Deep Thoughts – Page 11

A room of one’s own

The other day I came to the stunning realization that while I (partially) own a house, which has many rooms, most of which I have laid out, decorated, and in many ways control. But none of them is my room, my secret hiding place.

Throughout my childhood I had a series of secret hiding places. This was true even when I had a room of my own (a non-universal trait of my childhood – I shared rooms with both my siblings at some point). I was thinking about those rooms the other night, as I foolishly went to the attic during tornadoes (while sensible people moved to basements!) In my fantasy life, I turn that small attic room with its long view across fields to a New England town center to my personal little private place. A place that is mine, and no others. A place that is not child-proofed, sensible, or public. I go there to read books undisturbed – perhaps a secret stash of Peanut M&Ms hidden from marauding sweet-toothed children.

For some reason, my childhood secret places all had a desperate need for a ‘fridge. In one, during a brutal winter in the usually clement Northwest, my heart was delighted by the gap between the plastic window-covering and ice-reamed window.

I’m thinking, now, of all those secret places – the gaps that seemed so trivial to grownup eyes, but were so invested with mystique by childhood. One was turned into a bedroom for my sister (Oh! The tragedy!) One remains unfound, mysterious and mouldering by the river. One collapsed, held up by weak and compromised softwoods. Several quiet spots in the woods, protected by a canopy of trees, are now marked by a self storage facility, or a clear-cut.

I am not entirely sure I’ve ever gotten past that need, though. It’s not the place I need now, but the quiet. The being unfound and unsought. I need not so much a place to myself as a time to myself – to read those novels by poor light while eating an unreasonable number of Peanut M&Ms washed down with water cooled in my “refrigerator”.

That attic room, so remote and lovely, is really my mother-in-law’s room as much as it’s anyone’s. She certainly spends a preponderance of her time there. I usually only lurk up there when it’s present wrapping time – during which span the room feels chaotic, not peaceful.

One of the great joys of parenthood is to see your own childhood pleasures experienced by your children. This is one I’m unsure about, however. Grey hates being alone. Oh, he’ll do it when he has to. But where I wandered off and hid, he’s always here and present. He needs constant company (and usually of a higher caliber than just kid brother, although kid brother will do if nothing better presents itself). It’s early with Thane to tell if he will treasure quiet aloneness or not. Quiet aloneness is not an attribute that 2 year olds are noted for. But perhaps he will find some quiet corner (with or without refrigerator) and claim it as his own.

Did you create little havens for yourself? Do you still? Do you have a spot that is (or feels) uniquely yours? Do you miss it? Do you have a surfeit of aloneness, and wish for a little more shared space and tumult?

And the thunder rolls

Fierce weather has cut a swath across this continent. Tonight it is touching down in my small Commonwealth – but so far distantly. Tonight, after the children were tucked in, I snuck up to our high attic to watch the lightening. It was truly a remarkable night for lightening. The sky flickered as though some distant celestial campfire threw shadows upon our darkened world – illuminating the spring-heavy trees and church steeples. The thunder was a constant rumble. The lightening I saw never touched down – it threaded across the sky like revealed veins in the encircling arms of the sky. But here, north and east of Boston, it seems not much more than a summer storm, ushering fast, cool winds.

The fifteen minutes I spent there, in a dark room watching lightening flicker ceaselessly, seems like the first quiet fifteen minutes I’ve had in about two weeks. It has been a busy stretch! When I think of all the things I’ve saved up to tell you – important things! – I feel nearly overwhelmed. And tonight I feel too poetic for bullet points. Last night I stayed up until 1:15 in the morning transcribing 18 pages of notes on the risks and mitigations of an ERP transition for a 9 hour meeting I attended. If I never see another brutally factual bullet point, it may be too soon.

So instead we will wander on together, long form.

First: my knee. When last we left our favorite joint, it was in dire discomfort. I checked that wall I so blithely jumped off again yesterday, and I must confess that it might be closer to five feet than the four I defended myself with. A week after the initial injury I met with an orthopedic surgeon, who got me to PT not 5 minutes later. Really. Remarkable. I did a few PT sessions, and now I’m quite certain that it was a bad sprain. Today, I managed to do several flights of stairs leading with BOTH legs. I even ran for a bit before I realized that was probably a bad idea. (But it was pouring!) I kneeled to pick up toys. I am pretty sure in two weeks there will be barely a twinge left. I’m going to try to actually get ahead of my pre-injured state with the PT sessions I have remaining though. This knee has never been quite as strong and capable as we might desire. But at this point, it is only hampering the most enthusiastic of my activities. (No 5K for me this weekend, not that I was planning on one!)

