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High School: Then. And Now.

A while ago, during a series of lovelinks roundups, a group of writers started thinking about high school. Some of us with horror, some of us with actual fondness (amazing but, apparently, not everyone was miserable in high school) …and that led to the wonderful Stasha offering up her Monday listicle for high school lists. You see that jazzy button down there? It’s Babes in the Bleachers…think Rizzo and Sandy and Greased Lightning…or, in my case, foofy hair, bad sweaters, and clothes made exclusively of polyester.

I’m writing this post from Jaipur, however, which has the effect of making high school seem even further away–and more surreal–than it usually does.  Every cliche you’ve ever heard about India–the crowds, the colors, the filth, the poverty, the beauty, the grace–they’re all true.  Here’s just one snippet: today as we made our way to Johari Bazaar down a street crowded with tourist buses, commuter buses, bicycle rickshaws, motor-bikes, and tuk-tuks, we saw heading towards us a mahout on an elephant, whose forehead was painted with pink and yellow swirls.

This picture, which is the only thing I could find digitized on my computer, is me, on the occasion of my senior prom. Please note that my hair looks like a solid rectangle around my head. What you can’t see is the amount of hairspray needed to maintain that cube and my attempts to create a Farrah-curl down one side. My hairspray usage meant that I really shouldn’t be around open flames, but alas, I was a heavy smoker. It’s a miracle that I didn’t immolate myself, ala an Indian widow.

So. With India in my head and the scent of jasmine in the air, I’m taking advantage of my high-tech wifi at this lovely hotel in Jaipur and writing about high school.

1. High school was, for me, about hair. Good hair: you got in with the “cool” crowd. Bad hair? You were watching “Fantasy Island” at home with your parents on Friday night.  In fact, I spent most of high school worried about my hair. I have worn the same messy braid for a week and my hair has been washed…um…once? Maybe?

2. My prom outfit is a white spaghetti-strapped pantsuit with a little black bolero jacket. The pants are sort of balloony harem pants. The zipper on this charming ensemble will break approximately 45 minutes after we leave the house, necessitating an emergency stop to buy safety pins to hold the damn thing together. I will need an aide-de-camp in the bathroom any time I want to pee (the zipper is in the back of the pantsuit). There is not a natural fiber within ten feet of this little number, needless to say.  Now I regularly carry a shawl to cover my head and/or shoulders, and because I’m also carrying an extra five (okay, ten) pounds, the thought of a jumpsuit fills me with dread.

3. “Getting ready” in high school, whether for prom or a regular school day meant mascara and blush and lipliner and  lipgloss and eyeliner and eyeshadow. Now if it’s a Big Night Out, I put on mascara. If I can find it.

4.  What you don’t see in this picture is my prom date: the boy I adored, who is sporting a picture-perfect mullet. The epitome of mullet. I loved that mullet.When I fell in love with Husband, he sported a glossy ponytail, a shorter version of that moment in the movie “The English Patient” when Juliette Binoche sees the Sikh take off his turban and toss back his hair. Yeah. Like that (but Husband doesn’t wear a turban). He just had the anti-mullet.

5. Another thing you don’t see in this picture? How much pot I was smoking to fill up the hollowness I felt inside. Later (much later) I learned we might call this “self-medication,” but at the time I just thought I was being totally cool and independent. Now? I blog (and I spent most of my thirties in therapy).

6. Under all this hair is a girl who wanted to be a writer and who wrote poetry about everything, but didn’t tell anyone how serious she was about her love with words. Then I went to graduate school and got the creative shit kicked out of me for the better part of a decade (the same decade I spent in therapy…which I’m sure is just a total coincidence). All those words started to seep back in once graduate school became a distant memory.

7.  I dreamed about traveling the world beyond the edges of my rust-belt Midwestern town. Did I mention I’m in India? And that I’m living this year in Abu Dhabi.  Good dreaming, girl, good dreams!

