Sugar Cubes

When I lived in Gabon, the only way to get refined, white sugar was in the form of cubes. Let me restate that: the only practical way to get refined, white sugar was in cubes. I'm sure some of the swanky expat stores in the capital sold granulated sugar by the bag, but I shudder to think what it would have cost. I preferred to spend my luxury money on cheese and just crush up sugar cubes when I needed them for occasional baking. Besides, the sugar cubes were made locally, so it was a boost to the Gabonese economy to buy them. I'm a giver.

The kids and I hosted some friends for dinner tonight.* The friends brought the fixings for a before-dinner cocktail of a sugar cube soaked in bitters topped with champagne and a twist of lemon. (This must have a name, I just don't know it.) Seeing the box of sugar cubes made me think of Gabon, and how I would get these cravings for American dessert—American food of all kinds, but specifically dessert as at the time I had a raging sweet tooth—and how one of the many toils of baking there was crushing up those sugar cubes. I knew exactly how many made a cup, was it 48? Seems like to many. Maybe it was 36? I can't remember and it doesn't matter now. The cubes came in a cheap blue box, gritty and grainy. The sugar was coarsely ground and the cubes were fairly loosely held together; the Gabonese would cram an impossible amount of them into a single cup of Nescafé, often topped with an equally impossible amount of sweetened condensed milk. Forget the caffeine: the Gabonese were on a sugar high in the morning.

It was sunny today, and warm. Summer is ever so slowly on its way. I can't wait for the heat. I complained bitterly about the heat in Gabon, but ever since I've been back, I can't shut up about the cold and how it bothers me. This damp, dreary, chilly and totally typical Oregon spring has taken the wind out of my sails. When I lived in Gabon, I'd reach for a sweatshirt when the temps dropped to 80°F or below. I'm not quite that cold-adverse now, but I'm ready to feel the sun on my face, to sleep in something other than fleece, to not always need a scarf of some kind around my neck.

I'm just as happy, though, not to have to crush the sugar cubes anymore.

*As an aside, I'm quite proud of my Memorial Day non-BBQ: we had three kinds of homemade cheese + crackers and bread for an appetizer (cubed white cheese with basil and red pepper flakes paired with plain water crackers, soft herb cheese paired with roasted garlic baguette, and cubed white cheese with honey and cinnamon paired with sweet wheat biscuits); salmon teriyaki; sweet potato salad w/chili-lime dressing; sauteed asparagus; white rice; and for dessert, strawberry shortcake with homemade shortcakes and freshly whipped cream. YUMMERS.

Going Without

The house I lived in while I served in the Peace Corps had running water and electricity. Most of the time. It was a cement block house with a tin roof and cement floors, featuring a western bathroom and "modern" kitchen and bare bulbs throughout. So much for the romantic vision of a mud hut with a thatched roof, but I can't say as I minded the modern conveniences.

Except when they didn't work. I had plenty of Peace Corps friends who never had running water or electricity, and this who learned to live without such luxuries fairly quickly. They had rain barrels and lanterns and a schedule that was based on the rising and setting of the sun. Part of their routine was fetching water or part of their budget was paying a local kid to do so for them. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to wash dishes and take a bath with a system of buckets and cups. Doing without running water and electricity just became part of their experience, and, in time, just a part of life.

My water and electric service were frequently interrupted. The town would run out of fuel for the generator, or the generator would break, or a storm would knock out the power or countless other events would transpire to make my house dark and dry. There was never any warning and never any sense of how long the outages would last. A friend of mine lived next to the generator and could sometimes get information from the workers there about service interruptions, but even the town employees didn't usually have complete or accurate information to pass along. And so, in the middle of doing laundry or while trying to grade papers at night, I'd suddenly find myself without a way to rinse the soap from my clothes or needing to stumble through the house for the flashlights, candles, and matches.

The obvious solution to this was to be better prepared. There was no reason for me not to have a rain barrel to collect water for just these situations (well, other than that keeping mosquitoes from breeding in rain barrels is not easy, even with good covers), and I could have purchased some good kerosene lamps to have for when the power went out. But I confess that I felt somehow entitled to my water and electric. It was supposed to work, I felt. Life in Africa was already fraught with difficulty, and I felt I deserved to be spared some of that trial by the presence of water and electric in my life.

John died when the twins were nine months old, and before that he was in the process of dying. I liken my single-parenthood to the situation of my Peace Corps friends who never had running water and electricity to begin with. Not having those luxuries was just a fact of life. They can remember what it was like to live in another place, at another time, with those things (among other conveniences), but in the moment, they adapt and move forward and mostly just take the lack at face value. So it is for me. Oh, do I ever remember how wonderful it was to have John around and oh, how often do I wish he were still here, but he's not. And so I have created a life and a routine and a flow that is based upon the lack of a spouse. My coping mechanisms aren't always the best (Single Parenting: I Guess Poor Parenting Is Better Than None at All), and when I have an extra pair of hands around, it gives me a taste of what I'm missing—much like our occasional Peace Corps training weekends in "luxury" (it was the third world) hotels did for my colleagues who lived without much luxury day-to-day.

