Girl

I first read "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid when I was 14 years old. I used it for the competitive poetry and prose reading I did when I was in high school. It's meaning to me has morphed as I've aged, and it pierces a new part of me with each life stage that I enter.

Girl
by Jamaica Kincaid

Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don't walk barehead in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn't have gum on it, because that way it won't hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won't turn someone else's stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don't sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn't speak to wharbfflies will follow you; but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a button-hole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father's khaki shirt so that it doesn't have a crease; this is how you iron your father's khaki pants so that they don't have a crease; this is how you grow okra—far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don't like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don't like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don't know you very well, and this way they won't recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know; don't pick people's flowers—you might catch something; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?

On Being a Mom (Some Day)

I think about childbirth, motherhood, and parenting a lot. I read about them a lot. I daydream about them a lot. I talk about them a lot. I worry about them a lot.

No, I have no children of my own. But I was one. And being a kid, an exceptionally sensitive, perceptive, intuitive serial foster kid who was subjected to about 20 different sets of parenting strategies and values (one set of parents saying "Do this thing! It's great!" and the next set of parents saying "Why the heck are you doing that thing? It's dumb!"), I think, gives me enough perspective to say something on the matter. I've seen it done well, and I've seen it done not so well.

For the past six years, I've taken part in raising the three sons of a single mom who lives in my town. When I met them, her marriage was newly separated and the family had, two weeks previously, moved several states to the north of Daddy. They were 5, 3, and 10 months old, and they needed a nanny, and I needed money. Over these six years, I've dressed hundreds of owies and broken up dozens of brother fights. I've done 3-am 104-degree fevers, a monsters-under-my-bed all-night whine-a-thon (that lasted 4 months), mysterious rashes, three-brother, germ-sharing pukefests, evenings of soccer-basketball-swimming-choir-practice hell, and the three-year-old-with-a-crushed-skull-Medivaced-to-children's-hospital birthday-party nightmare. (Not one of mine, and the kid is fine today. Incidentally, never, ever rent a moon bounce. Ever.) I know how to oversee tooth brushing, vegetable eating, medicine taking, piano practicing, reading, napping, and bubble bathing. I've been pooped on, peed on, snotted on, bled on, barfed on, coughed on, sneezed on, splashed on, spilled on, and drawn on (and most of these on the way out the door in the morning). I've had moments of extraordinary grace and patience, and I've lost it and had to apologize. I love them all. They're incredible kids. Yes, I know that being a nanny is not the same as being a mom. But it's kind of like being an aunt. So bring it on, parenthood.

I hate when I comment on my experience with kids and all the moms and grandmas in the room exchange knowing, patronizing looks and roll their eyes. I may be young and I may be childless, but I am anything but green. The people who raised me have taught me very well what not to do. Here are a few of the many good things that my surrogate kids have taught me.

Early bedtime is totally, totally doable. And worth the struggle. Well-rested children are pleasant, happy children. There is no reason for a 6-year-old to be awake at 10 pm.

Kids do not need sugar or fast food. Furthermore, parents are not bound by any law of physics, biology, or society to buy cookies or happy meals. During the period of a child's life when eating habits are formed, a parent has complete control over what that child eats. No, once in a while will not kill a child. But "once in a while" means every few months, not every Wednesday and Saturday. There is no reason for a 6-year-old to be obese.

There is a huge, major, massive difference between discipline and punishment. All children need discipline, and if you do it well, they will respect and love you. No child needs to be punished, and punishment will make a child lose respect for you and herself.

There is no such thing as a bad child. There is no reason to cut a child down or dominate him. Tell a child he is bad, and he will take you up on it. Tell a child she is good, and she will prove it. Let me say it again, because this is really important: there is no such thing as a bad child.

We should be honest with kids. We shouldn't try to shelter them from what goes on in the world. There is bad stuff out there. Shouldn't kids learn about it right away, while adults are still around the help them process it? I read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl for the first time when I was 8. And it did me a world of good to learn early about evil. If we aren't open about the bad, scary, painful stuff, what comfort is it to a child when we say "Don't worry, it'll be okay"?

A lot of adults lie to kids in order to manipulate and control them. This is never okay. Kids know when we're lying, and it really hurts them. When I learned that Santa Claus wasn't real, I decided that God must not be real either. After all, they're both men you can't see who give you stuff. Makes perfect sense, right? Lying to kids makes them lose faith.

We aren't perfect, and kids really get that. They can and will forgive us. We should be authentic with children, all the time.

