Under the Dust

Depression is an sneaky opponent, a player who cheats and feels no guilt whatsoever at taking its victory lap.  Six months is a long time to be on the losing end of yet another “me vs. the black hole”  tournament from hell.

And yet that is where I’ve been.

I want to climb out.  Every time I try, the big D finds a way to drag me back in, lobbing clumps of ugliness at me until I’m bruised and battered, blowing dirt in my eyes until I can’t see where I am, let alone where I was trying to go, what finish line I was aiming to reach.

I want to see light.

I want to feel useful, capable, valuable.

I want to feel lovable, to be someone who others might cherish.

I don’t, I can’t, and I’m not.

Help.

How has it been 10 years?

Ten years ago today, baby MingMing took one look at my scary Caucasian face and burst into tears.  She’d stared at me for a moment, then gone back to trying to open the jelly treat her orphanage director had given her, earnestly ignoring the weird woman in front of her until he tried to hand her to me.  She reared away and began to cry.  As I returned her to his arms, he murmured to her in Chinese as she hid her face in his suit jacket.  I ran off, returning to receive her back into my arms after I showed him the bottle of formula I’d made.  He reached for her again after she refused it, wailing and turning her head as far from me and that bottle as she could.  He held her perched on his arm, her tiny bare bottom peeking out of the split in her Chinese pants.  Her eyes welled fresh tears every time she caught sight of me.

The room was utter chaos – 35 families from three different adoption agencies were receiving their babies from 12 different orphanages in one large conference room on the second floor of the Anhui Hotel in Hefei, Anhui Province, China.   An hour or so earlier, my then-husband and I had been sitting at breakfast with our closest friends, who were also there to receive their second daughter.  The four of us had received our first daughters together three and a half years earlier, and had traveled together again, intentionally, because we knew that was how our families were meant to be created.   It made perfect sense to all four of us.  MJ and I were too nervous to sit still with our husbands.  We wandered out of the “western” restaurant and its unknown-meat breakfast to the balcony overlooking the entrance.  The babies weren’t expected for another hour, but this was better than sitting still.  I imagine this is how fathers felt back when they were relegated to hospital waiting rooms while their wives labored and delivered in mysterious rooms down the hall.  A small silver van pulled up outside the glass; our attention ratcheted up to high alert as a short, stout woman climbed out, her arms tight around a plump bundle with a shiny black head.  Four more followed, two men and three women.  We knew our orphanage was sending five babies, but another was as well, and we knew other agencies also had groups on their way.  MJ spotted her daughter almost immediately, though, and then mine.  Yes . . . maybe – I stared longer, but yes, yes, I could see it now.  They were here!!  We leaned against the railing, holding tight to each other’s arms, knowing our roller coaster ride was about to toss us in a brand new direction.

I fairly accosted the man with my daughter the moment they came up the stairs, asking if she was Hong Xi Ming. When he nodded, I motioned that I was Hong Xi Ming’s mama, and he said something to her I couldn’t understand.  He might as well have told her I was there to eat her kidneys – at first she refused to even glance my direction.  When she did, her tiny face was void of all expression.   I know that stoicism now as well as I know my own name, but at the time, all I wanted to know was what her little mind was making of this moment – our big moment.  Years later, we’d laugh about how scared she must’ve been of my pale face, green eyes and curly hair, how odd I must’ve sounded and smelled.  At the time, all I wanted to do was help her understand that eventually, she would turn to me for the comfort she so wanted at that moment – and that I would always be here to give it.

After many passings back and forth with the director, I finally held her long enough that she fell asleep in my arms, exhausted from the emotional havoc we were obviously wreaking in her mind.   The room was hot, babies were screaming, and I was so devastated for my sad little daughter that I’d mostly shut down, moving through the drawn-out bureaucratic process on auto-pilot.   My relief upon her falling asleep was enormous.   All I wanted was to get her up to our room, alone at last with the Mommy and Daddy she didn’t yet know, so that she could begin the knowing, the learning we’d love her forever, the building of trust in her new family.   When they finally got to us for our paperwork, we sat across a small table from stern officials in military-type garb and a translator. We verified names and dates and every time they would speak to each other in Chinese, I was certain they would tell us we couldn’t have her, after all. Finally they motioned impatiently for her leg, so I removed the fuzzy slipper from her tiny right foot and held her, still sleeping, over the table so they could press it into red ink and onto the paper – a foot-shaped stamp of approval on our tenuous, brand-new bond.  Shortly after, we were left to carry her out and up into our new lives together.