I will occasionally get e-mails from friends who have kids but whose spouse is away for an extended period of time. They are lovely e-mails that are usually filled with a newly deepened empathy for my spouse-less situation and an admiration for what I do to manage the logistics of single parenting. These messages often contain the sentence, "This is so hard!" I'd be the first person to agree that being a single parent is hard, but in all fairness, I think it's harder to be a part-time single parent than to do what I do. These friends with spouses who travel or are deployed in the military or who go take care of infirm family members are like I was in the Peace Corps. When you regularly have a support person in your life—or regularly rely on running water and electric—their sudden absence shifts your entire routine. For those used to have a spouse around it's not just a logistical shift of figuring out how to do it all on your own, but an emotional sea change for the kids and the adults. It creates a whole new family dynamic and a whole new rhythm, and it's something you can't really plan for because until it happens, it's hard to know just how it will feel.

For my friends who are going it alone right now, I'm sorry your water and electric are off. I hope they come back on soon. At least you probably have good information about when service will be restored. Until then, know that you're doing a good job at a very difficult job. Hats off.

Bitten Off; Unable to Chew

There was one night when I was in the Peace Corps that I was walking from a fellow volunteer's house to my house, and I was so unbearably tired that I actually entertained the idea of just laying down in the middle of the road and taking a nap right there. "There's not much traffic and everyone knows who I am; no one will bother me," I thought.

Moments ago, as I was walking from the kitchen to my office, I had the same thought. "I could just lie down here in the hall and stretch out, take a nap . . . hardly anyone is in the office today. I'm sure no one would mind."

My brain is addled. My head is spinning with thoughts on the house (thanks for your comments on that; meeting with realtor tomorrow to talk numbers, marketing plan, etc.), my job (took 10% pay cut last week; have a few resumes out there and a few bites), and the inauguration (so exciting! so many happy tears shed while listening to the ceremony!). Friends were in town over the weekend with their three-year-old twins, which was fun but exhausting. Much good food and good wine were consumed, and the nights were short indeed. Last night, I hosted my book club, got to bed late, and then got up with a pukey toddler at 3:30 a.m. (no real illness, just a cough-gone-wild thing, to which Maddie is prone, but still had to clean her and the bed up . . . and the power went out while I was doing it). Between the emotional tumult and lack of sleep, I feel a little pukey myself, or at least like I'm coming down with a cold.

And there's no rest for the wicked. I'm double-booked on inauguration parties tonight, one with the kids and one after they go to bed. Might have to cancel one or both. The second is actually a date of sorts; it's a small dinner party, and the host is someone one of the other guests has been trying to set me up with for a while. If I attend, I, along with all the other guests, am expected to deliver a toast in honor of Obama's inauguration. Pressure! Yeesh.

Tomorrow I meet with the realtor, Thursday boasts a job interview and dinner with a friend. Friday is another dinner. Saturday is another party. Last week, I had nothing scheduled on any evening. I'm definitely in a feasting phase in the feast or famine of life. Of course, I can say no to/reschedule/cancel some the social events, and I might. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about having lots of fun things on the docket. I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed today. And tired. So tired!

This post is totally lacking in structure, so I figure there's no better way to end it than with a Maddie story from our trip to Oregon, one that makes me laugh every time I think about it and that I've been meaning to share since happened. Hope you enjoy it.

[Maddie is sitting on the floor of her room, stark naked, inspecting her vagina at very close range]

Me: Mads, what are you doing over there?

Maddie: I lookin' at my vagina, Mama.

Me: I see that. What do you see in there?

Maddie [pause]: Oh . . . money. And strawberries.

Me: ??? !!!

Benadryl Rules

All hail Benadryl! It's a miracle in a bottle!

This is not to say that we had a peaceful night of no interruptions, but it is to say that Maddie didn't wake up coughing until 12:15 a.m., about when the Benadryl was set to wear off, and after a trip to the bathroom and a second dose of medicine, she slept until 7:30 a.m. this morning. Of course, Riley was up when Maddie started coughing, then he was up again at 1:00 demanding a diaper change (since when do 2.5-year-olds poop in the night?!), but he settled down both times pretty quickly.

After I got Riley tucked back in bed with a fresh diaper, it was around 1:15 a.m. Earlier in the evening, I'd fallen asleep reading on the couch and awoken at 9:10 p.m. to find that Patriots football had trumped Grey's Anatomy in the Boston market. Thanks to informative reader Ragtop Day, though, I knew that Grey's was set to air at 1:05 a.m. Hmmmmm, I thought, I've only missed the first ten minutes of Grey's! So I set up shop on the couch and watched the rest. Yes, I'm tired today, but frankly I don't think I'm any more tired than I would have been otherwise, and there was something so cozy and also illicit about watching TV at one in the morning. I even ate a big ol' cookie while I watched. And didn't brush my teeth afterwards. I am CRAZY, I'm telling you, CRAZY.

