courage 4

Write the damned book.

That is the message I received, a bit more delicately expressed. But the fact remains. I say I want to write, so I need to write.

And I do. Indeed I do. In fact, the issue has not been that I have not been writing, or even that I have not been concentrating my efforts effectively: I have. But it is only in the last month that I have really begun to own this: I am a writer. It is what I have always wanted, and what I have to do.

The courage in it is in simply doing what I most want to do. I write, and in some places my work is selected. Not one of the “top picks” but selected, published, circulated. It brought me a little happiness. But not enough. I have never really realized how this game works, and perhaps have been afraid to find out.

Courage to follow our heart is a difficult sort of courage to define. So often this feels–as we let the housekeeping fall by the wayside, as other important things go undone in the pursuit of it–like selfishness. Doing what we most want, what brings us joy can feel extremely selfish. For many of us, this is a problem. It does take courage to say, “No. This is important.” And then do it.

But for the last month, I have been doing it, been devoting the time to sit down with others and talk about it. I plan, have notes, but more than that, I am a writer, defined by myself. Let’s see how far it takes me.

community 5

Yesterday, a friend called and told me that he hoped I was going to go to the reading.

The what? I had not received the message, and he promptly sent me his copy of it. Yes, a book reading, by his friend the writer.

The writer friend is named Mary Johnson, and her book, An Unquenchable Thirst, will be coming out next year. She read a portion of this incredible memoir today, recalling a trip with Mother Teresa–the book is going to be fantastic. Ginny Bitting and Susanne Davis read from their works, as well: what a wonderful afternoon at the Burren in Somerville!

Wonderful, too, that I walked out of it with a date on the calendar to meet again with like-minded women who value words–in so many ways what I seek most deeply in my life. My friend (just to be clear: a friend I did indeed meet on okcupid) had read my writing, and told me about AROHO, A Room of Her Own. I looked at the website, filled with the dream of writing retreat, the even greater dream of being able to pursue writing as a vocation for a year and not starve doing it…

But the community. I sat next to a nice woman who passed me one of her raffle tickets because I had not found cash to buy my own. Neither of us won, but we both seem to be looking for the same thing: other people who value this writing. So, by the end of the afternoon, six names were on a sign-up sheet. We meet in two weeks. Writing women! –and women who write well, if the samples of the day are any indication of the quality inspired by the group.

Yes! This is what I live for, this sort of community. Perhaps if guided by passion, we can always find what we truly need.

community 1

In many ways, the aim for community is not so different from my quests for adventure last month. In both, I see an aligning of my deepest wishes. And in that I think of who I am, where I fit now and want to fit, and how to find that place in the world.

But first I think of why it is that I feel so out of the world right now. Excuses, I suppose… So, without a lot of detail, I came up with a list of those. And basically, these are all the truths that I do not like so much.. And where we might fit in? Well, this is what was fun. I could think of many places where I feel good about what I do, but perhaps have been too full of excuses from the former group to make time to concentrate on the latter. And all this prevents me, really, from doing what it is that I need to do in life. Which is to live it.

So.. I am good at a few things. I feel scattered much of the time because I am always putting out fires, but in fact there is far more important work to be done than this. I concentrate on my own voyage.. now the point is to leave behind my own self and look outward. What makes the difference? Where can I do the best work? And that is what I aim to find out in the next month.

To start, what matters most to me?

My kids, of course. But this is not so unusual: everyone puts kids at the top of the list.

So, beyond that, in this world… what has mattered?

Words. Words matter.

Telling the story–telling the story with words so that the story is not forgotten. Telling the story to create the world.. I think the answer lies somewhere there.

So, tomorrow, I start. The stories of the world around me–the ones I can tell. I have always wanted to tell the stories.. but these stories are those of my world now–the realities right here. This is where community has to begin.

adventure 1

Today’s adventure was going to be easy. It was going to be about my little trips into the homes of strangers. This is nothing new, though: I do it for a living. I do indeed always find adventure in the lives I get to see, the stories people tell me. What a privilege! Today I entered into two different cultures, both cooking when I arrived, both warm and full of life, even in the most difficult circumstances. I might talk about this, but the situations require some distance on my part, at least in what I say about them, though I personally feel little distance with the people I see.

But really, the idea of my month of new adventures was to challenge myself, to wander outside the comfort zone, and I have to say that I have no hesitation whatsoever in meeting new people. I love it. I live for it!

