the one who told me as I was leaving for college, "I hope I've taught you that science and practical disciplines aren't the only areas worth studying." Art matters. Her concern just baffled me, because art -- whether writing, painting, crafts, or reading -- was always dominant in our household. Indeed, despite an innate love for science and mathematics (inherited from my father's side), I went to university seriously crippled in my ability to study them. Everything in my life had always been abstract. What mattered was art. What defined my day-to-day life was my mother's constant redefining of reality to suit what she needed at the moment.
As a little girl, I was always frightened of my mother. Later, I was always angry at her. Now, her frozen inability to take any responsibility for her life frustrates me to no end, especially as it requires hefty financial support from those who have none to spare, and takes an emotional and mental toll on me that I could do without.
Her friends, and even her husband, know little of the personality underneath. They see only her brilliance, and speak, hinting, of the need for her art to be supported (her novel, her musical, her songs). Yes, true, but they are unaware of 30 years of uninhibited support, where every resource poured into her and she did nothing with it but to ask for more. One of the reasons I can't live anywhere near my mother is that my own hesitant pursuit of writing would crumble completely under the proximity to and weight of her needs.
And yet, there is nobody who understands or supports my pursuits like my mother does. Selfish, self-absorbed, needy, draining she may be, but she stimulates my mind in ways no other can. And when my confidence falters (as it does daily), it is her words of "this is most important -- all the other reality is veiling of truth" that make me lift my chin and keep going.
My mother taught me that messiness was good. And not just by letting me paint whatever I felt like as a child (pictures, stencils, walls, furniture ...). A messy life makes you look at the world from odd angles. It makes you see things others don't, and in ways others never can.
This is why I've never attempted to publish my memoir about my mother, my childhood. I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can brushstroke the strengths through the pain and rage and violence and fear. It is not enough to say, "My mother made me appreciate creativity." It will take years before I can wrap my head around, and appreciate, and write about fairly, the worldview she gave me.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Hands off my belly!
It's happened -- the thing I always dreaded most and was forewarned about. My belly has been rubbed without my permission.
It was a friend, a tiny-boned, lithe little Frenchwoman I used to take yoga from. I've tried to detach from her recently because I discovered that she's one of these new-agey health people who started giving far too personal advice about my husband's physical health (there's nothing wrong with him) and my mental and emotional life. She tried to drag me to a meditation class run by a woman who does past life regression. I can't stand that kind of thing. And this weekend, while we hung out at the organic farm (the little hide-out for the few liberals in my area), she rubbed my belly while lecturing me about a book I absolutely have to read on Parageneology. Work that one out.
There is another woman in my regular yoga class who I know would love to feel up my little sproglet, but is too polite to ask. I'm grateful to her.
One thing that made me so ambivalent at the beginning of my pregnancy was the knowledge that the single most private thing in my life, what was going on in my body, was something that the whole world would soon be able to see and comment on. For an introvert, a very private person, it was a horrific prospect.
I'm trying to steel myself to it. To anyone who doesn't know I'm pregnant, I can still hide it if I want (almost six months and I've only gained three pounds?). I live in a place where people tend to thickness, if not chubbiness. And I've started not to mind if strangers do notice and comment, as long as they refrain from telling me how I'm feeling and what I should be doing.
What strikes me as funny is how being pregnant, especially visibly so, has further solidified my position on abortion. (Side note: this position is something I'm going to write about soon, as it's going through some evolutions through experiencing a wanted pregnancy.) My body, my sproglet, me. Hands off me.
It was a friend, a tiny-boned, lithe little Frenchwoman I used to take yoga from. I've tried to detach from her recently because I discovered that she's one of these new-agey health people who started giving far too personal advice about my husband's physical health (there's nothing wrong with him) and my mental and emotional life. She tried to drag me to a meditation class run by a woman who does past life regression. I can't stand that kind of thing. And this weekend, while we hung out at the organic farm (the little hide-out for the few liberals in my area), she rubbed my belly while lecturing me about a book I absolutely have to read on Parageneology. Work that one out.
There is another woman in my regular yoga class who I know would love to feel up my little sproglet, but is too polite to ask. I'm grateful to her.
One thing that made me so ambivalent at the beginning of my pregnancy was the knowledge that the single most private thing in my life, what was going on in my body, was something that the whole world would soon be able to see and comment on. For an introvert, a very private person, it was a horrific prospect.
I'm trying to steel myself to it. To anyone who doesn't know I'm pregnant, I can still hide it if I want (almost six months and I've only gained three pounds?). I live in a place where people tend to thickness, if not chubbiness. And I've started not to mind if strangers do notice and comment, as long as they refrain from telling me how I'm feeling and what I should be doing.
What strikes me as funny is how being pregnant, especially visibly so, has further solidified my position on abortion. (Side note: this position is something I'm going to write about soon, as it's going through some evolutions through experiencing a wanted pregnancy.) My body, my sproglet, me. Hands off me.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Talked out of the bookstore
I've been drummed out of Barnes & Noble. The drumming was performed by a chatty man who wanted to tell me all about his difficult decision about should-he-go-for-a-new-job, and what to do about his weekend beach house, and ...
But I was sitting placidly in a chair, working on an essay, and listening to my little music. My B & N has a second floor with all these huge, cushy chairs clumped in groups of 4 around coffee tables. It's a great place to work or read or nap. I do all of the above.
Or did. This is the third time a random man has started to jabber jabber at me about all sorts of things in his life. My husband thinks they're hitting on me, but they're not. There must be something in my aura that yelps, "Open for business!" It's happened all my life.
The time before that it was a Russian emigre, who lectured me about American food, American lifestyles, how Americans are so dirty and don't know how to cook. That happens all the time, too, people deciding I'm just the individual to try out their fix-the-world ideas on.
But this man went too far. Just over the edge. Can't say how I can tell, just can. And he trampled right all over my delicate introvert sensibilities. He kept interrupting my work (I cannot write if I think someone's going to talk to me at any moment--if I have houseguests, my writing life disappears). He asked for my email address.
He asked where I was from. I told him (heaven help me, I can't lie), and privately choked a moment at the physical grip the Rockies still have on me. God, I miss home. He said, "That's why you're so nice." I thought (sometimes wish I'd said), "No, where I'm from people respond politely when interrupted in a coffee shop because where I'm from the interruptor knows to go away."
A few days later I risked Barnes & Noble again. I hid at a table, away from the cushy chairs, near the used book section. An hour later, he found me, grinned, pulled a chair out as I reluctantly removed my earphones (I can only listen to one of 3 CDs when writing, and bookstores don't play them).
He jabbered. I shrank. Now I can't go back. I'm stuck at home, with so many distractions, like a computer with Internet access. Why why why! In the spirit of Jonathan Rauch, "How interesting. Now please shush."
But I was sitting placidly in a chair, working on an essay, and listening to my little music. My B & N has a second floor with all these huge, cushy chairs clumped in groups of 4 around coffee tables. It's a great place to work or read or nap. I do all of the above.
Or did. This is the third time a random man has started to jabber jabber at me about all sorts of things in his life. My husband thinks they're hitting on me, but they're not. There must be something in my aura that yelps, "Open for business!" It's happened all my life.
The time before that it was a Russian emigre, who lectured me about American food, American lifestyles, how Americans are so dirty and don't know how to cook. That happens all the time, too, people deciding I'm just the individual to try out their fix-the-world ideas on.
But this man went too far. Just over the edge. Can't say how I can tell, just can. And he trampled right all over my delicate introvert sensibilities. He kept interrupting my work (I cannot write if I think someone's going to talk to me at any moment--if I have houseguests, my writing life disappears). He asked for my email address.
He asked where I was from. I told him (heaven help me, I can't lie), and privately choked a moment at the physical grip the Rockies still have on me. God, I miss home. He said, "That's why you're so nice." I thought (sometimes wish I'd said), "No, where I'm from people respond politely when interrupted in a coffee shop because where I'm from the interruptor knows to go away."
A few days later I risked Barnes & Noble again. I hid at a table, away from the cushy chairs, near the used book section. An hour later, he found me, grinned, pulled a chair out as I reluctantly removed my earphones (I can only listen to one of 3 CDs when writing, and bookstores don't play them).
He jabbered. I shrank. Now I can't go back. I'm stuck at home, with so many distractions, like a computer with Internet access. Why why why! In the spirit of Jonathan Rauch, "How interesting. Now please shush."
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Pre-Victorian Blogger
For my birthday yesterday I received a delightful book called Voices from the World of Jane Austen. Among all the authors that I have loved and revered and indulged in, Jane Austen remains the constant favorite for her irrepressible wit and social commentary, heightened by conflicting sometimes with her heartfelt desire to be a moral, just, and good.
I knew, of course, that a woman such as Austen -- in her social position and period -- would have spent a great deal of time writing letters. It was the only mode of communication for people who did not have the money to travel far or frequently, and Austen had a large and scattered family. I read a passage last night that described her and her favorite sister Cassandra corresponding every single day if they were in different places, and I wondered idly of what they wrote about. Bits of Jane's humor infuse her letters, her ability to see the absurdities of others people, but that is the character of the letters. Their content is of course what you'd expect: clothes, social engagements, daily activities, progress on the piano or with a book, changes in fashion, family news ... in short, the very thing that blogs today are made of.
I am new to the blogging world, and have been discovering many excellent blogs (which I prefer to call columns or journals or even diaries in the very old-fashioned sense of the word) and some very tedious ones. It amazes me that people get up every day to tell their friends and strangers the minutia of their lives--activities, thoughts, interactions, trials, annoyances, hobbies, and discoveries--in short, the very things that letter-writers in the pre-telephone age might have composed on a daily basis.