She awoke upstairs, looked around and rubbed her eyes, realizing that not only was the scenery new again, no familiar faces were in sight.  It was just . . . us.  Her eyes spilled over almost immediately and even as we tried to comfort her, we knew she needed to cry.  We decided distracting was better – we pulled out the Cheerios and the Nutrigrain cereal bars. We bribed her with tiny bites, and she seemed . . . interested.  I sat her on the bed and she toppled over immediately.  We realized that she could not yet sit by herself, even at 12.5 months.  I laid her down and we undressed her, one sweaty layer at a time.  The fat bundle we’d been handed disguised a rail thin baby girl with spindly legs and arms.  She allowed us to undress her with no complaints – until we got to her feet.  When I pulled her slippers off, she shrieked, the loudest noise she’d made yet.  Daddy had filled the sink with warm water, so I scooped her naked self up and quickly carried her over it, letting the warm water soothe those little feet.  An interesting feeling, she seemed to think, torn between how nice that felt on her toes and the fact that the weird people were watching her every move.  She accepted being bathed, and held tightly to a small plastic cup we’d handed her, showing her how to scoop and pour the water.

We wrapped her in a warm towel and she allowed me to smooth lotion over her tiny body as she lay on the bed, still clutching the plastic stacking cup.  She allowed me to do so until I got to her feet – the moment I touched them, she pulled away and shrieked.   I wondered why.  We eventually learned that she’d spent the time she wasn’t in her crib in a walker, lined in a breezeway with with several other baby-filled walkers.  She was short, so she’d dangled there, her little legs never touching the ground – hence the lack of muscle tone in her legs.   And in a walker, babies can’t reach or even see their own feet.  In the crib, she’d been bundled in layer upon layer, the way all Chinese babies are dressed. Like toddlers in bulky snowsuits, they can’t bend and squirm that way, so she’d likely never had the opportunity to discover her feet and play with her toes.  As I lotioned, we looked her over closely.  I’d already tried to wash the spot off her cheek that I finally realized was a birthmark, a tiny blotch emphasizing her left dimple.  Of course we hadn’t seen the dimples yet.  Those wouldn’t come til the smiles came, and that wasn’t today.

She had a ring of spots on her left ankle, symmetrical, all the way around.  My heart dropped when I saw them – scars, from what?  What had they done to my baby?  We were told later that they were insect bites and at the time, I decided to believe the ass’t. director when she told us that.  I supposed that it could be that – chigger-like bugs biting her along a sock line . . . but I had my doubts.  I imagine the more likely story was that she’d been bound by her foot to her crib so that she wouldn’t try to climb.   Her cribmate had no such marks, but as we’d learn not long after arriving home, MingMing was a spider-monkey disguised as a child.   If anyone would have attempted to climb a crib, she’d have been the one.

I assured her that first afternoon that she’d get used to having her feet touched.   I promised her that I would never hurt her.   She didn’t understand my words, but by the end of the day, she seemed to understand that we were, at least, well-intentioned.  Once we’d lotioned and dressed her, I brought her to my chest and into the Snugli, and for the rest of our time in China, that is where she spent most of her time.  That first evening, when she got upset and teary and showed no interest in food, I pulled the blanket we’d brought for her up over her head and whispered to her as I tried to calm her.  As the blanket blocked out the visual stimulation, she almost immediately slumped against me in the Snugli, asleep.   That trick worked for the rest of the trip and beyond – when she got over- stimulated and agitated, we’d cover her head and she’d immediately doze, much like a kitten when the mother cat carries it by the scruff of its neck.

On the second full day, we set out sight-seeing and were taken to watch an artist do calligraphy, big brush strokes on rice paper.  Someone would give him their child’s name, and he would create a poem around it.  We sat and watched, waiting our turn, and MingMing sat on my lap, her eyes wide, taking it all in as she’d been doing for over 24 hours.  Most of the babies seemed more calm out of the hotel, where the sights and smells were more familiar.  I’d let MingMing stand on my lap over the past two days, and even as her legs trembled and gave out every time, she loved trying and would wiggle with delight when I lifted her back up, each time lasting a few seconds longer than the last.  This time, after she plopped back down, she reached for pen I was holding.  I handed her the cap and she turned it in her hand, fascinated by this strange little item.  She looked up at me as if to show me her remarkable discovery . . . and smiled!  I jumped up and almost dropped her in my excitement.  When I called to her daddy, who was filming the calligraphy,  she smiled again.