This past week-plus of relatively lengthy stretches of being up in the middle of the night has made me think of Peace Corps. During my time in Gabon, my sleeping patterns were all messed up. As per local custom, I often took a midday nap. And I usually went to bed pretty early as school started at 7:00 a.m. and I had a 30-minute walk to campus. Between the nap, the early bedtime, and the bizarre side effects of the antimalarial Larium,* I was often wakeful in the night, up for hours, listening to the sounds of the jungle, reading, fretting, etc. That was my sleeping pattern for three years, and while I got to the point of accepting it, I never really liked it or adjusted to it. I'm relatively confident that this spate of middle-of-the-night awake time will not last three years, so I'm finding it somewhat easier to bear, but I'll be glad when I get to sleep through again. Since having the twins I've learned that for me, a six-hour uninterrupted stretch of sleep is the Gold Standard. If I get that, all is well. More is better of course, but I'm trying not to be greedy here.

We've got a social weekend planned: friends to see, places to go, art projects to do. Should be nice, hopefully not too overprogrammed. Happy weekend, everyone.

*I could go on and on about Larium, the side effects, the sketchy nature of the dosage and duration for which Peace Corps volunteers (and members of the armed services) take the drug. It's pretty scary. I'll save it for another post.

Verb Tenses and Getting Away

As a linguist by trade, I'm familiar with verb tenses one and all. From the basic past, present, and future to the more esoteric subjunctive, plu-perfect, and conditional, I know the ins and outs of how to time-stamp words.

There is one tense I did not learn about until I was in the Peace Corps, though: the Present Obvious.

The Gabonese are masters of the Present Obvious. If, for example, I was sitting on my duffel bag at a crossroads, a daypack on my back, clearly waiting for a bush taxi, the comment I would most often hear from passers-by was, "Madame, vous voyagez." [Madame, you're going on a trip.] Why yes, kind of you to notice. If I was drinking a Coke while I waited, I might also hear, "Madame, vous avez un Coca." [Madame, you have a Coke.] True. If it was raining, guess what? Someone would probably feel the need to add, "Madame, il pluet." [Madame, it's raining.]

I didn't realize until I had toddlers that the Present Obvious is the preferred tense for the two-year-old set, too. 

"Mama! Mama! Big truck! I see big truck!"

"This Maddie's duckie."

"Paul put gas in MaddieRiley car."

"Ba holding Riley's hand."

"This hot."

"Maddie drinking agua."

"This pink cup."

"Riley working." [as he bangs on the fence with a water bottle]

The Present Obvious does not lend itself well to conversation; once the obvious has been stated, there's not much left to say. Of course, with the twins, I validate what they've said and try to ask a follow-up question (What color is the big truck? What is your duckie's name? etc.) But it's interesting to me how the twins love to comment on their world, and how everything they see is worthy of making a comment on. Part of it is that this is their level of language right now—we're just not yet to the point of having philosophical discussions. But it's also related to what they find interesting and what they notice, often things that to me are totally unremarkable and even boring. 

*************************************

I went to the movies with Gio last night; we saw Sex and the City. It was wonderful and perfect, over two hours of total fluff and complete escapism. My dinner consisted of hot pretzels with cheese, Raisinets, and Diet Coke. I laughed and cried. 

I absolutely love going to the movies. I'm one of those people who gets completely sucked in by the experience. I truly forget where I am and become a part of the action on the big screen. It's one of the few times in my life when I'm totally in the moment. I never see what's coming next, I only see what's there, right in front of me at that very second.

John got a total kick out of this. When we watched the movie "Miracle" together, about the U.S. hockey team's defeat of the Soviet Union at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, I was a wreck in the last few minutes of the game. I was gripping John's arm and could barely look at the screen. "Goose," John said, "you know who wins!" True, but in the moment, I was giving no thought to what was coming next. 

This total absorption makes movie-watching very exciting for me, and it's what makes going to the movies feel like the ultimate indulgence. When I'm at the movies, no part of my brain is thinking about the laundry or other chores. I'm not worried about the fact that I have not been exercising enough or that I yelled at the twins over nothing or that I feel sad. The movies are a total escape from reality, and going to the theater is the thing I miss most about my pre-child life. John and I went to the movies a lot, once a week on average. It was our thing, our way to get away. 

The timing on movies is tricky. Showtimes are usually around 7:00 p.m. and around 9:00 p.m. To be at a 7:00 movie, I have to have have a babysitter who feels comfortable putting the twins to bed. If I go to a 9:00 show, there is every chance that I will fall asleep before the movie is over. So I haven't made it to the movies much since Maddie and Riley were born. But as they get older, it gets easier for someone else to put them to bed. I'm thinking that I need to get out to the movies more often, maybe once a month. Gio and I saw the preview for Mamma Mia last night—that might have to be my next big escape.

The Rage Within

I spent three years in the Peace Corps in Gabon, Central Africa. I was an English teacher for two years in the remote town of Makokou, the capital of the Ogooué-Ivindo province, then for my third year, I lived in the Gabon's capital, Libreville, and worked with officials at the Ministry of Education to write English books for sixth- and seventh-graders.

