Fortitude

We live out in the country, about 10 minutes from town which means I do a fair amount of driving: getting kids to and from school, picking up Martha (our personal saint that just happens to keep our home organized and clean!) and all the errands to do in a day. In my daily comings and goings there is a woman that is also going about her day on foot with her children. This other mother is a tiny Mexican woman, you can see the Indian influence in her face, there are no Spanish features about her, she is short, dark, with jet black hair and has the most beautiful cheekbones. Generally she is carrying her baby in her rebozo, holding the hand of a 2 or 3 year old, while her other three chidren are older and walk on their own.

This is where I see her walking with her children: To school, about 1 kilometer away but on narrow dirt and cobblestone roads with a fair amount of traffic. To get water from a local pump, she crarries two 5 gallon buckets, attached to a limb, across her back full of water, I would say that is about 50 kilos, or around 100 pounds (her son also takes the wheelbarrow and pushes 100 pounds of water, he looks to be around 10). To wash the family clothes in the nearby alfalfa field. Her oldest daughter carries the wash tub, the second daughter tends to the toddler, the 10 year old boy pushes the wheelbarrow with the clothes and the baby in it and she carries more clothes in her two 5 pound bucket yoke. I've watched them all go into the field and help their mother wash their clothes by hand or tend to the little ones making sure they stay out of the road.

One day the family was in their usual laundry spot which faces another field, it is wide open to the western sky and the Sierra de Guanajuato Mountain range. There was a particularly beautiful sunset that night and the oldest daughter was facing west, transfixed by a moment. Disclaimer: I don't profess to be a shaman! But suddenly everything in this young girls life opened to me as I watched her, she was absorbed in the last embers of the day and looked so fiercely fragile, like she was longing to jump into the sky over those far away mountains. The way she looked at her landscape seemed to fill her with hope and this crazy otherworldly glow was all around her head. When I drove by I said outloud to myself "I have just seen her hopes and fears and the solace that she seeks". This was a rare moment, I was driving completely alone and going very slow so I could savor quiet moments and what a gift I received in those precious few moments. When I see her now I want to weep because she represents to me the proverbial flower in a hailstorm, something so beautiful but with such fortitude she cannot, willnot let herself be destroyed by what is ugly in this life.

More often though I see her mother, walking, walking, walking, always in the opposite direction of which I am going, which adds to the juxtaposition of our lives. I can tell you her entire wardrobe; 1 black skirt, 1 khaki skirt, 1 white blouse, 1 tan blouse, 1 red sweater, 1 black rebozo, 1 pair of dusty black shoes. Her legs are always dusty from the walking, her hair a bit disheveled. Her expression is never one of joy, sorrow or anger, she looks indifferent to the world, this world simply is, nothing more or less. When I drive by this Mexican mother I feel so guilty in my life of relative priviledge, guilty for the fears I have, shame for every time I speak harsh words to my children or refuse to take three children somewhere by myself, because it's a hassel. Everyday this other mother walks the road with her children and her children recognize they have to work with their mother, they cannot survive without each other.

Please don't think I am romanticizing their life, it must be hard beyond my belief. I am trying to understand why this is still how the majority of the world lives, it's real, it's in my face and I cannot stop thinking about this family. The world I inhabit has running water, washing machines, maids, concrete floors, cars to drive, I feel like her evil twin when I drive by. We are polar opposites and I wonder, if I am faced with her level of poverty could I even stand up in a day and walk half of the miles she can with such grace?

School Time!

This morning, Sebastian and Isabel headed off to school, can you hear me breathing a sigh of release? Roarke will be enrolled this week and go for his trial period to see if he can adapt to Waldorf and if Ireti, the maestra, can handle our little firecracker. Something in me says; "argh the kid is so energetic and used to freeplay he'll hate it!" The larger part of me says; "okay, Ireti is the kindest, most patient woman I have ever met an she will be a boon for Roarke's development"; and secretly (though not a secret anymore) I think; "they are going to kick him out of school and say 'go somewhere else!'" What I really think is that I am needlessly putting myself on edge over something so minor, best to let it go. How does one do that?

