O, Broken Umbrella

O, Broken Umbrella

Your are useless

Your mangled ribs

Your crushed stalk

Your wrinkled nylon

Once you were the comfort of dryness

Now rendered useless

You litter my drive

My walk

My life

And yet you will not die

You will not leave

So ragged, your wrenched joints refuse to collape

The button which once unfurled you in the glory of one-touch ease

Now sits useless in your handle

You will not even simply fold

To fit in the trash can

The same child who was the instrument of your ruin

Finds you on the pavement and rescues you

To your former place on the front porch

Alas, useless you sit

Hapless

Impotent

Without the will to live

Nor the grace to die

O, Broken Umbrella

Take your shattered canopy away

To the great rainstorm in the sky.

Thunderstorm

Rain.  Finally rain.  Well, in California that's what we say, since we don't get that much.  We're practically doing a rain dance by October each year.  Finally our reservoirs will fill up and the creeks will run nicely.

Yesterday I heard some thunder that lasted so long, I had time to look around to see where it was coming from - at least 30 seconds.  I instinctively looked at the windowframe.  The house we are living in now has old-fashioned windows in some of it, and the one in my office is just a little single-paned wood frame window.  It's facing westish - the direction from which the storm had approached.  I examined the window with my eyes, as if to ask if it was strong enough to hold out the thunder and the clouds.  As if they might suddenly rush at the window and try to break it in.  I suppose that's an unusual thought to have, but then thunder is unusual where we live.

This morning, I awoke to thunder even louder and longer than yesterday's thunder.  I could see lightning through my closed eyelids.  I have never lived somewhere with REAL weather.  I don't want real weather.  I actually expected to look out the front of the house and see sheets of water pouring down from the sky.  I imagined that we'd be rained in and the kids wouldn't be able to go to school until it lets up.  I imagined that driving would be a perilous, white-knuckled journey across town.  It thundered again.  I got up and decided not to shower.  It just seemed silly, in light of all the shower outside.  The last thing I wanted was to be wet.  Now, I don't mind rain.  I even like rain.  But this wasn't rain.  This sounded like RAIN.

And having lived in Sacramento so long, my first concern of course is flooding.  Living behind a levee makes you watch the overflowing gutters with different eyes than someone who lives on a hill.  It occurred to me that flooding, at least in my neighborhood, was unlikely.  Of course, the side of a hill could slide down, and we have plenty of those around here.  But not living on the side of a hill, and not living behind a levee, I can just be glad for the rain.  We drove to school, and it wasn't even that bad.  Of course, it's dark as night out there, and there are still a few days of storm predicted.  But though the thunder seemed frightening at first, it's kindof cozy (if dark) inside.  It may sound crazy to be frightened of thunder, but honestly, if you don't experience it that much, it is rather attention-getting.

It's no wonder the "bible belt" is where it is.  When you live somewhere with actual weather, it reminds you frequently how small we really are.  There's no escaping thunder.

(Special thanks to floridalightning.com and all the storm chasers, whose beautiful photographs entrance me.)

Mom's Words of Wisdom, Vol. 37

"Those pants don't make you look fat, honey, fat makes you look fat."

Daughter's corollary:  There are exceptions.

Christopher Columbus

Alas, poor Christopher's star has fallen.  Once the hero of the western world, he is now disparaged the world over.

Recently, my 9 year old son was telling me about how they no longer celebrate Christopher Columbus at school because, I don't remember why, something about him being a horrible person.  Today, I heard him described, to a group of first graders, as "mean and bossy."  Mean and bossy?  This person told the kids that they wouldn't learn about Columbus today, but instead they would learn about Leif Erikson.  Leif Erikson is known to have reached the new world long before Columbus, and there may probably have been others.

Captain Erikson was the son of Erik the Red.  Erik the Red was a Viking banished from both Norway and Iceland...presumably not because he was a nice guy and well liked.  Perhaps he was bossy and mean?  Actually, in the case of Iceland, he was banished for three years for killing a man at The Thing.  But I digress....  I don't know how you can be a sea captain, in charge of an entire crew of Vikings and not be at least a little bossy and mean.  So I'm imagining that Columbus and Erikson possibly had some things in common.  Yet Erikson is celebrated, and Columbus not.  As far as I can see, the only difference is that the Indians managed to kill all the Vikings that remained, and the same fate was not shared by the Spanish.  Leif Erikson even brought a Christian priest to Greenland.  It is possible, nay probable, that the Vikings would not likely have colonized the continent and attempted to convert the Indians.  But it is important to consider the effect that the Norsemen had on England, France and the rest of Northern Europe, the quiet inhabitants of which were terrified of Vikings.