Second: it’s a darn good thing I was 90% mobile, as we went camping this weekend. At the time, I would’ve told you it was buggy, stressful and I was unsure of whether this was all worth it. It has only taken a few days to fade into lovely memories. How wonderful and odd our minds are to make it possible for us to enjoy things in retrospect that we did not enjoy at the time, or to forget pain and remember pleasure. One of those remembered pleasures was swimming. Our preferred campground, White Lake State Park boasts a lovely sandy beach offering access to a lovely mountain lake which is surprisingly warm, even in May. We went swimming three times, which is a pretty good ratio for so early in the season. Grey displayed significantly more water skill. Thane showed significantly more water-wariness (after recreationally attempting to drown himself constantly last year). I got to take some lovely swims out towards the middle of the lake, past the sight of inflatable alligators where all I could see were mountains, trees and water. Grey made a friend in the little boy at the next campsite. Thane did 1000 puzzles, just like he would’ve done at home. We also had a lovely “car walk” across the Kankamangus, down to Lake Winnepesaukee and back. I have concluded that the thing that would make camping super fun was if some of my friends came too, so we could tell tall tales around campfire. Unfortunately, my friends all seem to have either a) lake houses or access thereto or b) sense.

Third. It has come to my attention that my children are growing up too fast. I’d like to complain to the management, please! This morning was, truth be told, Kindergarten orientation. We went up to Grey’s to-be classroom and met his to-be classmates and to-be teacher. It is a lovely classroom, with books and colors and name tags. It is a place where I think he will be happy. The school is super duper. I mean, I went to FOUR elementary schools, and you could combine the enrichment features of all four of them and still end up short of this one. There’s a music room, and art room, a gym, a stage, a science room (seriously?!!?). They have onsite physical and occupational therapists. There is a school nurse and school psychologist. The library was large and friendly. There was a well equipped computer classroom. The children we saw all seemed to be engaged, having fun, learning, doing cool things. They were very friendly, welcoming the little kids to the school. It felt like a very healthy, happy place where the kids learned good things – and where there was room for them to be themselves. I am super-pleased, since this is just our local public school!

Then, when I picked Thane up, I got the word that he will be going to preschool next month. Indeed, he had apparently gone for a visit today, and his teachers had a hard time convincing him to come back to the Toddler 2 classroom. “He’s so ready” they told me. I know he is. I can’t argue. But sometimes I look at him and wonder where my little baby went. I can hardly see any traces of the infant in his determined features and flamboyant curls.

So while the accountant in me looks at these big changes and says “KACHING!” (because lo! Preschool + public Kindergarten < toddler care + preschool!), the woman in me, growing a little older, looks a little wistfully at how quickly her sons are wantonly abandoning their baby-hoods in preference for boyhood. I like babies. I was rather fond of my babies. I'm proud and pleased by the young men my sons are becoming, but I hope they don't feel the need to be too grown, too soon.

There you go – the momentous events of the last week and a half. Perhaps sometime I'll have the leisure and opportunity to post things that are NOT bare-bones updates… but we will all have to wait together for that moment.

199th Commencement of the Princeton Theological Seminary

This weekend, I left New England and my boys behind to drive down to New Jersey to watch my brother graduate (again). This degree was his Master of Divinity — the degree needed by a Presbyterian in order to pursue ordination as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament. (Technical note: you don’t actually BECOME a Minister until you find a church that wants you to come and minister to them. It’s a bit like a marriage. Both parties have to be present for a wedding to take place, and for an ordination for ministry to take place. So if you happen to know a nice Presbyterian church in search of a young, energetic pastor fluent in Latin and Greek, I can hook you up.)

It was a bit of a throwback weekend for me. I was with parents and sibling, but without my children. I was a bit mobility limited, due to what is technically referred to as “a busted knee”*, which was a pity because the Princeton campus was lovely, the weather was lovely and would have richly rewarded wandering. Also, my brother’s room required significant work to clean out, and the best I could do was to supervise. We got to appreciate all my brother’s favorite food hangouts, which were surprisingly quite tasty.

199th Princeton Theological Seminary Graduation

The graduation ceremony itself was rather momentous. It was scheduled to conclude right when the rapture was supposed to take place. I reckoned there were worse places to be found at the moment of judgement than in a graduation ceremony that was more than half worship service. The ‘chapel’ was an imposing cathedral. The brass choir, seminary choir and vast pipe organ filled it with sounds ethereal and stentorian. We, the assembled congregation (it really was a congregation, not a crowd) sang all seven verses of “All Creatures of Our God and King”. If you thought there were only five verses, so did I. The fifth verse is ok, but the sixth verse downright funereal:

And thou, most kind and gentle death,
Waiting to hush our latest breath,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
And Christ our Lord the way hath trod:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

That sober tone threaded through the graduation ceremony. In a high school or undergraduate graduation, there is a sense of rowdiness, celebration, accomplishment and future wonder. With this graduation, there was more a sense of hard work and challenge begun than of hard work and challenge accomplished. As we walked out, my mother said, “It reminded me of when we were commissioned as missionaries. You know that some of those who have gone before you became martyrs.” There were three graduates from Myanmar, to return to that country. Martyrdom is, perhaps, not so remote a possibility for them. There was also a sense swirling in the air of the changes to the church that this next generation will face. The ways we have worshiped together over the past centuries are not working as well in this new millennium, and even the oldest and most dignified of the the church fathers and mothers know it. Yesterday they commissioned my brother, and his classmates, to fearlessly find a new way to worship God and tell the old old story in a new new way.

