White t-shirt bean

Life flying, rushing by, days a blur of rush to buy milk and grade tests and prepare lessons in how to use for, while, during in at least a semi-interesting manner so students don't pass out drool spilling on desks in long afternoon classes in warm classrooms that beg for naps.

Little time for my son, who I have to shoo away in the early evenings while I get work done before dinner. This little experiment in officially teaching again has not gone well. For many reasons, the main one being that I'm not ready to have a job where I have to bring mounds of work home with me. When the kid(s) are in school, maybe, we'll see.

In the midst of all this rush, rush, rush, Abe has his bath and puts on a plain white t-shirt belonging to his dad. He comes running out of the bathroom, all squeaky clean, arms outstretched and shouting, "Mom! Look at! Look at!" so proud to be wearing Daddy's shirt to bed. He says he looks like a Lost Boy from Peter Pan. With his long purple hair extension that he got at a street fair last weekend, he especially does.

Before I go to bed, I peek in at him, like I do every night. He's laying on his side like a little bean, white t-shirt nightgown, purple streak of hair down his face, thumb still inserted in mouth (a habit we haven't been able to break yet). And yep, of course, just like always, my heart burst open, like always, like always, like always.

Wednesdays are for Al Green

This song is getting me through today.

Traumatic bewilderment

I've been teaching a couple of afternoon classes for the last two weeks. The session only lasts a month, so I'm halfway through already. It's been an interesting experiment in going back to work (outside our home, of course). The classes require a lot of outside prep time, so it's almost felt like a full-time job. I have started to really miss Abe, not just when I'm in my classes, but when I have to send him away so I can grade and prep. I admit to being a really big crybaby (literally) about the whole experience.

One afternoon this week, Abe stayed at a friend's house during my classes. We first met these friends the first week we were home with Abe, and they've been a regular part of his life since then. One of his favorite places on this planet is their house.

I hope these two never stop holding hands. Autumn caught this moment before naptime.

So it was interesting to me when the following thing happened. All the kids were still sleeping when I got back from class to pick Abe up. My friend and I sat on the couch and talked, amazed at how wonderful it is to chat in such a quiet space, only the soothing voice of Sufjan Stevens singing quietly in the background. We eventually got up to wake the kids and were continuing our conversation as we walked to their rooms.

As I got to the room where Abe was sleeping, I heard him whimpering in the dark. I turned on the light and found him laying on his tummy, starting to lift his head, eyes puffy and squinty, huge frown, slow tears. He was completely bewildered. His cry was slow and mournful, with little whimpers and caught breath scattered throughout. Tears covered his face and kept coming.

Don't you remember that feeling as a kid of waking up in a place different from your own bed and being completely dumbfounded about how you got there or what would happen next? This was perhaps Abe's first time to experience this, and he did not like it. I picked him up, and he draped himself across my chest, still crying, still very confused. I rocked him back and forth, and his crying eventually stopped. He told me that he didn't know where he was when he woke up. Once he remembered and knew his friends were right down the hall, the happy-button was pushed, and all was well again. Sweet boy.

I quickly began to think about a little girl who will become the next Rooney. Abe has been with us for as long as he can remember, yet his reaction to waking up a new place even this one time was slightly traumatic. What is it going to be like for his sister? I can hardly even begin to imagine how disoriented she will be as she wakes up every day with us in her sight, on new pillows with new smells and sounds at every turn. All that was once familiar to her will be turned upside down, and I can only hope that the sight of our faces when she wakes up every day will eventually switch from being a source of bewilderment and fear to one of comfort and home.

(We've been waiting for referral for a little over four months. According to all we've heard, the call could come now at any point.)

Wednesday Event for Portlanders!

Click on the picture to see the details. I will be there with a friend tomorrow night.

Monday Moment of Zen

I have been feeling the strain and stress of a month-long job I've taken on. I'm a natural worrier and have a pretty deep-seated fear of failure and the unknown. This morning while attempting my daily run, I found this hanging outside someone's house.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

I will not tax my life with forethought of grief. I'm led to a place of rest beside still water.