I rode my bicycle today, through rainy cold streets that woke me up with a bite. And I felt alive, if numbed a little. And numbing perhaps was the point in one way.. a numbing of feelings that often overpower me as I go about the day. Feelings of injustice, as I see people who are not receiving the help they need, often because it is easy to take advantage of them. Feelings of my own disappointment, at things that I hoped might go differently in the day. Feelings of jealousy, or just plain sadness. Feelings of frustration as I realize my son is coping with difficult realizations of himself, his place in the world.. a challenging place in many ways, especially at age fourteen. Feelings of intense love. Feelings of desire, lust.. Impatience!

I often try to ignore these feelings, often also find myself aware of my kids’ embarrassment at my excited expressions when I point out the birds: “LOOK! A blue heron, everybody!” Or when I really, really enjoy the hot risotto I just made, still with the steam from the stock and wine and onions settled into my hair and clothing from standing over it for the last half hour.. Mmmmm. When I play music loud in the car, roll down the windows on a warm night and drive fast on Storrow just to see the city lights. Well, these things embarrass them, and really, it is too bad. My hugs often embarrass them, too, and they are not about to stop.

But honestly, it is not a matter of whether or not I embarrass my kids. It really is a matter of my own willingness to let myself be myself.. To admit, least of all to me!, but to others what I believe, who I am.

So, today’s adventure is about this: accepting. Yes, I am enthusiastic, and I get all caught up in moments when I am excited and happy, and I do overwhelm nearly everyone who gets to know me very well. A friend tried to convince me that I could rethink that idea and call it passion.. but I don’t know that changing the word makes it any more tolerable.

So.. that is me. It seems a good place to start, as I actually find my own passion a bit tempered simply in the act of writing itself. The writing itself is often my joy, even when joy may otherwise seem elusive… if only temporarily so. And I am indeed telling you about that right now.

Why? Well, I never promised I would say why. After all, some discretion is necessary to protect the innocent. And actually, that may be part of the adventure, too.. the part I get to keep secret. After all, all great adventures have their untold parts, don’t they?

three little words

“I am happy.”

The last time my twelve-year-old son made a sentence was nearly five years ago, on my fortieth birthday. On that day, he said, “Happy Birthday.” It was a happy birthday, of course. What better present? A miracle. A temporary miracle, but not less special. Words uttered so rarely… words, feelings. I witness this, and it makes me shiver, then makes me cry.

I went to work today, still in awe of the moment my son had shared with me, went to see women who are growing old, holding onto their own miracle of life, and knowing it.

“Ah, when you go out to dinner, or have something nice in your life, it means more to you!” one speculated. I never let people so close to me, not at work, but sometimes it is impossible for them not to see. Yes, the sky is bright, the rain is beautiful, the world is warm and wonderful. And my son said he was happy. He said so.

I am happy, too.

longing

Du im Voraus
verlorne Geliebte, Nimmergekommene,
nicht weiß ich, welche Töne dir lieb sind.
Nicht mehr versuch ich, dich, wenn das Kommende wogt,
zu erkennen. Alle die großen
Bildern in mir, im Fernen erfahrene Landschaft,
Städte und Türme und Brücken und un-
vermutete Wendung der Wege
und das Gewaltige jener von Göttern
einst durchwachsenen Länder:
steigt zur Bedeutung in mir
deiner, Entgehende, an.

Ach, die Gärten bist du,
ach, ich sah sie mit solcher
Hoffnung. Ein offenes Fenster
im Landhaus—, und du tratest beinahe
mir nachdenklich heran. Gassen fand ich,—
du warst sie gerade gegangen,
und die spiegel manchmal der Läden der Händler
waren noch schwindlich von dir und gaben erschrocken
mein zu plötzliches Bild.—Wer weiß, ob derselbe
Vogel nicht hinklang durch uns
gestern, einzeln, im Abend?
–Rainer Maria Rilke

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me – the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods -
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house – , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon, -
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening…
(Translated here by Stephen Mitchell)

I think often of the word saudade, that sense of longing and incompleteness so deep.. a melancholy with it, but in that, a beauty. Many a Brazilian song expresses this feeling, this gnawing lack. Other languages have similar words– Sehnsucht, for example–but what do we say in English? Sadness does not quite capture it… not melancholy. Longing?

So, I say longing, but it is a productive sort of longing, perhaps in its desire to recreate that missing part. So many songs, so many poems.

