Trust and Truth

My Conversation, The Uniques

I hope my brother reads this blog. We have great parents who taught us a lot about a lot of things, but there is one lesson that my mom drove home more than any other and it is about trust and the truth. My brother and I can both imitate her Trust lecture perfectly (it is one of the shorter ones in her repertoire). If we got caught in a lie, she would sit us down. Her voice would get very serious, disappointed. Here's what she'd say, "You have lied to me. I cannot stand to be lied to. You have violated my trust. I do not feel I can trust you right now. You are going to have to earn my trust back now."

My mom always ended up forgiving us, but those words had a way of making us feel the weight of our actions. Telling the truth is an important thing. The thing is, my mom—unlike most of us--always tells the truth as she sees it. She does not lie. You can trust her with anything. She doesn't even tell white lies. She does not tell little lies of convenience. I know many of you don't believe that this could be true, but if you know my mom you can believe it. Honesty is her policy.

I remember when I first learned that big people lie (especially to little people). I was in fourth grade and I was spending the night with a friend that had a little brother and a VCR. My brother was about the same age, but we didn't have a VCR so renting a movie was a big treat. We all went to the video store and on the way there this little boy said he wanted to rent "The Three Little Pigs", which his family had obviously suffered through many times. So, the mom and my friend and her sister all started telling this little four-year-old that I was scared of the big bad wolf and so we were going to get something else. At first my impulse was to correct them, but after I got few winks from the mom in the rear view mirror and a couple of nudges from the sisters on each side of me, I kept quiet. But I was upset. Why not just tell him to get something else or say no? I felt really uncomfortable telling this little lie. This was a new practice for me.

Well, I guess I got more comfortable with lies and I tell little ones to my kids all of the time. I talked to one of my church friends (who one might think would have some sort of moral reason to tell the truth) about lying to kids and she plainly told me it was not big deal to her. They forget about it in a minute and then you avoid the conflict. This is what I do, but I am not sure I agree with her.

Lately Ramona distrusts some of the things I say. She only trusts Sumner. She is a wise child. Sumner generally will not try to trick her. "Sumner, is it a bu-zert (translation: dessert) night?" "Sumner, was there really a little mouse in our house last year?" "Will my teacher Beth be at school today?" "Sumner did we watch T.V. already today?" I cannot be trusted on these subjects.

I realize that she sees through my little lies of omission and convenience. She wants authenticity. It has been said before that she takes after old Granabelle. In truth, she does.

I am not sure I even know how to be totally honest with her. It is really hard to not just make up "stories" to keep her content and pacified. Distraction has never worked with her.

The saddest thing of all is that I have been teaching Sumner to tell her little lies too. Tuesday we made pizzas. They each made their own and there were two pieces left, one from each of their pizzas. I put both of them in Sumner's lunch on Wednesday and on the way out the door to the bus stop, he asked what was in his lunch and I told him. Ever the math student he said, "So you gave me my piece and Ramona's piece." "Something like that," I dodged. "Well, there was one of hers and one of mine left, so you must have given me one of hers." Ramona cried, "Is he going to eat mine?" and dropped her shoes and her cooperative demeanor. "Let's go guys," I coaxed and winked at Sumner, "Let's just not worry about it." Ramona clearly was going to obsess about it. Sumner saw my wink and put his hand on her shoulder and gently said something like, "I won't eat your pizza." But he was going to. He winked back at me proudly, having done just what I asked. She calmed down and we made it to the bus stop in time. She forgot about it. But how many times will it take for Sumner to lie to her before she has no one to trust?

The thing is if you start lying, where does it stop? My mom used to make this slippery slope argument and I never was sure if I bought it. What harm does a little lie do? Sometimes? Nothing. Most of the time? It erodes the trust we all need to have between each other to live with and love one another. I am going to try to practice honesty. The task is daunting.

Today

Coconut Telegraph, Jimmy Buffet

School's not so bad.

1. I had such low expectations for my class that I have been pleasantly surprised. It has two things going for it: all of the students are teachers and the professor is a teacher. Now you may say, isn't this a school of education? Aren't all of the students and professors teachers? It my experience this has not been so. Who can be a teacher and afford to go to Harvard? (Someone who’s family is rich or husband is going to be a doctor.) In fact, I have had a hard time finding the teachers at the Ed School. Many of the students at the Ed School want to get out of teaching or never taught and most of the professors are researchers who happen to teach. This professor taught for 25 years and happens to be a researcher. This is a class for teachers about teacher leadership. So, that's a good thing.

2. I love working at Sumner's school. Good parents, good teachers, and an excellent principal. I get to talk to people and connect them with one another and learn about them. That's all of my favorite stuff. Another good thing.