Outside, she squirmed in my arms as if she wanted to get down.  I stood her on the ground and she held tightly to my fingers, wobbling, but standing there with a triumphant grin that simply glowed with the intensity of her glee.  By that evening, she was sitting unassisted and by the next day she was taking wobbly little steps as she held my hands.   She snacked on very little, she sipped and drooled water from a cup and adamantly refused every bottle I offered her, three times a day.   Oh, the formula we wasted!  But I was as determined to bottle-feed her as she was to resist, and I wonder now if it became almost a game to her.  She was much more intent on watching everything, playing with the stacking cups, whapping her cribmate with toys and balls and trying to crawl.  And she was smiling constantly.  By the second day, she’d allowed me to take her shoes and socks off and rub her feet.  By the time we got home, she was giving me her feet to rub when she got sleepy.  And the first night home, in the rocking chair in the girls’ bedroom, alone with her in the dark, I once again offered her formula.  This time, she cuddled into me and without hesitation, suckled the entire bottle.  She was home.

Ten years ago, our family received a gift, the enormity of which we are still discovering.   We’ve all changed a lot since then.  The three-and-a-half yr. old sister, who tried hard to squeeze the life out of this troublesome sibling the first time they met, snuck into my room this morning to ask when I was going to wake her sister up.  I said now, but she asked me to wait.  She sat next to her sleeping sister and turned on iTunes, nodding to me, as she started John McCutcheon’s “Happy Adoption Day” on her computer.  We woke MingMing up together, our Joerdan now, commemorating our 10 years as a family, just the three of us.   She’ll celebrate later with her dad and his new family, but this moment was just for the three of us, the Carney girls, the best little family I could ever hope to know.

Joerdan Smith Xi Ming Carney is my sunshine, my absolute joy.  Her spirit is vast.   Her 11-yr.-old self sits perched on the cusp of adolescence and she waffles between being mommy’s little girl and spreading her independent wings.  She asserts that independence more often all the time, limiting me to spectator rather than active participant in her days more and more.  She reads voraciously, getting lost in her books, unable to hear or respond to the outside world without three or four promptings.   She picks out tunes effortlessly on her violin or the piano, and draws intricate dragons and creatures that take my breath away.   She has blossomed in this, her fourth grade year, making new friends and allowing more of the world to see her silly self.  She excels in school, loves animals and roller-blading, rocks and carving wood and fire.  She keeps me organized and her sister grounded.  We balance each other pretty well, we three, and nothing makes me happier than watching my girls, two vastly different people from two distant cities, protect each other fiercely and love each other without reservation.

I am blessed.

ouch –

I got slammed this evening, and still not caught my breath.  I am waffling between feeling sad and ashamed, or damned angry.

I apparently got my best friend in hot water by tagging him in a photo on Facebook.   His current girlfriend posted on HIS page a short rant at about how I better let the intensity of our friendship go because it is hurting them.  

Is she right?  Is us maintaining a close friendship a problem?  

It might be.  I don’t know – my gut feeling is that he, as he was with me, remains unwilling to cross the line and just be committed, permanently, to one person.  He tells me he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to do that again, but that he doesn’t want to grow old alone.  He tells me that I’ll have his friendship always, whether I want it or not.   He and I had a lovely dinner on Thursday, talking and laughing for over three hours.  Nothing intense, just friends, talking.  It was great.  He sent me a “goodnight” video from YouTube later that night, telling me to sleep well.   Sunday, he went out of his way to make time to stop by my youngest’s birthday party, because they have a mutual adoration for each other, each in their quiet way.  He’s know her since she was 6 years old, and she matters to him.  I was touched that he came.   She was tickled.  I took pictures, and posted a couple on Facebook to show my cousin and niece.  I knew that if I tagged someone, they would be notified that a picture was up – but I didn’t realize that the photo would show up on their home page.  Ack!!  

Ido  try hard to stay connected to him – because I love him, yes.  But he’s been dating this woman for a year and a half – I’m not stupid and I know how he is and who he is.  I know he will not cheat on her, and I know he will not intentionally hurt her.  I know that he has a hard time, sometimes, speaking up when he risks hurting someone, but I also know that he will do it if he must.  If his relationship with me was threatening his relationship with her, he would tell her.  The fact that he has not means that she is not at risk of losing him – but apparently she has trust issues.  Or something.