8. At the moment this picture was taken, I was sure my parents were Ruining My Life. That they had, in fact RUINED my life with their insistence that I come home on prom night, that I apply to college, that I suffer the consequences when I skipped class or came home drunk.  TOTALLY unreasonable, right? Now my mother is one of my best friends and I’ve made my peace with my dad (see above, re: therapy).

9.  Was sure that no one had misery like mine.  Just watched a man bathe himself while he squatted in his “camp” — on a traffic island in the middle of Delhi.

10.  Thought my four inch Sbicca jute-wrapped wedgie slides were too cool for words, especially when worn with my skinny “nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s” Calvin Klein jeans. Now? Well, this one is a little more complicated because those shoes were WICKED cool and I wish to god they’d surface in some storage box somewhere. But those jeans? Long, long gone. And good riddance, too. My dad once said, of those pants, “your butt looks like two cats fighting in a sack.”  Which, while perhaps accurate, is not what a teen-age girl wants to hear as she sashays off to school of a Monday morning.

11. The girl in this picture kept herself silent, or tried to, because she thought she lived in a world where “pretty” and “smart” were mutually exclusive categories. It’s when I think about high school that I am grateful I don’t have daughters (an absence that usually makes me wistful) because I think the world of adolescent girls hasn’t changed that much, unfortunately; I think girls still get the message that it’s brains or body, not both.  One of my most important goals, as a mother, is to raise sons who (if they’re interested in girls) look for the brains under the hair.

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Read full story · Comments { 11 } on November 7, 2011 in Abu Dhabi, growing up, Monday Listicle, Travel

is there nutella on the path to enlightenment?

We leave for India Wednesday night. Our flight leaves Abu Dhabi at 10:30, a good two hours after the boys’ bedtime, which should make for some lovely pre-flight bickering. We arrive in Delhi, conveniently, at 3:15AM. I think that even my children may be too tired to squabble at that hour, but who knows. Perhaps they’ll rally and stage a re-enactment of the Sepoy Rebellion at the luggage carousel.

India floats in my mind in a cloud created from long-ago readings (and re-readings) of MM Kaye’s steamy historical romance The Far Pavilions, Rohinton Mistry’s brilliant  A Fine Balance, a smattering of Forster, and Elizabeth Gilbert’s yogic enlightenment.  There’s a little “Slumdog Millionaire” thrown in for good measure, and then the whole mishmosh gets wrapped in brightly patterned cloth and tied with sparkly mirrored thread.

In other words, I know pretty much nothing.  Liam and Caleb are all “elephants! Taj Mahal! Red Fort! Elephants! Tigers! Taj Mahal!” So pretty much they don’t know anything either.

We’ve done some homework: my copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Delhi, Agra, and Rajasthan is as well-thumbed as a holy book; indiamike is now bookmarked on my computer. The boys have flipped through a few India books, and they’ve looked at some websites, but nothing more than that.

This trip is the first Big Trip of our Middle East Adventure, so we’re doing what we can to cater to the tastes of the under-eleven set: we’re staying at hotels with pools for post-touring jumping around; we’ve booked a little tiger-spotting safari in Ranthambore National Forest (erase visions of bwana in a tent doing a Hemingway—it’s a jeep that drives through the jungle for a few hours, then dumps us back at our hotel); we’re going to Jaipur to ride an elephant to the Amber Fort.

Actually, who am I kidding? Our itinerary seems perfectly designed for the closer-to-fifty-than-you-want-to-admit set, too.  It’s my first trip to India and I’m not ready for too much “off the beaten path” this time around. Next time, maybe, but at this point, I’m flying Low Expectation Airways.  I want us all to see a glimpse of this amazing part of the world, become a little more aware of the educational and economic privileges we take for granted, check the Taj Mahal at sunrise off my life list, and then…well, after that, I just want to survive nine days, two boys, one husband, shared hotel rooms, and a LOT of trains.

Husband toured around India and Pakistan decades ago, in the post-college haze of youth and energy. He stayed with distant relatives or slept in youth hostels (or youth hostiles—there’s a reason god invented the B&B, and it was to save us from the youth hostel).  Husband wandered through cities, hopping trains whenever and wherever he wanted. He was, you know, Finding Himself.

