Jay

Thanksgiving, 2008. Here is Jay, my brother-in-law, preparing the turnips for the feast. This is a scene played out all across America on Thanksgiving with everyone in the family and all the friends contributing to a ritual so familiar to everyone. On no holiday is the choice of food so consistent and predictable.
Jay may be doing the predictable with those turnips that were just that day plucked from local Florida soil, but his amazing appearance in our life was anything but. What a lovely and profoundly decent man!
It was a second marriage for both my sister and Jay and in many ways they had been bruised. As we came to know Jay we began to think of him as a true pearl embedded in the layers of our life. We saw what a wonderful match he and my sister have come to be. He soon became the beloved grandpa to Maria's four grandchildren and the beloved Uncle Jay to our youngest grandchild, Quincy. No one can have too many uncles.
Jay, a professor of anthropology, really connects with kids of all ages, as they say at the circus. He can talk like a duck, he's funny, and he really pays attention to kids, something very few adults do. While the meal was being prepared, Jay and Quincy, who's four, sat at the big table and really talked. Kids don't know very many adults who truly want to hear what they have to say. Quincy is on a "penguin unit" these days, and Jay was really interested.
Jay is a little bit odd; he knows that every person he meets has a good story and he's not reticent about ferreting it out. Sometimes he's a little bit oblivious, a trait I can relate to, and then he'll appear on the spot, a gallant knight who knows exactly what's on your mind. He listens so intently and with such empathy your defenses melt and you find yourself feeling a lot lighter somehow.
Jay is just one of those serendipitous happenings in my life. I am so fortunate to know him and I truly believe he and Maria are perfect for each other. You don't pick your in-laws and mostly you make peace with them and put up with their foibles. Once in a blue moon you get a pearl. Jay's one of them.

Too early for winter

It is not the end of November and we are in for yet another night of freeze warnings. I cover the salad beds with old sheets and hope for the best. I leave the collards out to fend for themselves. Frosts and freezes so many nights have taken their toll on our gardens. In all other years we never had cold weather before New Year's. We live on the edge of a major swamp wetland! And it is dry, all the creek beds are overtaken with dog fennel, that first harbinger of micro climate change.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are having a whole passel of folks, some family and others. We'll have the turkey and the vegetarian alternatives and all the fixings we traditionally serve. We'll dig turnips and pick collards and lettuce for the meal. We'll put the big kitchen table out in the hall to accommodate everyone and the turkey will be browned and lovely.
This year, 2008, has been amazing! Much to be thankful for. People I love are alive and some have passed on to a better place. Children have been born. In our family there have been many milestones: Dan and Inia will be getting married next summer. Inia is well on her way to her doctorate and Dan is making his way with distinction as a science teacher. Elizabeth is in her first year in law school and Quincy,her son, now just four, is in his first year in Montessori. Maria and Jay and I have all published books this year. Andy and I stopped flopping around as retirees and now have some purpose. My niece, Grace, has just been accepted at Evergreen College. Lots of good stuff to be thankful for.
But the Big Thing to be thankful for this year is the election of Barack Obama. We are waiting and eager to see how he will handle this enormously difficult time. Never in my lifetime have I had such hope for the future, and never in my lifetime have I ever experienced the prospect of such a change in circumstances for us all.
Now, it is definitally a winter season. Spring will come as it always does. Meanwhile we can all be thankful for what we have.