3. It is manageable, at least for now. I have been plagued with fears about managing my home and school life, as it has proved impossible in the past to manage. These last few weeks have been madness, but it is falling into place now. I am driving less. I have time for school and time for myself. I am writing a blog. Ramona and I made lemon bars for Sumner and I and banana muffins for all of us and a roast today. And working energizes me in a way that caring for people does not. A very good thing.

As usual my anticipation for what is to come is much more dramatic than the real thing. I am going to be able to do this thing. I've grown. I hope.

Tomorrow

I start school tomorrow. After taking a semester and summer off, I'm not sure I want to go back into the classroom and take a class and I am not sure about doing this internship at Sumner's school. My class is called Teachers, Leadership, and Power: Changing the Teaching Career. My internship is a project at Sumner's school to initiate inclusive parent engagement and communication across all grade levels, races, and socio-economic realities. That's a mouthful. The work will be fun, but not if it cuts into the important stuff.

You see, I want to live a counter-cultural life, which means...

I don't want to rush. I want to avoid driving (not because I don't LOVE my minivan) because I want to walk more. I want to value time to just sit and be still and encourage my kids to do the same. I want to set aside time to be creative. I want to cook and bake and have my kids help me with that. I want to have time to chit chat with friends and time to be by myself. I want to know what God is pulling, calling, me to do. I want to rest in the knowledge that I am doing that thing.

In the past work and school have cut in on doing these counter-cultural things. My desire to get the job done well and get strokes for the job well done cause me to lose perspective. I feel like I am on a hampster wheel that is spinning and spinning and I don't know how to stop it. When I work to jard, I think to myself: if only I could get off this damn thing and get over to my bowl of little green pellats and take a little nap. If only that hand from the sky would lift me out of here and cuddle me for a while. I get all confused and muddled about why I am still spinning. I get frantic sometimes, but mainly I am just puzzled that life is moving, but not going anywhere.

Alright, enough paranoid anticipation for one night. I am going to start school tomorrow. I am going to take it one day at a time.

Sumner's Dreamhouse

Sumner asked me today if we could buy an apartment. I thought maybe he wanted to own a place. I told him proudly that we did own our "apartment", but I was thinking smugly: it is called a condo when you own it. He said that he wanted a different apartment, "big red one with a balcony."

"Do you mean a brick building?" I asked.

"Yes, one with a swimming pool too," Sumner said.

"Do all brick apartment buildings have pools?" I wondered aloud.

"I don't know, but I want to live in a big apartment building with all of my friends. Like where we lived in England."

We lived in international graduate student housing in London. We loved it.

"Kate will live there," Ramona chimed in.

I thought about this for awhile. Sumner and Ramona still appreciate the idea of a close, really close community. I am dreaming about moving for our condo to a single family house with more square footage and Sumner's remembering being in 500 square feet with friends all around as ideal.

Another great link

As you can see, I just learned how to put links up on my blog. So fun.

If you've spent much dinner-party, chit-chatty time with me anytime recently you know that I am a BIG fan of "This American Life". There are few episodes I have not heard. I dream of telling stories on the radio with Ira. I really think I would get along with Sarah and Jonathan and the rest.

Anyway, they did a show entitled "After the Flood" about New Orleans. If you listen to it, you will hear in the prologue that the radio crew set out to give people who were or are in New Orleans more time to tell their stories than the TV news can give. They created the anti-soundbite and it is pretty harrowing. This was the best reporting on the post-hurricane disaster in New Orleans that I have heard or seen or read. It is a little bit of a commitment to listen to it, but it is worth your while.

For me, the single most important thing I learned about myself after listening to this show was the lingering racism I have in me.

I don't want to admit it, but sometimes even a good bleeding heart liberal like me starts to think: why didn't these people [I am thinking but not saying even in my own private mind where no one can hear me: African-Americans] evacuate? Surely they had a way. This story cleared any misconceptions I had from the news media about that question.

And I know some of you, like me, may have thought: if only they'd stop looting, then...then what? Then they'd deserve help. What kind of bullshit if that?

We (humanity, I mean) are all so afriad of each other. I really think we are. And I still don't know what to do about it. It isn't enough for me to just live my life. I have to make some concious choices about how I live my life. Which bring me to the subtitle of my blog, hanging right above this entry: "What will we do? We're trying to figure this out."

Five Comments

This is a record. Aarti, a Boston-friend who I see more often than most of my readers, told me she was disappointed to see five comments (four real ones) on "Phil's Fashion Sense". She thought that my blog was her own private blog. I knew that some of you had read at one time a blog entry here or there, but I had NO idea that people aside from my mom and Aarti were really checking in and reading this thing. Aarti's disappointment is my glee. Hey, Claudia. Hey, Cathy. What's up all ya'll out there?

Thanks for reading.