Most of the morning went well. Lots of mud and puddles to drive through on the way to school, there is a new road being built to the school, still a dirt road but new dirt (which the rain is washing downhill, smart! in this land of abundant concrete, why are roads not concrete?) and now there are two school buses, progress! Sebastian went to his room without a hitch, his maestro moves up in grades with the children, why isn't this done everywhere? You spend so much time getting your kid geared up for school, intitating a working relationship with the teacher and then boom, school is over go to the next grade, say good-bye to this teacher that knows you so well, and godspeed to the next teacher that you have no relationship with, whew, that was a vent! Instead, once in primary grades at Waldorf, teachers move with you and therefore know how to teach to a group while paying attention to the individual needs. I know that when my kids go to school their whole being will be attended to, what a blessing.

Isabel, that wasn't so easy, she did change maestras and classrooms, she wrapped her hands around my inner thigh and buried her head in my stomach refusing to move. She is one tough customer, Sebastian and I have been trying to sell her on her new teacher for over a month. Isabel loves crafting and projects so I baited her with that, Maestra Lucy will teach you how to knit! (Because your mama sucks at handcrafts!)You will get to sew and paint and be with friends instead of your cranky mother, won't that be fun!! It will for me, apparently, not so much for her. So, she refused to go to Ms. Lucy and went to Ireti, Santa Ireti, and I left her smiling but in the wrong classroom, with assurances she would end up in the right classroom.

Officially we are back in the swing of things, life seems much more purposeful with the start of school. Gone are the days of sleeping in until 8:00 in the morning and freeplay all day long, the every once in a while trips to town. I miss the sleepy days of summer vacation but now I don't feel like we are all free falling and have no idea what to do with ourselves, I'm enjoying a rythym.

P.S. No Photos, camera is a failed piece of modern techonology!

Catching Rainbows

And another thing that makes me happy, digitally capturing Isabel capturing Rainbows in her hand. This photo may look like a small hand just raised up in front of the lens, but the simple beauty of that one moment will live in my soul for a long time. I love that children will stretch to the limits of what is known and unknown and capture the presumed impossibilities of this universe. I love this particular small hand and all she grasps in a day, a hairbrush, mud, gems, insects and flowers, all of it so gorgoeus and sumptuous, my heart seems to burst from an overload in my joy breaker switch. Home, little hands, dusk and a sliver of a rainbow, such simple gifts.

A Short List of Happiness

Can I just tell you all that I love blogging, this is as close as it gets to memoir writing for me. The downside is that I like to get heavy and bitchy and then no one wants to visit my blog to see how I´m doing. So I have welcomed some sunshine into my life to reverse the possible opinion that I am morose.

Sunshine point #1: My kids go to school on Monday, all of them. Soon the wacky world of Waldorf will recommence. During the first festival of the season last year there was a game where the kids could jump over a campfire. WOW! Can´t wait for that activity again.

Moonlight point #1: Three sleeping children. I can hear the crickets and frogs, moths beating their wings in a frantic search for light, and a pesky mosquito in my ear. I do not hear any chickens though, am I really in Mexico? The frosting on this nocturnal cake...watching Darjeeling Limited without Roarke constantly saying "I like the guys on the train, they´re funny mommy.he-he-he-he-he!"

Sunshine point #2: Watching an eagle catch thermals over our house with Miss Isabel. The wing span was around 5 feet, but then my spatial skills suck, it was a large eagle, I´ll leave it at that. We have lots of yummy mice and snakes to eat so help yourself Majestic Eagle and keep coming back, we think you´re really cool!

Moonlight point #2: Seeing Tom Robbins in a small auditorium with friends. Mr. Tom Robbins spoke of his love for the language of the story, our interconnectedness with all things, and the utmost importance of the goofiness in life. Tom also warns against mediocrity in writing, it is a hairball from a poisoness cat, best to be avoided. While I cannot promise stunning metaphors like Tom Robbins, I promise to spark laughter or action in your three pound universe.

There it is a short list of my happiness over the past two days; they were days that tasted like homemade chocolate brownies with extra chocolate chips, so gooey I had to keep licking my fingers.

