The Bitter and the Sweet

If you’ve been reading this blog for a really long time, you’ll know that up until April, my husband was a high school baseball coach. He was the first ever coach at a brand new academic high school, and he built a team from scratch, starting with a dozen first year students ( who lost virtually every game). By his fourth year, he’d built a team strong enough to make it to the final of the summer high school baseball tournament, where they lost by one heart-breaking run in the twelfth inning.

Four years ago, they made it to the final again, and lost.

Last year, my husband decided to quit coaching in order to devote more time to his needy family. He loves baseball, and his was well respected as a coach, so this was a difficult decision for him.

Tokushima Kita High School, the team that he coached up through the spring tournament (where they progressed to the quarterfinals, I believe) made it to the final again this summer. Today, they won the prefectural championship and they will go to the national tournament at Koshien. This was my husband’s dream. He wanted to watch the game, but he took our daughter to an orthopedic surgeon in Toyama (six and a half hours from here) for a consultation, so he didn’t even get to see it.

I talked to him on his cell phone a little while ago. He said that his feelings were complicated. I understand. I appreciate the sacrifices he has made for us, and I’m proud of him for creating that team (although he probably won’t get any credit for what they did today).

Telegraph Interview

Saffia Farr, contributor to Call Me Okaasan, interviewed me for The Telegraph. You can read it here.

The Boy in the Bookstore

Whenever I go out with my daughter Lilia, we tend to attract notice. After all, I am a blonde foreigner, and she is a brown-haired kid in a bright yellow wheelchair with a wire sticking to her head. Curious children often follow us around, staring blantantly. I often feel like we are on display.  Depending on my mood, I either talk to the kids, or ignore them. Today we were followed twice.

The first time, was in a bookstore. As soon as we walked in, a little boy started trailing behind us. I wasn’t in the mood to explain about our appearance; sometimes I just want for us to be left alone.  I ignored the kid, though I was acutely aware of his footsteps. When we were heading toward the door, I finally took a good look at him. He was still following us, and I noticed that he was limping. I thought he was doing it to mock Lilia, which is a weird thing to think, I guess, since Lilia uses a wheelchair. But I felt irritated, until I realized that his gait indicated something else – cerebral palsy, maybe.  It occurred to me that instead of finding us oddities, this boy had seen something familiar in Lilia and her wheels. Maybe he felt more comfortable than curious, as if he’d found a member of his tribe.

As we walked out the door, I smiled at his mom, and thought about  how there must be other kids living in this town, wondering if there are others like them.

This Lovely Life by Vicki Forman – with a giveaway

Whenever I am in a gathering of women, at some point, inevitably, the conversation will turn to birth stories. I usually nod and listen silently. I might add that I had a C-section and that it didn’t hurt, but I never tell the rest of my story because I know it would bring down a pall upon the conversation. Nobody really wants to hear about how my twins were born at 26 weeks, how the day of their birth was far from being “the happiest day of my life” or even a day of regular joy, but an occasion filled with fear and a grand sense of failure. Nobody wants to hear how I waited until the day after they were born to go see them for the first time, and when I did, I didn’t feel a burst of maternal love. I thought they looked weird and scary, and I wondered if they would ever look normal. These are not the kinds of things that we talk about in polite company, and until very recently, not even the kinds of things that mothers were willing to write about.

Vicki Forman does, however, in her prize-winning new book This Lovely Life: A Memoir of Premature Motherhood. Vicki’s twins Evan and Eleanor were born at 23 weeks’ gestation. As the daughter of a doctor, Vicki was aware of the likelihood of severe disability should they survive, and asked for a DNR order, which was ignored. Her daughter died four days later, but her son survived with multiple disabilities.

Vicki writes with astonishing frankness about the following five years in which she learned to love her son without expectations as she sought the best medical solutions for his seemingly endless problems. She admits to telling off nurses and being rude to her brother-in-law and disobeying medical advice (like when she stopped using the apnea monitor because it went off needlessly in the night, and she had learned that by that stage ex-preemies rarely stopped breathing for a long time).

I could relate to many of these things. I, too, found that almost everything that people said to console me was the wrong thing. And at first I didn’t want to bond with other parents of multiply disabled children. And my medical vocabulary (in my case, in Japanese) expanded exponentially.

As my children were born in a Japanese hospital, I found many of the cultural differences interesting. If  I’d given birth in California, I would have been quickly introduced to a social worker and a spiritual adviser. Here, I was on my own. But after reading about Vicki’s anger and exasperation with the people who were assigned to help her, I’m not sure that having  a counselor would have been all that much help. 

Vicki’s husband, Cliff, is a Japanese-American, and through-out this book he is portrayed as kind, accepting, and patient. At one point, Vicki writes: “Where I wanted to flail and yell and lose my temper with everyone, my husband was staid and firm and in control. I don’t know how he did it. He once said, apropros of being Japanese, ‘My culture just accepts people who are sick and maimed. We take care of people when they get old and we take in people with disabilities.’”