Just for the fun of it:

I found this video last night.

That was about a year and a half ago while we were visiting/working in Los Angeles for a spell. Now look where our pepper-shaking friend Kelly is:

Any big-time producers out there needing to cast a hilarious woman in any upcoming projects? Pick our friend Kelly. You won't regret it.

Have a great Monday. The old grindstone is calling.

Abu Kassem's Slippers

I've been slowly making my way through Cutting for Stone during this busy summer. One section in particular left me awestruck. "Our slippers" is a term that has made its way into our family vernacular.

It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held onto his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were objects of derision. At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight of them. But his every attempt to get rid of his slippers ended in disaster: . . . when he dropped them in the canal, the slippers choked off the main drain and caused flooding, and off Abu Kassem went to jail...

"One night when Tawfiq finished, another prisoner, a quiet dignified old man, said, 'Abu Kassem might as well build a special room for his slippers. Why try to lose them? He'll never escape.' The old man laughed, and he seemed happy when he said that. That night the old man died in his sleep.

"The next night, out of respect for the old man, we lay in silence. No story. I could hear men crying in the dark. This was always the low point for me. Ah, boys...I'd pretend you both were against me, just like this, and I would imagine Hema's face before me.

"The following night, we couldn't wait to talk about Abu Kassem. We all saw it the same way. The old man was right. The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, very seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny...I met Hema in the septic ward at Government General Hospital in India, in Madras, and that brought me to this continent. Because of that, I got the biggest gift of my life--to be a father to you two. Because of that, I operated on General Mebratu, who became my friend. Because he was my friend, I went to prison. Because I was a doctor, I helped to save him, and they let me out. Because I saved him, they could hang him...You see what I'm saying?"

I didn't, but he spoke with such passion I wasn't about to stop him.

"I never knew my father, and so I thought he was irrelevant to me. My sister felt his absence so strongly that it made her sour, and so no matter what she has, or will ever have, it won't be enough." He sighed. "I made up for his absence by hoarding knowledge, skills, seeking praise. What I finally understood in Kerchele is that neither my sister nor I realized that my father's absence is our slippers. In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves."

All these years and I hadn't known this about Ghosh, about his father dying when he was young. He was like us, fatherless, but at least we had him. Perhaps he'd been worse off than we were.

Ghosh sighed. "I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only your actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."

--Abraham Verghese

Running Man

We took our African grandparents to Multnomah Falls this morning, a first for many of them. But not all. One was very familiar with the place.

We all lined up for photos at the famous bridge, a short .2 mile hike up. We realized that one of our men was missing. We were hoping he had gone back to the bottom, so with my zoom lens, I searched the crowd for him. He wasn't there.

We milled around for a while, not sure what to do. Some of us were worried that he may have fallen or gotten lost. We all wanted to know where he'd gone.

We slowly made our way back down to the main viewing area. We took more photos there. Z still wasn't back. We made our way to the picnic area near the gift shop, hoping he was there. He was.

He had, in the time it had taken all of us to take photos and meander .4 mile, run to the top of the falls and back. He never broke a sweat. It is exactly 1.1 miles straight up to get to the top. Our friend Z is in his 70's. He was wearing, like all days, his three-piece suit and dress shoes.

When I found out what he'd done, I gave him a high-five. He smiled beautifully, took my hand, kissed it, like he always does.

This man was born to run. He'd been here before, had made this hike already. But in thirty minutes? In his 70's? In a three-piece suit? Not breaking a sweat? Let's put this running man in the Olympics. This small Ethiopian elder couldn't resist the call of the trail. His run today was an act of beauty, of life, of joy.

I so love Abe's African grandparents. Z's run today filled me with joy. I laughed out loud when I found out what he'd done. My neighbor's eyes welled up with tears when I told her about it tonight. Transcendence. Z reached it today in the Columbia River Gorge.

Post run, no sweat.