So I feel bad for upsetting her and probably putting him in a bad place.  Then my mind starts racing in every direction possible, and I wonder if she’s right, if I am subconsciously holding on to him in order to cause problems for them?  A couple of decades ago, I’d say yes, probably.  But I’m pretty sure I’ve outgrown trying to manipulate men that way.  God, I hope so.  

Then I wonder if she was speaking on his behalf?  Has he even seen her caustic note?  If so, why did he leave it up there?  I panicked and just deactivated my Facebook account.  The last thing I intended was hurt.   Did he WANT her to send me away like that?

I don’t think so – but then . . . 

And then I get really pissed – the nerve of this person who doesn’t even know me, accusing me of some sort of juvenile mind games.  Dammit.

I need to sleep.  I wish I could.

Journalism as it falls into the abyss – -

I’m cross-posting here, because I feel strongly about what happened to a friend of mine last week.  

I write for a political/cultural blog rather sporadically, and I’ve been working on this for a couple of days, trying to be fair and keep my defensive anger in check.  This is long, but important.  It was posted on the other blog first, hence a couple of references to that blog’s founder and editor, who is also a good friend.  I love that I am able to be friends with the husbands of my girlfriends.  

But I digress.  Here you go, blogosphere:

Post-2008-election, I felt as though our country was finally regaining consciousness.  I felt hope and optimism rise and my cynicism roll back ever-so-slightly, the breezes of fresh thought dispersing the haze.  As my vision returned, I could once again engage in conversations that did not fizzle into frustrated non-verbal noise.

I began to see glimpses of a cultural evolution of thought through the wider population.  Just glimpses, but they were there, I know it.  I felt the whoosh of tired air as egos fat with imaginary power based on non-existent wealth were deflated by the reality  of financial correction.  I smiled as the facade of organized evangelical religion cracked under self-made storms of condescending hypocrisy.  I grinned with sincere joy every time I heard examples of new dialogue about race and culture in the wake of electing our first minority president.

All in all, I saw daily reminders that people, all of us, are truly equal underneath all the cultural trappings. Eye contact became pleasant again.  The obvious human connections we share – that we all love and laugh and hurt and seethe and wonder and sigh and ache and even hate – I could see those commonalities beginning to connect us again.  We argue and bicker, we debate and discuss, we learn, we teach, we manage, we create, we err and we try.  We help, we care, sometimes we dismiss.  We each react to information and situations from our own perspectives, wrought upon our own personalities by our own life stories.   But we seemed to be listening to each other again.

I hoped anew that as a culture, we were learning that all of those life stories matter.  That each one of us brings a unique self to the cultural table and that even when we strenuously disagree, we do not dismiss each other simply because of it.  

Silly me.

Last week, a friend of mine was fired.   Not a big deal, you might think, as people have been laid off in record numbers (including myself) over the past months of economic strife.  Sure, a big deal for him, maybe.  But, well, welcome to the masses.  Except that this friend represented something we cannot afford to lose, and his firing rips further into the frayed fabric of our local democracy.  Sadly, too many will dismiss the loss as no big deal – for the exact reason we so desperately needed him to stay.

You can read the specifics of the story on his blog:  www.sylvesterbrownjr.blogspot.com.  He tells it better than I; I can only share my feelings about the situation.  You can view his press conference here, courtesy of www.dangerousintersection.org’s Erich Vieth.

The newspaper from which he was let go posted a brief explanation, and that was that.  He’d violated their ethics policy.  But – he hadn’t.  I can see that some might say his short trip could give the appearance of such, and if so, perhaps he deserved a talking-to and small penalty.  I don’t think so, but I can see how someone might.  Had his “disciplinary action,” as it were, fallen in accord with what his colleagues received, though, he’d still be there.  

But, Sylvester is an activist.  He’s a proud shit-disturber, to put it quite bluntly.  He’s good at what he does – he’s an actual journalist.  When the city mayor and his staff act like thugs, he calls them on it.  When he does, they fuss.  As one poster commented on the newspaper’s online forum, “To the victor go the spoils. Lots of self-satisfied smirking in the Mayor’s office tonight.”  Yup.  I bet there was.  

