June 2018

I wrote this post Easter weekend in 2013. Georgia, James and Sarah were here for Easter dinner and that's the night that we had to take Gregory to Sloan Kettering after he fell on his way upstairs. We called 911 because he couldn't get up and two policemen arrived with an ambulance. They helped him up and used a sling to carry him downstairs. I asked if we could take him in the car knowing that he would end up in an emergency room if we didn't take him to the hospital ourselves. They hesitated, but agreed. That's the last time Gregory was home.

So this is what happens when you are on vacation. The days blend together. You can do anything you want anytime and in any order. And so Monday has suddenly turned into Friday and since Monday we have been to B&N to purchase Lincoln, we have received an order of food from Fresh Direct, the house has been cleaned, we moved a bed into the library, we removed five more boxes of books from the library, and we have watched the gardeners fertilize the garden, covering up all the things I thought I would finally get around to cleaning up (dead stuff and unwanted plants). Covering up everything but the crocuses that are now in full bloom and the rising daffodils and tulips has made the garden quite tidy; a new look before I get my hands on it.

Georgia arrived for Easter weekend and Kathryn is passing through on her way to Jamaica. It looks like it will be a sunny weekend in NYC, springlike even. Happy Easter.

We are four days into our spring break and though I had thought I would go to my office and clean up for spring, I haven't made it over there yet. Perhaps tomorrow. But after four days I am getting the hang of doing things. I have moved books, moved furniture, washed, tidied, and created more and more trash. Yes, I have actually decided there are things that need to be released into some landfill and I will not feel too bad because I recycle everything else possible every day. And the more space I make in the house and in my head, the more I find projects forming in my mind...good thing we have one more week of spring break.

This morning we watched a movie made in 1933 called Eskimo. Amazing footage of whale hunting and a caribou stampede; inside views of igloos and travel by dog sled. At first I thought it was a documentary, but it quickly turned into a meeting of a white men (a ship's crew) and indigenous people.

The story line included an Eskimo's offer to share his wife with the ship's captain following a successful exchange of goods. The Eskimo goes off on a whale hunt and asks the captain for permission to leave his wife behind in their igloo. The captain agrees, but plies the woman with liquor and takes advantage of the situation. The woman ends up drunk and is accidentally shot when she tries to crawl away to get back to her igloo, collapses on the ice and is mistaken by a hunter for a seal. The scene was as much as I could watch having just finished reading In the Name of Honor by Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani woman who, in 2002, seeks justice after being gang raped and living in fear for her family's safety. She talks about cultural attitudes towards women with frankness and resignation, discussing the use of women as objects of revenge. Against all odds, Mukhtar Mai who is illiterate and uneducated, starts a school for girls and boys in an attempt to bring education and literacy to girls in Pakistan. Later in the morning we listened to former Governor Christine Whitman talk about why the Republican party is having trouble attracting women to public office. In the car I hear an interview about the continuing debate between stay-at-home moms and working moms. I am feeling that it is exhausting being a woman.

June 23, 2018
I am cleaning up my blog in the same way I am going through old files and picking and choosing what to keep. My mother, when I talked to her on the phone, would always say, "I'm going through files." I never knew what that meant and I couldn't imagine what files she had kept, but now I am doing just that. Going through files, remembering and reclaiming my own past. Sometimes letting go.

March 20, 2013
Early in my parenting life I remember reading that the desire for things to get "back to normal" after having a child or children was not only a futile desire, but misplaced. There is no going back, but there is definitely going forward into a "new normal." In fact, years later normal seems much more changeable than I'd ever imagined. I am more inclined to think now that when things work out then that is normal; a new plateau, a new direction, a new configuration all have the potential to be normal.

So today I finally acted on something I knew was inevitable, I gave up my membership at the Cornell Club Fitness Center. I realized that it has been much too long, several quarters too long, since I've been to the gym for exercise. Actually, by that definition it's even longer because I know that many of my last visits were less for exercise than motivated by the thought of a nice shower in an empty locker room after walking the treadmill and a browse, all fresh and clean, at the nearby Barnes and Noble. For many years the visits to the gym were normal for Greg and me. We joined when he was still working in Brooklyn, considering Fifth Avenue and 44th Street a midway point in his commute back to the Bronx and a quick drive down from the Upper East Side after work for me. It was a good place to meet, exercise and have some time together in the city before heading home. Chicken pot pie at the grill was also enticing.

I realized recently that it hasn't been like that for a long time. With both of us working in Riverdale we hardly ever got downtown after work. I never got around to hiring a trainer to learn to use more equipment than the treadmill and the rowing machine and many more women joined the club. Good news for Cornell, but it meant sharing the locker room. Something I didn't have to do often. The membership grew, but it also got younger and as the age went down the energy in the workout area went up. Times were changing.