For years when I was young, I kept Rilke’s poem hanging on my bedroom wall. Perhaps then it was a testament to teenage angst, but it seemed more predictive than that…

I do not really believe in the idea of a soul mate, but I do have some sense of fate. Who are we meant to be? What are we supposed to find in this life? Do we find glimmers of interconnected beauty in our lives, moments that we feel we really are known, share this space in love? Or are we forever to wander, with a sense of longing so great? Are we forever to search, to want something.. one moment, oneness? Perhaps it is this that those of us who long seek. Perhaps it is this that drives our creation… Ah, but to find it–but then, to long again, perhaps for something else. And then, to create again. Perhaps this is the rhythm, the meaning in our life.

writer’s block

These everyday meanderings into my memories and feelings have been difficult to capture in words in recent weeks. I have sat to say something, but somehow, the need is gone to express these things, or even to understand them. I looked back for inspiration, back into the archives of this blog, and found so much, so many words that cradled a sad present with memories–bittersweet, but distant–of the past.

A friend recently quoted Dr. Seuss to me, not in nonsense rhyme, but in some moment of surprising lucidity: “you know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Do I love? I imagine I do. I do. And in this space of wonder and peace, words escape me faster than I can catch them. Perhaps I no longer chase them so hard.

I have had moments where I desperately wanted to produce something, to write, and felt myself unable to let go of my real world enough to escape into the realm where I create my world. It is not always in blissful states–and love is not always blissful, after all. It is in complete states, states where the distances between truth and reality seem to need no translations. It is in moments where the translations seem futile. It is in moments where translations seem to mar the experience–where just being is just enough.. like a camera in the way of an adventure. It is in moments where the beauty of expression–someone else’s expression–overwhelms me.

I find myself reading voraciously in recent weeks, listening to music, simply letting it all be mine. I absorb so much now, so much, and wish for some record to be here, to play back the waves of emotions in all of this, and then chastise myself for not recording this myself. I write now of writer’s block.. my laziness, my acceptance of the world, all its terror and its sweetness together. I write of this frustration of not being able to write, all in some effort at a jump start.. or do I? Perhaps it is more to justify it to myself.

I do write, though not here. I write a story now of the sun shining through lace hung near a window, the shadow on the wall behind it, but this is now what I want to say to the world? oh, if the world reads… I wish to tell a story, perhaps to leave my love alone to grow slowly. My words have always been direct here, related to my own world. But my world now begs for its privacy. Words now come as inspiration, woven from the feelings, but not from the deeds. I return to my story of lace, and love and laziness and lust… the time has come to move beyond the blog. I have known it for some time–and perhaps tomorrow I shall nostalgically return, write of my children, my thoughts of the moment. But no.. the next time you read me–those of you who do read me–it will be as you turn the pages of that book–yes, it is this that I want.

dirty little secret

A key turns, a door shuts, and all bets are off.

What happens behind the door?

Perhaps you think you know me, quiet in my day-to-day appearance, and never give my life a second thought. So, why should you, after all? Indeed, if you chance to wonder, you will hear of children, of jobs, of houses and the stuff of life. These are the things I foolishly take for granted in my everyday, the mundane luxuries. And yes, my vicarious living through them does account for much of my time away from the working life.

But no. When I think of my private life, it is not my family life away from work that comes to mind. My home life, my family… these are special things, but they, too, define me to the larger world in some sense. That is not the life I selfishly hide from the harsher realities of my office, or the schoolhouse. The sacred lies deeper within.

A key turns the lock to my bedroom door. I enter into a world of silks and perfumes, old books and maps, letters, oil paints and inks, ribbons and pillows and ropes and things. I open the door to a world of pleasure and creativity, and leave half myself on the other side, to observe my public life from this haven, trying to sort it out and find myself again within it, without it, to reconcile what I have to do with what I want to do. Beyond… here… I find the life I nearly forget sometimes. I climb the stairs to my words, my world, my sublimity.

I have written about this space before, as I considered my refuge, my retreat away from the world. But the more I need the space, the more I realize that it is not so much a space away as a bridge back into that which matters most. It is a necessity on some levels, but in recent months, I have wondered how much the juxtaposition between my workaday life and my creative life is disconnecting me from what my whole life can be. Many an accomplished artist has managed two separate lives this way well enough, and in some ways, it is perhaps the maintenance of such a life that feeds creativity for some people. But still, at times, I feel unknown, and in that, missing something.