As Erich has discussed at Dangerous Intersection previously, our mayor and several other elected officials sit on a “community advisory board” at the newspaper.  Because this is ostensibly not governance, no legal conflict of interest exists.  I imagine we aren’t the only city with such a board, either.  Doesn’t make it right, of course, and ethically, I find it a slap in the face to the fundamentals of journalism.  The St. Louis Journalism Review covered it well back in 2007 – the timeline from quality to not-so-much is evident.  As the supposed stronghold of honorable free speech and its role as the “fourth branch of government,” charged with the responsibility of keeping the populace informed with all that happens in their locale, including the good, the bad and especially the ugly, journalism should be the vehicle through which we receive the information about why we need to speak up, when and where we need to get involved, who we need to hear and how we can work for better.

How, exactly, with 67 community “advisors” hanging their agendas over these writers’ shoulders, are the journalists able to compile anything of substance and value?  

Seems to me that a big city daily really shouldn’t pander to any segment of its readership, powerful or otherwise, as oneforum poster supposed it might be doing.  I responded that this rather sucks the wind right out of the whole “journalistic integrity” argument for me.  How can they say they are holding one of their writers to some ethical standard that the paper in its entirety does not honor? Truly – aren’t the editors, in fact, saying, “Please-oh-please buy our paper and we’ll print whomever and whatever it is you want to hear, fair and balanced be damned?” 

As I read the forum, I was startled not at the number of posters who labeled Mr. Brown a racist, but that they were so glad to be excused from having to read his “racist rhetoric” any longer.  

Apparently these posters didn’t notice that he’d have a hard time being a good racist, really,  as by definition, that would mean he believes anyone outside his own race is inferior, yes?  By not paying full attention, these folks missed the fact that his wife is white, his youngest daughters biracial.

What I wish all of these posters and their ilk might understand is that Sylvester sounded racist to some because he had the fortitude to continue pushing for a dialogue about race even as many want to pretend it isn’t necessary.  I admire him for continuing to put it out there, continuing to say not what people WANTED to hear, but what we NEEDED to hear. I admire him for his candor, his integrity, his values and high standards. 

Sylvester may be many things, but he is NOT a racist. I know him. I know his family. He speaks from his experiences as a black man, with the unique vantage point of living within a transracial family. He shared with readers the experiences of people of color who often don’t have a voice – certainly not one that many will hear. He was that voice. Sure, lots of people didn’t want to hear it, and to that I can only say – your loss, buddy.  But that makes those experiences no less valuable, and makes his views perhaps even more necessary. 

Our mayor touts St. Louis as “one of the most integrated cities in the country.” If only that were true. We want to believe we’ve moved beyond racism, but just because people of all races live within the city limits does not mean we live together. We still suffer deep racial divides in St. Louis, divides exacerbated by poverty and culture, and anyone who believes we don’t is only kidding himself. I live here. I work here. I see it every day. 

My fervent hope for our country and culture is that we acknowledge our remaining racism, even though it exists more insidiously, perhaps, than in the past. I want to see us start TALKING ABOUT IT – face-to-face, gathering for conversations about our racial perceptions and how to disentangle race from culture as we expand our understanding. I’d like to see us be able to speak honestly and listen willingly, including admitting that most of us grew up with racism in our homes, to one degree or another. 

Our parents learned it from their parents, and passed it on to us now middle-aged white folk. I challen ge anyone over the age of 30 to honestly say they do not remember one single racist comment made by a parent or relative during their childhood. Really? C’mon. 

I clearly remember my well-educated father making snotty comments about black athletes, sometimes being downright mean, and joking at the expense of other ethnicities and races throughout my childhood and beyond. I’m proud to say that over the years, he has worked hard to expand his worldview and now, in his mid 70s, embraces his black neighbors and adores his granddaughters, my daughters, who also happen to not be white. But his perspective was impressed upon him throughout his own rural midwestern childhood, and its residue will color the rest of his life. I give him credit for awareness, though, and his real efforts to rise above what he once believed was the truth. 

By acknowledging what we truly believe and why, and by hearing from others who believe differently or who experienced a life vastly different from our own, we learn. Our minds open and expand and we find ways to see interest and creativity and20beauty in what we once ignored or even feared. 

Sylvester Brown put us on notice that much work still needed to be done, right here in our own little corner of the world. 

I would never wish unemployment upon the few remaining valuable writers, both columnists and reporters, at the Post Dispatch. But I have to wonder how long it can continue to limp along without honorable journalistic leadership.  And then I have to wonder, when it finally does go under, will anyone out here really care?

The Easter that Isn’t

I’ve never been fond of Easter.  I am, at this point, a bit baffled as to why – I can’t pinpoint any particular unpleasantness, but there it is.