Still, it wasn’t a depressing service, just a serious one. There was one moment that I’d been looking forward to for three years. You see, my brother has two middle names. If you say his full name, you say a (modified) version of the first four books of the New Testament (the Gospels). My brother has gone by the nickname Gospel for years. As his name was read, though, a chuckle spread through the crowd. If any crowd would get his full name, it was this one! Perfect.

Today, we went to church at Six Mile Run Reformed Church (where my brother has worshiped for three years), put together a masterful logistical plan for getting everyone where they needed to go, wished my brother and his girlfriend safe travels in their cross country tour, and went our ways. Next up: camping!

Good News Bad News in their pre-graduation concert

My parental family, missing only my sister.

*My knee is actually super much more better. I went to the Orthopedic surgeon on Thursday afternoon, and he pronounced my injury a sprained ligament (can’t remember which one), and strained calf and hamstring muscles. So bad, but temporary. It’s already hugely better, and recovery will be a matter of days to weeks, instead of weeks to months. I already had my first PT session, and I have significant range of motion back. So that’s good! But I didn’t want to push it by overextending.

Turns out you need your knees

Back in my Sophomore or Junior year of college, I once went on one of those “Spring Break” trips college students are supposed to do. However, I hung with a crowd that was responsible, practical and quite nice — so our Spring Break blowout was a ski trip to Loon Mountain in New Hampshire. The wildest we got was a reenactment of Braveheart in the living room. I recall now the 12 or so of us descending on parental houses on our way up and greatly admire the fortitude of those parents putting up with us!

It was my first time skiing. My father has very bad knees and my mother no powder-ambitions, so despite living quite close to some first rate skiing, I had never in my life strapped on those devices. Our first day my then boyfriend, now husband, patiently took me on the bunny slopes, showing me how to move about on my rented skiis. I did pretty well. After an hour or two, he decided that I was ready for my first gentle slope.

I made it halfway down that slope on my own power. The second half was in the back of one of those ski patrol sled thingies. I had badly injured my knee.

I’ve never gone skiing again. I couldn’t walk properly for nearly six months.

The rest of that fateful trip was spent in agony. I hadn’t learned critical lessons like: pain killers help kill pain, going to a doctor when you’ve seriously messed up your knee is a good idea, or the critical “Always pack enough books so that if you bust your knee on the first day of a weeklong skiing trip you will still have enough to read.” The “bookstore” in town carried pretty much nothing I wanted to read. It’s a spot that happens to be convenient to our summer camping trips now, so I return not-irregularly, and always wince when I do.

So why do I bring up this fateful memory, now in the lushness of mid-May?

Well, I’ve had highly intermittent trouble with this knee. I likely tore the meniscus badly. The meniscus provides side-to-side stabilization, and does not heal once it’s been injured. So every once in a while doing something simple like stepping across a log, or putting a child into a car it “goes”. The knee slips out of position. It hurts like Hades for about 5 minutes, then I can at least go about my business. It aches for 24 hours, then is forgotten.

Yesterday, a lovely fine day, my husband and sons were playing baseball in our stamp-sized back yard, and Grey hit a “home run” over the fence. I had a few extra moments, so I figured I’d make myself useful by shagging balls. Now, there is no easy way down from my yard to the downhill yards. We have a 12 foot cement wall separating us. So at one point I had to jump down about 4 feet to the next landing (my neighbors yard is lower and terraced instead of having one big wall). I was quite careful (and had done this many times before). But this time, when I landed, excruciating agony was my reward. I laid there, frantic in pain, and called for my husband. He fetched me, helped me back up (the long way) and got me to ice my leg and take ibuprofin. (See? That right there? That’s called maturity and learning from your mistakes.) Thirty minutes later, out of town friends of ours appeared at our doorstep for dinner.

As it became obvious my leg was not going to “bounce back” (and I worked my way through a full injury-shock cycle), I called my neighbors, who are Physicians Assistants. My friend the ER PA came over, looked at my leg, and explained exactly what I should do. (Which involved going to the ER, getting an X-ray so if we need an MRI we won’t have to jump through that hoop, and getting crutches.) Now, usually going to the ER would be really hard for us. There aren’t any grandparents around to call for backup (although we do have great friends and neighbors we could’ve leaned on if we had to). But this time… voila! There were our Maine friends right there, happy to help. So that’s how it all transpired.