I needn't even go so far back. I think one of the reasons I decided to start a blog is that all my pen-and-paper correspondents have fallen by the wayside. Ten years ago, when I moved overseas, when the Internet was less accessible and the telephone prohibitively pricey, probably my favorite activity was sitting in a coffee shop with blank paper and a nice, fat letter to respond to. I loved writing letters. I still do, in fact. But all my friends gradually stopped responding, many of them switching to email and some disappearing altogether.
For some reason email can't fully replace the sweep of ink across the page for me. My entire tone is different when I write an email, my thoughts less profound and my observations more shallow. The contact is certainly fleeting in a way that it wasn't when I and a correspondent made a commitment to set aside time to write a letter and put a stamp on an envelope. I miss it.
A blog isn't the perfect medium for me, either, but it allows a freedom that isn't entirely accessible when writing a different email to every person I happen to correspond with. Most of my few entries I have, in fact, started with pen to paper, as I do most of my writing. And, given the lack of people who would ever write letters back to me if I sent them, a blog is an ideal medium for an introvert, where I can muse without engaging in the high-strung jumpiness of modern social contact.
It's nice to think, though, that Jane Austen, despite all she would have deplored in modern life, would probably have adapted to and delighted in this outlet for thought, creativity, and contact with the world both near and far.
I knew, of course, that a woman such as Austen -- in her social position and period -- would have spent a great deal of time writing letters. It was the only mode of communication for people who did not have the money to travel far or frequently, and Austen had a large and scattered family. I read a passage last night that described her and her favorite sister Cassandra corresponding every single day if they were in different places, and I wondered idly of what they wrote about. Bits of Jane's humor infuse her letters, her ability to see the absurdities of others people, but that is the character of the letters. Their content is of course what you'd expect: clothes, social engagements, daily activities, progress on the piano or with a book, changes in fashion, family news ... in short, the very thing that blogs today are made of.
I am new to the blogging world, and have been discovering many excellent blogs (which I prefer to call columns or journals or even diaries in the very old-fashioned sense of the word) and some very tedious ones. It amazes me that people get up every day to tell their friends and strangers the minutia of their lives--activities, thoughts, interactions, trials, annoyances, hobbies, and discoveries--in short, the very things that letter-writers in the pre-telephone age might have composed on a daily basis.
I needn't even go so far back. I think one of the reasons I decided to start a blog is that all my pen-and-paper correspondents have fallen by the wayside. Ten years ago, when I moved overseas, when the Internet was less accessible and the telephone prohibitively pricey, probably my favorite activity was sitting in a coffee shop with blank paper and a nice, fat letter to respond to. I loved writing letters. I still do, in fact. But all my friends gradually stopped responding, many of them switching to email and some disappearing altogether.
For some reason email can't fully replace the sweep of ink across the page for me. My entire tone is different when I write an email, my thoughts less profound and my observations more shallow. The contact is certainly fleeting in a way that it wasn't when I and a correspondent made a commitment to set aside time to write a letter and put a stamp on an envelope. I miss it.
A blog isn't the perfect medium for me, either, but it allows a freedom that isn't entirely accessible when writing a different email to every person I happen to correspond with. Most of my few entries I have, in fact, started with pen to paper, as I do most of my writing. And, given the lack of people who would ever write letters back to me if I sent them, a blog is an ideal medium for an introvert, where I can muse without engaging in the high-strung jumpiness of modern social contact.
It's nice to think, though, that Jane Austen, despite all she would have deplored in modern life, would probably have adapted to and delighted in this outlet for thought, creativity, and contact with the world both near and far.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Despairing of Hope
I spend much more time than I should reading the reader letters on Salon.com, especially those in response to Glenn Greenwald's matchless daily column on the Constitution, government, and the media (incidentally, why do we still call it a blog when it has obviously become something more--why is it not a "column"? just a question of semantics). The most recent post and discussion has to do with a watershed moment in recent American history, when it seems that the country is beginning to wake up to the appalling lawbreaking and immorality of the Bush Administration.
While I do have some hope on the fronts of real freedom and the defense of the Constitution, I cannot join in with even tentative hope for the future of this country and the world. I might get lynched for this, but my heart is less wrapped up in freedom of speech than it is in the physical future of the land that I love. And I'm not talking about global warming.
Today is my birthday. I planned on going for a hike, but it's raining, so I sat in bed having late tea and writing, which I do frequently. And I found myself thinking of this recent Salon discussion, feeling around in my own heart for symptoms of hope, and suddenly dissolving into tears. No, it's not just pregnancy hormones.
My solace -- practically my religion -- for my entire life has been escape into nature, especially the wilderness of my home in the Rockies. It has always been my only real release from the pressures of life, although I find it harder to penetrate in the East Coast's sticky, oppressive summers.
But fresh, clean air and water, and unhindered views are fast disappearing. There will no longer be any solace in them for me. Which brings me every day, I'm afraid, to question the purpose of my existence. All I truly care about is nature. All I truly love and believe in is wilderness. And this one thing, the thing that makes life worth living to me, is the one thing the rest of the world sees as completely expendable, as having no worth in itself. Why do I live if what I care for is the only thing that the world refuses to protect or value?
Every day that question weighs upon me. There are many other things to live for and enjoy, I know, but this is the deepest thing, the one thing that my heart cannot let go of, the loss of which I will never stop mourning. And I despair in a life that says I have to fight for it, never enjoy it, never just take daily pleasure in it. I have to fight to preserve just a little of it, all the while knowing that the fight is, in the end, already lost. The pressures and greed of humanity will always take precedence over that which can only be lost, never found or created again. My heart -- my very spirit -- shrivels in that knowledge.
I don't want to live like this. Not that I want to not live, but existence without recourse to wilderness is, to me, absolutely bleak. Some year soon enough I will no longer be able to walk in any untouched land without the hum and roar of ATVs and snowmobiles intruding on me, or without the constant conscious threat of coal mining and the demands of rapacious development.
I don't want a planet like this. Our freedoms, our Constitution, our self-respect, these things we can fight for and win back, but a landscape once destroyed will always be scarred, and wilderness once taken away can never, ever be truly regained.
What hope is there in this prospect? How can I raise my children with the values of husbandry and stewardship that were instilled in me, when I can see that I would be raising them only to have their hearts broken? Those who deeply, burningly love the land are too few to fight against those who say that the rights not just of human survival, but of unencumbered human property come first.
Until I can walk into the wilderness and know that nobody is secretly planning to drill oil wells in it, or level its mountains and poison its water for coal mining, I will not feel hope. And right now, as the country is waking up a little to political horrors, it is hurriedly pushing tens if not hundreds of brand-new coal-burning plants whose fuel extraction will utterly destroy the land of my heart. And the demands of a generation with money to spare are building gated mini-estates in hills I once walked freely. Their huge houses are like a swaggering, overweight man with a belt barely cinched below his paunch. They grin as their views give them the illusion of lordship, but they know nothing of the land they seek to own, or how to love it.
So no, I do not yet have hope. My faith is in something fragile and precious, something that others do not care for or understand, something too easily destroyed.
While I do have some hope on the fronts of real freedom and the defense of the Constitution, I cannot join in with even tentative hope for the future of this country and the world. I might get lynched for this, but my heart is less wrapped up in freedom of speech than it is in the physical future of the land that I love. And I'm not talking about global warming.
Today is my birthday. I planned on going for a hike, but it's raining, so I sat in bed having late tea and writing, which I do frequently. And I found myself thinking of this recent Salon discussion, feeling around in my own heart for symptoms of hope, and suddenly dissolving into tears. No, it's not just pregnancy hormones.
My solace -- practically my religion -- for my entire life has been escape into nature, especially the wilderness of my home in the Rockies. It has always been my only real release from the pressures of life, although I find it harder to penetrate in the East Coast's sticky, oppressive summers.
But fresh, clean air and water, and unhindered views are fast disappearing. There will no longer be any solace in them for me. Which brings me every day, I'm afraid, to question the purpose of my existence. All I truly care about is nature. All I truly love and believe in is wilderness. And this one thing, the thing that makes life worth living to me, is the one thing the rest of the world sees as completely expendable, as having no worth in itself. Why do I live if what I care for is the only thing that the world refuses to protect or value?
Every day that question weighs upon me. There are many other things to live for and enjoy, I know, but this is the deepest thing, the one thing that my heart cannot let go of, the loss of which I will never stop mourning. And I despair in a life that says I have to fight for it, never enjoy it, never just take daily pleasure in it. I have to fight to preserve just a little of it, all the while knowing that the fight is, in the end, already lost. The pressures and greed of humanity will always take precedence over that which can only be lost, never found or created again. My heart -- my very spirit -- shrivels in that knowledge.
I don't want to live like this. Not that I want to not live, but existence without recourse to wilderness is, to me, absolutely bleak. Some year soon enough I will no longer be able to walk in any untouched land without the hum and roar of ATVs and snowmobiles intruding on me, or without the constant conscious threat of coal mining and the demands of rapacious development.
I don't want a planet like this. Our freedoms, our Constitution, our self-respect, these things we can fight for and win back, but a landscape once destroyed will always be scarred, and wilderness once taken away can never, ever be truly regained.
What hope is there in this prospect? How can I raise my children with the values of husbandry and stewardship that were instilled in me, when I can see that I would be raising them only to have their hearts broken? Those who deeply, burningly love the land are too few to fight against those who say that the rights not just of human survival, but of unencumbered human property come first.
Until I can walk into the wilderness and know that nobody is secretly planning to drill oil wells in it, or level its mountains and poison its water for coal mining, I will not feel hope. And right now, as the country is waking up a little to political horrors, it is hurriedly pushing tens if not hundreds of brand-new coal-burning plants whose fuel extraction will utterly destroy the land of my heart. And the demands of a generation with money to spare are building gated mini-estates in hills I once walked freely. Their huge houses are like a swaggering, overweight man with a belt barely cinched below his paunch. They grin as their views give them the illusion of lordship, but they know nothing of the land they seek to own, or how to love it.