My parents are distinctly agnostic, my mother’s faith in the fact that we don’t know any of the answers  a bit softer around the edges than my father’s, but both are certain that no ONE TRUE PATH exists.  They won’t go as far as declaring themselves atheists, as that seems almost as much a religion as religion.  The certainty that nothing beyond humanity exists seems too egotistical, somehow, to be counted upon.

Yet, out of a sense of obligation, they carted us to church through our childhoods.  First a generic Christian church, then a United Church of Christ.  We said a dinnertime prayer at the table before eating – the reciting of which fell to one of us kids.  ”God is great . . . ” and all that.  I hated it, because it meant nothing, really, except that we’d memorized words and the forced pause allowed everyone to dig in simultaneously when it was done.

My father didn’t speak of religion, really, when we were kids – it’s not like we left church and he launched into attacks on the theology, at least not that I remember.  But somehow, I think I knew they didn’t believe in the rhetoric they forced us to sit through.  I dreaded Sundays – it was never a warm family outing, but an irritating family obligation.  We didn’t stick around and socialize; we went home, had a nice meal and then  . . . I don’t remember except that I’m sure I was doing the homework I’d put off, when I was old enough to have that much.  Even as a small child, though, I saw Sundays only as the end of the weekend (and football day, of course, in the right season).

We received the requisite Easter baskets, colored and searched for the eggs, wore our new spring dresses (usually hidden under a coat) and sometimes even wore bonnets.  But the spirit of the holiday didn’t mean anything to my family.  We weren’t celebrating the rising of Christ, because my parents didn’t really believe he’d risen.  They didn’t say that, but I knew.  I doubted, and wondered why on earth they wanted me to believe something they did not.

Christmas was different – I think they could accept that he was born, that he was a good man and that he had an enormous impact on mankind and the world, even if we didn’t exactly believe he was born of a virgin birth, we could celebrate his existence without guilt.

And the hypocrisy was joined by grief one year at Easter Mass – as an almost-married young woman who’d just had a hysterectomy, I fell apart when the toddlers were all called forward for a blessing by the priest.  All those tiny children, and me, barren.  My fiance had to walk me out as I sobbed.  That, I suppose, didn’t boost the holiday in my estimation, even after I had my own little bunnies to take church.

Spring is good – a season of rebirth is necessary and calming and hopeful.  I can celebrate that.  But Easter weekend, for some reason, leaves me . . . empty.   Part of me is glad the girls are with their dad at church and brunch, but at the same time . . . are they just experiencing the same hypocrisy I did?  I know Sis thinks so.

Wait, that’s MY car!

The second episode was smaller, but a nice dose of stress in an otherwise already stressful week.  

Our side of the street gets swept on the first Thursday of the month, so on that day I parked my car on the other side.  I came back in the house and spent the day doing laundry and searching for jobs, applying for jobs and making calls.  When I headed out to pick the girls up from school, my car was . . . . gone.  Yep, completely gone.  

Now, keep in mind that just a little over a year ago, I had a car stolen.  A big SUV, which insurance paid for and from which I got the used Honda I drive now.  I immediately called the police, who first asked if it might’ve been towed.  I said I didn’t think so – why would it have been?  They looked it up and found no record of it being towed.  They took the report on the phone, Sis got a ride home with someone else who was kind enough to go out of her way to pick up Lil Bit, too, after her violin lesson.  I paced around my house and shook and was so angry I just sputtered to myself.  I knew this feeling too well.  Not only has one car been stolen, this car has been towed before, for too many parking tickets, back when I was in school and would park on the street if I was in a hurry.  Class always seemed to last longer than the meter. 

I cried a little and tried to figure out how I would explain to the insurance company that it happened AGAIN.

Then the phone rang.  As a matter of fact, they HAD towed my car.  It had no license plates.  But that couldn’t be, I argued;  if you recall, I gave you the plate number!  Well, it had no plates.  They were on a towing spree, it turns out, as my car was one of four towed in just my block that day.  So we re-did the police report to show that only the plates, not the entire car, had been stolen.  

Which still left me having to go all the way to a grungy industrial park up by the river to pick up my car, after, of course, I paid the $125 tow fee.  I argued that I should not have to pay for it; they didn’t see it that way.  Being the victim of a crime does not, apparently, excuse you from the fiscal fallout, regardless what it is.  I took a cab to the lot on Friday, got my car and double-checked to make sure I had no outstanding parking tickets.   Relief.  One drama wrapped up.  