Shay Lynne

Shay Lynne, pictured here with her family, is a sturdy eleven month old who was adopted two months ago from China. Their story is an amazing American odyssey.
I first met Jocelyn when she was a parent in my school. Tyler, the oldest boy, is now twelve. Then, he was no more than seven and his brother Ben was a toddler. Jocelyn and Mike, her husband, were the kind of appealing parents a school director loves. Their child was wonderful and interesting and both parents volunteered at school. I was aware that this family wanted another child and that Jocelyn suffered many miscarriages. Then I heard that they were trying to adopt a Chinese child. Everyone at school was most supportive. Tyler grew older and moved on to middle school and Ben came to our school. Still no baby. The difficulties of an international adoption are formidable but Jocelyn and Mike persevered. Jocelyn had attended a wonderful Chinese-American elementary school in San Francisco so she was inclined to include a Chinese child in their family.
It took three years to happen.
Mike is a policeman and Jocelyn is a nurse. When they moved to Florida they bought a house in one of these awful developments such a commute from anything. Everyone was unhappy. "It was toxic," says Jocelyn. They moved to funky Gulfport, put Tyler in SunFlower School, and their life drastically changed for the better. Jocelyn's mom, who still works as a mental health therapist, lives in an attached apartment and she gives a lot of time to help out with the kids.( I am envious of this arrangement in some ways. I would love to have my own grandson on hand more.)
In early September the call finally came. Their baby was ready and Mike and Jocelyn had to go to China to pick her up. They left Tyler and Ben with Mamaw, met up with thirty other parents-to-be, and flew to China. The group was divided into three, and each group proceeded to the place in South China where they would receive their children.
Jocelyn and Mike described this so vividly. They noticed right away how polluted the air was. One could hardly see anything. Barely over jet lag, their group of eleven couples went on a bus to an orphanage in Hunan province. They sat on one side of the room and on the other side were eleven "nannies" with children in their laps. One by one, the families were called to receive their new daughters. Mike said he recognized his child immediately. He had studied the photograph so intensely he caught that tiny little discrepancy in Shay Lynne's eyes. Jocelyn said she couldn't tell.
They picked up their new children and each family was given a packet of the clothes their child wore when left at the orphanage. Then, for the next three weeks, these families lived in a hotel while the visas and other paperwork was completed. They went on bus tours and all around the area. And all the time they had their new babies in tow. For some of them, this was their first child. These families were issued labels they could wear in public so that Chinese could know that these Americans were adoptive parents. Mike and Jocelyn said that so many people were friendly when they saw these.
When it looked like the Chinese adoption would really happen, Jocelyn began to think that she should get ready to breast feed this new baby. So she took the hormones to make her milk flow and began to pump. Her milk came in and she froze a supply. She continued.
By the time she and Mike had their new little girl fresh from the orphanage, they realized that something was very wrong. In fact all these newly adopted baby girls were very sick. They were not urinating at all, except for blood on the diaper.
Jocelyn called her American pediatrician. This was the moment of the emergence of the melamine problem in Chinese formula and milk products and Shay Lynne was certainly affected. Shay Lynne loved the pumped breast milk, and gradually over the next couple of weeks, the bloody urine stopped. When they got back to the U.S. they did all the kidney function tests and Shay Lynne was healing! She is now perfect, plump, dimpled and extremely cute. The doctors think she'll be just fine.
This American family came to visit us today. We walked in the woods and fields, Shay Lynne being passed from person to person. She loved the cows and the leaves. We sat down to a homely dinner of chili, good salad, and home made bread. Shay Lynne really wanted to crawl around the house and pick up specks to mouth. Ben and Tyler wanted to go outside with me with flashlights and look for wildlife. Mike really wanted to go out with us too.
I can see that those boys are going to be very good brothers. This gentle family who came to visit today seems to have the right values.
What a lovely family!