So no, I do not yet have hope. My faith is in something fragile and precious, something that others do not care for or understand, something too easily destroyed.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
A Bed of Red Flowers, Nelofer Pazira
I just finished reading one of my Christmas presents (my mother always sends me a huge pile of used books for every holiday) -- A Bed of Red Flowers, a memoir about Afghanistan by Nelofer Pazira. Pazira grew up largely in Kabul, and her family escaped first to Pakistan, then as refugees to Canada toward the end of the Soviet occupation of her home country.
The book started out slowly enough (despite the tale of the child Pazira visiting her father in prison) that I had serious doubts about whether it was going to be any good or not. Too many factual paragraphs about who was in charge and how they came to be there, too little narrative that kept my imagination with her. But I kept reading because I thought it would at least be educational, and the book, rather than keeping up a tedious tone, suddenly opened out into a real story -- a childhood of love, fear, anger, repression, countrywide violence and war, and a simmering resentment against Afghanistan's occupiers, Soviet soldiers.
Pazira grew up hating the Soviet Union and anything to do with Russia. She watched Soviet tanks rumble through her streets and Soviet planes fly overhead, and the sight of them nurtured loathing, anger, and patriotism in her heart. From before she was ten years old, she had learned to love the mujahidin, the brave men who were fighting for her country's freedom from the hated occupiers. When she got older, she joined an underground resistance movement that supported the holy soldiers, fighting for liberation.
What's important about the book is not just the historical detail of the proxy war fought between the United States and the Soviet Union on the land of this tiny, poor country, but also the striking picture of modern Afghani life before the Taliban came to power. We in the West are used to knowing only what we see on television. So after the U.S. attacked Afghanistan, we were shown pictures of women in burkas and told they had no access to education or health care. What we weren't told is that, only ten years ago, before the U.S.-backed mujahidin came to power, women dressed 'normally' (including mini-skirts and make-up), and went to school just like the boys did. Pazira grew up in a modern Afghan culture that knew little of these ultra-repressive quasi-religious practices.
But she did grow up knowing the fear of attack and the rage of an occupied land. A point came when it was almost certain that Pazira's father and some other relatives would be arrested for suspicious activity, or perhaps suspicious thought. Her father, who had many times said he would never, ever abandon his country, finally, in weariness, agreed to her mother's begging that they leave. So they did, traveling with a smuggler to a refugee camp in Pakistan.
And it was here that Pazira's illusions about her heroes the mujahidin were crushed. Her very first day in refugee lodging, she peeked out a garden gate and was shot at -- not to injure, but to warn. "Never, ever go outside," said her frightened hostess. "If they see you without your hair covered, or without a man, they'll shoot at you." Pazira was enraged. In Kabul, she had gone to school, studied -- rebelled against memorizing Marx and learning Russian, sure, but her education was never limited because she was a woman -- and she had dressed as she pleased. Most important, she had believed in the holy war, the mujahidin, the people who, like her, loved her land and fought for it. And she found, in the end, that not only were they narrow, cruel people, but that they considered her a second-class citizen, hardly a person at all.
When she was growing up, says Pazira, "I was fascinated by the word 'mujahidin.' Because they were fighting the Russians, I supported them all, unconditionally. Now it appears that, like so many of my friends and classmates, I was staring at a looking glass. The mujahidin I believed in are no longer a reality. I'm beginning to see a different face of jihad."
Pazira learned about bickering warlords, about the U.S. backing and arming of some of the worst, most inhumane men fighting the Soviets. It was these people who later took over her country. After fleeing to Canada, she received infrequent letters from a friend still in Kabul. Even before the Taliban came to power, women were forced out of schools and hospitals, under severe head coverings, and into their homes. The warlords fought among one another and, just like the Soviets, killed the innocent people in between.
This is an important book, not for its literary quality, but for the delicacy with which it shows the force of two competing outside powers pulling a country to pieces. The Soviets tugged at one end of the rope, and the American-backed mujahidin at the other. Between them, they pulled a knot so tight that they left a country full of innocent people gasping for space to think, to breathe, to live. As the Soviets pushed themselves into Afghanistan, the other side took further refuge in more extreme religion, to mark themselves as truly holy warriors, and it they who the Americans supported almost unconditionally. In 2001, they pointed to the Taliban as evil enemies, but neglected to mention that it was the American government that armed these people, put them in power, and then turned a blind eye to their extreme religious oppression and moral corruption.
There are no easy answers in this book, except perhaps one. A friend of Pazira's, an older man, points out that, while historians try to make war a story of strategy, of battles won and battles lost, those facts are simply the window dressing, something to make sense of war. What war actually is, is destruction, despair, death, and the anger of those caught between -- a story of lives lost and destroyed, of a land ripped apart.
The book started out slowly enough (despite the tale of the child Pazira visiting her father in prison) that I had serious doubts about whether it was going to be any good or not. Too many factual paragraphs about who was in charge and how they came to be there, too little narrative that kept my imagination with her. But I kept reading because I thought it would at least be educational, and the book, rather than keeping up a tedious tone, suddenly opened out into a real story -- a childhood of love, fear, anger, repression, countrywide violence and war, and a simmering resentment against Afghanistan's occupiers, Soviet soldiers.
Pazira grew up hating the Soviet Union and anything to do with Russia. She watched Soviet tanks rumble through her streets and Soviet planes fly overhead, and the sight of them nurtured loathing, anger, and patriotism in her heart. From before she was ten years old, she had learned to love the mujahidin, the brave men who were fighting for her country's freedom from the hated occupiers. When she got older, she joined an underground resistance movement that supported the holy soldiers, fighting for liberation.
What's important about the book is not just the historical detail of the proxy war fought between the United States and the Soviet Union on the land of this tiny, poor country, but also the striking picture of modern Afghani life before the Taliban came to power. We in the West are used to knowing only what we see on television. So after the U.S. attacked Afghanistan, we were shown pictures of women in burkas and told they had no access to education or health care. What we weren't told is that, only ten years ago, before the U.S.-backed mujahidin came to power, women dressed 'normally' (including mini-skirts and make-up), and went to school just like the boys did. Pazira grew up in a modern Afghan culture that knew little of these ultra-repressive quasi-religious practices.
But she did grow up knowing the fear of attack and the rage of an occupied land. A point came when it was almost certain that Pazira's father and some other relatives would be arrested for suspicious activity, or perhaps suspicious thought. Her father, who had many times said he would never, ever abandon his country, finally, in weariness, agreed to her mother's begging that they leave. So they did, traveling with a smuggler to a refugee camp in Pakistan.
And it was here that Pazira's illusions about her heroes the mujahidin were crushed. Her very first day in refugee lodging, she peeked out a garden gate and was shot at -- not to injure, but to warn. "Never, ever go outside," said her frightened hostess. "If they see you without your hair covered, or without a man, they'll shoot at you." Pazira was enraged. In Kabul, she had gone to school, studied -- rebelled against memorizing Marx and learning Russian, sure, but her education was never limited because she was a woman -- and she had dressed as she pleased. Most important, she had believed in the holy war, the mujahidin, the people who, like her, loved her land and fought for it. And she found, in the end, that not only were they narrow, cruel people, but that they considered her a second-class citizen, hardly a person at all.
When she was growing up, says Pazira, "I was fascinated by the word 'mujahidin.' Because they were fighting the Russians, I supported them all, unconditionally. Now it appears that, like so many of my friends and classmates, I was staring at a looking glass. The mujahidin I believed in are no longer a reality. I'm beginning to see a different face of jihad."
Pazira learned about bickering warlords, about the U.S. backing and arming of some of the worst, most inhumane men fighting the Soviets. It was these people who later took over her country. After fleeing to Canada, she received infrequent letters from a friend still in Kabul. Even before the Taliban came to power, women were forced out of schools and hospitals, under severe head coverings, and into their homes. The warlords fought among one another and, just like the Soviets, killed the innocent people in between.
This is an important book, not for its literary quality, but for the delicacy with which it shows the force of two competing outside powers pulling a country to pieces. The Soviets tugged at one end of the rope, and the American-backed mujahidin at the other. Between them, they pulled a knot so tight that they left a country full of innocent people gasping for space to think, to breathe, to live. As the Soviets pushed themselves into Afghanistan, the other side took further refuge in more extreme religion, to mark themselves as truly holy warriors, and it they who the Americans supported almost unconditionally. In 2001, they pointed to the Taliban as evil enemies, but neglected to mention that it was the American government that armed these people, put them in power, and then turned a blind eye to their extreme religious oppression and moral corruption.
There are no easy answers in this book, except perhaps one. A friend of Pazira's, an older man, points out that, while historians try to make war a story of strategy, of battles won and battles lost, those facts are simply the window dressing, something to make sense of war. What war actually is, is destruction, despair, death, and the anger of those caught between -- a story of lives lost and destroyed, of a land ripped apart.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Alcohol and the Fetus/Embryo/Baby/Parasite Debate
For 16 weeks now I've been reading all the articles, books, and Web sites people give me that relate to healthy pregnancy practices. Every single aspect of my life has been addressed: what's best to eat, how often (and how) to exercise, what position to sleep in, what my caffeine intake should be limited to, how to pick things up off the floor when I get huge, how late I can fly, how much weight I should gain, and, of course, the effects of both alcohol and stress on the little parasite that's taking up all my bladder space.