From the Land of Squat Houses to McMansions to Shannon Avenue

I just read a posting on Freakonomics questioning the sustainability of suburbia, what will happen to all those houses that contributed to the housing bubble? This is a question Richard and I have pondered when we drive past say, Misty Pines, and there is an absence of any trees, or maybe...Fawn Lakes, where the only lake in the local drainage pond and the fawn is more likely to be a resin lawn ornament than an actual animal. All we see are variations on a theme for housing and a whole lot of beige. This is my encounter with suburbia.

In 2000, we started our housing search and looked at so many houses my eyeballs hurt. There was only one other house that was memorable for us but, for all the wrong reasons, it happened to be a Country Wide home. Upon pulling into the driveway Richard remarked: "Good Lord, we couldn't even have two beers and try to come home, we'd never find our house. These pieces of crap all look the same!" And then we broke into "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads singing "this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife, well, how did I get here?!" My analysis of Country Wide subdivisions: "If I have to live here, I'll slit my wrists within six months." Richard's analysis: "Honey, you are looking at the future slums of America, congratulations Country Wide."

While the search for a house to call home was commencing, we were living in basically the slums, in a charming half double. We were the minorities in the neighborhood and local food source for any child willing to eat vegetables. The houses in our neighborhood were built from late 1890's to around mid 1930's, former farmland parceled out to bring money to a family and build more homes for the increasing population. Never was I so happy to return to our "shitty Keystone Avenue" (a term coined by a friend, not me!) after the ghastly viewing of what Country Wide did not have to offer. Where was the charm, dignity and pedestrians of a neighborhood? All I saw that day were garages as front doors, the kind where you drive in , shut the door and then punch the alarm code in to enter a door that leads somewhere into a house. Thanks but no thanks, borrowing yet again from the Talking Heads "I wouldn't live there, if you paid me to!"

That said, I'll tell you of the suburbia I grew up in, I call it the land of squat houses, not affectionately either. Our house was "ranch style", which really means flat and built on a concrete slab, built in the mid-50's by National Homes. How I hated ranch homes growing up, no stairs in the house, no front porch to sit on and spy on your neighbors, no floors with floorboards that creaked when you walked on them, no arched doorways, no fireplace. You can see, my list of requirements is high. I wanted to live in a house with character; warm my bones and naked children in front of a wood burning fireplace, live in a house where the basement is dug into the earth, rooting the house and my family (and can store all my stuff!)

Deciding against the new suburbia helped us seek out and find a gem for a home, to fit us perfectly and root our family. We opted out of a McMansion, out of the "appeal" of shopping centers full of the latest and greatest consumer goods, and chose the nuts and bolts of what a neighborhood needs to function. We chose sidewalks, porches, a grocery store at the end of the street, a thrift store 5 minutes away, a park 8 minutes away,people walking dogs or children, and a church as the navel of the neighborhood. Even though we didn't attend Little Flower, my sacred self loved that this neighborhood was built around the church, a beautiful metaphor. Purchasing our 65 year old home required acceptance: of other people's decades of dirt, their emerald green carpet, their vintage Florida orange keyhook with keys to the unknown, we knew we were home, rooted.

Easily we could have obtained a larger mortgage, moved to the 'burbs to live in a pre-fab house with a 2 car garage, but our souls screamed out "You two people cannot!" Suburbia would not have sustained our family happily, it was missing all the charm, dignity and quirkiness you get when your home is built in 1936. Richard and I had finally shrugged off the confines of suburban baggage and made a home for our family outside of the canned, processed and highly marketed housing market.

The neighborhoods we (Richard and myself) grew up in as children have suffered from "white flight" and the loss of middle-class families, the properties are ill cared for by landlords and the crime rate is inching it's way up, National Homes are becoming inner city homes. Downtown, where formerly the poor were annexed, has seen skyrocketing property values and the middle class, largely, is flying to the suburbia formerly known as farmland, those with less economic power have very few choices but to move to the old suburbia I grew up in. But not to worry, when those houses wear out, Country Wide has supplied us with a fresh batch of future slums. Now ask yourselves a couple of more questions; What shall we do when there is no land left to farm on? And another thing... the $25 billion bailout of Fannie and Freddie, don't we the people logically own all those houses in foreclosure since we bailed public lenders out? Looks like we just paid for the next wave of public housing, but then what do I know, I was only a B+ student.