Anyone who thinks the Peace Corps is about helping other people is suffering some serious delusions. Sure, I helped a few hundred kids learn some English—a valuable life skill in the heart of the rainforest—and I opened some eyes to what else it out there in the world. I'm not saying I didn't help anyone. But what I really got out of my three years in the Peace Corps was a lot of knowledge about myself. It was a crash course in Hard Life Lessons, and I learned most of them by making a ton of bad decisions. It was an exhilarating, exhausting, difficult time in my life. I'm so glad I had that experience, but man, it was a tough, tough road.

One of the things I learned while I was there was just how angry I am capable of getting. I grew up in a house where we're always fine. Things are always good. We don't do extreme emotions very well, at least not the bad ones. We're fine with extreme happiness, but when it comes to being sad or mad or anything else that's uncomfortable, we tend to do a lot of faking it 'til we make it and hauling ourselves up by the boostraps and Moving On. It's a philosophy that's actually served me pretty well; there are times when I pretend I feel great and all of a sudden I do. Magic! If I'm feeling pissy about something that's actually quite petty, or irritated by something that's really not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, I am well-served by having been taught that I just need to Get Over It.

But when it comes to anger, I learned in the Peace Corps that you can only push it aside for so long before you Blow the Fuck Up. It all came to a head for me at the post office in Libreville. If ever there was a place designed to piss people off, the Gabonese post office is it. I once went to mail something when I lived in Makokou, and despite the fact that there were at least four workers behind the counter, I was told that "the person in charge of mailing things" was not there. It's the post office. Isn't everyone in charge of mailing things? Pfffttt. Care packages are what keep Peace Corps volunteers sane, and we usually had to pay bribes to get them. Even worse, sometimes Package Guy (yes, there was only one of him, and he worked limited and unpredictable hours) would glibly tell us that there were no packages to be had when we could see them behind the counter. I'm sure he did this just to make us sweat, emotionally, that is, since it was 90°F with 110% humidity and we were already drenched with physical perspiration.

So one day, I battled the heat and humanity of Libreville to go buy stamps. It cost 260 Gabonese francs to send a letter to the U.S. There was no such thing as a 260-franc stamp. You had to cobble together a collection of CFA20 and CFA50 and CFA10 stamps to make the sum total of CFA260. Once I had to put twenty-six ten-franc stamps on my letter, layered so as to show just the value and thus not cover the entire face of the envelope. Crazy. So I go, to buy fifty-thousand stamps that will allow me to mail ten letters, already feeling annoyed just by the idea of the post office. I don't remember for sure, but I'm certain that I was harassed for being white, or a woman, or fat, and someone probably groped my ass or my boobs, and at least a dozen people likely hit me up for money before I even got to the counter. But eventually, I made it to the front of the "line" and asked for enough stamps to mail ten letters to the U.S.

"We're all out of stamps, Madame."

Out of stamps? I repeat: it's the post office. How does the post office run out of stamps? I was livid. LIVID. I'm sure I yelled at the woman behind the counter, and I'm sure she yelled back at me. But what I remember most about that transaction is that for the first time in my life, I felt that if I were able to physically harm the Stampless Woman, I'd feel better. I wanted to punch her right in the face. Multiple times. She was my scapegoat for all that was wrong with the Gabonese postal system, the final straw in my two-and-a-half years of postal frustration.

I had never before felt like physically hurting someone would make me feel better. Of course, I didn't punch her and I'm sure that it wouldn't have made me feel better at all if I had. But the idea was so, so tempting. As I left the post office, I knew that it was time for me to leave Gabon and go home to the States to regain my cool.

That deeply physical feeling of rage was quiet for years after I got home. Sure, I got mad—one of the things I started learning in Peace Corps was how to express anger rather than repress it. But then I became a parent. Kids do all kinds of things that make their parents feel angry. That's part and parcel of parenting. But I find I'm often angry with the twins about things that are my problem, not theirs, and yet I end up unleashing my anger on them even though they don't deserve it.

This morning, for example, I screamed at the twins. SCREAMED. It was gutteral and primal and, shamefully enough, quite satisfying. Their crime? Not wanting to get dressed. A toddler classic that I just didn't feel like dealing with today. So I screamed, they freaked out and got scared, and then they were compliant out of fear. I just said in a post yesterday that I don't like to be ruled by fear, so it hardly seems right that I'm ruling the twins that way. 

So we end up in a disgusting cycle of me blowing up, the twins being scared, me apologizing, and us all having a big snuggle and moving on. Sigh. I'm sick of it. They are sick of it. We have even instituted a house motto: No Freaking Out. It's cute and funny to hear little Maddie and little Riley say, "Mama freaking out. No freaking out, Mama!" 

I'm working on this with my therapist. And it's helping. Slowly. It used to be that I'd be yelling before I even knew what was happening. We'd be going along all fine and dandy and then poof! I was yelling, and I wouldn't have even felt it coming. Now I usually feel it coming, and sometimes I can stop it. I'll say things like, "Mama is feeling angry right now," or "What can we do differently right now?" or "I need to take a break for a minute." Sometimes I still end up yelling, but that awareness is slowly coming. 