It’s not yet clear to me how badly injured I am or am not. It definitely not just a slip. I think there must be some additional injury or tearing (although it might be just a sprain?) I’m set up for a full-fledged Incident, with orthopedics etc. I have a knee immobilizer, crutches, and plenty of Ibuprofin. I slept in a looong time this morning, reckoning nothing does better for healing than sleep. My husband has set me up on the couch, and my plan is to let the knee be for as long as I can. I’m starting to feel hopeful I’ll be able to move about somewhat tomorrow (you know, go to work?) and not be a bump on a log for the whole week.

But I’m struck by how lucky I am in all of this. I have done that same “shagging balls” when I was home alone with the kids. I don’t know what I would’ve done if they were in the backyard and I was direly injured hidden in the fields behind them — especially if I hadn’t had my cell phone with me. But this time, my husband was right there and ready to help. Then having a neighbor so helpful and nearby was truly amazing. It certainly helped me prevent repeating my mistakes from the initial injury. Next, having friends happen to be in the neighborhood who could and would watch after my children while I went to the ER with my husband was a tremendous stroke of fortune. Handing over my insurance card at the ER, I considered how blessed I am to have good insurance, so I could seek treatment for this injury and afford to pay for it. And of course, I’m so lucky to be married to a loving, capable partner who can take care of me and our family through all of this. Finally, it just so happens that this is a week when it’s ok that I’m not 100%. Those weeks are rare.

No one gets through life without bad luck. We all get sick or injured sometimes. I feel remarkably blessed, though, that my bad luck came with so much good luck associated with it.

Herodotus (II)

Our new car was named Herodotus. It’s pretty cute to hear Thane ask, “Can we ride in Her-od-o-tus??” Now, the inspiration came because Herodotus is theoretically “Tuscan Olive”. Back when I was a kid, we used to call that color “Green”.

So I think I whine here sufficiently about how I have no time for anything, ever. But somehow, I sneak a few things in. One of my sneaky additions is a humanities book club run by some friends of mine. I first argued I didn’t have time. But I thought about the reading list. And I thought about my intellectual starvation. And I decided that I would aspire. I would try.

I recently read a very interesting blog post about intellectual obesity, talking about how the same cultural influences that lead us to eat too much of the wrong food also lead us to the easiest forms of entertainment. As the author says, “Given infinite choice and no fabricated pressures, you will consume the least effort, most enjoyable information.” This resonated with me. After college (actually, after reading the entire Canterbury Tales) I decided I had nothing to prove. I knew I could read the hardest literature and derive pleasure and knowledge from it. So I piled up the fantasy novels and YA literature. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with those. Nothing at all. But after Grey was born, I began to feel the effects of intellectual malnutrition. I subscribed to the Economist, but was still hungry. At the same time, I have so little leisure and reading heavy literature is, well, hard. It really is. I have the skills, but they’re rusty.

So. I have tried. I missed the first book. I read the Odyssey (for the first time!) on my own, and became enraptured with Homer. He’s good! Who knew!!! I read significant parts of Plato’s Republic, and was completely underwhelmed by it. But by golly, I got through all 800 pages of Herodotus’ Persian Wars. I even read many of the appendices. (Note: if you’re reading hard literature in your precious precious slivers of free time… go for the very best version you can find, not the cheapest.)

I must confess that this gives me, in addition to more intellectual grist for my poor starved mental-mill, a tremendous sense of satisfaction. I did a hard thing, not because I had to, but because I chose to. I did something challenging with no external validation or reason. It was a lot like running a race after being a couch potato for years. It felt excellent.

And I’m doing it again. I’m well into Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars, which has rather more good speeches and rather fewer digressive stories.

So, for those of you who are curious, here’s our reading list. We’ve been at it for about a year. At this pace, we should get through our curriculum by, oh, 2020 or so. But that’s ok with me.

Humanities Book Club Reading List

Homer, Odyssey & Iliad (Homer is good and quick!)
Plato, Republic (Ugh. Historically important. Needs a teacher. And an editor. You begin to understand why they killed Socrates for being annoying.)
Aesop, Fables (We skipped this one)
Herodotus, Persian Wars (Hard, but I did it!)
Thucydides, Peloponnesian War (Next up)
Aescylus, Oresteia
Virgil, Aenid; Caesar; Conquest of Gaul
Plutarch, Makers of Rome
Lucretius, The Nature of the Universe; Cicero on Duty
Old Testament, Selections*
New Testament*
St. Augustine, Confessions
Two Lives of Charlemagne; Song of Roland*
Memoirs of the Crusades
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (this is the guy I tried to name Thane after, but that was for his De institutione musica)
St Francis, Little Flowers
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales*
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Cellini, Autobiography
Shakespeare, Henry IV*; Hamlet*
Descartes, Meditations
Gibbon, Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire
Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Scott, Ivanhoe*
Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution
Parkman, The Oregon Trail
Newman & Huxley, Selection on Education
Dostoyevsky, Crime & Punishment

*I have already read

Turnabout is fair play

In the angsty period after the birth of my first child, I wondered if I would be able to rejoice in my children’s successes without considering them mine. I mean, how much credit do you usually give to your parents for your accomplishments? Indubitably less than they’re due, but that is the way of things. Would I own their accomplishments as if they were my own? What if my children were not particularly accomplished?