Finding Yourself is easy (sort of), when you travel alone. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to have a yogic “aha!” moment on this trip, the way Elizabeth Gilbert did when she stayed at an ashram, in the “Pray” section of Eat, Pray, Love.  Finding enlightenment is a whole hell of a lot more difficult when you’re traveling with emergency jars of Nutella and peanut butter in your suitcase.  If I were to write a book about this trip, I might call it “Please EAT, Love,” and in it I would answer the burning question of whether a seven-year-old boy can survive for a week on nothing but rice and nutella.

I’ll let you know when we get back.

Namaste.

 

Hey! Look! Over there! A super-cool button that links to lovelinks! Click the button and maybe you’ll find yogic enlightenment. Or at very least some super-cool blogs to read! Click over, read the other writers, then come back on Thursday (or Wednesday night) and vote for your three faves! You don’t have to vote for me, but your chances at reaching a more advanced state of being will be improved if you do!

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Read full story · Comments { 10 } on November 1, 2011 in Abu Dhabi, Children, expat, family, fun...what a concept, Travel

moving:confronting The Stuff

So we’ve moved.  Out of the apartment we’d lived in for ten years and into…nothing. Most of our stuff goes into long-term storage, some stuff already got shipped to Abu Dhabi (where we’re moving into a furnished apartment), and some stuff will get wadded into the suitcases we’re lugging with us to the Middle East.

We’ve said good-bye to the apartment where our boys were babies, toddlers, little kids—stages of life that are, quite literally, mapped out on the rug: there the diarrhea attack, over there the “mommy I think I’m going to be sick…” and over there where Caleb wrote on the rug in marker that he hated us.

This move is different than a move cross-town, or even cross-country. When you know that half-used jar of curry powder will get used in your new digs, you toss it in the moving box. But should you really bring that jar half-way around the world? Or put it in storage for a year?  No. You should throw it away. But throw away a half-full jar? Can’t someone use it? That is the type of insanity that’s been rolling through my mind for the last month: who wants my half-used spices, the almost-full box of uncooked risotto, the barely touched bag of tater tots (aka, god’s perfect food)?

Lots of people have been telling me that moving is a fresh start, a new beginning, a chance to let go of the past (and half-used jars of curry powder).

But you know what moving is, really?  It’s the ring of hell that Dante forgot—or was too afraid to think about. Continue Reading →

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Read full story · Comments { 9 } on July 12, 2011 in Abu Dhabi, Children, family, growing up, moving

Sticks and Stones

We’re in the final countdown for our move.  July 5th the moving minions show up to wrap everything in bubble wrap and cardboard.  July 6th they cart all the boxes off to long-term storage and our Big Adventure officially begins.  Each of us is dealing with this impending move in our own delightful way, resulting in a household where everyone is just an itsy-bitsy bit TENSE and maybe just a tad SURLY.  If we don’t all kill each other first, I’m sure we’re going to have a great time exploring Abu Dhabi.

So as part of the pre-move sifting and sorting, I sat with Caleb the other day and helped him go through his desk. We had two boxes: a big one for storage and a small one for treasures he wanted to take with him to Abu Dhabi.

Into the big box went ceramic objects (a bowl, a snake, a plate) he’d made with our friend Nancy, various decorative boxes filled with coins, a Samurai coloring book, a balsa wood pirate.

And a bag of rocks.  “These rocks are not my important rocks,” he said. “My important rocks I sent already to Abu Dhabi. These rocks can stay here.”

Then he rummaged around and held up a small Ziploc baggie. “But these are my most precious rocks. I saved these. I want to get one of those rock polishers for these rocks.”

“These rocks” are foraged primarily from the driveways of people who live in the Easthampton neighborhood where our friends the Horwiches live.  When we visited them last month, Caleb and I went rock hunting (and rescued any number inch worms who would otherwise have died a squashy death in the middle of the road).  Caleb loves sparkly rocks, which I imagine cost a pretty penny per pound. Thank you, Easthampton neighbors. I am now going to be carrying pieces of your driveway around the world to Arabia.