I think that part of what's at work here is that being in therapy is bringing up a lot of anger I have about John's illness and death. I have a lot of resentment about what cancer has done to my life (not to mention what it did to John's). I spend more time during my sessions with the therapist talking about how to handle the anger that bubbles (boils) to the surface rather than talking about where it's coming from. I think the combination of keeping the anger at bay for so long combined with devoting more time to thinking about its causes mixed with a couple of two-year-olds is making a lot of uncomfortable things surface. 

I'm OK with that. I'm OK with yelling at the twins occasionally. I would never, ever, EVER hit them, nor have I even come close (although I have thrown a lot of things across the room and nearly broke my toe by kicking a bookcase). But I want to spend a lot of time in the next weeks figuring out how to release my anger in ways other than taking it out on the twins as they have somehow become my primary target. I want them to learn how to handle big emotions appropriately, and I have not been modeling that very well. I also want them to know that when I get angry, I mean it, and that it's not a more-or-less constant state of being.

Related to this is that I want to get more comfortable with just hanging out at home with the twins. I pretty much never get angry or yell when I'm out in public. That would be so shameful! So white trash! The truth is that one of the reasons the twins and I are out and about so much is that I know it's emotionally "safe" for us to be away from home. Home is where I lose my shit. Home is where my buttons get pushed. It's said that the reason a lot of kids cry when their parents pick them up at daycare is that kids feel safe releasing their emotions in the presence of a parent. I have a little bit of that going on with being at home. I feel like I can let it all out there, which is fine, but sometimes I need to redirect it. Maybe I need to start wearing a rubber band on my wrist and snapping it when I start to feel out of control. I've been working on naming my anger (or other feelings), acknowledging that it's OK to have that feeling, then choosing not to invite that feeling to be a part of my present interaction, but I think I need something more physical and immediate for when then a child says, "No, Mama, all by self," for the thousandth time, wanting to do something that is physically impossible for said child to do and refusing all help. Grr.

The weather is supposed to be gorgeous this weekend. We have a few things planned: a playdate at the park, a trip to have dim sum, a very low-key BBQ at our place with friends. We're going to start the weekend with a walk on the bike path after daycare tonight, as I know that exercise is a great way to get out some negative stuff and bring on some endorphins. I want to not expect myself to be perfect, but I do want to work hard. And I want to have fun with my kids. I want them to have fun with me. I want them to love being at home, to love for the three of us to be together. It seems so simple, doesn't it?

[NB: For those of you who (a) made it through this long piece and (b) might have missed another long piece, there is a post below yesterday's Idol post about how and why John and I decided to have kids despite his diagnosis. Due to Blogger weirdness with drafts, I posted it after the Idol post, but it appeared as though I posted it the day before. You can find it here.]

"Earth's Last Eden"? Really?

I've never watched Survivor, but I might have to start next season. It was just announced that Survivor: Gabon—Earth's Last Eden will begin filming in late June. Having spent three years there in the Peace Corps, I know from personal experience that Gabon is a gorgeous, lush, tropical country. But Earth's Last Eden? I'm not so sure. Guess the producers need some media hype to get everyone excited about a country virtually no one in the U.S. has ever heard of.

As for Jeff Probst's comment in the EW article that "no one has really hung out there," what the hell is he talking about? He must mean no one from the Survivor crew, because plenty of other people have hung out there and could give him some ideas on what to expect in terms of wildlife. Sheesh, Jeff, do a little research already.

On the subject of reality TV, my in-laws are in town this week for my father-in-law to attend a medical conference. They are coming over tonight to see the kids. And me, I guess. I might have to miss Idol! For the second week in a row! Tragedy.

The Here and the Now

My best friend is moving to Portland, OR.

Erk and I met our freshman year in college. After college, when I was in Peace Corps, we stayed in touch as best we could with letters, and managed to actually see each other a couple of times, once on a vacation to England and once in the US when I was home for Christmas during my third year. When we were both in grad school in different states, we talked every Sunday night on the phone.

Then, in 1999, we moved to Boston together. And here we have been ever since. Neither of us expected to stay here as long as we have, and both of us aspired to end up back in Portland, where I grew up and where we went to undergrad.

She's landed an amazing job. Great environment, great hours, great pay, great location. I am truly happy for her. She's worked hard for this.

But it's in Portland.

I have two main issues with this: (1) I am going to miss her something fierce, and (2) I am jealous as all get out.

As far as missing her is concerned, well, what can be done? I know we'll talk. She'll see my family a lot. And I have lots of other friends here to keep me company. But I'll still miss her and that won't be fun. She and I agree that it's harder to be left behind than it is to leave, and I'm finding it especially hard since I'm usually the one leaving. I'm not used to this role.

What makes staying behind especially hard for me right now is that Erk's departure brings into sharp focus an unsettled feeling I've had for some time now. I'm having a really hard time being satisfied with what I have in my life. It's easy for me to look at Erk's life and see two big things she has that I don't: a husband and a job she is really excited about in the city she wants to live in. My husband is dead and my job is pretty dead, too.