***

I can't wait to give birth. Yeah, you heard me. No, it is not just because I've never done it. Yes, I know it hurts. But I won't be doing it on my back, strapped to a fetal monitor in a cold, brightly lit room with people barking orders at me and strangers touching intimate parts of my body. And I know that will make it better. I want to know what it feels like for a human being to grow inside and then emerge from my body, swollen ankles and all. I want to know what it is to share so intense and elemental an experience with my female community. I actually want to feel the sort of agony that sires the ecstasy of clasping my new child to my breasts.

One of my favorite literary genres is the birth story. I love the stories of normal, natural births, when women trust their bodies to do what they are designed to do, shunning the interference of modern health "care" and allowing their astonishing, vigorous, radiant bodies to guide their babies into the world with peace, dignity, primordial strength, and ethereal wisdom. I love to hear of women who give birth with the people who love them at their sides in the intimacy and warmth of their homes.

I know this may sound quixotic and radical. I also know that the modern definition of "normal" birth as told by men and the media, as an emergency, an inconvenience, an accident waiting to happen, a crisis, an illness, disgusting, frightening, dangerous, is purely and simply wrong. Women are disempowered, abused, lied to, and violated if they attempt to take control of their bodies and birth experiences. (I know many women who say they've had wonderful experiences giving birth in conventional medical circumstances. I wonder if any of those women went into the hospitals empowered, telling the doctors and nurses how the birth would be handled, and then didn't back down. Because empowered women are often mocked, punished, threatened, and ignored by hospital staff who think they know what birth should be and don't want to be told otherwise. This is one of my favorite blogs. Read this post and the following five if you need some convincing.) How disappointing and wrong it is that, as advanced as we supposedly are, low-risk women are statistically safer giving birth in their living rooms than in a hospital.

Why is it this way? Well, I guess I know why it's this way. This is still a men's world. Men still run the show, and the women in the club are there on men's terms. But birth can't be more external to the realm of men, and rather than trusting us and listening to us as we scream and cry and rage to bring forth life, the medical community has attempted to fix us, quiet us down, control us. We may have come a long way, baby, but the way is longer still.

Can you tell that I am very passionate about the treatment of pregnant women by the medical community?

***

I read an article in the most recent Christianity Today yesterday about how Christian parents place way too much stock in their role in their children's lives. The article explained that children are autonomous human beings and cannot be programmed by the even-handed application of the "perfect" child-rearing techniques to be precisely what their parents want them to be. Children grow up to be healthy, functional, faithful adults apart from parental influence, and they grow up to be messy, struggling, fearful adults apart from parental influence. And all the time, I was thinking People need to be told this?

But they do. I know this is easy for me to say because I'm not a mom, but maybe that's exactly why I should say it: Moms, your kids will survive you and will love you despite (and even because of) your lack of perfection. Their maker looks after them, and they will be who they will be, and your mistakes will not debilitate them. Your victories will not ensure their victories. I don't know how many moms I know whose primary emotions with regard to their children are guilt and shame. This shouldn't be. They experience so much anxiety because their children's lives are not flawless and peachy, and it breaks my heart. These are amazing moms, kind moms, moms who love their kids so much, who give so much, whose arms and hearts are open, who live each day in the desert so that their kids can swim in the deep. Moms who don't know how far their love goes and so seem to think it doesn't go very far. (Please, please believe me, it goes a long, long way.) Moms whose kids seem to hate them and so think they've done something to deserve that contempt. Human moms who are exhausted and need space and so feel inadequate. But good moms all. I wish I could offer encouragement to the moms in my life. I wouldn't mind having any one of you as my mom! I know what truly bad parenting looks like. Even as flawed as my own mother is, she loves me and did her best, and I know that and understand and love her too, and I am a functional adult despite her mistakes. I hope I can remember to give myself some grace when I'm a mom, to let my children go and be who they are, not to blame myself for their struggles or credit myself with their triumphs. To remember that we're all human beings, sisters, brothers, and we survive because of and despite each other. I don't know how hard that is yet.

***

Here are the lyrics of a song that John Lennon wrote in honor of his mother. She abandoned him to the care of his aunt Mimi, who raised him, and then reentered his life when he was a teenager. She was killed by a drunk driver when John was 18. John's practice of transcendental meditation brought him into touch with his feelings about his mother, and "Julia" is an intimate tribute to those revelations.

Half of what I say is meaningless

But I say it just to reach you,

Julia

Julia, Julia, ocean child, calls me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

Julia, seashell eyes, windy smile, calls me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

Her hair of floating sky is shimmering, glimmering,

In the sun

Julia, Julia, morning moon, touch me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

When I cannot sing my heart

I can only speak my mind, Julia

Julia, sleeping sand, silent cloud, touch me

So I sing a song of love, Julia

Calls me

So I sing a song of love for Julia, Julia, Julia

Advice of the Day

Ever wonder about the difference between its and it's or what happens when a cow eats a rancid casserole?