This is not to say that creativity and beauty does not exist in the everyday, but somehow I guard the better parts of myself from the world I live in. Perhaps it is time to redefine myself, to move forward, to integrate.

mind over matter

Which would you rather lose: your mind or your legs?

This question is one that I was contemplating recently, as I realized the full extent of competitive spirit that can exist when different disability rights organizations are desperate to see their favorite programs funded. This seems to be a trend as grant money has dwindled, and as the next state fiscal year is dawning. As our governments work on budgets for 2010, we watch as line items are drawn in the sand. Cross one line, and an employment training program is gone. Cross another, and it is children’s mental health services. Programs are restored, others cut, who knows? If there was never enough money before, it has gotten to survivor mode now. And when it comes to the fight over where legislators dole out the bucks, it ain’t pretty.

But let me return to the original question. Which will it be now? Your mind or your body? Which defines you as a person?

The question may pose a philosophical dilemma: we think, therefore we are. Or we realize our existence as something separate from our physical body, perhaps something beyond time and space. A body, perhaps is the marker here in this world, and only defines us as we are on earth. Our mind, our soul, are what truly define us as human beings. Maybe.

If so, what to make of the mind that is different? What to make of mental illness? of developmental disabilities? Do these limit us even more as individuals?

This sort of question is one that makes me cringe–are we not more enlightened now? From all I can tell lately… well, no. Not deep down.

I do believe a hierarchy of disability exists. I believe it is much easier for us “normal people” to share and imagine the experiences with someone whose body is disabled than with someone whose mind is disabled. We fear the person we can least understand, and a nonverbal or psychotic person will throw us for a loop every time.

I would go even farther to say that the retarded and the crazy can throw some physically disabled people for a loop.

Self advocates with enormous determination have paved an accessible path with their frustration in the system and their eternal lobbying for their rights. Barriers exist, emotional as well as physical, when faced with years without access. But if the spirit may remain, be ignited by the anger at the wrongs of the situation… Minds intact, bodies not: what injustices the world holds when what keeps you from getting into it is a matter of ramps and curb cuts… and the attitudes that refuse to admit the significance of architectural barriers.

Within disability-related legislation, the image of the ADA, even now, is a stick figure in a wheelchair. We understand that wheelchair, the grab bars, the accessible seating, maybe even the braille in an elevator. I do think that even those who can barely speak to a person in a wheelchair have a fundamental understanding of access, and an understanding that the physically disabled person has a right to be included and accommodated.

But how do we deal with those other disabilities? Amendments to the ADA that became effective this year widen the spectrum of what is considered a disability. But what if those people do not want help, much less seek it out? Let them live their lives, live where they want, on the streets, in their cars if they have them. What if they still fear the stigma. Let them determine their own way and fight for their rights if they want to. What if they look pretty normal? What the hell more do they need? Don’t they already have access, if only they just used it? Only they could know.

Of course, accessibility is recognized in many places as more than physical access: Disneyworld makes a visit possible for families of children whose disabilities prevent them from being able to wait in line. A movie theater offers a special showing of a hit movie where conventionally disruptive behavior is tolerated. Schools offer appropriate accommodations during exams (well, sometimes it takes a little persuasion). The thing to note, perhaps, is that so many of these accommodations are not so much for adults as they are for children… what accommodations exist in the community as individuals with cognitive and emotional disabilities grow older? Are we getting better at it? Why has self-determination not been more fully realized for all individuals? Or has it?

Some may argue (or grumble) that accommodations go too far already–even the ramps–that the costs are too high. Or that they are ridiculous, coddling, unfair advantages. Or a waste. That is, until someone they love needs help… or they need help themselves.

It baffles me, though, that some people who fight throughout their entire lives for their civil rights could at this point and time resent the efforts of others who fight alongside them, if differently. I recently was shocked by the statements of a disability advocate who claimed–first admitting the delicacy of his statement–that funding to programs for people with developmental disabilities was generous because others–white, middle class, educated others–speak for these people. He suggested that others inspire pity for these people instead of letting them stand up for themselves.

And maybe he is right. Indeed, it is highly likely that a Department of Mental Retardation benefits from the pity of legislators who imagine a certain type of person, harmless, helpless. Why change the name when it works so well for that? By golly, there surely must be pity funding. And yes, the moms are out there, many of them near-career lobbyists themselves, fighting for a cure, and if not that, for education, for agencies, for the best in children’s services. You have seen them there, crowding the capitals, writing books. Who fights for the crabby guy in the wheelchair?