Grannabelle says that she thinks that blog touched a nerve with women because perhaps we all have been inappropriately judged and/or mocked for our fashion sense by our mother, boyfriend, sister, and--in my case--brother. Jake thinks I should start my fashion rehab by getting braces and bleaching my teeth nightly. I just gotta put in here that once, when my parents were dating, my dad said to my 115-pound mom, "Your butt's not big. It's just long." Crushing. And pretty funny.

By the way, Phil also doesn't like French braids. He calls it my "battle hair" and claims that it makes me look like a lobster or crawfish. Who would even worry about someone who says something so outlandish?

By the way, the question has come up: is what I am writing what I am truly feeling and thinking and experiencing? It is true enough, but I use hyperbole and artistic license liberally.

Phil's fashion sense

I shop fast. I get dressed quickly. Most days I can't bother with a shower. Too much hassle.

Phil has quite a beauty regime. He takes at least 30 minutes, but sometimes more, grooming in the morning. I estimate that this is how long it took me to get ready on my wedding day. He has to consider a couple of different outfits and asked my advice about if he should go with the brown shoes and belt or what the black.

I don't always ask Phil's opinion about what I am wearing, but Phil lets me know what he thinks of each piece of clothing. When we first started dating, this was helpful. He complimented me like crazy and I liked it and it made me feel good about myself. But 2 babies, lots of lactating, and seven years later I don't always appreciate his advice. For the first several years of marriage, I took his advice quite seriously. When I was pregnant with Sumner, Phil even bought all of my maternity clothes for me. And when his criticism came, it would make me bristle.

But over the last few years, his advice has become downright bizarre and impossible. Strange and twisted.

Today I got a new skirt. I really liked it. My mother-in-law got it for me for my birthday. Mine is not shown on the link. It is plum. I bought a harmless black t-shirt to go with it. I tried on the outfit for Phil. That's when he started spouting his usual nonsense.

Before I relate some of the impossible things he said, let me tell you that Phil thinks I should wear pants all the time. He claims that if a woman wants to look "foxy" she wears pants. And, of course, I am after a sex-kitten-panther-foxy-soccer-mom look. "No one wears skirts," he tells me. I really prefer skirts to pants.

He also tells me I dress like a mom. This is not a compliment. Go figure. If I get something hip, he says that it is too cool for me and my "look". Tonight he told me that a belt I got, "threw him off." He liked it, it was pretty cool, but maybe too cool, for little me. It is madness.

Once he saw me in the new skirt and t-shirt I could tell what his verdict will be. "It looks like high-school goth. I don't really like that peasant-hippi thing." Where did he learn these terms? What can I do? What can I say? He concedes that it fits well and looks good, but he doesn't like it? And he can't provide any suggestions, except for: "more pants."

This from a man who can hardly match his khakis to his 6 blue and white button down shirts. It's too much. I have moved way beyond being offended and into the realm of just shaking my head and wearing whatever I damn well please.

I got this email...

Dear Emily & Phil,

I don't mean to upset you. I just can't put this description out of my mind.

Love,

Marlow

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/national/nationalspecial/08orleans.html?th&emc=th

I got this email from my friend the other day. He's a second year medical student at Tulane. It is a pretty shocking story. I recommend it.

After you read it, you may think, how can this be happening? How can they let this happen?

Let's be careful there.

I remember growing up in Salem quite clearly. My daily life never really gave me glimpses of people living in poverty. Sure, my parents took us to work in soup kitchens and drew our attention to these forgotten people when they had a chance. But, we could put it out of our mind for 99% of the time and we did.

Then I left Salem and went to New York for college. I remember what I liked about the big city is that all these people are crammed in a small space and that this makes it harder to ignore each other--at first. The rich see the poor and the middle class sees its other half. In a big city most people of different races have to at least lay eyes on each other everyday. Of course, New Yorkers and Londoner and Bostonians and Salemites and all the rest of us still find ways to ignore each other. We have become pretty sophisticated at it. We don't think about the lives of those people who clean our workplaces or what that other part of town is really like. We just don't go there in our car or our imaginations. What do they have to do with me?

After Katrina a question has nudged itself to the front of my mind: Who is lying dead in the gutter somewhere who I am not helping up? The easy thing for the Samaritan in the Bible (Luke 10:25-37) was that the guy lying in the ditch was right next to him. He had to look at this dirty, bleeding mess of a person and then make a choice: should I help or not? We don't have this same luxury today. Our parents and grandparents and we have insulated ourselves from those who lay in the gutter and get stomped on. I tell myself that it is sad how they live and that it has nothing to do with how I live or what I do. I don't think I can say that anymore. I think there is something I can do. I just have to figure out what it is.