Wonder no more.

'Bout to Make the Most Out of a Toaster

Even we serious people can be pros at amusing ourselves. This was one of my favorite songs in high school. (Yes, I know I'm a total dork.) Anyone remember it? This video is great! Why the heck didn't I think of this???

Nope. It's not profound. Don't look for hidden meanings; you won't find any. It's fun, fluffy, and oh-so-absurd. Boysenberry jam. Yum.

Blah blah blah blah. Blah.

Do you ever just feel like being quiet? Sometimes, I do. I seem to have dropped the ball on my one-beautiful-thing-per-day commitment. Well, I guess that's life. Who's perfect? Not I. I've seen quite a few beautiful things and had quite a few beautiful moments in the past few days, but haven't really wanted to share any of them. Sometimes and with some people, I think I'm more open than is expected, and it think it takes people aback, and I can't help it, and I don't really want to try to change it. Authenticity or die. But I can be as evasive as the next Jo. Right now, I don't have very much to say. I've been pouring myself out on paper and copper and people. It's been about all I can do.

'Tis the sixth day of Christmas. Six more to go. In some ways, it's been a much better Christmas for me than it usually is. I think that has a lot to do with actually talking about how Christmas makes me feel, which I've never done before. And my mom's having a better time of it than usual this year. I've been rather inside myself this past month, trying to stay afloat despite the ice in the air. I feel like this blog this month has been devoid of content. Sorry about that. The things about which I'm so passionate and I usually want so badly to talk don't have much sparkle to them right now. In fact, I'm only posting this equally-devoid-of-content entry partly out of a sense of duty and partly because, if I let myself get too far out of the habit of thinking "Hey, I have a blog now, I'd better write this down," I'll forget all about it. I'm probably not even going to proofread this. Probably.

I've been in the downward spiral of self-absorption lately. Do you know the one? It's the one where you squeeze your eyes shut and grit your teeth soooo hard against it, try to ignore the voices and the tightness in your chest, but when you peek a little, it's longer and deeper and no closer to going away, because ignoring what your soul is screaming at you to do only makes your soul more angry, more desperate, clingier and hungrier and colder. Every day I'm trudging up to the surface, inches and a few feet and then a few more inches, and then I trip and fall and slide down, down, all the way back down to the ground. Up, up, up, trip, dooooooown, up, trip, down. Argh! (Did I mention that my period should be starting tomorrow, freaking finally? Glory, hallelujah, it can't come sooner.)

The day after Christmas, Kevin's grandmother was placed in the memory ward of a nursing home because his aunt can no longer take care of her. Christmas night, we told her she was going. Oh, she'd heard about it before. But Grandma has no short-term memory. Zero. Zilch. So she thought it was the first she'd heard of it. That, friends, was not a pleasant conversation. And when we all got up in the morning, she'd completely forgotten who Kevin and I were. While the family moved her furniture, I stayed home with her and we chatted about her life, for about 4 hours. We talked about women's suffrage, her work for the Red Cross during WWII, the rationing, her husband's tours of duty overseas, the civil rights movement, integration of schools, racism, sexism, politics, the sixties, the moon landing. It was great. I love to talk to elderly people about their lives. And she told Kevin's mother that I was such a sweetheart, asked who I was, and wondered if I might come visit her sometime again soon. (I don't know why I told that story. I think I'm rambling.)

Last night was a lovely, lovely night. Kevin and I went to an at-home family birthday party (the best kind!) for a beautiful friend and spent time with her relatives from Sweden, which was a super-huge treat! I can't remember the last time I've enjoyed getting to know new people that much. Maybe I never have. They were some premiumly awesomerrific people. I think I might move to Sweden now. The cheer in the air was medicine for me, and there was so much laughter. In fact, I am laughing now, remembering. Yay.

Well, I think that's enough rambling. If you're still reading, thanks for listening. Break time's over, and it's time to get back to ... what was I reading? Uhhh [shuffling paper] ... the indigenous coinages of Persian-period Palestine as an allegory. Wish me monsters!*



*Obscure Joss Whedon reference.

No. 13

Kevin and I listened to this on our way to Ohio today. I lost count of how many times my heart quivered with the pleasure of discovering a kindred spirit and hearing at last the lyrics of so many melodies of my soul.

Love and shalom to you all, my friends.

Beannacht

by John O'Donohue

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

I Simply Had Nothing to Wear!

Is it terrible that I made a little present for myself too? It's just that we're going to the theatre to celebrate Kevin's parents' 40th wedding anniversary on Saturday, and I had no jewelry that suited my only warm dress. And so I had to, for them, so that my lack of appropriate accessorizing wouldn't dampen the evening for anyone. Um. Yeah.