Sometimes–often, I think–the families fighting for their kids think they are fighting right alongside their physically disabled comrades. Families assume that the world of disability that may be relatively new to them is a welcoming one, at least. Families learn of a difference, a diagnosis, deal with the day-to-day, and get stronger. Then, they assume that fighting for services and funding is a mutually understood thing, that once you “get it”, you really get it, and are accepted at least in that world.

It is “Holland,” as any parent of a child with a disability may tell you: Holland is the place that is not Italy. It is not the parenting experience that is expected in the obstetrician’s waiting rooms, and at some point, a parent will be handed this to read.

It paints a pretty picture of this disability world. Just a little slower. Just different.

Well, I am here to tell you, parents: Holland isn’t always such a lovely place, after all.

I am that mom, you see. I am the mom learning the system, working the system, fighting the system. I am the mom calling the legislator, writing letters–Oh hell, I am woefully inconsistent–I do it when I can and am not putting out another fire. I do it when I cannot sleep at night because I am ticked off enough that our lives are sometimes so needlessly hard. I am the mom writing this. I am the mom fighting for my kids–all of them–one with developmental disabilities, one with mental health disabilities, two who simply live in a family with them, and yes, right now, that world is separate from the “normal world”, even when it is good. Yes, I have lost opportunities, jobs, husbands, friends, and to some extent, one of those children. Yes, I have seem a family fall apart under the strain, and come back to something strong again. Yes, we have faced judgment and discrimination. And yes, to some extent, I protect my children. And then, to another extent, I push them harder, I am meaner, I know what they will face in their future, and hope and pray and fight to give them the means and the courage to advocate for themselves.

And yes, I am that idealistic mom inspired by the self-advocates who paved the road for my kids’ rights. I am the quixotic mom who lined up to fight with them toward an even more inclusive world.

I am the mom who was indeed surprised, and disappointed, by the resentment–or even the downright hatred–I have seen at times toward my role in my children’s lives as I fight this fight. The snubs may be expected by the world that has never been faced with disabled: they do not come so much from there. The truly nasty sentiments are voiced within a divided disability world, one that resents me and what I stand for.

Are we stealing from those who need it more? Is that it? Sometimes parents are successful in their quest for funding their children’s programs. Sometimes they are powerful already, have connections, have time, have money. I sometimes speak for my children, and I do my best for those words to be what they want me to say. I am still suspect. I have consulted with medical doctors. I have attempted to find miracle cures. I have accepted my children. I have tried to find a place where we fit in.

I am the mom who is absolutely dismayed as I knock at doors to a disability community that in many cases have been shut to my children (future self-advocates), because they are children, and because our family represents something that does not seem to fit into that same civil rights movement. Maybe my children will never understand the same disability culture, because they have never been forced into an institution, because the medical community is more understanding, because parents are more knowledgeable, because schools are mandated to educate in the least restrictive environment… because the efforts of disability rights advocates have been so successful. Maybe my children cannot understand the fight of those before them, because they are living in that better world.

It is still incredibly difficult for adults with disabilities in the United States. Services of all sorts between the ages of 22 and 60 are pathetically underfunded, and very difficult to get if a person does not remain in poverty and have the right type and degree of disability. I imagine in the lives of my children that my younger son, whose developmental disabilities are significant, will receive some services throughout his life. My other son? Governmental responses to adults with mental illness who do not have a lot of money seem to be more commonly provided by the Department of Corrections than the Department of Mental Health. On the other hand, maybe he will transcend his disability to the point that he is not defined by it. Maybe he will fit in. But not into the disability culture. Is it possible that people with my children’s disabilities are still excluded from the disability world, too?

And if my son with mental health issues fares less well? If my son with developmental disabilities wants more? Will my children, who need me now, have a place to grow up at all? Will they ever be allowed to enter into the fight themselves? Will they be allowed a place as adults alongside adults with physical disabilities whose fight is viewed by the non-disabled rest of the world as a similar fight? Or as they become older, still limited perhaps in their ability to be independent, will we parents be empowered with them, to help them change the world? Are we resented by those who can advocate for themselves when we do stand beside our dependent adult children and help them have a voice, too?

Are people with disabilities invisible? Sure they are, in some worlds. Do they have a voice? Some have their own voice, accessible to all, and thank God for that. Some have words and communication beyond head butting and screaming, and do not need to find another way for their words to be heard. Some have teachers and parents and others who understand that the head butting and screaming are forms of communication, frustration, and their voices get heard, on some level. Some have had the blessings and luck and education to have pictures, or communication boards, and some power that comes with just being able to express a desire in a more conventional way.

