The Mother Lion
This Mother’s Day, I’m working with Clever Girls in support of Macy’s Heart of Haiti to shine a light on the “trade, not aid” program, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans struggling to rebuild their lives and support their families after the 2010 earthquake.
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As a child, unless you have a terrible mother (and I’m sorry for those of you who did), you usually have an idea that your mother loves you.
There was no way to understand the depth of my mother’s love, though, when I was little. I mean, I knew she loved me, in that she liked me more than anyone else on earth liked me.
I also knew she put up with my oddities, my sensitivity to loud noises and smells and buzzing fluorescent lights, my many irrational fears (I knew I’d fall through the cracks in the pier, and I once freaked out at an art exhibition, afraid the kinetic sculptures were some kind of strange weapons designed to chop up children), and my need to come home “sick” from school a few times a month.
But my mom also bugged me a lot of the time. Drove me crazy. She was annoying. She was demanding. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and I didn’t understand the problem with that. There were days when I would have sworn that all my parents were put on earth to do was to keep me from having fun.
In hindsight, it’s easy to see that my mom was bothering me because she was trying her best to raise me into a good human. As a child, I didn’t appreciate that. I thought she just liked tormenting me about doing dishes and washing my face and going to bed at a reasonable hour.
When I was a junior in high school, I got very suddenly sick with a dangerously high fever. It began as muscle pain and had progressed to me almost fainting in pain at the chiropractor’s office, after which the decision was made to take me to the local hospital.
When we first got to the hospital, I was sent for blood tests. My pain ranked about 10 on Hyperbole and a Half’s pain scale, defined as “I am actively being mauled by a bear.”
We waited in the Phlebotomy area while the technician helped the people in line in front of us. There was no question of us asking to go ahead of other people in line, not even with bear-mauling levels of pain.
We simply are not Those Kind of People. Being pushy is not in my genetic structure (I had to learn it and it still takes all my guts when I have to assert myself to get what I want).
Finally, after a Dinosaur Age or two, it was my turn. The tech told my mom “I’m going on my break. I’ll be back in a while.”
Suddenly my mom, my mild-mannered, patient, polyester-pants-wearing suburban lady-looking mom, turned from herself into the Incredible Hulk, minus the shirt ripping.
She went full “Terms of Endearment” on them, five full years before Shirley MacLaine flipped out in that movie. Watch:
Yep, that was my mom, who began screaming “You will NOT go on your break! You WILL take my daughter’s blood RIGHT NOW.”
I had never seen such a thing! It left quite an impression on me, and on the poor cigarette-craving phlebotomist, too, because he suddenly shrank to half his size and prepared to take my blood.
It has become an Amusing Family Anecdote, of course, “The Time Mom Came Unglued.” But as a daughter, I can see what it took to push my mom into a place she would never, ever go for herself. She would never ask someone to sacrifice their smoke break just because HER arm had been gnawed off by hyenas. She would generally rather bleed to death than to make a fuss on her own behalf.
That’s the thing about a mother’s love, isn’t it? A mother’s love can turn an ordinary woman into the Incredible Hulk, into a raging lioness. It is a scary and beautiful thing, a power like nothing else on earth.
So I got my blood test. I got healed up (after spending 6 weeks in the hospital with a staph infection in my spine). And I got to see, once and for all, just how much my mom loved me.
Mom and my nephew
And in a calmer moment, the same year this story happened.
*****
What is Macy’s Heart of Haiti? Heart of Haiti is a “Trade, Not Aid” initiative launched by artist and social entrepreneur, Willa Shalit, The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and Macy’s. Already, Heart of Haiti has led to employment of 750 artists in Haiti, providing financial benefits for an estimated 8,500 people in the country.
Each item is a one-of-a-kind design and handmade by a Haitian master artisan from raw materials such as recycled oil drums, wrought iron, papier-mâché and stone. The collection features more than 40 home decor items including quilts, metalwork, ceramics, jewelry and paintings and is made almost entirely from recycled and sustainable items such as old cement bags, cardboard, oil drums and local gommier wood.
Heart of Haiti products are available online at Macy’s.com.
Thank you to Macy’s Heart of Haiti for sponsoring my participation in this “Share Your Heart” promotion. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own.
Toxic
Photo by What What. Used under a Creative Commons license.
I know I complain all the time, but not all the time REALLY. At some point – probably far too late in life – I realized how ugly it is and how no one really wants to listen to someone whine.
So I do things to try to remember gratitude and thankfulness and grace in small things (as Schmutzie would say).