I list these last two together because I cannot separate them, if other people can. I don't need to reiterate the snippy debate between European and US standards for alcohol consumption, during pregnancy or at any other time. I grew up in America, with a certain expectation of what was 'okay' to drink; my parents were very sensible people in that respect -- and they were poor, so buying wine or good beer simply wasn't part of our lives. However, I moved to Europe and married a European in my early 20s, so quickly acquired the pleasing habit of having wine with dinner every night. I refuse to justify this habit to anyone who thinks it's awful. Go read French Women Don't Get Fat for yourself. I can't take seriously the criticism of any society whose idea of a great weekend is to mow a chemically green lawn.
Added to this is my own scientific training and analytical turn of mind. I don't simply nod my head and do whatever my doctor tells me. No, I do the research for myself. And the research, I have to say, has done nothing but get me completely wound up and stressed out about the entire issue.
When I first took the "you've got a blue line" test, I did a bunch of research online and decided to go with the UK government guidelines rather than France, tempting as it was (in the last month, by the way, France has altered its recommendations; it used to advise women to have a glass of wine per day, but now is more aligned with the UK). The advice is "no more than 1-2 units of alcohol once or twice a week." That's all right until you find that 125 ml of 12% wine constitutes 1.5 units of alcohol. It's not a lot. And it's not even that I wanted more -- my mother was absolutely right when she said I wouldn't even feel like having alcohol most days (she didn't abstain, either). But I hated the feeling of being constrained.
Then well-meaning people began sending me research, which, instead of reiterating or listing the Web sites here, I'll condense (imagine people screaming this progressively louder across a room): WE DON'T KNOW! WE DON'T KNOW SO WE'LL TELL YOU NOT TO HAVE ANY AND SCARE YOU TO DEATH TO MAKE SURE YOU DON'T!
Well, bugger that. How is it that chemical companies and mining conglomerates and people like Monsanto have permission to litter our water, air, and bodies with toxic, probably cancer-causing pollutants simply by saying nobody can disallow their actions because WE DON'T KNOW what the impact is, yet I'm ostracized for my two drinks a week because alcohol, which has been around about as long as civilization, might possibly have a miniscule effect on a baby that will probably be just fine?
And here we hit the stress wall, which frankly applies to all the other damned pregnancy advice. With all the articles people send me of the possible effects of alcohol, I do worry. And that stress, it has been shown, probably has a much more detrimental impact on my child than have a glass of wine every day could ever have if I'd hadn't known better (so to speak).
Forget the alcohol for a second. Imagine you're a thirtyish woman who eats well, exercises relatively regularly, isn't all that fit but is pretty darn healthy, keeps her mind active, gets outdoors a lot, but, of course, spends a lot of her time trying to limit her calorie intake and get really in shape cause it'd be nice to be super-fit, and should probably cut back on drinking due to the calories, and who also wants to learn French and Arabic and hike through Tibet and further her mathematical studies and learn to play the piano really well. Then she gets pregnant. Suddenly, all this stuff she's been trying to do in a mild sort of way becomes, in the doctors' eyes, absolutely essential. The message is, in short, "You must immediately become the perfect person you've had an image of for the last 10 years." Stressful? You betcha.
The other day I was at a seriously boring dinner party, where I made a sarcastic comment about not being able to drink. A man said, meaning well, "Well, just think of it this way. At least you're not forcing your baby to consume alcohol." At which point I was ready to scream at him. It's the baby that's keeping me from doing a whole hell of a lot of things I love doing, from wine with dinner to doing handstands in yoga to sleeping through the night without needing to pee.
Right now I'm clinging to a lifeline in the form of What's Going on in There?, a book about baby brain development written by a neurobiologist. Here's the research: moderate drinking probably does have a mild effect on the fetus's brain. Modest drinking, however, having been subjected to thousands of studies both sides of the pond, is still inconclusive, although tends to lean toward the preassumptions of the culture (yes in the US, no in Europe).
The catch? "Moderate drinking" is defined as three drinks per day, every day. "Modest drinking," one drink every day. The effect of high stress? Very conclusive detrimental effects on emotional and mental development. With my desire for only two unmeasured drinks a week, I know which risk I'd like to take.
I list these last two together because I cannot separate them, if other people can. I don't need to reiterate the snippy debate between European and US standards for alcohol consumption, during pregnancy or at any other time. I grew up in America, with a certain expectation of what was 'okay' to drink; my parents were very sensible people in that respect -- and they were poor, so buying wine or good beer simply wasn't part of our lives. However, I moved to Europe and married a European in my early 20s, so quickly acquired the pleasing habit of having wine with dinner every night. I refuse to justify this habit to anyone who thinks it's awful. Go read French Women Don't Get Fat for yourself. I can't take seriously the criticism of any society whose idea of a great weekend is to mow a chemically green lawn.
Added to this is my own scientific training and analytical turn of mind. I don't simply nod my head and do whatever my doctor tells me. No, I do the research for myself. And the research, I have to say, has done nothing but get me completely wound up and stressed out about the entire issue.
When I first took the "you've got a blue line" test, I did a bunch of research online and decided to go with the UK government guidelines rather than France, tempting as it was (in the last month, by the way, France has altered its recommendations; it used to advise women to have a glass of wine per day, but now is more aligned with the UK). The advice is "no more than 1-2 units of alcohol once or twice a week." That's all right until you find that 125 ml of 12% wine constitutes 1.5 units of alcohol. It's not a lot. And it's not even that I wanted more -- my mother was absolutely right when she said I wouldn't even feel like having alcohol most days (she didn't abstain, either). But I hated the feeling of being constrained.
Then well-meaning people began sending me research, which, instead of reiterating or listing the Web sites here, I'll condense (imagine people screaming this progressively louder across a room): WE DON'T KNOW! WE DON'T KNOW SO WE'LL TELL YOU NOT TO HAVE ANY AND SCARE YOU TO DEATH TO MAKE SURE YOU DON'T!
Well, bugger that. How is it that chemical companies and mining conglomerates and people like Monsanto have permission to litter our water, air, and bodies with toxic, probably cancer-causing pollutants simply by saying nobody can disallow their actions because WE DON'T KNOW what the impact is, yet I'm ostracized for my two drinks a week because alcohol, which has been around about as long as civilization, might possibly have a miniscule effect on a baby that will probably be just fine?
And here we hit the stress wall, which frankly applies to all the other damned pregnancy advice. With all the articles people send me of the possible effects of alcohol, I do worry. And that stress, it has been shown, probably has a much more detrimental impact on my child than have a glass of wine every day could ever have if I'd hadn't known better (so to speak).
Forget the alcohol for a second. Imagine you're a thirtyish woman who eats well, exercises relatively regularly, isn't all that fit but is pretty darn healthy, keeps her mind active, gets outdoors a lot, but, of course, spends a lot of her time trying to limit her calorie intake and get really in shape cause it'd be nice to be super-fit, and should probably cut back on drinking due to the calories, and who also wants to learn French and Arabic and hike through Tibet and further her mathematical studies and learn to play the piano really well. Then she gets pregnant. Suddenly, all this stuff she's been trying to do in a mild sort of way becomes, in the doctors' eyes, absolutely essential. The message is, in short, "You must immediately become the perfect person you've had an image of for the last 10 years." Stressful? You betcha.
The other day I was at a seriously boring dinner party, where I made a sarcastic comment about not being able to drink. A man said, meaning well, "Well, just think of it this way. At least you're not forcing your baby to consume alcohol." At which point I was ready to scream at him. It's the baby that's keeping me from doing a whole hell of a lot of things I love doing, from wine with dinner to doing handstands in yoga to sleeping through the night without needing to pee.
Right now I'm clinging to a lifeline in the form of What's Going on in There?, a book about baby brain development written by a neurobiologist. Here's the research: moderate drinking probably does have a mild effect on the fetus's brain. Modest drinking, however, having been subjected to thousands of studies both sides of the pond, is still inconclusive, although tends to lean toward the preassumptions of the culture (yes in the US, no in Europe).
The catch? "Moderate drinking" is defined as three drinks per day, every day. "Modest drinking," one drink every day. The effect of high stress? Very conclusive detrimental effects on emotional and mental development. With my desire for only two unmeasured drinks a week, I know which risk I'd like to take.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Literary Toronto
Stepping out of the St. Lawrence Market, I stumbled as Toronto’s trademark wind gusts hurled around a freezing rain. The 200-year-old market tipped into the edge of a shabby former warehouse district obviously in the embryo period of gentrification. Through the drizzle, a modest sign on an old brick building proclaimed it to be the headquarters of the Toronto Opera Company.
There, I almost turned back. I was cold. My feet were wet. And in my backpack was a fat new Wayne Johnston novel, a Newfoundland author made for rainy afternoons. I wanted a cushy seat and something hot to drink. Besides, the area touted as the Old Distillery Historic District was probably just a bland collection of tired shops. Why bother? I grumbled. But I was on a mission.
Faced with driving sleet and biting wind that morning, I’d looked outside and thought, “Today is a day that requires coffee shops. Coffee shops with great mochas and no hurry.” But for the coffee shop to be complete, it needed a book. Not the novel I’d brought with me. No. Coffee shops in places away from home cry for books that had been sniffed out from a city’s very own bookstores, with their very regional selection of books.
And juicy book shops, luckily, abound in Toronto, enough to make travelers forget about their numb hands and wet shoes. The prospect of a new book followed by a hot, comforting beverage made being wet and cold almost bearable.
Sniffing around the Northern End
Elliot’s is the kind of second-hand bookstore that makes readers greedy. Three stories of narrow aisles with tall bookshelves hold a minimum of dust among a maximum of tidiness. Mouthwatering leather-bound editions of classics fill floor-to-ceiling shelves by the door, giving way reassuringly to compressed rows of trade paperbacks. This is the place to find old travel guides, modern bestsellers, and a mix of Canadian classics.