And the plates?  Well, I even got those back, too.  Turns out that the punks who stole them were joyriding that night, a bit too fast.  They got pulled over.  Ha!  So I got to go pick up the plates after the car, and even managed not to get a ticket for driving from the tow lot to the station plate-less.

But that was only #2.  The worst was yet to come.

New commitments are hard to make –

Wow.  It’s still here.  My blog – just where I left it, over a month ago, covered perhaps  with a fine layer of dust but otherwise the same as it was last time I stopped by to whine and whimper.  I’ve been thinking for days that I have to renew my commitment, start over with my post-a-day promise, but life has taken some odd turns.  I fear re-committing primarily because I don’t want to fail – again.

If I’d only known then what was to come, I’d have shut right up.  I’d have smiled and figured that what felt like depression was merely a blip on the radar – just a bit down, but not a big deal and I shouldn’t worry so much.  Because since then . . . . well.  Ugly stuff.  But stuff that might ultimately actually turn out to be positive.  I’m not sure yet, but it’s possible. 

 Episode #1:  Walked into the office on Monday morning, March 2, early.  Felt like I was ready to put my best foot forward, even though I wasn’t happy there.  Loved the organization in theory.  Loved my two co-workers and the teens who  take part in the program, but hated dealing  with my boss.  One of the most negative, micro-managing, untrusting women I’ve ever met.  Ever.  I refuse to dwell on it now, but I’ll share one little nugget that describes her management style in a nutshell.  The Friday before, I’d been putting the finishing touches on the support material for a grant.  I’d finished it, made all the necessary copies and put each set into a report folder – black with a clear cover.  When I’d pull the little brads up to poke through the pages, black cardstock dust would loosen and cling to the clear acetate cover, due to static.  I’d brush it off, and inevitably, when I flipped through the pages, more of this paper dust would appear.  Flecks, nothing more.  When said boss appeared back from some errand to look them over, as she had to do before I delivered them lest I completely screwed them up – which she was certain we were all on the verge of doing, no matter what we were working on, and probably on purpose to make her look bad, don’t think she didn’t know this about us – the first words out of her mouth were, “What IS all this dirt??!”  

“Paper dust,” I said, not particularly surprised at her prowess for finding a problem,post-haste.  ”Flaked off when I lifted the brads.”

Silence, followed by a few heavy sighs, her signature sound.  ”Well.  It must be the way you opened the package of folders.”

Ummm, sure.  Because I . . . peeled the shrinkwrap off?  That’s it!!  How does she always figure it out?!  I intentionally filled these folders with my own special brand of static electricity and sprinkled them with ugly dust so that when the potential grantors examined the materials, they would be so distracted and disgusted by this DIRT all over the supplements that they’d angrily toss out our entire grant, leaving our organization destitute for the next year.  My bad.  All my fault.  

But not really, because remember, I did it on purpose.  

This was her mindset, about everything and everyone, all the time.  The only time she ever complimented me on anything was when she’d ask me to write some of that “fluffy, mushy stuff.  You do that best; I can never write mushy crap like that.”  

Uhhhh, thank you?

So this fateful Monday, I arrived in the office having taken many a deep breath over the weekend and decided not to fill her gas tank with bubbles.  The moment I sat down, she called me into her office.  ’Twas obvious something was afoot, as she seemed unusually calm, and had been cheerfully friendly when I walked in.  She gave me a very obviously rehearsed speech; to her credit, I know this was hard for her.  Told me that the economic downturn was affecting our bottom line more than the board had expected, and therefore they needed to eliminate a position.  As she’d told me more than once, last in would be first out – and that would be me.  She gave me some paperwork I needed to take and read and sign if I wanted my two weeks’ severance, told me they’d pay my insurance through the end of the month, thanks for all I’ve done, and good luck.  

I said nothing.  I stood up, went to my desk and gathered everything that belonged to me, and left.  Frustrated, angry tears fell, but no sound.  Nothing TO say.  How the hell was I going to find a job and support my daughters in this economy?  How would I not lose my house?  How would I pay for insurance?  She chased me out in the parking lot because I’d set the paperwork down and forgot to pick it back up.  I said thank you, and walked to my car. 

I called my friend, A., and sobbed to her on the phone.  Then I called Dear One, who lives nearby, and sobbed to him on the phone.  He told me to come over.  I did, and he was the first one to say, “You hated working there.  I know this is hard, but you’ll find something better.  I KNOW you will.”