There are circumstances in my life that I can't change (e.g., John being dead) and then there are those that I can (e.g., my job). Perhaps oddly, I find it easier to make peace with the circumstances that are unpleasant, but beyond my control. If I can't control it, there's no sense in trying. While I may be sad or angry or who-knows-what-else because of it, all I can do is honor those emotions and take life as it comes.

It's those things that I can change that tie me up in knots. I could get a new job. I could move back to Oregon. But those are two decisions that would bring unknown and unforeseeable changes to my life. I can make pro and con lists and project and guess about what those changes would bring, but at the end of the day, I can't KNOW. I want to know. As much as it drives me crazy, my job has some perks (easy schedule, slow pace, close to daycare and home, flexible hours, reasonable pay). Boston has its selling points, too (I own a home, have loads of wonderful friends, an amazing daycare for Maddie and Riley, and a job in an industry that does not exist in Portland). I could gain more than I can imagine by making either one or both of those changes, but I could also lose a lot.

In the end, I'm not much of a risk-taker. I'm also busy and tired. But I'm also discontent, and I'm not sure how to fix that feeling without taking risks. I feel like I'm on the verge of a change, a big change, but I don't know what it is yet or how to make it happen. What I know for sure is that it is getting increasingly difficult for me to be at peace with what my life is right now, and Erk's move is exacerbating that feeling.

Losing It

I had brunch today with some friends from Peace Corps. Those of us in greater Boston—and by "greater Boston," I mean New England—try to get together a couple of times a year. We've known each other for 13 years now, and it's always good to catch up.

Today, only a few of us could make it. We all have kids now, so it was pretty crazy trying to keep tabs on all the little ones and get the children and adults fed. I had not seen one of the couples there since I was pregnant. We chatted some, and John's name even came up a few times, but not once did either of them say so much as "I'm sorry."

I found that incredibly hurtful. I know it can be awkward to know what to say, but I'm also tired of being understanding and cutting people slack about that. I'm the one who suffered a loss, people. I'm sick of feeling like I'm the one who has to offer comfort because the people who should be comforting me feel awkward.

This same couple expressed an interest in getting a group photo before everyone had to head home. Maddie and Riley were getting very impatient, so I got packed up and said a few times, "So, are we doing a picture?" Discussion ensued: couch? outdoors? The twins were really ready to go. I finally lost it and just said, "Look, this is ridiculous, we need to go home. We're out for the photo." It took me getting all over-reactive and teary in the car to realize that the photo was not the issue. It was the fact that these friends could not acknowledge my loss. I'm (obviously) still stewing about it, but the anger is dissipating. But seriously, what is wrong with people?

Rockin'?

Many moons ago, Halfmama dubbed me a Rockin' Blogger. (Someone else gave me the nod, too, and I can't remember who it was because as my last post indicated, I'm crazy like a fox. Remind me who you were and I will link to you here!) That Halfmama is very, very kind to me. I don't feel so rockin' these days. Well, actually, I do feel pretty rockin' on many days, but I feel that way just for getting through the day. Seems like I should do more than that to be truly rockin', but why don't I just shut up now and say, "Thank you, Halfmama! You make a girl feel gooooood!"

As a token of my rockin'-ness, I am to offer up five random thoughts on feminism. Here goes nothin':

1. I get sick of people saying to me, "Oh, you have boy/girl twins, it's a perfect way to study nature/nurture and gender differences since you are raising them in exactly the same way!" OK, maybe, yeah. But I don't think it's an excuse to label the differences between Maddie and Riley as gender-based. Two is a really small sample, people! Just because Maddie happens to be more verbal does not mean that girls are more verbal as a whole! Just because Maddie likes to give Elmo a bottle and Riley likes to throw Elmo on the ground and stomp on him does not mean that girls like to be little mommies and boys don't know how to show the love. (So that's not really about feminism, but it's about gender equality/inequality, and that will have to do.)

2. I think my husband was more of a feminist than me. As he always said, "I'm a counselor. I'm practically a chick!" He was very sensitive to gender issues. I hope I can pass the same awareness on to my kids.

3. When I lived in Africa, I worked on a project that involved getting some books printed in Gabon's capital city, Libreville. I had to find a printer that was willing to print the books at a reduced cost. How did I accomplish this? I left my (male) Gabonese counterpart at the office, got very dressed up, wore a low-cut shirt, and used my feminine wiles. No, no, no, I didn't sleep my way into a deal or anything, but I did charm my way into a deal on the printing costs with a bunch of sleazy men. Shameful? Maybe. But I can tell you right now that my colleague would not have gotten such a good deal, and I would never have gotten the deal I got by playing hardball. Not sure what all that means, but it was an interesting exercise.

4. I wish I was comfortable enough as a woman and as myself to not shave my legs. But man, I am a hairy girl and in the summer when I wear skirts I just can't stand how it looks not to shave.

5. Ultimately, I don't put much stock in gender differences. They should just not be a factor in things like career choices and how people are treated in the workplace. Of course, they are, but they shouldn't be. It just shouldn't be so hard. Why can't we all just get along?! Heh.

BONUS SIXTH ITEM!

