When home is exotic

We are in the season of Tuesday and Friday
night high school basketball games, ala Girlchild
cheerleader, seen here signing an autograph
for one of the adorable "mini-cheer" clients.
I wonder if that little girl knows she's
being attended by the light of my life,
otherwise I'd be home. 

Hello my lovelies and thank you for coming over to my blog.

Last Friday night, circa 9 p.m., if you were in our house you would have seen four digital screens attached to four respective human beings. A flat screen, a video screen, a laptap screen, and an e-gadget screen. Two, possibly three of us were communicating with friends via our screens.

It was cold outside, but inside we were cozy with our own brand of togetherness, including the cats who had many choices by which human to curl up for their naps or yoga stretches.

I asked Bob why would we ever want to go on a family vacation when everything we want is contained in this house, including the world at our finger tips?

There was a time when all I wanted to do was to travel to cool places and let people know I was traveling to cool places. There was a time when my frequent flyer miles afforded me travel to cool places, and I could compare and contrast my coolness with others. I could post facebook status updates with a purposefully understated "I'm going to >>insert exotic country here<<, got any ideas for good places to eat?" and such. I used to love being worldly and interesting and self-important.

These days I long to be home.

It's probably because I'm so rarely there. Home has become exotic. Maybe it's all the early mornings out and the late nights in. We are on year 12 of the "A and A Express" to school. (Resulting from my choice to enroll my kiddos in specialty public schools, meaning that since day one of kindergarden I have been the bus driver. A privilege, yes, but one that keeps me moving.) Every morning as the kids and I drive down our driveway in the dark, barely awake, feeling super rushed and knowing we're late again (both my kids hold record tardy counts and it's my fault), I lift my voice and proclaim "And the A and A express is off!" It's a short but bold pep talk for everyone in the car including myself. We are all off for another 14 solid hours or so. I'm beginning to see the end of the era of the A and A Express. When its over I'll be a-puddle with sadness. I never imagined it could end, but with Girl Child's pending driver's licence (February) and graduation (2014), the end is staring me in the face and mocking me with its paradox.

Today I heard from another mother who is stuck at home, due to two special needs children and lack of support. She said she is lonely. It reminded me of the time we were home bound when Bob's liver failed. We were stuck in our "cave," aka our apartment. It was so dark, quiet, and I'm guessing smelly of sick-stench. (To this day my nose grows immune to stinkiness within a half hour, so I can only estimate the extent of the foul air back then.) We were lonely too. People were nice enough to call on us, in the way that you visit the ill, but I discouraged guests because of the pruritus, the evil itching that kept our constant attention, 24/7, for the fleshy scratching and the watching of a slippery slope to suicidal tendencies. It's no coincidence that visiting home bound people is a pastor's greatest priorities -- being home alone and with great responsibility is a gnawing point of human despair. I'm starting to think that loneliness is the root of all sorrow, and all the addictions and other behavioral problems that ensue. (Can you tell how many hours I spend writing grants for mental illness related issues?)

If only we could all pool our days-in and days-out, trading what we need most. You need a few days out? I'll trade you a couple of mine for a few days in. Deal?

If someone tells me I need balance, I think I'll scream. I need to go to work and take care of my kids. There is no balance. Balance is a myth. Balance is for people who have other kinds of choices. I think I hate that word. Pardon me, and feel free to challenge me if I'm not seeing this right, but presently, I see no possibility  for balance to be in the realm of my daily selections.

Here's a book pick from the master
at making the mundane exotic, an author I
discovered in perfect timing to transition me from
worldly to homebody. When invited
to do travel writing, he wrote extensively
on the nature of his quarter's toilet flush, a story
I tell my kids over and over.

Tucked in on a Friday night, browsing my digital screen I came across a photo of a young man laying on cement, almost in fetal position, a pool of bright red blood forming a circle around his head, like a cartoon of an over-sized halo. The grotesque picture was posted by my friend Heba with a caption in Arabic so I couldn't understand, but I guessed it was from the unrest in Egypt I'd heard about in the news. The new government is worse than the old, according to Heba, when I asked her about it. She said 40 young people had been killed that day (Friday).

The first time I saw Heba, it was in the parking lot outside our St. Paul apartment building, about 2003. Her long, thick, black Mediterranean hair* was curled up in gigantic rollers as if she was a 50s housewife. Heba was hollering in her high pitched voice for her little son, "Rafi! Rafi!" My ears heard it like a Middle Eastern version of "Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!" The scene was so folksy, I thought it refreshing. And I said to myself, I want to be friends with HER. Long story short, we ended up having a lot in common and became really close. In the months leading up to her family's return to Cairo, we spent nearly every day together. Our kids and meals and husbands and in-laws and possessions and fears and joys and women's rights became thoroughly entangled.

Now, our friendship is reduced to random Facebook posts. In a rare moment of being still in my own house, I saw her anguished posts for freedom and security. Her older son, a senior in high school who as a young boy used to knock on our door to invite my little Girl Child for the cutest bike rides in the world, has moved from Cairo to the U.S. and it breaks my heart that he had to separate from his parents so soon. These are the choices I do not have to make.

My choices involve chaperoning school fundraisers, pitching-in with church events, writing an occasional blog post, collecting a paycheck, feeding the cats, taking my kids to school, and every now and then, just plain old staying home. Gloriously, staying home. If only I could have a couple hours more of staying home. If only my kids would never leave me. If only my friends could be closer to me. If only the pruitus would go away -- wait, it did. It went away forever. That physiological scourge that tormented Bob (I want to say "us" but Bob was the one who suffered the most) for so long is gone. I suppose that's when so-called balance makes sense, when you compare and contrast the present with the past, or with the other, or with what-could-be, with what is here and now.

I wish you all healthy relief from your own brands of loneliness or insecurity or fear, in whatever form that relief comes in. Maybe even at home with a screen.

With love from yours truly,

Natural Born Bleeding Heart


*I learned later that Heba spent two hours in a local salon when the hairdresser gave up, she said there was nothing she could do with this thick, long hair. Heba's telling of this story totally cracked me up. And so that's why Heba started rolling it herself. In hindsight, she probably needed to find an African American salon or some place that had experience in managing beautifully full heads of hair. At the time, my hair-do was in the middle of a long run as the super short boy-cut. Girl Child recommends I never do that again.