I’ve been thinking about this ever since I read it. It’s true that families here keep their elderly and disabled relatives at home, but, from my American point of view, it has always seemed to be less out of open-hearted acceptance than out of duty. Shikata ga nai. (It can’t be helped.) Gaman o suru. (Everyone must endure their harships.) Mewake o shinai. (Don’t burden others.)  Maybe I am wrong.

At any rate, This Lovely Life gave me many things to think about, and also made me feel less alone in this world.

This book is also gorgeously written and full of wisdom – real literature. I have an extra copy – if you’d like one, leave your name here and I’ll do a drawing in a week.

My Daughter Discovers the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

In baby pictures, my daughter is often scrunching up her face in repulsion as her mother or father holds a spoon to her mouth. For a long while, she ate only bananas, bread and cheese. But since the age of four, she has become a hearty and adventurous eater. She also likes to experiment with her food, and comes up with original concoctions, some good (bananas and ice cream, sprinkled with cinnamon), some not so good (like the milk-with-watermelon-juice that she “made” the other night). All this allows me to dream of another possible future for her – cookbook author!

On a trip the States a few years ago, we discovered that she loves peanut butter, and I’ve kept a jar on hand for her ever since. She hasn’t had it in awhile, but this morning at breakfast, when I presented her with a plate of toast with jam, she asked for peanut butter. Now, this kid has never been introduced to that quintessential American kid food, the peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, so I was amazed.

“Did you see this on TV?” I signed.

She shook her head.

“Did you imagine this?”

“Yes.”

And did she like the sandwich?

Yes, she gobbled it up.

Last Light Over Carolina by Mary Alice Monroe

One of my favorite places in the world is the Low Country of South Carolina – that area along the coast characterized by salt marshes, Spanish moss, dolphins, jasmine, Gullah accents, and sea turtles (among other things). It’s also home – and/or inspiration – to a flock of writers. (Even I wrote a novel, albeit ill-fated, set in Charleston and its environs.) There have been at least four novels featuring sea turtles, three that I can think of off-hand concerning sweet grass baskets, and quite a few centered on well-off white women and their beach houses.  There have been so many books set on the Carolina Coast that the Low Country novel could be considered a genre.  So many, in fact, that you’d think there’d be nothing left to write about the area. In her new novel, however, Mary Alice Monroe has come up with something fresh – shrimping.  

At heart, this book is the story of Bud and Carolina, a mature couple in a shrimping village on the coast.  Bud is one in a long line of shrimp boat captains. His wife, Carolina, comes from a country club family, but she loves being out on the shrimp boats, too. Nevertheless, what with child-rearing and Bud’s long trips in search of the big catch, the couple has drifted apart. Their marriage has gone cold, and their financial situation isn’t too great either. Carolina wants to spend more time with Bud, but Bud has been spending longer and longer hours on the sea, sometimes staying away for months at a time, in pursuit of the big catch that will turn their fortunes around. 

Last Light Over Carolina takes place over one day, though the present-day action is cut with flashbacks to various stages in the couple’s marriage, and in the life of their daughter. On this day, Bud goes out to sea alone, and then gets caught in a storm. He  is injured and becomes trapped on the boat, with no way to communicate to shore. Will his family and friends find him in time? And can this marriage be saved? And what is the future of shrimping in South Carolina?

By the time you get to the end of the book, you’ll know the answer to at least two of these questions.

Mary Alice has made a name for herself as a conservationist, and her previous books concern sea turtle preservation, egrets, and the threat to the sweetgrass that is traditionally used in Gullah basketmaking. In Last Light Over Carolina, her latest eco-drama, she juxtaposes the struggles of a long-time shrimp boat captain with the concerns of conservationists. It’s also a story about family and marriage. And I have to say it was refreshing to read about real people struggling to balance the budget, as opposed to the Junior League types who so frequently pop up in Low Country fiction.

Mary Alice, if you’re out there, I have a suggestion for your next book. Since you obviously have a passion for the flora and fauna of South Carolina, how about a novel involving alligators? No one’s done that yet, and I’d love to read it.

A Day in the Life of Violeta Garcia-Mendoza

Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is a Spanish-American poet, writer, and teacher. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of literary venues including Cicada, Tatto Highway and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She also wrote the Multi-Culti Mami column for Literary Mama. In her lyrical contribution to Call Me Okaasan, “Two Names for Every Beautiful Thing,” Violeta writes about what she hopes to give to her Guatemalan-born children. Here, she shares a day in the life of her family:

Sundays in Springtime are one of the busiest days of the week at our house.  We sleep in until around 9 and then have a big breakfast (a quiche campestre, some fresh fruit, cereal, and orange-mango juice) before church. With two three-year-olds and one two-year-old, it takes us an entire hour to get everyone cleaned up, dressed, and in the car, but it’s important to us to attend church as a family.  