I Am So Tired

Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan

I am newborn-baby tired. I am stayed-up-all-night-to-finish-a-paper tired. I am so-dreading-when-my-children-wake-up tired. I am can't-stand-to-see-their-
little-faces-tomorrow-morning tired. I am tired from crying and I am tired from not crying enough. I am after-a-day-in-the-garden tired. I am tired of lists of things to do. I am even-a-cup-of-tea-with-extra-honey-doesn't-help tired. I am just so tired.

And I am afraid to go get into bed. I am afraid that I will get in bed and not be able to go to sleep. I long to sleep all day long, yet I can't as soon as I lay down.

Today I tried to take a nap. I got the temperature right in my bedroom. Both kids were asleep. I put in ear plugs. I read the Psalms--usually a sure ticket to quiet sleep. I follow the Word of God with a refrian of the Lord's Prayer, praying it again and again like the Catholic I am not. Nothing. Not one minute of sleep.

This is not good.

I Haven't Been Writing

I am listening to Swing, Brother, Swing sung by Billie Holiday.

At first I wrote less because I was traveling. Then it was Phil's surgery. The hurricane is the main reason I haven't over the last week, but school starting is also getting in the way. There are a bunch of unfinished blogs written over the last couple of months. But I will still write and I hope that you will still read. The hurricane is changing things; it brings perspective.

I was holding off writing because I am not sure what I want to say or how to say it. The displacement of the people of New Orleans is beyond even something from my mother's wildest, hyperbolic, paranoid imagination. I have thoughts and passionate feelings about the gross inequities that are rising to front pages. I am not sure how to write about all of that.

It feels strange to whip out a witty little ditty about something Ramona said and something Sumner did when we're watching and living with so much tragedy and uncertainty around us. Yet Sumner and Ramona continue to say and do funny things that make me laugh. He isn't too interested in his new bike--he'd rather look at his Lego magazine for the fifth time. Ramona is "really srustrated" with me because I sometimes say to her when I am really frustrated "Come on, man" and she says, "I am not a man. One day Sumner will be a man and I will be a lady. I am not a man. I am really srustrated that you keep saying that".

So life goes on. Kids are kids. I know how to write about that kid stuff. And you know what: people are people. Despite this bizarre interruption of our lives by uncontrollable forces of nature, we still have to go through the routine of living--eating, kissing, sleeping, and going places.

Philip and his family are a lot more private than me. Of course, one must remember that you only need to be a little bit private to be more private than me. Sharing the complexities of shock and grief that they are feeling feels like an invasion, so I will leave that alone. They are staying in Boston for the time being and don't know where they will go when. They are watching soccer practices and giving baths and driving the minivan and making a lot of calls and emails. They are a lot of help to me. Their house is okay.

So I will write about the stuff I have been writing about. Tomorrow.

Little Outpourings

About 15-20 people have offered housing to my in-laws while they are in Boston. Thanks.

My friend Molly emailed me and told me she was making a blackberry crisp, which Phil really likes, and was wondering if it was shippable from Colorado to Boston.

A guy waiting on me in the Cingular phone shop told me that he thinks the government should just cut people checks of $1,000 and send them to new cities to start new lives. I couldn't help but think, wouldn't they use it for drugs or booze or Happy Meals instead of bus fares, new apartments, and cheaper food. While the judgmental policy maker in me was doing overtime in my imagination playing through the idea of a $1000 redo check, the historian in me broke in: Wouldn't 40 acres and a mule have helped 130 years ago? Would we be here if the right thing was done back then?

At bedtime, Ramona usually prays each night for five things she is thankful for. This week she just wants to pray for "everybody’s' flooded houses".

I don't usually see people in t-shirts from Louisiana in the Bay State. Yesterday in the drug store, on the street, and while I was on a run this morning, I saw people dressed in support of those displaced folks from New Orleans and those still stuck there. Every shirt anyone ever bought on a tourist trip to New Orleans seem to be out of their basement storage box and on people's backs.

Finally, you gotta follow this link and hear this song. Once, when Phil and I were in college, he put a jazzy instrumental version of "Oh, When the Saints" on his voice mail. One day, his grandmother called and left a message on his phone singing (with her German accent) the first few lines of the song. We played it over and over. I heard this version yesterday. In the lead into the song, a New Orleans jazz funeral historian said he is thinking of those who have died from New Orleans and are now marching into heaven. I also am thinking of the help we pray is marching into New Orleans.

There Are No Words

What we are seeing on our TVs and computers from New Orleans is unspeakable. I have not been able to blog.

Our family is safe. They will rebuild and life will go on. Lynn and Rick are here in Boston with us and Sumner and Ramona keep our spirits up.

The injustice going on in New Orleans is beyond what I could have imagined.

Lord, please show us how to help. Guide our steps. Send help. Now.