I never considered, in the throes of generational myopia, that it might be my parents who would rack up accomplishments worthy of note. I mean, yeah. So my mom was one of the first ever Commissioned Lay Preachers in the Presbyterian Church. So my dad’s work in Africa probably saved the lives of hundreds of children. Yes, I went to my mom’s Master’s graduation. And you know every time that a fisherman in Deadliest Catch goes in to get medical care at Dutch Harbor… my father set up that clinic with telepresence. But my parents are my parents. They’re supposed to be nearly retiring, and, er, parental. Right? (Editor’s note: my mother says she was not such an early CLP. I’m still waiting for my dad to weigh in on what I said about him.)

And then, when I turn my back, they both go and make me sure proud.

My father has, over the last few years, grown more and more interested in local history. He made friends with the old folks who still own the oral history. He took their old black and white pictures and digitized them. He learned the stories about our adopted valley home. Then, he set about combining story and picture, legend and fact into a book. A real book. Published by real publishers and available in real book stores. It comes out next week, and he already has the author copies. You can get some sneak peeks in his blog.

Now this has been a long time in the works and comes as no great surprise. But man, that’s a big deal. I’ve wanted to write a book since second grade. But my father beat me to it! And I couldn’t be prouder!

Then there’s my mom. She teaches 5th/6th combo in a very small school in said mountainous valley. As part of her teaching, she includes a segment each week on French, and has for years. Well, she just won the “Eberspacher Award for Excellence in teaching of Modern Western European Languages”. She applied, but definitely didn’t expect to win, since her time per week is so short. Here’s her winning essay for the prize.

I was both surprised and honored to be nominated for the Eberspacher Award. Since I am not a full-time language teacher, I certainly never expected such a nomination. The student who nominated mewas in my highly capable 5/6 grade class. Her exposure in my class to French came in 30 minute a week doses. It has never been enough, but it has been a fun time for the students and me.

My introduction to the study of foreign languages was unfortunate. One year of junior high school Spanish followed by two years of high school Spanish left me with fragments of Spanish about Juan and his friends going to the library. While I remember the dialogues, their English translations are forever printed beneath. The study did not become a meaning-to-Spanish connection, but rather a
continual activity in translation. Biblioteca conjures up the word library and not a picture of a room of books. I do not blame my teachers. They were hampered by a curriculum, complete with tapes, and large class size. But both my teacher and I heaved a sigh of relief when the mandatory two years were over.

My next language experience came when my husband and I were posted to Africa. We made a six month stop on the way in France to learn French. Le Chambon sur Lyon was an immersion experience. We were greeted by Mme Rivier who spoke not a word of English (a claim I now doubt – but we believed then). She pranced around the room shaking hands with us and pointing to this and that. After a couple of bewildering weeks, patterns began to emerge and what she said began to make sense.

And the whole town was in on the activity. The first week, we could go to the patissaire and point at a chosen pastry. After the first week, we needed a s’il vous plait with our grunts. The community welcomed us and conversed with us in patient French. They did not sell me the knife I demanded for my six-month old daughter (my sister), but waited until I found the word for spoon.

The pivotal point in my French career happened in the pension (boarding house) associated with the school. One day a sign appeared on the dining tables which stated, Ici on parle uniquement francais. (Here one speaks only French.) I confess to tears of despair. I would never be able to talk again! But I did. My first meaningful conversation was with a fellow student, a Norwegian who didn’t speak English. We discussed infant baptism.

When we arrived in Zaire (now the DRC), I was much better equipped to deal with Tshiluba. A native Tshiluba speaker prayed for those of us learning Tshiluba once. He asked that we would have “windy tongues, and intelligence on top of the little we already had.” Windy tongues indeed! Grant my students windy tongues!

So when I entered my sixth grade classroom at Columbia Crest, I decided that I would teach my students something of what I learned studying French. Mme. Jeanpierre (my name is Johnstone) appears weekly in my class with her beret. That woman knows not a word of English! Fois is shivering and warming her arms. Chaud is the fanning motion. We greet and introduce one another, commenting on our health. We do calendars. We play Voila (also known as Bingo), and Allez Peche (Go Fish) to learn numbers. We go to the clock and door, and discuss others going to the clock and door. We watch The Red Balloon with a running narration in French. We struggle with why some of us are Americain and others Americaine.