The small bag of rocks went into the “bringing with” box and we continued sorting.  Then Caleb dropped to his knees and started scrabbling behind the desk like some kind of truffle-hunting pig.

Triumphant, he stood up, brandishing a stick. “My favorite stick! I thought I lost it!”

Then he held up his other favorite stick. “This stick is my worm-digger. I love this stick.” (We do not dig for worms in our family, by the way. Never have, probably never will. We are a worm-fearful people.)

I tried, really, I did. I said, “There are probably great sticks in Abu Dhabi.” I said, “We’re going to be in London—there are great sticks in London.” I said, “Why don’t we leave these sticks here, in storage, and they’ll be waiting for you when we get back.” (I was, of course, lying through my teeth, because of course I intended to chuck those sticks into the garbage.)

What I said was utterly irrelevant. His face crumpled, tears rolled, mouth went completely upside down. “I WANT MY STICKS!”

I gave in. We agreed to wrap the sticks in plastic bags and put them in his suitcase.

Which means that, yes, I will be bringing sticks and stones to the Middle East.  I’m sure they will be infinitely superior to any indigenous sticks and stones, but I’m a little unclear about how to declare these priceless treasures on our customs forms.

I think calling them “security sticks” could get us into trouble, considering our destination.  What about “xanax branches?”

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Read full story · Comments { 7 } on June 28, 2011 in Abu Dhabi, Children, moving, Travel

Living in the Bubble

Last Friday, which is the holy day in Abu Dhabi, we spent most of the day in the lovely pool area that’s on top of the building where we’re going to live in next year.  There is a kiddie playroom inside in the air conditioning, a small fitness center with spectacular views of the gulf, a wading pool, and a larger pool just the right size for cannonballs into the deep end and infinite games of “Marco Polo.”

The boys played in the pool happily for most of the day and joined me for a little session in the health center.  They trotted on the treadmill, which cracked them up, especially when Liam turned his head to talk to me and slid right off onto the floor. He recovered and then ran an entire mile at a pace that would’ve given me a stroke, the little show-off. We tried to keep our voices down because there was a dad in the exercise room with his tiny baby, sleeping in the stroller next to the weight machines. What U.S. gym would allow such a thing ?

This rooftop—with the shaded tables and chairs, the little snack bar, and the sense of quiet that comes from being fifty stories above street level—seems to me wonderful and extremely dangerous. Wonderful because I can imagine sitting at a shady table grading student papers next year, while the boys romp around in the pool, but dangerous precisely because of its convenience.  How easy it would be to sink into the expat bubble for a year and emerge at the end of our time no wiser about this part of the world—not that in a year we can really “understand” Emirati life, but we should at least try to move off the roof, right?

How does an expat find her way out of expat-bubble land, I wonder?

We’re going to have to explore, in order to get out of the bubble, which brings us smack up against the ugly reality of my kids’ eating habits. Which is really to say their non-eating habits.

Do children in other countries insist on only white food, or only fried food, or chicken cooked only a certain way? Do little Emirati boys tell their mothers (or their household chefs, more likely) that they will only eat the chicken if there is NO SAUCE? Are sesame seeds on a hamburger bun really a crime against humanity?  Liam likes chicken with no sauce; Caleb likes hamburgers but only with ketchup. Liam likes plain noodles, Caleb likes red sauce but NOT TOO MUCH.  Neither of them likes cheese unless it’s on pizza; Liam likes chocolate, Caleb likes vanilla.

Salad? Tabbouleh? Hummus? Mint lemonade? Surely you jest.  Dates? Figs? Mangoes? AM I TRYING TO KILL THEM?

I’m going to have to ratchet down my expectations for our year away. Expat bubble be damned. All I want is to come back to the States with children whose palates have expanded beyond the global French fry.

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Read full story · Comments { 7 } on April 26, 2011 in Abu Dhabi, Children, expat, food, Travel