Closer to downtown, This Aint’ the Rosedale Library lives up to its name: eclectic. With awards lining its ceiling advertising “Toronto’s Best Independent Bookstore,” it really smelled of books. That fresh paper smell, a slight hint of glue and its promise of literary adventures.
Narrow, sagging shelves, books everywhere, books stacked on the floor in piles, on chairs, but in a strangely organized fashion. Not a store where you couldn’t find anything. A store where you could find anything, including a great selection of lesser-known children’s books and a large transgender and gay section. A store where you could discover a collection of children’s fables by Margaret Atwood and trot with it down to the nearest drinkable chocolate outlet, which I’d passed on the way.
Second Cup, a warm Starbucks-type chain all over the city, has some of the frothiest, delectable mochas I’ve ever tasted outside of France. Inside information informs me that Second Cup also participates in the worldwide Cup of Excellence, a Fair-Trade-type organization that focuses on paying independent farmers a premium for growing the highest quality Arabica beans. The do-gooder participation just lent extra warmth as my jeans began to dry.
Lettieri, also dotting the city, is more chic, more hip than Second Cup. Its hot chocolates are just as good, and its espresso comes in tiny glass cups that just beg to be sipped out of. Sit down with a mug of this, a sparkling water, and a book, and you can stay happily snowed- or rained-in for hours.
Gorging in Old Town
Nicholas Hoare’s bookshop is a feast. An independent seller of new books, its shop is wide and spacious, with appropriately resounding hardwood floors. It’s described as a great place to get coffee table books, but that doesn’t detract from its collections of others, especially nonfiction.
Nicholas Hoare sets up a literary smorgasbord by facing books outward, shamelessly flashing readers with the cover of nearly every book they carry.
The practice brought a new meaning to browsing. I don’t think I’ve ever browsed a bookstore more thoroughly in my life. Even books I’d already read looked different facing out among others on the polished wood shelves, orchestrated with a Vivaldi concerto. I roamed among the menu items until I finally picked up Wayne Johnston’s The Custodian of Paradise, which hadn’t yet been published in the States, and moved back into the rain, to find the much-touted Distillery Historic District.
Chocolate Salvation
Derelict buildings cornered the historic area’s main intersection. Huge green shutters sagged closed under old brick archways. Deciding that the historic area was also in the embryo stage of tourist development, I almost turned away when I saw a shy iron gate and guardhouse across the road. The gray drizzle almost obscured the sign that pointed out the pedestrian entrance to the Distillery district.
There is something tremendously romantic about old brick warehouse areas. Cities that take their renovation in hand carefully—highlighting the history as well as the warm beauty of the buildings while making them modernly accessible—deserve an award.
Toronto is such a city. The stumpy buildings were renovated with a minimum of interference, the old brick maintained, the signs for galleries and cafes small and attractive. The brick streets, even in the rain, felt almost cozy. And it came up trumps. In my halfhearted search for a cup of tea, a polite arrow pointed the way to freezing drizzle salvation: Soma, chocolate maker.
This was not just hot chocolate, not just a mocha. The spicy cup of Mayan hot cocoa on a cold day was an exploration. The scent of chili and cinnamon pervaded Soma’s open space with proudly exposed brick walls. Behind huge glass windows, in the ‘chocolate laboratory,’ two young women poured sauce, cut bars, and coated orange peels with the slow movements and laughing exchanges of people who love their job.
The chocolate drove away cold and a drudgerious walk with a relaxing warmth that was a nod to its Huxley namesake. It restored better spirits for exploring the walkways in the unending rain.
In sprawling Toronto, perseverance is well rewarded: among the galleries touting local artists and craftsmen, the Distillery’s developers had added a slosh of whimsy. Lesser-known quotes from famous names ran along outer walls, brightening the chocolate-lightened day still further: “Nobody has ever walked into a store intending to buy bread and coming out with just that,” Erma Bombeck. “People who live within their means lack imagination,” Oscar Wilde. Temptingly true.
Toronto is for lingering, for warming, for getting you through wretched afternoons full of freezing drizzle and wind. Find your appetizer at a bookstore and hide on a cushy seat with a hot drink while the weather does its worst.
There, I almost turned back. I was cold. My feet were wet. And in my backpack was a fat new Wayne Johnston novel, a Newfoundland author made for rainy afternoons. I wanted a cushy seat and something hot to drink. Besides, the area touted as the Old Distillery Historic District was probably just a bland collection of tired shops. Why bother? I grumbled. But I was on a mission.
Faced with driving sleet and biting wind that morning, I’d looked outside and thought, “Today is a day that requires coffee shops. Coffee shops with great mochas and no hurry.” But for the coffee shop to be complete, it needed a book. Not the novel I’d brought with me. No. Coffee shops in places away from home cry for books that had been sniffed out from a city’s very own bookstores, with their very regional selection of books.
And juicy book shops, luckily, abound in Toronto, enough to make travelers forget about their numb hands and wet shoes. The prospect of a new book followed by a hot, comforting beverage made being wet and cold almost bearable.
Sniffing around the Northern End
Elliot’s is the kind of second-hand bookstore that makes readers greedy. Three stories of narrow aisles with tall bookshelves hold a minimum of dust among a maximum of tidiness. Mouthwatering leather-bound editions of classics fill floor-to-ceiling shelves by the door, giving way reassuringly to compressed rows of trade paperbacks. This is the place to find old travel guides, modern bestsellers, and a mix of Canadian classics.
Closer to downtown, This Aint’ the Rosedale Library lives up to its name: eclectic. With awards lining its ceiling advertising “Toronto’s Best Independent Bookstore,” it really smelled of books. That fresh paper smell, a slight hint of glue and its promise of literary adventures.
Narrow, sagging shelves, books everywhere, books stacked on the floor in piles, on chairs, but in a strangely organized fashion. Not a store where you couldn’t find anything. A store where you could find anything, including a great selection of lesser-known children’s books and a large transgender and gay section. A store where you could discover a collection of children’s fables by Margaret Atwood and trot with it down to the nearest drinkable chocolate outlet, which I’d passed on the way.
Second Cup, a warm Starbucks-type chain all over the city, has some of the frothiest, delectable mochas I’ve ever tasted outside of France. Inside information informs me that Second Cup also participates in the worldwide Cup of Excellence, a Fair-Trade-type organization that focuses on paying independent farmers a premium for growing the highest quality Arabica beans. The do-gooder participation just lent extra warmth as my jeans began to dry.
Lettieri, also dotting the city, is more chic, more hip than Second Cup. Its hot chocolates are just as good, and its espresso comes in tiny glass cups that just beg to be sipped out of. Sit down with a mug of this, a sparkling water, and a book, and you can stay happily snowed- or rained-in for hours.
Gorging in Old Town
Nicholas Hoare’s bookshop is a feast. An independent seller of new books, its shop is wide and spacious, with appropriately resounding hardwood floors. It’s described as a great place to get coffee table books, but that doesn’t detract from its collections of others, especially nonfiction.
Nicholas Hoare sets up a literary smorgasbord by facing books outward, shamelessly flashing readers with the cover of nearly every book they carry.
The practice brought a new meaning to browsing. I don’t think I’ve ever browsed a bookstore more thoroughly in my life. Even books I’d already read looked different facing out among others on the polished wood shelves, orchestrated with a Vivaldi concerto. I roamed among the menu items until I finally picked up Wayne Johnston’s The Custodian of Paradise, which hadn’t yet been published in the States, and moved back into the rain, to find the much-touted Distillery Historic District.
Chocolate Salvation
Derelict buildings cornered the historic area’s main intersection. Huge green shutters sagged closed under old brick archways. Deciding that the historic area was also in the embryo stage of tourist development, I almost turned away when I saw a shy iron gate and guardhouse across the road. The gray drizzle almost obscured the sign that pointed out the pedestrian entrance to the Distillery district.
There is something tremendously romantic about old brick warehouse areas. Cities that take their renovation in hand carefully—highlighting the history as well as the warm beauty of the buildings while making them modernly accessible—deserve an award.
Toronto is such a city. The stumpy buildings were renovated with a minimum of interference, the old brick maintained, the signs for galleries and cafes small and attractive. The brick streets, even in the rain, felt almost cozy. And it came up trumps. In my halfhearted search for a cup of tea, a polite arrow pointed the way to freezing drizzle salvation: Soma, chocolate maker.
This was not just hot chocolate, not just a mocha. The spicy cup of Mayan hot cocoa on a cold day was an exploration. The scent of chili and cinnamon pervaded Soma’s open space with proudly exposed brick walls. Behind huge glass windows, in the ‘chocolate laboratory,’ two young women poured sauce, cut bars, and coated orange peels with the slow movements and laughing exchanges of people who love their job.
The chocolate drove away cold and a drudgerious walk with a relaxing warmth that was a nod to its Huxley namesake. It restored better spirits for exploring the walkways in the unending rain.
In sprawling Toronto, perseverance is well rewarded: among the galleries touting local artists and craftsmen, the Distillery’s developers had added a slosh of whimsy. Lesser-known quotes from famous names ran along outer walls, brightening the chocolate-lightened day still further: “Nobody has ever walked into a store intending to buy bread and coming out with just that,” Erma Bombeck. “People who live within their means lack imagination,” Oscar Wilde. Temptingly true.
Toronto is for lingering, for warming, for getting you through wretched afternoons full of freezing drizzle and wind. Find your appetizer at a bookstore and hide on a cushy seat with a hot drink while the weather does its worst.
The Nausea, the Fatigue
Finally, this morning, for the first time in six weeks, I woke up without feeling desperately tired or feeling ill. It felt so good--I'd almost forgotten what it was like to feel normal.