I”m still hoping he was right.  

I’ve found part-time work with a company I could see staying with, should they have a full-time position.  I’ve got a couple of other irons in the fire as well.  I am home with my daughters for their spring break.  Things are unsteady, but certainly could be worse.  We’ll muddle through.

Now, we all know that when something big happens, more is to come.  These things always come in threes, right?

Well, this was number one.

a waste of a week

I wrote nothing this week.  

OK, I wrote.  I wrote at work, I wrote into some discussions on an email group, and I wrote a letter to my 2nd grade pen pal at my daughter’s school.  I started to get some things done at work this week, and then sabotaged my whole week.  The whole damned thing.  Work, relationships – poof, messed up.

Depression sucks more than I can explain, and now I’m fairly certain something more is going on.  I want to hide at the back of my closet.  I cried when my kids went off with their dad this morning – I felt desperate not to be with them.  I have no idea why.

I made commitments and then I blew them off – got through the first three days of the week fine, then . . . damn.  I wish I knew what happened, what triggered it all.  My ex acted like a jerk, but I was just as bad.  We talked, he explained some things I’d misunderstood, and I don’t hate him.  He’s really not a bad guy. 

I didn’t get my pen pal’s Valentine letter to her on time, and I missed a volunteer clean-up I was supposed to do.  I did make my daughter’s parent/teacher conference.  I did manage to get through the work week.

But barely.  I’ve taken myself off of Facebook – too much temptation to waste time.  And I cut things off with my dear one.  I’m going to give him the chance to make a relationship work with his girlfriend without the distraction of me, because he clearly cannot handle having both of us in his life.  He snapped yesterday, and it scared the crap out of me.

I’ve not slept or eaten much this week, my face is one giant acne break-out, and I feel paralyzed with  . . . sadness. 

I have to do something different.  I just don’t know what.

My born-organized kid –

 - is going to help me straighten up. 

Literally.  My not-quite-11-yr.old daughter is one of those people who can look at a mess and see that it can be conquered in small chunks, and then actually START working on those chunks!  Hard to believe, I know.  

But yes, she’s going to do it with me.  Tomorrow, we begin.

More as the story unfolds . . .

Singing and dancing through her teen years –

This morning, we headed out to purchase a leotard for Sis before her dance class.  She is taking modern dance and a Broadway singing class on Saturdays.  She’s done musical theater before and LOVED it, but is realizing that she needs to improve her skills if she is going to continue.  

 

Daughters of Siam, summer '06

She’s done both Miss Saigon and the King and I – being Asian and poised, those were easy.  In Miss Saigon (years ago), she played Tam, the little boy, a role requiring Asian-ness, a major haircut, the ability to follow directions, and an unflappability not present in all 6 yr. olds.  She pulled it off stunningly.  In The King and I, her Asian-ness was again a plus, altho’ a couple of the children were not; her poise and her strong singing voice got her a role as one of the King’s children.  Lil Bit played another.  They also both were chosen for the chorus of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.  Again, being ethnically “diverse” was a plus. 

 

What Sis has learned is that most roles require more dancing than those, and being Asian only helps in certain roles.  She was quite disappointed to learn, years ago, that she’d probably be an unlikely choice for one of the Von Trapp children, due to that whole not-many-Chinese-Austrians thing.  

She has never been graceful.  Poised, yes.  Coordinated, not so much.  I can relate to this, having been an eternal klutz my whole life.  She does the same thing I always did – she THINKS too much.  Lil Bit can learn a dance by letting herself fall into the music and feel it.  Sis and I have to count in our heads and think and plan and by the time the music starts, we are so stressed and muddled that our bodies lock up and we are three steps behind before we start.

But I have to admire her effort here.  She seems to be ready to try again, and more confident in her ability to at least master the basics now.  She’s more comfortable in her  own skin at her healthier weight, and has good friends telling her she can do it.  One of them is in the class with her, and this friend is a year older and active in theater, so is a wonderful peer-mentor for her. 

She won’t let me stay and watch the class like when she was little, which makes me sad.  But I love that she’s trying this all again.  I love that she acknowledged she needs the coaching, but believes in her own ability to learn.  When I was her age, I’d already given up on myself in all things creative – only in the last few years starting to discover some of them again.  

The place she takes her classes offers one I might even take one day.  It’s called “Singing for Those Who Have Been Asked Not To.”   Now if I don’t fit in there, I can’t imagine who would!