Those McMansions

For the last eight years or so our area in Central Florida seemed to change daily. Those huge developments, all named to memorialize the stuff they wrecked, ( Eagle Trace, Seven Oaks, Panther Run, etc.) crept relentlessly over the hills and wetlands and into our suburban neighborhoods. We objected and went to hearings and signed petitions. We weren't really thinking about the houses, though. We were focused on NIMBY. Yes, occasionally we wondered at who could possibly afford to live in that really huge one with the five car garage, or that other one with massive gables, squinched in close to the next huge house. And we just marveled at how many people could afford them. This was Bubble America when anyone could have anything they wanted. No down payments, put it on the plastic.
We weren't thinking straight. The secret was that hardly anyone really could afford them. I remember when we bought our first house in 1968, a run down row house in downtown Washington, D.C. The price was $17,000. We scraped together the 25% required down payment from a couple of thousand our parents gave us and our savings. We fixed it up mostly with our sweat. Our friends were doing the same. We dug the dead rats out of the walls, steamed off the old wallpaper and became members of the million gallon paint club. And, as we lived there and raised kids, we were very happy with this house of ours. It was affordable, close to work and schools. It didn't have granite counters or even a garage. We had the habit of living within our means, and as we moved on, this didn't change.
Somehow a lot of us got off track thinking we could have everything, no effort required. We gave our children too much in a material sense. We didn't save anything because we couldn't, and besides, there is always the credit card and tomorrow. We didn't show our kids how to save. Everyone wants to have a house, a home.
And now, the chickens have come home to roost. America is in deep housing trouble. Just keeping on bailing out mortgage companies seems to me an avoidance of the real problem. If a family bought a house that was wildly NOT affordable, or maybe just within reach if both spouses worked full tilt and then some, and please, god, don't let me lose my job, how is restructuring their mortgage payments a little bit going to help right now? These people are in a mess! They are dispirited. We are in deep recession and if one of those family members loses her job, she is not going to be inclined to figure out all the governmental paperwork, stand in lines, spend time on hold. Better just to walk away from that insanely wonderful house that is now in need of major maintenance anyway and go live with the in-laws.
But Americans are resilient and 'can do'. What we need is a lot more affordable housing. Imagine converting "Panther Trace" into affordable housing. Lots of it is already built. Those huge garages could be modified for living. Those huge gourmet kitchens could be halved. People could enjoy living in more of a town house situation, close to their neighbors, kind to the land. Architects and builders, the most creative of American artisans, could be put to work and ripples would spread. This affordable housing could be for sale or rent.
We already have a glut of housing stock (but mostly it is in these out-of-control developments). Let's use what we have. A new day is here and we must think creatively!
What do you think?

Little Kids

Here is Quincy at dinner with his grandparents. He loves to visit us, and we are happy that he comes often. He's been doing overnights since he was eighteen months old. Now these visits are easy; he loves knowing the ropes and where everything is. He notices every little change from the time he was last here. He knows where the best blackberry bushes are and where the gopher tortoise burrows are, and wants to harvest the vegetables he personally planted. I explain that the carrots are too small to eat yet but he persists and we pull up some 'tiny baby carrots' that he adds to the lettuce and peppers he carries into the house to Grandpa who will make the salad. Today's salad must include the first oranges from our annual harvest. Quincy is an orange lover and he is pleased that he personally went out and picked the fruit, made juice, and was the major taste tester of orange sections that went into the salad. By the time I get into the kitchen the baby carrots are long gone and the peppers too.
Tonight, in the dark, dishes waiting piled in the sink, Quincy and I went outdoors with our flashlights. Hand in hand, we looked for turtles and spiders. We looked at the gibbous moon and the stars above. "See, Quincy, look up there at that zigzag bunch of stars. That's Casseopia. And see that very bright one. That's Venus, the evening star." He loves his flashlight. Then we go in to take a bath and do all the bedtime routines.
As we lie close together on his bed, after having read his current favorite book, "Oxcart Man", he scrunches his face close to mine and says, "Granma Molly, I'm happy."
This could not have been a more perfect week and I am happy too. Every time I think about it, I am in awe of what America did in voting in Obama. For the first time in many years I am rejoiced and renewed to be American. It's going to be a long haul, and many sacrifices will be required, but I have hope we can do it!
I am so glad this happened in my lifetime! I could not possibly have imagined as a white person how incredible this is! Though I lived and demonstrated through the era of the civil rights movement, I never really really knew. Though I have spent my entire career as a teacher and school administrator agonizing about race issues, I never really knew.
So now we can go forth with hope and confidence in this very gifted new president. We will do everything we can to help him forge a new day for the United States of America. I notice already how many of us are speaking to each other, not being fearful.
Our little kids rely on us and we can be proud and hopeful that this new world order will celebrate their useful, not greedy, lives. It's up to us. Yes, we can do it!