Perhaps students do not leave my class knowing as much French as I would like. I hope what French they learn has a direct connection between the object or idea, and the French words. But the French they learn is a side benefit to something bigger. I would say my goals have more to do with language acquisition. I want them to know that learning a language can be fun! I want them to see that you do not need to dread learning a language. Play is a powerful tool in language acquisition and I want them to see that.

I also want my students to know that when faced with someone who does not speak your language, you need not be helpless. Patience, attentive ears, and observation can go a longs ways to untangling the nonsense syllables they hear. Students don’t hear that message in schools now. We teach them so much with direct instruction that they don’t necessarily know how to acquire knowledge without teaching. I want my students to know that they need not throw up their hands in despair when their Tshiluba/English dictionary fails them.

Especially, I want them to learn to create direct connections between language and meaning. I want them to avoid stopping at the English word on their way between un livre and the book on their desk.

So thank you, student, for nominating me for the Eberspacher Award. I hope it means that you took with you from Mme Jeanpierre, something valuable about French and about languages.

Way to go, parents of mine. I’m proud of you both.

America, Libya, War War War

Like people around the world, I’ve watched the unfolding events in the Middle East with an uncomfortable combination of pride, hope, fear and confusion. None of us know if we’re watching the American Revolution, the French Revolution or the Cuban Revolution sweep across the historic sands. Those involved don’t know. They stand up to announce that they are unsatisfied with what they have, and that change must happen. Change will happen. We hope and pray that it is a change that leads to freedom, liberty, stability, education and joy for the people involved.

Now as the eyes turn to Libya, I keep finding myself brought back to my first or second grade year. I remember much more of the playground at the school that year than I do of the classes. There were huge concrete pipes and tractor tires set into the ground. There was a large grassy fenced in field. Jump rope was popular, and with it the jump rope songs that mysteriously pass down from generation to generation of braided-haired girls.

Sometime, I think in early spring or late winter, the rumor began on the playground that we were going to go to war with Libya. The dark, uniformed figure Gaddafi was set as the villain in the playground make-believes. The boys became bombers – arms spread wide circling around the uneven soil. Their well-rehearsed rat-a-tat-tat resounded across the monkeybars.

We girls, with the rhythms of the jump ropes, became the propaganda machine. I still remember (I wonder if I am the only one to remember) the modified chants we came up with. The first was simple: “America, Libya, War War War”. It was almost gleeful — egging on our government and soldiers to glory. The second was rather more creative, and alarming from the point of view of a peace-loving mother (as I now am).

(To the tune of “Say say oh playmate”)

Say say oh soldier,
Come out and fight with me.
And take my cannons three,
Climb up my poison tree!
Slide down my razor
Into my dungeon door
And we’ll be jolly enemies
Forever more more more.

Who wrote this? Was it me? One of the bigger kids? Was it an incredibly local phenomenon, or was this song spread through the network of cousins and old friends across four-square and hopscotch groups? I was like six or seven (which might help explain the scansion on the second to last rhyme). Why were we jumping to self-made battlecries? I find it even more perplexing now, with the help of Wikipedia. This must have been 1984 or 1985 — I was in a different school by 1986. Export controls seem insufficient reason even for fertile childish minds to leap ahead to war and enmity.

Decades have passed since then. I have gone from a child to a mother of a child about the same age. We’ve gone to war several times since then, but never with Libya. Still, that old colonel stands, unpromoted to the last, and declares that he will die a martyr rather than relinquish the smallest part of his power, while a wave of freedom-fighting rebels gathers to crash against the walls of Tripoli — there to be spent, to triumph, or to begin the long siege. None of us know where it will end.

Will my son remember? Will the name Gaddafi mean “the enemy” to him as well? Has that moment already happened, but with the Taliban, or Saddam? Do they sing war-songs in their private play in his school?

Warm thoughts

It’s been a brutal, brutal winter here in New England. You know it’s bad when you wake up, see it’s 18 degrees out, and think, “Hey, not too cold this morning?” It’s significant progress that the drifts along our walkway have been reduced to merely waist high. Here in Massachusetts, nearly 200 roofs have caved in, and more people than you might guess find themselves flinging pantyhose filled with snow melt onto their roofs at 11 pm at night… NOT THAT I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. (And it was the side facing away from our neighbors, so you can’t have proof!)

So I thought I’d bring you a warm thought I’ve been holding on to for half a year now.

When we were in Istanbul, we went to a 300 year old turkish bath called Cagaloglu Hamami (C is pronounced as “J” and the “G”s are more or less silent, so it was pronounced “Ja-la-lu” in case you ever go looking for it.)

Now, we were in Istanbul in August. Shockingly, it is HOT in Istanbul in August. Every day it was hovering around 100 degrees (although this wasn’t as bad as you might think, since the hill city on the water got lots of nice cool breezes off the Bosphorus straight and the Golden Horn). So already, before we went in to the shady confines of the baths, we were hot. The baths, like many in Turkey, are completely symmetrical. The men head off in one direction, the women in the other. We paid our money and split off into our different directions, scrubby mitts in hand.