I don’t have too many spiritual practices, but every day when I wake up, I say a simple prayer, stolen from a Pops Staples song:
Thank you God for another day
Help my brother along the way
And please bring peace to the neighborhood.
Then my second stop comes when I walk out the front door and touch my Hamsa, take a moment to breathe and to observe the beauty of the morning as Goldie waits impatiently for her walk. I say the Unity prayer for protection:
The light of God surrounds me;
The love of God enfolds me;
The power of God protects me;
The presence of God watches
over me;
Wherever I am, God is, and all is well.
Except I say “us” instead of “me” because, well, the dog.
Those tasks done, I try to carry that spirit throughout the day. Sometimes I make it. Other times I haven’t gotten down the block before I’m screaming “OH COME ON!” at some moron who is driving like an idiot braised in jerkwad sauce.
You never know – it’s kind of a crapshoot whether Thankful Suebob or New York Cabbie Suebob will show up for work, depending on factors like the weather, the extent of my lateness, and on my hormonal balance that particular day.
There’s someone on twitter that I had to filter out lately. It doesn’t matter who she is, but she has what would seem to be a great life – a job anyone would want, a few kids, she’s always traveling hither and yon – and yet, almost every day she’s grumbling about things.
Her coffee isn’t hot, or there isn’t coffee, or there isn’t enough coffee. And the day is too long and the emails too many. And the weekend is so far away…
I want to take her by the shoulders and say:
Look. If you have food to get you through the day, you’re already better off than about half the world’s population. As a woman, you’re treated better than 99.9% of women in human history. You don’t live in a war zone, or under a terribly oppressive government, or in a malarial zone. So shut up and enjoy the great good bounty that has been given you.
But I don’t. Because that would be aggressive and mean and would just upset her more. Because I have my days, too. Because it wouldn’t change anything. Because it’s not really my business, and because the lovely makers of TweetDeck gave me the filter feature. And mostly? Because I can come here and blog about it. Thank you for listening.
Do you have any gratitude practices?
Shattered
Broken glass gets everywhere. I have never understood the love of drunk people for breaking glass bottles, but I guess it is irresistible. There’s a waist-high wall out front and it must be a good target because we end up with busted glass on the sidewalk fairly often.
I was out there for about 15, maybe 20 minutes trying to find all the scraps. They were in the grass, in the sidewalk cracks, even up the driveway. One small bottle, thrown for one second, and it took a good chunk of an hour to try to find it all, so I had a lot of time to think.
I thought about the people who are the bottle-breakers in our lives. All of these good, loving people, but the one who gets to is is the one who shatters the bottle, says the mean thing, takes advantage. One tiny moment and the glass shatters and we have to spend 100 times as long cleaning it all up.
It doesn’t seem fair. It isn’t fair. 999 good people, but the one who isn’t is the one who makes us put locks on our doors.
I have to think of the flip side, too, of course, because to dwell on the darkness is to dwell in the darkness. The right kind of good lasts a long time, too.
One piece of good advice, one smile on a dark day. I love those people who are like talismans in my life, the unbroken pieces of glass – Julie, the sweet supermarket cashier who always asks about my mom. That girl at the gas station with the smile so luminous that I want to take her flowers.
The “A Course in Miracles” Holy Week readings contain one of my favorite quotes about how to behave. If I think of Easter, this is what I think of:
Offer each other the gift of lilies, not the crown of thorns; the gift of love, and not the “gift” of fear. You stand beside each other, thorns in one hand and lilies in the other, uncertain which to give. Join now with me, and throw away the thorns, offering the lilies to replace them.
Time Flies
I have been avoiding writing about this for months. Maybe if I didn’t write it down, it wouldn’t be true. Ah, we humans are such fools.
Goldie is failing.
This is a couple years ago, after an epic beach run.
She has taken her last beach run. Her back legs have gotten so weak that she uses a ramp to get up into the car. One of her legs collapses without warning. Yesterday on the kitchen floor, all of her legs slid out to the sides and she lay sprawled and helpless until I lifted her up.
It is busting my heart up into little pieces. I look at her so often with tears in my eyes now.
I don’t know how much longer I’ll have her, but I think it will be measured in months, not years. Maybe a year. It stinks for me, because she is my girl, but it especially hurts me to think of my mom. Mom swore, when her dog Poncho died, that she would never get another. She said “It’s like losing a child” (which she has also done, twice, so don’t tell me she can’t compare).