  

After church, because my husband is a realtor and Sundays are the traditional day to hold Open Houses in our area, he leaves immediately to go show one of his listed properties.  I visit with friends and neighbors for a while and then take the kids back home, change their clothes, give them a little snack, and put them down for nap.  

While they sleep, I make myself my favorite lunch-a tuna, hummus and avocado wrap- and go to my studio to write.  It’s in the back of the house, and I love that I can open the windows and the door and enjoy a lovely crossbreeze while I write.  I work on my next installment of my “Multi-Culti Mami” column for Literary Mama, and jot down some ideas for future writing projects.  

The kids wake up and my husband comes home from work, and because the end of April/the beginning of May in Pennsylvania is the time of year where the spring rains give way to warm, brighter days, we decide to drive to the nearby Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve  for a hike.  

This year the kids are old enough to hike without being carried, and the five of us love the chance to wander across the meadows full of wildflowers and through the dense greening forests.  The kids name the animals they spot- birds, ducks, rabbits, squirrels, and deer- some in English, some in Spanish- and we pile back into the car picking pine needles off our clothes.  

On the way home, we pick up a takeout dinner from our favorite Central American restaurant and eat it on our back terrace while we listen to Buena Vista Club Social.  The kids finish their meals first, get their clothes changed (again!)  and are allowed to go play on the playset we’ve set up in the yard and with the new toy car their father bought them- a child-sized version of his beloved American muscle car.  

A few other kids from the neighborhood come over and play until the sun starts to go down.  We do bathtime, and put the kids to bed after reading them Buenas Noches, Luna and Angus Lost.  We leave a tape of Cuenta Cuentos that used to be mine when I was a child playing stories in Spanish in the hallway outside of their bedrooms and they drift to sleep to that. 

My husband and I go downstairs to one of the basement rooms we designed as a home theater when we built our house last year.  With three small children, we don’t get many dates, and we set up this room to provide us a date-at-home.  We curl up next to each other on the sofa, watch a movie, and unwind from a long day.

Does that Include Cleaning the Toilet?

The Japanese Diet has just passed some bills which will tighten control on foreigners in Japan. Among other things, “the bills grant the justice minister the power to cancel a spouse visa from those who have failed to conduct for six months without a legitimate reason ‘activities that spouses normally do’.”

How Perfect is That by Sarah Bird

Texas kind of creeps me out, to be perfectly honest. When I think of the Longhorn State, I think of Waco and capital punishment and those Bush people. To be fair, I’ve never spent any quality time in the state, and I’ve heard that Austin is pretty cool. And I will admit that there are quite a few fabulous writers in Texas, so that place can’t be all bad. I’m thinking especially of Spike Gillespie, Robert Rummel-Hudson, Marit Ingram, and Sarah Bird.

Sarah Bird first appeared on my reader radar with The Yokota Officer’s Club, of which I have finally procured a copy, but haven’t yet read. My first experience with a Sarah Bird novel was The Flamenco Academy, which I loved, loved, loved. That book was intense and passionate and full of duende. It was kind of serious, actually, so I didn’t realize how very funny Ms. Bird can be. Then a week or so ago I read How Perfect is That.  The woman is hilarious.

How Perfect is That is the story of one Blythe Young, originally christened Chanterelle by her “trailer-trash tramp of a mother too stupid to know that in her single, solitary moment of maternal lyricism she had named her only child after a mushroom.” Blythe becomes an event planner for Austin’s elite, marries into one of the elitest families, is divorced without a pre-nup, and finds herself broke, outcast, and wanted by the IRS. She winds up hiding out in her old college boarding house with her former college roommate, the pure and good Millie, who still lives there as a kind of house mother.  Only Millie, it seems, can see the good in Blythe (who has been ignoring her for years). Hijinks ensue.

Blythe is exceedingly naughty (at her last catering job, she spikes the drinks with Rohypnol, the “date rape drug” so that the garden party attendees won’t remember that they’d been noshing on re-purposed snacks from Sam’s Club instead of the gourmet delights originally promised. In the first several chapters, she clings tenaciously to her “Code Warrior,” a mix of booze and drugs. In other words, she is not necessarily the type of person you’d want as your best friend, i.e., she is a somewhat unsympathetic main character. In an interview at the back of the book, Bird says,  ”I may be a complete freak in this, but I loves me a bad girl.” But like all good characters, Blythe isn’t entirely good/bad, and I found myself rooting for her by the end of book. I was also laughing out loud.

If you’ve got a long trans-Pacific flight ahead of you this summer (and if you’re not a diehard Republican and don’t mind a bit of bawdiness), I recommend tucking this novel into your carry-on.

Me in the International Examiner!

There is an interview with me in the current issue of the International Examiner.