I changed in a courtyard (women only) with a tall fountain in the middle and booths all around. The booths had high windows, doors with old-fashioned keys, dark stained wood, and narrow benches to place clothes on. I walked on impossible wooden shoes, wrapped only in a thin sheet, down to meet my masseuse — an inevitably soft, middle-aged woman who had just come back from a smoke break. She was wearing a black bathing suit and carrying a towel.

She brought me through a transition room to the baths themselves — ancient marble delights with silver taps constantly flowing with cool water. The entire room was made of marble. There were alcoves, a sweat-room, some partial walls for partial privacy, and a dome with pinpricks of light coming through opalescent ancient glass. It was very old luxury, not decrepit, but far from modern. In the middle was a large octagonal slab of marble — each side being just slightly shorter than a tall modern woman. I suspect they were perfectly sized for our less nourished forebears. And on each one of these sides was a woman, with her black-bathing-suited, comfortably-proportioned, middle-aged masseuse. Most of these women were in the same condition they would be for a bath or a shower at home. (What can I say, I fear the search engine traffic if I explain more clearly!)

My lady left me there, in an alcove, looking around in wonder but trying not to stare, with a silver basin in my hand and cool water running behind me. I sat until I got hot. I surreptitiously tried to figure out what to do. I poured a libation over my head. It felt marvelous, sluicing through the heat and making my towel cling cooly.

I waited a long time. I was beginning to be afraid I’d missed something in translation. I tried to slow my breathing, to just enjoy, to not be shocked that in the middle of this Islamic country I was surrounded by women completely at ease with themselves, with their bodies, with other women.

Finally, my black-bathing-suited woman returned. She lead me to my place on the marble slab, holding my hand solicitously — like I hold my sons on the slippery ice. The octagon was warm to the touch. 300 years ago, they had designed these baths to be heated by water and steam running past the marble on the other side. I could not see them, but furnaces were roaring to make this place even hotter than the 100 degree heat outside. I laid down on the warm marble, and she sluiced me again with water.

The massage was an amazing experience. It was actually a bath – as promised. There was soap. She washed my hair. She exfoliated with the scrubby mitt. One woman began singing an old Anatolian song, and the others joined in before trailing off into laughter. At the end of it, I was clean, and covered once more in the cool water before drying off and returning to the busy, narrow streets of Constantine’s city.

I think of those pinpricks of light, in the dome of the baths, now. As I trudge through the weary, narrowed world of February, I remember the surprising sensation of hot marble. I marvel that it is possible to sit, relaxed, sans garments, without fear of chill. With my vistas cut off now — by snow banks and hurry — I think of the far sights of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, towering above the millenia-long important churning waters on the gateway between Asia and Europe, East and West. And I remember that today’s frigid contraction is not forever.

Sabbath keeping

Quick, what are the 10 commandments?

Ok, you know “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not kill”. Perhaps you recall “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor’s.” — mostly because you giggled at the part about the ass. (One wonders, does this cover thy neighbor’s snow-blower?) This original top 10 list begins with the four “God” commandments: God is God, you shall worship no other gods, you shall make no idols, and you will not take the name of God in vain. There’s the proscription against adultery, and the one against bearing false testimony against your neighbor (commonly interpreted as not lying, but that’s not actually what it says). Two more left. One is “Honor thy father and thy mother”, which is either trivially easy or nigh impossible depending on thy father and thy mother.

Then there’s the middle one, “But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.”

Now, I’m an every-single-Sunday Christian. I go to church not just regularly, but downright religiously. I’m an elder (a member of the governing board of the church) — as is my husband — and attend two meetings a month to talk about the business of the church. I’ve taught Sunday School. I volunteer in the nursery. I served communion this Sunday, pretending to be one of the grownups. Surely I’m keeping the Sabbath… every single Sunday from 10 am until 1 pm, from prelude through coffee-hour-cleanup.

But sometimes I feel like the commandment I break with most wanton abandon is this rest advice. (Although with all the snow lately, it’s possible I’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain once or twice…) I mean, sure I don’t go to my job on Sunday, and I do worship God on Sunday. But not only do I not REST on Sunday, I often don’t REST at all. When I’m not laboring at work, I’m laboring at home. When I’m not laboring at home I’m (in all truth) laboring at church. And when I’m not laboring, I’m usually also not resting.