I've been looking at a lot of pregnancy and baby sites, looking for guidance, advice, and stories. Instead, I've found a cheeriness that seems . . . well, to put it bluntly, creepy.
People go on and on about how wonderful it is to be pregnant, and to bear a child, skimming quickly over the uncomfortable bits and pointing out that it's all worth it.
Is it? Personally, I feel invaded. Hubby has started calling it "the parasite," in an affectionate way, of course. I feel tired all the time, nauseated frequently. I can't drink wine, which I love, anymore.
I'm not saying it's not worth it to have children. I still want children. But is it really worth it to bear them yourself? Nine months of intense discomfort and the theft of your bodily functions, to go through a ridiculous amount of pain to push out something that you could love just as easily if it were grown from a glass tube.
Men don't carry babies, but they love them, too. Why should it be a requirement that women go through nine months of purgatory--if not hell--just to feel like they have the right to love them? People love babies they adopt.
Evolution has cheated women. Humans are the only species that not only takes this long to produce offspring, but produces babies that aren't fully developed when they're born (foals walk shortly after being born, for example). All that work and they're not even done? Something somewhere along the way has gone seriously wrong. I vote for a misogynist conspiracy.
I've been looking at a lot of pregnancy and baby sites, looking for guidance, advice, and stories. Instead, I've found a cheeriness that seems . . . well, to put it bluntly, creepy.
People go on and on about how wonderful it is to be pregnant, and to bear a child, skimming quickly over the uncomfortable bits and pointing out that it's all worth it.
Is it? Personally, I feel invaded. Hubby has started calling it "the parasite," in an affectionate way, of course. I feel tired all the time, nauseated frequently. I can't drink wine, which I love, anymore.
I'm not saying it's not worth it to have children. I still want children. But is it really worth it to bear them yourself? Nine months of intense discomfort and the theft of your bodily functions, to go through a ridiculous amount of pain to push out something that you could love just as easily if it were grown from a glass tube.
Men don't carry babies, but they love them, too. Why should it be a requirement that women go through nine months of purgatory--if not hell--just to feel like they have the right to love them? People love babies they adopt.
Evolution has cheated women. Humans are the only species that not only takes this long to produce offspring, but produces babies that aren't fully developed when they're born (foals walk shortly after being born, for example). All that work and they're not even done? Something somewhere along the way has gone seriously wrong. I vote for a misogynist conspiracy.
Grocery Shopping Battles
This morning I'm preparing to go grocery shopping, as I do every Wednesday. To at least three-quarters of the population, the phrase "preparing to go grocery shopping" has no meaning. But for those of us who shrink from the countless inane encounters and pushy crowds of an everyday life, it means everything.
I used to shop at a local chain, but have recently discovered a Trader Joe's just 40 minutes south, in a crowded area of New Jersey. Since TJ's is vastly cheaper than anywhere else, I kind of have to go there. Besides, it gives you that warm fuzzy of shopping in the granola-friendly Trader Joe's atmosphere.
Problem is, this area of New Jersey is terribly overcrowded. There are people, people everywhere. In small, squeezed streets of what were once separate small towns, women with starched hair and pinched expressions maneuver massive SUVs that take just a bit over their fair share of the road.
I really don't know how these people live like this all the time. I don't know why there aren't accidents all the time, constantly. New Jersey residents are truly terrible drivers, almost as bad as Bostonians--weaving across the road, chittering on phones, never using turn signals.
Anyway, the traffic gamut makes my fingers weak. And then I have to face the crowds. When I get into the parking lot, I sit with my head on the steering wheel for a minute, just to recuperate.
It's hard to explain to a non-introvert what the experience of crowding is like. Not crowds--introversion is not enochlophobia; this is not about the suffocating quantity of people--it's the constant chatter going on around you, the idiotic impulse most people feel to either a) say whatever comes into their head to the person they're with, or b) if they're not with someone, getting out their cell phone because they can't stand not talking to someone even for the short time it takes to choose groceries.
This chatter is like breathing pollution to introverts. Jonathan Rauch's statement, "please shush" sums up an introvert's deepest desire. Please stop talking about nothing. Please be silent for a bit.
For me, this doesn't just apply to someone talking at me over the phone or at a social event. It's all around me, all the time, like some sort of blaring klaxon that keeps me jittery and anxious.
So that's what happens in the grocery store. People talk, talk, talk. They try to make small talk as we stand choosing tea. They say pointless things to the checkout person. They review their sex lives while on the phone. They keep a running commentary with a friend while letting their children run around hapless and screaming.
Like many introverts, I need about two hours of alone recovery time for every hour of small-talk-type social events. After the grocery store, after I've battled pushy, greedy, permanently annoyed drivers for over an hour, and after I've walked through a sea of talk that feels like walking through verbal thorns I need the rest of the day to recover. I can work. I can function. But I just need, desperately to be left alone.
I used to shop at a local chain, but have recently discovered a Trader Joe's just 40 minutes south, in a crowded area of New Jersey. Since TJ's is vastly cheaper than anywhere else, I kind of have to go there. Besides, it gives you that warm fuzzy of shopping in the granola-friendly Trader Joe's atmosphere.
Problem is, this area of New Jersey is terribly overcrowded. There are people, people everywhere. In small, squeezed streets of what were once separate small towns, women with starched hair and pinched expressions maneuver massive SUVs that take just a bit over their fair share of the road.
I really don't know how these people live like this all the time. I don't know why there aren't accidents all the time, constantly. New Jersey residents are truly terrible drivers, almost as bad as Bostonians--weaving across the road, chittering on phones, never using turn signals.
Anyway, the traffic gamut makes my fingers weak. And then I have to face the crowds. When I get into the parking lot, I sit with my head on the steering wheel for a minute, just to recuperate.
It's hard to explain to a non-introvert what the experience of crowding is like. Not crowds--introversion is not enochlophobia; this is not about the suffocating quantity of people--it's the constant chatter going on around you, the idiotic impulse most people feel to either a) say whatever comes into their head to the person they're with, or b) if they're not with someone, getting out their cell phone because they can't stand not talking to someone even for the short time it takes to choose groceries.
This chatter is like breathing pollution to introverts. Jonathan Rauch's statement, "please shush" sums up an introvert's deepest desire. Please stop talking about nothing. Please be silent for a bit.
For me, this doesn't just apply to someone talking at me over the phone or at a social event. It's all around me, all the time, like some sort of blaring klaxon that keeps me jittery and anxious.
So that's what happens in the grocery store. People talk, talk, talk. They try to make small talk as we stand choosing tea. They say pointless things to the checkout person. They review their sex lives while on the phone. They keep a running commentary with a friend while letting their children run around hapless and screaming.
Like many introverts, I need about two hours of alone recovery time for every hour of small-talk-type social events. After the grocery store, after I've battled pushy, greedy, permanently annoyed drivers for over an hour, and after I've walked through a sea of talk that feels like walking through verbal thorns I need the rest of the day to recover. I can work. I can function. But I just need, desperately to be left alone.
Monday, February 5, 2007
The Need for Fantasy: Harry Potter to Finish
I was both excited and depressed to hear that J.K. Rowling has finally finished the last Harry Potter book, and it will be published on July 21st. Excited because I love Harry Potter, and depressed because there will be no more.
Many of my more literary friends look down their noses at people who love good fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novels. But they're missing out.
First of all, fantasy in particular employs some of the most delightful and inventive aspects of the human imagination, whimsy that could never be fully explored in regular fiction. Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia are just two of the best of the genre.
Fantasy also allows authors to write about what is most noble in humans. By pitting an absolute evil against those with courage, a sense of honor, and human-sized flaws, we are allowed a rare belief that humans are capable of being selfless, altruistic, and just plain good.
Isn't it worth something to have literature that answers these needs?
Lastly, I know from experience that fantasy and science fiction can be lifesavers for people with difficult childhoods. Mine was abusive and terrifying, yet reading fantasy literature kept me sane, kept me believing that a better world was possible and that better people existed.
Harry Potter entranced me from the first book, and I've read the entire series (so far) at least ten times. Aside from the wonderful, imaginative world Rowling has created, it is one of the best series I've ever read about growing up.
Harry's entire struggle against evil is a metaphor for every individual's struggle to become an adult. To face, finally, the fact that we are each alone, that our parents cannot fix the world for us, to face up to our own expectations and fears, and our own fight to be fully realized individuals, pursuing a life that is meant for us, to emerge from that warm cocoon of childhood--that is what Harry Potter shows us. How cold it is to grow up, how scary and lonely, but how magnificent it can be if we're willing to face it.
Many of my more literary friends look down their noses at people who love good fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novels. But they're missing out.
First of all, fantasy in particular employs some of the most delightful and inventive aspects of the human imagination, whimsy that could never be fully explored in regular fiction. Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia are just two of the best of the genre.
Fantasy also allows authors to write about what is most noble in humans. By pitting an absolute evil against those with courage, a sense of honor, and human-sized flaws, we are allowed a rare belief that humans are capable of being selfless, altruistic, and just plain good.
Isn't it worth something to have literature that answers these needs?
Lastly, I know from experience that fantasy and science fiction can be lifesavers for people with difficult childhoods. Mine was abusive and terrifying, yet reading fantasy literature kept me sane, kept me believing that a better world was possible and that better people existed.
Harry Potter entranced me from the first book, and I've read the entire series (so far) at least ten times. Aside from the wonderful, imaginative world Rowling has created, it is one of the best series I've ever read about growing up.
Harry's entire struggle against evil is a metaphor for every individual's struggle to become an adult. To face, finally, the fact that we are each alone, that our parents cannot fix the world for us, to face up to our own expectations and fears, and our own fight to be fully realized individuals, pursuing a life that is meant for us, to emerge from that warm cocoon of childhood--that is what Harry Potter shows us. How cold it is to grow up, how scary and lonely, but how magnificent it can be if we're willing to face it.