And then again, some still need more help. It would be a great injustice to state that even the most cognitively challenged individuals are unable to express wishes for their own lives (as stated here. But understanding these individuals can take time, patience, and love… and an accepting by others of the people whom these individuals love, and the role they play in their lives. It is not a loss of self to receive love and help. It is not merciful, pitiful, or less strong to stand up with another person beside.

But most of all, for all our seemingly protective advocacy, parents want for our children to find peers who care about them, too. We want them to be adults, to have a community–we want communities that are accessible and accepting for everyone. We want what we want for all of our children. We have a dream. And we thought that adults with physical disabilities wanted that dream, too.

In theory, I believe they do.

In practice? How, in the land of the free, in our nation that so highly values individualism, independence, how do we reconcile the needs of our children for support, for a “caretaker”, with this idea of independence? How do the nonverbal communicate? How do the severely mentally ill find their way within the same world?

The independent living movement is a movement that has found its way within a system that it mirrors to some extent. Disability culture values the history of people who have been oppressed because of their disabilities. It values the creativity of its separate world, and values its separate nature. It wants to be a part, but it seems to want also to be apart. Does self-determination include people who are helped by the non-disabled? Does it include their families? Or will the non-disabled always be excluded from the disability table, because they do not share a common history? Do parents of children who accept their children with disabilities present a threat to their children’s independence, or do they present a threat to disability culture?

I do not have an answer to this question. The world is full of families limiting children (or parents, or siblings, or neighbors…) for the sake of safety, or their own guilt and worry. In the world of self-determination, the caregiver is often seen as the problem, is the problem. Sometimes, though, the caregiver is a bridge to worlds of all sorts, providing assistance from which a person may grow. How to know?

And sometimes, the disabled person, too, is his own worst enemy, his own biggest barrier. He may not see that by defining himself solely within his history, he builds higher walls than those he seeks to tear down. Sometimes the expression of his anger (justifiable though it may be) may alienate allies, and drive people away in fear and frustration, not only from the person, but from the movement in which that person defines himself.

To return to my original question, it is not so simple. Many people do not have separate disabilities: they may have physical, emotional and developmental disabilities, or any combination of things that might be part of our human condition. And even if a person does not start with multiple disabilities, years of discrimination and frustration in a physically disabled body can affect a mind, too. Cognitive impairments can affect movement. Treatments can do harm. The list goes on. The world is not so separate, after all, and we are all flawed as human beings.

But still, ask yourself the question. Mind or body? Do we value one more than the other? Do we value some people more than others? Are we relieved when an injury is not to the head? When a child is at least not retarded? When we ourselves at least still have our brain? We are human. We fear. We judge. We compete. We distinguish ourselves, define ourselves, isolate ourselves.

We can respect. We can care. We can live together. We can be a community.

Can’t we?

british bedtime stories

On the living room shelf of my childhood home was a book. In fact, there were countless books on our living room shelves, so many stories, voyages, words that saved and transported. But the one book I most remember, the book I am destined to inherit (my mom tells me) is the book of British bedtime stories.

Now, I believe the name of the anthology is not quite that, but it was something similar, and we always knew which book it was, with its thin pages and countless tales. I have googled the real name, looked in all sorts of ancient booksellers as I am tempted so often to search for my past now, but the copy that my mom has remains the only one I know of. The treasury was my introduction to so many writers: Forster, Joyce, even Wodehouse.

To put this book in its proper context, you must know that my mother is an Anglophile. She has never traveled to Britain, regrettably, and it seems at this point that she probably never will. Her England is one of dreams, Monty Python, Bleak House, murder mysteries, Spode china, Christopher Robin, the Lavender Hill Mob, tartans, Glyndebourne, Shakespeare recalled in senior learning series classes… England would indeed suit her, I am sure, if she found any bit at all like the stories we knew so well.

I may have been around thirteen when I first took down the book. The story that then struck me the most was one by John Galsworthy, “The Apple Tree.” It was a story of a grave at a crossroads, love forgotten, then remembered, lovers from vastly different worlds coming together, impossibly. It made my teenage heart dream, planting all sorts of bucolic fantasies of splendid love and possibility and rapture and heartbreak.

I find a sort of safety in these recollections, a delving into origins, language slightly altered by the crossing of an ocean, humour defining the way that we can speak the same language and still look at the world so differently.