6. It bugs the crap out of me that professional orchestras are still very male-dominated even though my own involvement in youth music programs leads me to believe that women are equally if not predominately represented at the amateur level. There are lots of professional flute players who are male, but not so many guys who play flute in high-school band or orchestra. What's going on? Is it the competitive nature of professional music that for some reason weeds out women? I find it curious, and troubling. How many female conductors do you see? Not many. And female composers? They are out there, but they are not getting the commissions that men are. I fail to think this is because their music sucks.

I will pass the Rockin' Blogger badge on to the following: Rachel at Kitchen Fire, OTRgirl at Sojournering, Emmie at Better Make It a Double, Lisa at A Letter to My Children, and Buddha Girl at Buddha Girl's World. If you have the time and inclination, share your thoughts. No matter what you say, you ROCK.

Vermont, Ho!

I've decided to spend Memorial Day weekend with Peace Corps friends up in Vermont. I was posted with this couple in Makokou, Gabon for two years, so to say that we know each other well is an understatement. We know each other in a way that only people who spend two intense years of their lives trying to figure out life in the middle of the jungle can know each other. We're family, really.

I try to get up to see them a couple of times a year, and I've loved being able to stay in face-to-face touch with them since moving to the east coast. They have two kids who are in second grade and kindergarten now (I think? Or is it first grade and preschool?) so they have a kid-friendly house and lifestyle.

I think it will be a great trip . . . once we get there. It's a 4+ hour drive. The twins have historically done great in the car, but they are at an age where they are so mobile and want to be on the move so much that they grow bored with being strapped in their carseats all the time. It would be one thing if I had another adult with me to give the kids toys and snacks, but it's just me. I'm going to keep a bag of toys on the seat next to me and toss them back as needed, but I'm fearful of how well that will work. We'll see . . . my plan is to leave tomorrow morning when they are ready for their morning nap and hopefully get a couple of hours of sleeping out of them. Then I'll stop for a snack break and hope for the best. Keep your fingers crossed for me! (My constant plea.)

Once we're there, all kinds of fun awaits: a family cabin on the lake, a big backyard, lots of never-before-seen toys, two big kids, different snacks, a wading pool . . . it's like a kiddie resort. I'm looking forward to getting away and recharging a bit. Hopefully I'll get to do a little relaxing.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, everyone.

It's a Good Thing Babies Are Sturdy

I learned quite a bit about babies when I was in the Peace Corps. There are a lot of babies in Gabon, so just by observation one takes in quite a bit. One of the main things I noticed is that babies are quite sturdy. I often saw baby arms used as handles to hoist kids from ground to hip or back. Kids often crawled and toddled around in relatively unsupervised conditions (there were always adults around, but only so many for all the kids), and they would fall over, run into each other, squabble, etc. and come out of most of it just fine.

I don't mean to be cavalier, but I'm glad to know that babies are physically more resilient than many people think.

What I'm getting around to saying is that it was not Madeleine's day. Before we even got out the door for a morning walk, she caught the corner of the office trash can in the eyebrow when Riley knocked it over, an encounter that left her with a minor cut. Then, in the lot where I park my car, she sustained an abrasion on her elbow as I did an inept job of taking the baby backpack off my back, losing my balance and causing the whole thing to tip sideways.

The crowning glory, though, was this evening. I'm ashamed to admit that she rolled off the changing table. Just like you always hear, I turned my back for a quick second and THUD! My heart sank. Foolish, foolish me. The good news is that she was more easily consoled than her brother, who saw the whole thing happen and was completely flipped out. I'm watching Maddie for signs of an injury to her head, but she seems to be OK. She definitely did not lose consciousness, and other than being startled, she was fine: alert, looking around, talking, etc. I just went in and checked on her as she slept and she looks as peaceful as can be.

I had planned to start changing them into their PJs on the floor--not sure why I decided against it tonight. Sigh. Lesson learned.

Oprah's School for Girls

I have to say something about this. Lisa and Twisty and I'm sure others out there in the computer have said a lot already. Here's my take on it, which must be taken with a grain of salt since my understanding of the project is that Oprah is building some ultra-expensive, luxurious school for 150 hand-picked, underprivileged South African girls. The school includes a beauty salon (?!). I hope I have my facts correct.

I have many, many strong opinions about development work and outside intervention in Third World countries. Most of these opinions were formed by my experience in the Peace Corps. My bottom line is that the "help" Oprah is providing is no better and no worse than the aid I provided as a Peace Corps volunteer or the aid that basically any benevolent giver provides.

I taught English in Central Africa. Over the course of my service, I taught about 700 kids. I like to think I was pretty good at it. On that level, the kids I taught benefited from my service. English is a part of their school curriculum, and if I hadn't been there, they would not have had an English teacher at all. On that basic level, I helped 700 or so kids. I also did tutoring for exams, helped paint murals in graffiti-laden classrooms, and developed culturally-relevant teaching materials.