Then I introduced Goldie into her life. Now they’re best friends and spend every day together. I don’t know how mom will survive this one.
Dogs deserve better. Why don’t they get 50 years instead of 12 to 20? I’d gladly give her some of mine.
Updated to add: Thanks for all your kind comments. Of course, as soon as I hit publish, she began dancing around like a puppy and wanting me to throw her toy for her (for the first time in about a year). Of course. Silly dogs.
Public Service Announcement #782
Yesterday CC and I went to our local TEDx. You know about TED, right? The best way I can describe it is “smart people talking about interesting things.” There is the original TED and then hundreds of locally organized offshoot “TEDx” events popped up around the globe.
About 500 people showed up – a sold-out house – for a day of smartening up. The event is co-sponsored by the school district, so the audience was about 1/3 high schoolers.
There were the intros and thank-yous, and then the first speaker came on. I’m not going to name him, but he’s a well-known musician who also worked in recording with some of the biggest rock bands on earth. I’m sure he has 1 million great rock and roll stories.
He was terrible. He rambled, he was vague, he said “um” about 20 times a minute. His problems were compounded by some technical issues, like his videos and slides not playing when he expected them to, and playing when he didn’t expect them to.
He also talked for about 45 minutes, his ramblings descending into a “kids these days” rant about the suckitude of MP3s, ear buds, and the fact that no one listens to whole albums anymore.
CC and I kept glancing meaningfully at each other. I whispered “Toastmasters” and she nodded hard. Here comes the public service announcement.
People, if you are going to speak in public for any reason to any size group, GET SOME TRAINING. And IMO, Toastmasters is the best, easiest, most fun way to do that. Toastmasters is like AA – almost every community has a group. My own town has about 25 meetings to choose from.
I know that public speaking is a terror for many people. It’s a great feeling to take on that fear and conquer it, and it’s not that hard. It was pretty cool to look at the TEDx speakers and think “I could do that, and do a good job.”
The reason Toastmasters works is that it has a simple, structured program where you start small and build from there. With every speech, you get kind, helpful feedback focusing on your strengths and suggesting improvements. No one ever makes fun of you, because they have all been in your position, too.
Toastmasters is a great place to try and fail – much better than in front of your workmates, at a community group meeting or, God forbid, at a paid gig.
Some Toastmasters groups meet at sunrise (oy), others at lunch or in the evening. Some meet weekly, others every 2 weeks or monthly. Some meetings are dinner meetings where you can learn to speak in front of an audience that is making noise and eating and not necessarily paying attention.
There are dues, but my group keeps them to about $90 a year, and I have heard other groups are about the same.
By the time that first speaker was done, I was bored and irritated. I was silently chanting “Get done. Get done NOW,” trying to pray him off stage. During the break, CC and I talked over his performance and we both KNEW that we could have improved his speech by at least 75% if we had 15 minutes to give him advice.
Don’t let this happen to you, people. Get thee to a Toastmasters group. You will thank me, and your audience will thank me, too.
Jealous of a Time Gone By
How do you buy clothing?
We have an outlet mall, so I go there and root around in stacks of clothing, brow furrowed, until I find something decent enough where I think “That will do.”
It takes a long time and it is frustrating and boring and I rarely get anything delightful or fun. Mostly I just have things that cover my body in some way or another that, I hope, aren’t too hideous.
My grandmother had a dress shop in Morgan Hill, California – a normal little ladies’ store like most towns had back then. She opened it some time in the 1950s and expanded it from just baby items to a full line of women’s wear. It wasn’t expensive, but it was “nice.”
My grandmother’s store was here, on the corner.
She went to the merchandise shows a few times a year and bought for her store. She searched out really good lines of clothing, so the things you bought from her would never have crooked zippers or patterns that didn’t match at the seams.
Now comes the extraordinary part – she put things aside for her customers.
She knew her customers so well – their sizes, their shapes, their tastes – that she could buy clothing for them that she knew they’d love. She would call them up and say “Bev, I have something I put aside for you. When you have a minute, drop by and take a look.”
Gramie – Janie to her customers – proudly told me that the ladies usually bought what she had set aside for them. They would slip on the clothing and it would make them look…beautiful.
She was a smart businesswoman and she did well for herself. She was like your sassy, funny best friend who just happened to have great taste in clothing.
Gramie, 1949
Gramie was wise. She shut her shop and retired as soon as the mall (that word, “mall” was said with a good measure of disgust) started cutting into her business.
As I paw through the piles of clothing at the outlet, noting the paper-thin fabric, the bunched seams and the loose threads, I dream of shopping at Janie’s.