Florida: Not Just for Teeny-boppers and Wrinklies
I've always been a person who despised Florida. I thought it was for the most boring retirees on the planet (i.e., people who might as well die because all they do is play golf and complain about kids and neighbors), plus all the people in college I really hated (the perfect girls with perfect tans and the guy jocks). A visit to Orlando two years ago did nothing to change this. Florida was stifling, both in terms of weather and intellectual stimulation.
To be fair, I'm not a sun-lover. I burn. I don't like to be hot. On a hot day, if there's no shade, I scurry around like a pathetic bug, trying to find shade. Around 70 degrees is my perfect weather, plus I like a fair share of rainy days and love winter. So Florida and I don't mix well.
But I've just softened my opinions on the place. Last weekend hubby and I took a nearly spontaneous trip to Fort Lauderdale. JetBlue was offering crazy cheap flights from our local airport, so we took them. Not realizing that it was Super Bowl weekend (I don't like football, either, and hubby is a foreigner who thinks football is for wimps and prefers rugby), we got stuck driving to a hotel about 60 miles from Fort Lauderdale and Miami, heart of sugar-growing country.
I have to say we were both pretty fascinated. This land is flat, flat, flat--a "sea of grass," as one writer put it. On the map, roads skirt regions that don't say "here there be dragons" in so many words, but they definitely leave that impression. Here there be alligators, definitely.
Twenty miles out of the seriously overpopulated Palm Beach/Fort Lauderdale/Miami region, you run into miles and miles of nothing. "So, anything to do around here?" we asked the girl at our hotel. "Nope," she said, in the manner of teenagers everywhere who grow up in rural regions. I sympathized--there had been nothing to do in my wheat-growing hometown, either.
But, being beyond teenage years, we were entertained: we chased a semi-truck full of oranges (wouldn't they have tasted good, fresh off the tree?), watched sugar cane being harvested, and stopped to watch a pond full of lazy-floating alligators, herons, and egrets.
This region is also one of the most environmentally devastated in the country. Once, these swampy miles fed the precarious ecosystem of the Everglades. Now, with waterways redirected and canals dug to feed the voracious water needs (and water greeds, like golf courses) of the wealthy South Florida population, the Everglades regions are almost destroyed.
Stopping at a rest area on "Alligator Alley," I played with an interactive display that showed just how much this area has changed since white man decided we could grow sugar and other groceries on it. For those who love the earth, and cherish wild places where birds can roost, it's devastating.
The government is embarking on a stupendous effort to redirect much of the water systems. Will it work? Who knows. But it will definitely be a fight between people who care for everything, and people who care for nothing outside their own overpriced walls.
__________
The second part of the trip was a friend's whirlwind tour of Miami and Miami Beach, which was a pleasant surprise. Miami Beach is a cool, fun area--lots of cafes, pedestrian walkways, and streets packed with preserved art deco architecture--not something you see everywhere. This is a place I wouldn't mind coming back to, which, being a traditional hater of Florida, rather surprised me.
In the end, there are many reasons to see Florida. And none of them have anything to do with baking on a hot beach.
To be fair, I'm not a sun-lover. I burn. I don't like to be hot. On a hot day, if there's no shade, I scurry around like a pathetic bug, trying to find shade. Around 70 degrees is my perfect weather, plus I like a fair share of rainy days and love winter. So Florida and I don't mix well.
But I've just softened my opinions on the place. Last weekend hubby and I took a nearly spontaneous trip to Fort Lauderdale. JetBlue was offering crazy cheap flights from our local airport, so we took them. Not realizing that it was Super Bowl weekend (I don't like football, either, and hubby is a foreigner who thinks football is for wimps and prefers rugby), we got stuck driving to a hotel about 60 miles from Fort Lauderdale and Miami, heart of sugar-growing country.
I have to say we were both pretty fascinated. This land is flat, flat, flat--a "sea of grass," as one writer put it. On the map, roads skirt regions that don't say "here there be dragons" in so many words, but they definitely leave that impression. Here there be alligators, definitely.
Twenty miles out of the seriously overpopulated Palm Beach/Fort Lauderdale/Miami region, you run into miles and miles of nothing. "So, anything to do around here?" we asked the girl at our hotel. "Nope," she said, in the manner of teenagers everywhere who grow up in rural regions. I sympathized--there had been nothing to do in my wheat-growing hometown, either.
But, being beyond teenage years, we were entertained: we chased a semi-truck full of oranges (wouldn't they have tasted good, fresh off the tree?), watched sugar cane being harvested, and stopped to watch a pond full of lazy-floating alligators, herons, and egrets.
This region is also one of the most environmentally devastated in the country. Once, these swampy miles fed the precarious ecosystem of the Everglades. Now, with waterways redirected and canals dug to feed the voracious water needs (and water greeds, like golf courses) of the wealthy South Florida population, the Everglades regions are almost destroyed.
Stopping at a rest area on "Alligator Alley," I played with an interactive display that showed just how much this area has changed since white man decided we could grow sugar and other groceries on it. For those who love the earth, and cherish wild places where birds can roost, it's devastating.
The government is embarking on a stupendous effort to redirect much of the water systems. Will it work? Who knows. But it will definitely be a fight between people who care for everything, and people who care for nothing outside their own overpriced walls.
__________
The second part of the trip was a friend's whirlwind tour of Miami and Miami Beach, which was a pleasant surprise. Miami Beach is a cool, fun area--lots of cafes, pedestrian walkways, and streets packed with preserved art deco architecture--not something you see everywhere. This is a place I wouldn't mind coming back to, which, being a traditional hater of Florida, rather surprised me.
In the end, there are many reasons to see Florida. And none of them have anything to do with baking on a hot beach.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
"Weight," Jeanette Winterson
I first discovered this British author by watching her interview with Bill Moyers on his "Faith & Reason" series. She was open, intelligent, modest, and thoughtful. What struck me most was the rawness of her emotions and personality. Adopted at a young age by a fundamentalist Christian couple, later to see her adopted mother burn all of her treasured books, and later deal with discovery of her own homosexuality, this is a woman who has been in pain, and hasn't yet allowed it to heal over. Although I ache for her pain, I am actually grateful for her ability to use it to create.
"Weight" is a retelling of the myths of Atlas and Hercules ("Heracles" in her book), part of a recent series of great myth retellings commissioned from some of the world's best-known authors, including Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt.
In her short, searing novel, Winterson portrays Atlas as a Titan who believes he was punished by the gods and is locked into his fate, his eternal doom to hold the weight of the world on his back. Over millenia he is forced to question himself and the gods, prompted by Hera's claim that, no matter how difficult life seemed at any given time, he always had choices.
Winterson inserts chapters of her personal struggles with reality and choices, the questions that each of us face about our own role in the condition of our lives. The ancients knew about Fate, she says, because they knew how terribly impossible it is for humans to make true choices about our present circumstances. The present is crushed between the weight of the past and the future.
She ends the book with an answer to the question Atlas has been asking himself for centuries, since Hercules tricked him into taking back the weight of the world for all time: "Why not just put it down?" In this question is the monumental problem of Winterson's own life. In spending years trying to recreate her own reality, she has instead, like Atlas, created a world that she must carry on her back. A world that crushes her present.
"Weight" is honest and beautiful. It forces us to ask questions about our own belief in fate or choice, and how willing we are to admit to the choices we make, both conscious and subconscious. It forces Winterson, and her readers, to acknowledge the world that we each carry on our own backs, and how they inhibit our lives.
"Weight" is a retelling of the myths of Atlas and Hercules ("Heracles" in her book), part of a recent series of great myth retellings commissioned from some of the world's best-known authors, including Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt.
In her short, searing novel, Winterson portrays Atlas as a Titan who believes he was punished by the gods and is locked into his fate, his eternal doom to hold the weight of the world on his back. Over millenia he is forced to question himself and the gods, prompted by Hera's claim that, no matter how difficult life seemed at any given time, he always had choices.
Winterson inserts chapters of her personal struggles with reality and choices, the questions that each of us face about our own role in the condition of our lives. The ancients knew about Fate, she says, because they knew how terribly impossible it is for humans to make true choices about our present circumstances. The present is crushed between the weight of the past and the future.
She ends the book with an answer to the question Atlas has been asking himself for centuries, since Hercules tricked him into taking back the weight of the world for all time: "Why not just put it down?" In this question is the monumental problem of Winterson's own life. In spending years trying to recreate her own reality, she has instead, like Atlas, created a world that she must carry on her back. A world that crushes her present.
"Weight" is honest and beautiful. It forces us to ask questions about our own belief in fate or choice, and how willing we are to admit to the choices we make, both conscious and subconscious. It forces Winterson, and her readers, to acknowledge the world that we each carry on our own backs, and how they inhibit our lives.
Know why your kid hates to read?
I am a copy editor by profession. I sit at home and read manuscripts of children's textbooks. As I don't ever have to talk with anyone on the phone, and I don't have to go an office, the work suits me far better than my former profession as a journalist. I remind myself of these benefits while the futility of my job and the inanity of most textbooks eats away at any sense of purpose and well-being. But you've gotta make a living.
There are many, many things wrong with the textbooks I edit (which, of course, means "things that are wrong with education in the U.S."). But the two most egregious problems, the two things that really screw up the education of your average American child are:
-Every state has it own standards, most of which suck (Texas: "large muscle group motion, such as circling arms"; New York: "The peoples and peopling of the American colonies (voluntary and involuntary)." Um, involuntary peopling, yeah, that's what we call it.) This doesn't mean the federal government should get involved. They've already gutted things enough with the "Leave all non-wealthy children behind" Act.