When I want to feel good about my service, I focus on that: I helped 700 kids. The truth is, though, that I did all of those kids some harm, too. I fostered deeply ingrained stereotypes about Americans being wealthy benefactors who exist to save the disadvantaged from their plight. No matter how many times I told my students that I was a volunteer--a person who worked for no pay--they steadfastedly refused to believe me. They, along with all the other people in the town in which I lived, saw me and the other American volunteers and immediately asked, "What are you going to give me? Do you have money for me?" This is not due to inherent greed but rather to the fact that their perception is that all Americans are fabulously wealthy (a perception they get from TV, which all of them have seen, and frankly, compared to many of them, we are fabulously wealthy, but that's a different story) and that in their experience with aid work, people (Americans or others) come and give them something and leave. Which, when you add it all up, is basically what I did. I came, I taught, I left. And I taught them ENGLISH. Other than needing to know it for exams (which most of them were destined to fail anyway, not because they were not smart but because they exams were designed for French students living in France, not African students living in Africa, oh horrors of post-Colonialism), English is not a skill that students living in Makokou, Gabon really need to live productive, fulfilling lives.

I'm trying to remember that saying about giving someone a fish and he'll have a meal but teach him how to fish and he'll be able to feed his family . . . something like that . . . anyone know that one? Anyways, Peace Corps, along with many other development agencies, purport to be built on the principle that they only provide aid that people want, need, ask for, and can sustain on their own. They don't come in and build wells and head home, leaving behind untrained villagers and no spare parts. No, no, Peace Corps volunteers (and other aid workers) come in and hold village meetings and teach people how to respond their needs in locally sustainable ways.

Well, not really. All aid workers, peace corps and otherwise, have an agenda. For example, the Peace Corps pisiculture volunteers are there to help people see the genius of building and maintaining fish ponds. The agroforestry volunteers are there to encourage people to plant crops! In orderly rows! To sell at the market! Us teachers are there to teach, but to teach using a methodology that we are made to believe during our training is superior to the methodology that the African teachers use. Other aid workers are influenced by the organizations they work for, by the donors/sponsors who give them money, and by their own personal values.

I don't think that this makes all aid bad. I just think it's important to recognize that all aid comes at a cost and that it all comes with expectations. And it's often condescending. Even if the aid that is given is locally sustainable and driven by the needs and desires of those receiving it, it's still provided (in most cases) by the benevolent hand of the Western world. And inevitably it only touches the very few that need it. You help who you can, in the way that you can. After years of thinking about this issue, that's the best I can do. You need to recognize your own limits, realize you can't save the world, help those you can, and not purport to do more than that or to be a saviour. Peace Corps shattered my idealism, and I don't consider that a bad thing.

As for Oprah, her school for girls is no different. She's going to help a tiny percentage of girls in South Africa who need help. There is a part of me who thinks that is wonderful for those girls, even if I have reservations about how they were chosen and the Western values that it appears they will be taught at this school. There is certainly a condescending aftertaste there that comes from the idea that these girls are being "saved" by going to this school. Saved from what, exactly? Saved how? The reality is that even Oprah cannot save Africa. Frankly, even if Oprah gave up everything she had, she couldn't save every single girl in South Africa. She has made a choice to "save" 150 of them. Would it be better if instead she'd given 150,000 of them their school fees? Or if she'd given a million of them shoes? To be honest, I don't think so. None of that would change what South Africa will be in ten years. None of it. It would still be a nice thing to do. But any of it is just a Band-Aid.

I may have a lot of opinions, but I have no answers. I don't know how to provide better, more lasting, more affirming aid to Africa or any other part of the world. I think about it all the time. If I had any ideas, I'd work in international aid. The reason I don't is because I got sickened by the do-good, holier-than-thou attitude I often experienced among aid workers. Not all, of course, but a lot. There are no easy answers, and I've got a lot more to say about this. More to come.

Maybe I Should Have Set the Bar Higher

2007 is not off to an auspicious start.

I have been sick since New Year's Eve. I have what I call "Peace Corps Illness," a disease I have not had since, well, I was in the Peace Corps from 94-97.* I have a fever, chills, body aches, night sweats, general fatigue, lack of appetite. I have been home from work for the past two days. Thank goodness for day care; I have dropped the babies off each morning and then scurried home to go back to bed. All I do is pump and sleep. And eat, if drinking juice counts as eating.

I could feel better anytime and that would be fine.

Meanwhile, GH still has a mouth full of sores and ankles that are more swollen than mine ever were during pregnancy. We're a fine pair taking care of the twins while we try to take care of each other and ourselves. The poor twins--every minute they are awake I'm counting the minutes until they go to bed. Last night I had a chill so bad that my whole body was shaking and my teeth were chattering the entire time I was getting Riley ready for bed. I literally tucked him in and crossed the hall to my own bed where I passed out for hours.

Thank goodness the babies are sleeping so well, though.

Maybe I'll go back to work tomorrow. Maybe. We'll see how my fever does overnight. As luck would have it, my dad gets to town for a visit tomorrow night; an extra set of hands could not come at a better time than this weekend.

I would say that things can only get better, but that would be sheer folly.

* I should write a post sometime about the similarities between Peace Corps and the military. The parallels are endless, one of them being that whenever volunteers meet each other, we say our country and years of service, just like military members do. Or I think they do. So I say, "Gabon, 94-97."