New Friends
I’ve been doing this Toyota Womens Influencer Network thing for three months now and I just got good news – I and my fellow TWINsters are going to be doing it for another three. I thought I’d share some posts by a few fellow TWIN members from the past months. They’re a good group of people, like most bloggers I’ve met – smart, funny and committed to learning about cars.
Terra Beara talks about learning to drive at 19
From the very day I got my license, I’d set off, with no particular destination in mind. I’d turn left off some vague county road and just drive. Sometimes the roads were paved, sometimes not. I’d drive until I found myself back home again, coming to intersections and picking a direction based on the direction of the wind, or on which side of the road had more trees on it. It was a special sort of solitude, a time when I was making a lot of great big decisions about the direction I wanted to point my life in and that time alone – windows down, music on – was a perfect time for me to work on figuring out the direction I wanted to go in.
Parenting By Dummies dreams of a new Land Cruiser
I only see two main drawbacks:
- It’s too pretty for my children. They ruin things. With their dried fruit snacks and juice boxes. And, no way could I let them do to my Sequoia what they have done to my Pilot. It looks like I slaughtered a deer inside of it. And, for the record, I would never.
Mommy Blog Expert gets down to brass tacks, reviewing the new Prius V
Typically I look forward to driving my own car again after using a loaner or rental. However this experience was a whole different story. After testing and driving the Prius v over 900 miles toLas Vegas to cover CES the International Consumer Electronics Show and back home to Los Angeles I discovered that — ironically — there are many more things that I liked about this Toyota hybrid than the non-Toyota SUV that I currently own and drive.
All Things Fadra visits the North Carolina Auto Show and brings back lots of photos of her cute kid and cars
The “expo” is a car show that’s held at the fairgrounds. We walk and look at cars in buildings that often hold cows for the agricultural fair. The most “international” aspect is perhaps a few Volvos on the floor and maybe a Ferrari or two. And the venue is so small, many major car manufacturers don’t even show.
Leticia of Tech Savvy Mama talks about being a woman and buying cars
As a woman, I was constantly overlooked in favor of conversations with my husband or viewed as the one to make the kids stop stress testing the buttons inside the vehicle. No one ever looked me in the eye and talk to me about the options that were part of the tech package or safety features. Instead they pointed me in the direction of the paint finishes and fabric samples.
Jess of I Rock So What tells her multiple-Corolla story:
I’ve told my husband many that I will always buy Toyotas, because they are safe, reliable, and a great investment. We aren’t wealthy by any stretch and aren’t interested in buying new cars every 5 years, so we need a car that will last as long as possible. I hope that one day our children–who aren’t born yet–will ride in that Corolla and maybe even drive it themselves.
Disclosure: I was selected for participation in the TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post, or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of the Toyota.
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If Things Were The Other Way Around
I know I should never read the comments sections of news sites because they are, as I have often said “where the lowest scum settles.” For some reason, news websites attract the most vicious, looney, racist segment of society. And I guess, why not? It’s not like they’re busy doing anything productive.
But I went to an article about Trayvon Martin and the comments were like a punch to the gut. (This is not the link to the site. I don’t know what site it was. This link is just for background in case you’re unfamiliar.)
Trayvon Martin
Among the usual speculation about the victim, there was this:
What’s a Trayvon?
A child is dead and someone uses the occasion to make fun of Black People and Their Funny Names. A family weeps and the best thing someone a thousand miles away can think to do is to make fun of their son’s name. Because he’s black, and his name is, what too creative or something? I wonder if he were white and his name was Cadyn or Jasyn or Kole or something, would that be as funny?
What if he were white? And what if the man patrolling the neighborhood with a gun and following children were a 28-year-old, 250-pound black man? Would he still be walking the streets, even if he had never shot anyone in cold blood? No, no he wouldn’t.
Because big, armed black men are scary and dangerous, and big, armed white guys are apparently just defending the neighborhood from the peril of skinny boys going to the corner store for some candy and an iced tea.
I’m disgusted. I’m horrified. I’m especially ashamed at myself that it took someone else pointing out how different things would have been if the races were reversed for me to start thinking about it.
Thanks to the people who keep reminding me I need to examine my hidden beliefs about stories like this. I need reminders and I need help. I just hope there’s a day where we all can come to the point of knowledge and sanity so that no one thinks it’s ok to make fun of a child’s name while he lays dead with a gunshot to the chest.