--They are BORING. Crashingly boring. Heartbreakingly boring. You want to know why so many teachers have so many behavior problems with young kids? The kids are bored to tears.
State standards and standardized testing have to answer for a lot of the boredom. Take a K-2 reading and phonics textbook set I worked on last year. The kids got to read cool little stories, except that the teachers weren't allowed to let them learn to read, enjoy, and employ their imaginations. Oh, no. The teacher had to say idiotic, killing things like, "Good readers look for a main idea and details as they are reading," or, "Careful readers think about cause and effect on each page of the story." They had to stop kids throughout the reading to make them think about things like characterization and setting. They're in kindergarten!
If you had been taught to read this way when you were 6, or 8, or even 15 years old, wouldn't you prefer television, too?
There are many, many things wrong with the textbooks I edit (which, of course, means "things that are wrong with education in the U.S."). But the two most egregious problems, the two things that really screw up the education of your average American child are:
-Every state has it own standards, most of which suck (Texas: "large muscle group motion, such as circling arms"; New York: "The peoples and peopling of the American colonies (voluntary and involuntary)." Um, involuntary peopling, yeah, that's what we call it.) This doesn't mean the federal government should get involved. They've already gutted things enough with the "Leave all non-wealthy children behind" Act.
--They are BORING. Crashingly boring. Heartbreakingly boring. You want to know why so many teachers have so many behavior problems with young kids? The kids are bored to tears.
State standards and standardized testing have to answer for a lot of the boredom. Take a K-2 reading and phonics textbook set I worked on last year. The kids got to read cool little stories, except that the teachers weren't allowed to let them learn to read, enjoy, and employ their imaginations. Oh, no. The teacher had to say idiotic, killing things like, "Good readers look for a main idea and details as they are reading," or, "Careful readers think about cause and effect on each page of the story." They had to stop kids throughout the reading to make them think about things like characterization and setting. They're in kindergarten!
If you had been taught to read this way when you were 6, or 8, or even 15 years old, wouldn't you prefer television, too?
There's a new life in my way
There are a lot of things nobody told me about pregnancy. Top of the list is the utter exhaustion these first three months. I'm tired all the time, with nothing to show for it. All I want to do is sleep, sleep and drink tea and read books. Nobody told me, either, about the hurricane-like feeling that my life has been stolen.
I feel plugged. The works are gummed up. Not just the parts that are meant to excrete, but the rest of me, too. My mind--it's dammed. Or damned. Everything has stopped, as if stuck in a held breath that will never exhale. Emotions float around so lazy that it is too much trouble to be sad, scared, or angry. I have been stoppered.
It's a child that's done this. Or it might not be a child yet, depending on how you look at things, especially whether you want it or not. I've had this feeling before, when I was a stupid teenager, and it was most definitely not a child then. It is one this time because I wanted it. Or thought I did. That's the problem, that I wanted this and am now horrified because I feel like I'm caught in a web or stuck in resin or, as I said, stoppered. I have been stopped. Everything that I am, or want to be, has stopped to make room for something more important: new life. That's how it feels, anyway. It's terrifying to be afraid--or is it jealous?--of something that doesn't really exist yet, and when it does will be totally dependent on me.
I should stop calling it 'it.' It has a name. She has a name. Nobody's told me she's a 'she,' but I know anyway.
Nobody told me that it would feel like this, that the happiness and expectation would be replaced by a limb-gripping fear that my life has just come to a screeching halt. And I haven't even done anything with it yet.
I feel plugged. The works are gummed up. Not just the parts that are meant to excrete, but the rest of me, too. My mind--it's dammed. Or damned. Everything has stopped, as if stuck in a held breath that will never exhale. Emotions float around so lazy that it is too much trouble to be sad, scared, or angry. I have been stoppered.
It's a child that's done this. Or it might not be a child yet, depending on how you look at things, especially whether you want it or not. I've had this feeling before, when I was a stupid teenager, and it was most definitely not a child then. It is one this time because I wanted it. Or thought I did. That's the problem, that I wanted this and am now horrified because I feel like I'm caught in a web or stuck in resin or, as I said, stoppered. I have been stopped. Everything that I am, or want to be, has stopped to make room for something more important: new life. That's how it feels, anyway. It's terrifying to be afraid--or is it jealous?--of something that doesn't really exist yet, and when it does will be totally dependent on me.
I should stop calling it 'it.' It has a name. She has a name. Nobody's told me she's a 'she,' but I know anyway.
Nobody told me that it would feel like this, that the happiness and expectation would be replaced by a limb-gripping fear that my life has just come to a screeching halt. And I haven't even done anything with it yet.
Hating New York
Maybe it's not true that I hate New York. I don't like it, certainly. It bores me, definitely. Frustrating? Annoying? Dull? Absolutely. But hateful? I'm not sure. Mostly it puts me to sleep. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the people. Maybe it's the fact that, to New Yorkers, a Westerner like me has nothing to add to their worldview. In their minds, I should be grateful to be here. That makes me hate it.
I hate Boston, its snobbish, introverted self-interest and obsession with inherited blueblood money. It's like a wealthy old great-aunt who's always reminding you that your hippie mother from Seattle was never accepted as "one of the family," and you never will be either. New York seems so childish by comparison, some little toddler boy fascinated with the action of its own penis. It's hard to hate a baby that's always so gleefully impressed with its own accomplishments.
"I'll move anywhere with you," I told my travel-loving husband almost ten years ago. I wanted to see the world, too. "Anywhere, except the East Coast of the U.S." I meant it. The one place I'd loathed and dreaded since my childhood, the one place I held a grudge against. I hated the East Coasters' assumption that the middle didn't matter, that those of us in rural places, hiding in the mountains or on the plains, were just dying to get out. I hated the New Yorker magazine's grip on the throat of American literary culture.
Then six years ago his company transferred us to my own personal hell. We spent two years in Boston, two dull, despised years among the most provincial people I have ever met. I daydreamed of the Rockies where I grew up and gritted my teeth at the tolerant smiles given by people who assumed that I was grateful to be somewhere cultural--somewhere that meant something. I felt like I was constantly hammering on a glass wall, waiting for the people on the other side to notice me. What I really wanted was for them to admit that my reality--my Western life--was just as valid and important and meaningful as theirs, or more so. Which they never did.
Now I've been sixty miles outside of New York City for four years, another four long, boring years. My neighbors are all natives of Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. They're fat. They're stupid. They're ugly--god, they're ugly. And they're loud. God, they're loud.
Then there's the other group, the urbane New York City-dwellers who come up here on the weekends to their tiny unheated cabins. They're nice, in general, fairly intelligent, self-absorbed, and boring. Between these two groups, I've never met people so uninterested in the world outside their home, or in the world at large.
The truth is, New York is too boring to hate. I go into Manhatten fairly often. I see plays, go to bars, walk around a whole lot, and find the whole city incredibly tedious. Why? Because it's completely turned inward on itself. Its residents think they have the entire world at their fingertips. Its art--music, theater, literature--feeds upon itself, regurgitating never-ending variations on the same "Isn't New York endlessly fascinating" theme.
Like a toddler, New York doesn't see itself as part of the wider world. Anything that matters begins and ends with the limit of its limbs. You can tickle a toddler, or feed it, or watch its antics, but you can't hold a conversation with it. And you can't expect it to grow up and take its place among entities that matter.
I hate Boston, its snobbish, introverted self-interest and obsession with inherited blueblood money. It's like a wealthy old great-aunt who's always reminding you that your hippie mother from Seattle was never accepted as "one of the family," and you never will be either. New York seems so childish by comparison, some little toddler boy fascinated with the action of its own penis. It's hard to hate a baby that's always so gleefully impressed with its own accomplishments.
"I'll move anywhere with you," I told my travel-loving husband almost ten years ago. I wanted to see the world, too. "Anywhere, except the East Coast of the U.S." I meant it. The one place I'd loathed and dreaded since my childhood, the one place I held a grudge against. I hated the East Coasters' assumption that the middle didn't matter, that those of us in rural places, hiding in the mountains or on the plains, were just dying to get out. I hated the New Yorker magazine's grip on the throat of American literary culture.
Then six years ago his company transferred us to my own personal hell. We spent two years in Boston, two dull, despised years among the most provincial people I have ever met. I daydreamed of the Rockies where I grew up and gritted my teeth at the tolerant smiles given by people who assumed that I was grateful to be somewhere cultural--somewhere that meant something. I felt like I was constantly hammering on a glass wall, waiting for the people on the other side to notice me. What I really wanted was for them to admit that my reality--my Western life--was just as valid and important and meaningful as theirs, or more so. Which they never did.
Now I've been sixty miles outside of New York City for four years, another four long, boring years. My neighbors are all natives of Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. They're fat. They're stupid. They're ugly--god, they're ugly. And they're loud. God, they're loud.
Then there's the other group, the urbane New York City-dwellers who come up here on the weekends to their tiny unheated cabins. They're nice, in general, fairly intelligent, self-absorbed, and boring. Between these two groups, I've never met people so uninterested in the world outside their home, or in the world at large.
The truth is, New York is too boring to hate. I go into Manhatten fairly often. I see plays, go to bars, walk around a whole lot, and find the whole city incredibly tedious. Why? Because it's completely turned inward on itself. Its residents think they have the entire world at their fingertips. Its art--music, theater, literature--feeds upon itself, regurgitating never-ending variations on the same "Isn't New York endlessly fascinating" theme.
Like a toddler, New York doesn't see itself as part of the wider world. Anything that matters begins and ends with the limit of its limbs. You can tickle a toddler, or feed it, or watch its antics, but you can't hold a conversation with it. And you can't expect it to grow up and take its place among entities that matter.
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