P.S. That is our lovely home in the picture, you can see why we chose to live there!

Our Two Year Anniversary

The end of August marks the two year anniversary for the Cloyd-Annarino´s in Mexico. I remember telling friends and family we were moving here for one year, usually people asked "why?". (But not in a hey, how great, why? More like why on earth would you want to do that? why.) So I crafted a two part answer; a.) to become bi-lingual, especially the kids b.) why not? Life is a short adventure in itself, why not stretch the boundaries of where you think you belong?

And then we drove down to Mexico. I have to fess up to shopping at Wal-Mart in the next town over our first weekend here. I was aghast $65 pesos (about 5.50 USD at the time) for a 2-pack of Bounty paper towels, no quinoa, no yummy Trader Joe´s sauces, ice cream made with vegetable oil (gross!). Culture shock set in, how to make my family comfortable without what I deemed creature comforts. Well, of course that is part of the experience, I knew it would be coming, but in the midst of culture shock there can be a feeling of extreme immobility. The ability to make simple choices seemed an enormous undertaking, simple tasks were daunting. Just turning on my stove to cook was a chore, because the stove didn´t just turn on, you had to light it. Now this is no big deal to me, it was a dumb thing to even get my panties in a bunch over, but I did, that is how freaked out I was.

The hardest part of all was leaving friends and family behind, but i thought optimistically "family will want to visit" and as far as friends...Nimrods had been in Lincoln for one year at that point and Duffýs were moving to Shelbyville. Our luxurious days of laughing kids, messy homes, coffee, yummy baked goods and hours of intelligent, quality conversation were dear memories. There were many more friends left behind but My Shannon Ave was a wave that had reached it´s shore, time to find a new wave. About 2 months after living here the illnesses set in: typhoid, samonella, parasites galore...ugh, the bodily fluids we experienced during our first six months, I don´t wish it upon anyone in this world, except G.W. Bush, so he may know how the majority of the world population lives. The constant train of illness at our door made me thankful we had money to pay for healthcare, people die from the things we had, especially children. Thankfully ours did not.

In the first six months in Mexico I did whine so much "I just want to go home". So when did the shift occur for me? I can´t remember when it was, it was a gradual shift in my heart, a subtle taking over. Maybe it was six months free of any illnesses, maybe moving to the counrty where the patio walls were gone and so were the million curious Mexican kids peeping in our kitchen window, all day, every day. Perhaps it was the day Bash used the verb "tomar" perfectly when speaking with Martha and suddenly he knew more Spanish than me. The million little pieces filled into my heart, filled it up and made me love the place where I was, for the second time in my life.

I don´t whine, as much anyway, about the "limitations" I used to experience. Now they aren´t limitations, just the way things are. There is no Target, no Value Village, no Trader Joe´s...I can live through my longing to visit those places regularly. My friendship support network is expanding, I´ll never be able to duplicate the simple beauties of Shannon Ave., that was a rare intersection of wonderfulness. Mexico offers a different intersection if wonderfulness and I am wrapping myself in the sweetness of this experience.

Many times people have called me "brave" but I wanted you to all know, I don´t have any special brand of bravery, indeed I´m a bit of a chicken heart. What I have is an urge to be in the world, to understand a day in the life of someone else, a desire for adventure that changes your heart and your view of the world. Call me naïve but I still give merit to the impact one person can have on the whole world, for the better. A person doesn´t need to leave their town, their country, to do all these things but I had to, I had to prove to myself that maybe there really is a layer of bravery in my bones. I think I finally approve of me, on my merits, my actions and I´m looking foward to our changes during this next year.

To Be Grateful For Today...

legos on a king size sheet, children's laughter shaking the trees, playdates and sleepovers, a herd of brahma cows and baby goats eating our grass, shepherd boys, water, take out pizza, the absence of voices, wind kissing trees, bumble bees buzzing, dripping flowers, pink and brown dog licking my toe, crescent moon, house lights blinking across the lake, moonlight turning water silver, my children, my husband, being alive!

What are you grateful for this day my friend?