5 Reasons Why Driving a Minivan is Badass
My best pal CC has a minivan and I love it. It doesn’t make me feel dorky. It makes me feel comfy and happy. But since I’ve been thinking about cars, talking about cars, and asking people about cars, I have learned something: many women loathe and fear the minivan.
They’d rather drive anything than a minivan because THEY don’t want to feel like the suburban soccer mom in a minivan (even if they are a suburban soccer mom). So they drive SUVs or monster trucks with extended cabs or larger hatchbacks…but NOT the minivan.
Meanwhile, it seems like an equal number of men are fine with the minivan – maybe because they see it as a great weekend hauler of people and stuff they need to bring home from the hardware store, not another step away from their younger, cooler selves.
Toyota even made a silly video about the “Swagger Wagon” where a suburban white middle class family does a rap about how cool they are in their Sienna:
Here are my 5 Reasons Why A Minivan is Badass. Let me know if you agree:
- It’s big! You can take ALL your friends
- You sit high up on the road, looking down on all those drivers in their little cars that go beep-beep-beep
- You can fit ALL your party supplies in one vehicle, including the barbecue you are borrowing from your brother-in-law because you let yours get rusty out in the rain
- Hatchback in case you need a quick exit to run from the law
- 47 (about) Cupholders AND DVD Players AND the cool new Entune technology (that lets you use popular apps in your car – more on that later) on some models
I asked the Toyota product specialists, Joe and Mario, what made the Sienna good for parents, not just kids, and they said:
Sienna offers the following features that are great for adults:
•Best in class styling and enhanced drivability, especially SE model
•Lounge seating in the second row
•Entune system
•Dual-View Entertainment Center
Would you drive a minivan? Why, or why not? I don’t think I’d buy one, but only because I’m super conscious of gas mileage and I don’t want to drive a bigger car than I need. But would I love to have one? Absolutely.
Disclosure: I am a member of the Toyota Women Influencers Network TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of Toyota or any of its brands.
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Food Refugee
I don’t tell you what to do very often, but watch this video by Penny De Los Santos on food, photography, and most importantly, living. I promise you’ll be glad you saw it.
“Food connects us like nothing else I have ever seen. It has the ability to peel away at all of our differences and help us find a common language. Food is the most honest and simple expression of who we are.”
-Penny De Los Santos
Penny’s words made me think about something that enters my mind fairly often – the fact that I am a food refugee. Or refusenik. Something not normal, anyway – something far away from the middle of the road.
First, over 25 years ago, I became a vegetarian in a family of meat-eaters.
Then, as I explored the world of cooking and cuisine, I gradually rejected most of the foods I grew up with. I was raised with convenience food – Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup as sauce, Bisquick as a base for about 1000 different meals from biscuits to “pizza.”
But once I started reading cookbooks and chef’s memoirs and spending too much money at restaurants, there were no more mashed potatoes from a box for me – they had to be garlic mashed potatoes with real butter or nothing. I would no more open a can of soup than drink Tang.
More recently, I have become someone who is on a diet where I find it necessary to watch every bite of food that goes into my mouth.
I don’t think I did these things to tear myself away from my family and friends, but my decisions have had that effect. I know my dad used to be disappointed when he would barbecue delicious Italian sausage and I would refuse the chunks he offered me, sizzling from the grill.
There is no such thing as a food holiday for me anymore – no Thanksgiving turkey, no Easter ham, no Christmas cookies. When someone invites me to a holiday meal, I am That Problem Person, over there pushing broccoli around on my plate, skipping the pie.
I gradually gave up eating with my mom, too – there were just too many canyons separating the way we ate and I think mostly she hated my food and I hated hers.
I also got tired of her running commentary on how I ate, what I ate and how fast I ate compared to her. I finally couldn’t take it anymore, and I have to say I am happier not eating with her, though she is not happier for my absence.
I mostly eat by myself now, and when I do have meals with others, I still keep myself carefully restricted, never ordering the fries, always skipping the chips and guacamole, always watchful, counting.
What does it mean that I am a lone, solitary eater, trapped in a world I made for myself? Will I ever be at home in the world of sharing meals again, fully appreciating what is offered me without considering what it is made of, how it is made and how many calories it has? I don’t think I will, and after watching Penny’s video, that brings tears to my eyes. Making a last meal of chicken soup and sharing it with a dying parent? That isn’t going to happen.
What have I done to myself? How have I gone this far, and has the trip been worth it? If food connects us like nothing else, what does it mean that I have chosen to be so unconnected?
Suebob's Red Stapler 