I liked having a stopping place in Manhattan. I liked being recognized at the desk in the gym and having a locker so I didn't have to plan to bring clothes with me. I liked owning two pairs of sneakers and having one pair "for the gym." I liked meeting Greg in NYC to go home from work together. It was a nice normal for a while, but we're on to a new normal and new possibilities.

So I hear that Emma dreamt that I was fired from my job as the only solution to getting me to work less. I dreamt that I was covered in chicken pox. Anyone else dream about me recently? We're heading into the last stretch before spring break and I realize that rather than give me a vision of relief, it only intensifies how quickly we will slide into the end of the school year. Is it possible that April is actually the busiest month of the year, heightened by the anticipation of spring? The big difference will be that I can finally go out into the garden and spend time with the buds, blossoms and bugs. They are all good company and appreciative of every little bit of attention you can give them. 

We heard a band last week during Music Week at school and one of the performers played the violin and the Chinese erhu. He played "Song of Birds in a desolated mountain," performed here on YouTube by a young boy.  The band, led by Stephanie Chou HM '05, recently released its first album called Prime Knot. It's filled with music that explores the relationship between math and music, but also includes songs in Chinese, Stephanie's first language. Not included, but beautifully performed at HM was a song she wrote to the poem Thoughts on a Tranquil Night by Li Bai.

My new favorite photo.

Ruby makes a friend at the Royal Ontario Museum. 

2013 Musings

Post- February 18, 2013

We say the trip was all about Ruby's first birthday. But really it was about everything: seeing Ruby, hugging Ruby, making Ruby laugh. It was about visiting mom and dad, testing out wheelchair service in the airports, filling Kathryn's house with a party and texting conversations that made it seem as though Emma just hadn't yet arrived to join us. It was getting together as a family and adjusting to find a new balance in the midst of changing physical abilities. It was about mobility: getting to Rochester, watching Ruby transition from crawling to walking, watching Greg navigate with his new Rodeo cane, seeing dad with his Cadillac walker and marveling that mom is moving faster than ever and yet her walker still sits in the doorway, just in case. It was about celebrating Chinese New Year's at Cantonese House, marveling at the magic of Ruby's cake decorated with the cover of her favorite book, Hugs, searching for take-out Chinese dumplings on a Sunday morning in Sodus, and relaxing into the evening with wine, beer, chicken wings and pizza. We spent the weekend moving among three home bases and at times I felt like Ruby. Every moment was for the moment; to be enjoyed and savored. Ruby turned one and we all knew exactly where we were a year ago.




March 3, 2013

When my college roommate, Elisabeth, took psych 101 she tested the appeal of blue as a food color. She wondered why m&m's did not come in blue. Kathryn has become the expert in the family on smoothies and juicing and I am discovering that a good juice in the morning is a good start to the day. Whether or not it makes me healthier, I feel like I am treating my body well by starting with a concoction of stuff that promises to make me healthier. That is, of course, after my morning dose of coffee. What I am also discovering, however, is that color makes a difference. I have created some of the most questionable liquids that were it not that I actually know what's in it, I would be a fool to even taste it. The shades of green, brown and mud are not quite the color of the berry blast I like to buy at Juice Generation. It is proof perhaps that the human mind can be disciplined to do things that go against nature unlike any other animal that depends heavily on color to determine what is good to eat and what is to be avoided. This morning I drank a mix of acai juice, banana, coconut water and kale. A delicious mix that mimicked slimy mud.

March Blogathon Wannabe

March 2, 2013

I have looked forward every day to reading Procrastination Salon's February blogathon and had imagined that March would be the month for Zebra Shoes to attempt the same. But then, it turned into March and already it is March 2nd. So here's to March, the month of Geniuses (a favorite quote from the movie Fanny with Maurice Chevalier).

I was thinking yesterday, as I completely burned out on a ten-day work week, how lucky I am to have work that requires that I continuously research the state of the human world. Not bad to have spent the first thirty years of my career thinking about babies and toddlers and young children and now to spend my time trying to understand how to help students move forward into life. Yet, while my head is filled with too many ideas and information, I find myself thinking a lot about all the things I have done or wanted to do, but left behind in some memory of doing; playing the piano, speaking Chinese, writing chinese calligraphy, learning Italian, learning a second instrument, drawing, painting....the list goes on and they all feel like partially formed abilities. I'm afraid my doing has not matured as fast as my body or mind.

The Civil Rights Movement has become an important reference point in our conversations with high school students as more and more material becomes available. Most recently is Makers: Women Who Make America, a PBS documentary. When I re-visit my past through these documentaries, I try to remember what it was like taking in these events as a 14 year old. In most instances, I am surprised at how little I remember of the time and how unaware I was of the bigger issues, and yet, the choices I made were clearly influenced by a time of active protest and change.