It's true that the actions of Columbus wreaked havoc on the people living where he landed.  On the other hand, is he alone personally responsible?  If it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else.  Does the fact that Europeans brought war and disease to America mean that Columbus was not brave?  That he was not a good sailor, captain, negotiator, navigator, and all the rest?  For a man of the time, he was both a hero and a controversial figure.  His views of the "Indians" (am I allowed to call them Indians??) were not unusual.  It seems unfair to vilify him personally for all the atrocity and destruction, particularly when Spanish society was so different at the time than American society is now.  According to Wikipedia, "Columbus himself was responsible for the deaths of millions of Native Americans (estimates range between 1 and 3 million) in the first 15 years of his colonization of the Caribbean^[2][3], including entire peoples such as the Taino^[4] and the Arawak^[5], and was the founder of the practice of slavery in the Americas.^[6]"  That just seems like so much work for one man to accomplish alone.  And I doubt very much that the "Indians" hadn't had the idea of slavery all on their own.  The Indians were not always sweet and innocent themselves, and Columbus did certainly not invent slavery.

In Sacramento, there was a movement to remove John Sutter's name from a bunch of public items, due to judgements about his character.  Does being a misogynist mean that you did not found a fort and city and find gold?  It makes you a guy who hates women.  It's important to remember that at that time, women were considered inferior by much of the population, not just John Sutter.  The fact that people felt that way does not make it acceptable, but it does make his alleged actions and personality more understandable.  A person's character is his character, his actions are his actions.  If you teach history, teach the whole thing.

I hear rumors that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a "womanizer," yet we celebrate him for all the wonderful things he accomplished for our society during his life.  No one is perfect.  People are round and deep and complex and amazing creatures, inconsistent and undependable.

Is it fair to reverse the tales of people years or centuries after their lives?  It seems to me to be better to consider each individual in the context of their society and time.  The North Atlantic is a trial that would be difficult for anyone, no matter who they are.  To survive and be noticed after the dusty centuries is itself a feat.  If you could cross it today in a wooden ship, you would have at least respect from me, even if you are a complete jerk.  Would it not be better, in fact more useful, to consider the context of events and learn from it, rather than strip our once-heroes of their acclaim?

Leif Erikson day is October 9, the day in 1925 of the first organized immigration to the United States from Norway.  Columbus Day is October 12, in commemoration of his first landing in San Salvador.  this date is also remembered as Dia de la Raza, Indigenous Peoples Day, Discovery Day, Fiesta Nacional and Dia de las Culturas in various countries.  I would be fine with dropping Columbus Day as an important national holiday.  I am also in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.  But this reversal to actively teaching children to hate Columbus seems a little much.  If you don't like him, just don't talk about him anymore.

Yelling

I yell.  I admit it.  It's a bad habit, and I try not to do it.  But somehow, it just seems like no one can hear me.  I get this idea like, surely, if they could only hear me, they would be doing what I asked.  Right?  Perhaps they wouldn't constantly ask me to repeat myself.  So I'll just say it a little louder and then they'll hear and follow my instructions. 

Not so.

They could hear me, but they are not listening.  I don't know how to get them to listen, but I discovered soemthing this week.

I have been sick for about a week with a chest cold.  I can talk, but my voice is quiet, and I can't yell at all.  I don't have the voice, the chest or frankly the energy to yell at my kids.  And you know what?  They can't hear me.  They can't hear me at all when I speak in a regular tone of voice.

"Mommmm!  Mommm?" 

I am answering...from downstairs...in a regular voice.  "What?"  They can't hear me.  Not at all.

"Quit it.  I mean it.  Quit hitting your sister.  Quit biting your brother.  Stop that.  Put that down.  I said quit."  But notice no all-caps, no boldface, no !!!!!'s, for Goodness sake.  They can't hear me at all.

I am going through this week with a keyboard without any [ctrl][b].

And it's funny, kindof.  In a way, I have sort of absorbed this idea that I don't have to yell.  Heck, I can't.  They can't hear me?  Too bad.  My warnings go unheeded?  Too bad for you.  My information goes unlearned?  Wish you'd known that, hunh?  They can't hear my responses, my advice, my instructions, my scolding.  Okay, they're probably ahead on that last one.  But I've stopped trying to yell, because it takes too much energy.  I begin to wonder what if I conserved all that energy all the time?  Maybe I could just go through life without yelling.  But nothing is going right.  We live together as social creatures, and we really do need to communicate with each other.  And they aren't hearing me.

So what's a quiet mother to do?  I've been pondering the yelling.  This bad habit that I've been trying to kick.  But all week, I haven't been able to help, discipline or advise my children.  There is no information whatsoever going from me to them.  I can hear their questions, but they can't hear my responses.  I did manage to read them a story, but had to repeat part because they couldn't hear me over their jostling in the bed.  I couldn't ask them about their school day in the car, because they couldn't hear me over the engine and window noise.  I'd like to stop yelling, but communication needs to go both ways.

I guess I'll just have to start yelling again.