Jesus talks a good bit about the Sabbath laws. He heals a man on the Sabbath, which generates tremendous controversy about whether he is keeping the commandment. He plucks grain from a field as he passes on a Sabbath — a clear violation of the law. When he’s busted for it, he explains to the Pharisees that they have misunderstood the commandment. It wasn’t that people should stop working one day in seven because God wants them to. It was that God wants people to take a break because people NEED a break. “Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and man was not made for the Sabbath.'” (Mark 2:27)

I do a lousy job of keeping this commandment, in any interpretation of it. It can be easy to justify… if this whole “rest” thing is just for my convenience, I can tough it out. I’m doing ok. I can make it. As long as it doesn’t bother God, I’ll just keep chugging along being a good worker/mother/wife/citizen/friend/daughter/elder/cook/housekeeper/blogger.

But shockingly, God has it right. We need breaks. Can you imagine how your life would be if one day in every seven, you could lay down you weary load and simply rest, relax and enjoy yourself? Maybe catch up on sleep, read a book, play a game, veg on the couch or go on an adventure? And even better if you used common sense for it… you wouldn’t stop taking care of your kids or eating food, but you would take it easy.

I’ve been thinking about this for years. Decades, actually. Since I began to assume an adult’s schedule and actually HAD work to do, I have worked every day of the week. But I’ve been particularly thinking about it in the life of my family lately. Our weekends are just PACKED. Our Saturday ran like this, this week:

7:30 – Husband up to go to aikido dojo to set up for half-day demonstration in car dealership
8:30 – he left and I got up to be with the kids
10:00 – everyone must be dressed and in the car to go to swimming lessons
10:30 – 11:30 – swimming lessons
12 – 12:45 – feed lunch to small children
12:45 – get Grey in his gi to go to kids’ aikido, take both kids’ to car dealership to meet up with husband
2:30 – return, put kids down for naps, go grocery shopping
3:30 – make corned beef hash for Burns night
4:15 – take shower
5:00 – leave for Burns night
1:00 am – get back from Burn night

7:30 am – get up with kids
10 am – Church!

Now, there’s lots in there that I have very intentionally chosen to do. Grey must learn how to swim — it is a critical life lesson. My husband benefits greatly from his time doing martial arts, both mentally and physically. Grey also needs the exercise and discipline of it. And Burns night is fun with my friends! Who wouldn’t be all on board with that? But the combination of all these good things is relentless, and still the dishes need doing and the laundry needs folding..

So I’ve been thinking about a Sabbatical Sabbath. What if, once every 7 weeks, we just opt out of all our weekend activities? No swimming lessons, no aikido, no church. What if we take the kids to the Aquarium instead? Or lounge around the house in our pajama pants past noon?

I honestly don’t know HOW to keep the Sabbath. But I’m thinking of this, as a way to claim a little rest, leisure and relaxation into busy lives.

What about you? Are the ten commandments on the list of things you try to do? Which one is hardest for you? Do you keep a sabbath, or take a break? How do you find balance?

Not scare-mongering

My sons’ daycare hosted an event to train parent’s in the new safety curriculum. Hint to everyone: here’s how to get young parents to come to your event. Offer babysitting AND dinner. I probably wouldn’t have gone, otherwise, but that critical combination told me that they were serious. They really wanted me there. I heaved a sigh, and we went.

I consider my own parents some of the finest examples of the parenting genre. I wish I could bottle their parenting and uncork it onto my own kids. (Camp Gramp will have to do.) And my folks’ philosophy is usually described by my mom as “benign neglect”. Perhaps uncoincidentally, my childhood memories mostly include leisure, fun, exploration, etc. If my children had my childhood, I’d be delighted. My aspirational parenting philosophy would be to raise Free Range Kids, confident and capable to deal with what our safe, careful, child-friendly area has to offer in the way of real life. So I went to this training ready to do some serious eye-rolling to what I figured would be an inevitable histrionic over-reacting.

Well, color me impressed. The curriculum and training were done by the Committee for Children, with funding offered by a local business. (Wish I could remember who — they deserve credit!) They got off on exactly the right foot with me. Here’s how the introduction to a book to share with our kids put it, “This book will not frighten your child. It will give your child skills that will help make him or her strong. A strong, informed child is a safer child.”

Awesome. Fantastic. Let’s not wrap them in bubblewrap. Let’s not keep them inside forever. Let’s not hover. Let’s give them skills to make them safer! Sign me up.

And it just got better. The “touching saftey” chapter is one of about 17, with others being firearm safety, fire safety, kitchen safety, water safety… good stuff! And all very reasonable, centered and operating on the assumption that our kids could apply simple sense to stay safe. Plus, it gave we parents excellent language to use to talk about tough stuff, and they even showed us videos of parents superbly handling some of the hardest discussions a parent might have with their kids. It was extremely valuable training for us, and an excellent curriculum for them.

There is so much in the world that seems hysterical or divorced from reality – especially when it comes to kid’s safety. I thought I’d just take a moment to let you know: a private company is helping fund an excellent, sensible curriculum to teach our children how to navigate through the world instead of hiding them from it. Fantastic.