Metaphors

The ice in my glass of water has melted. There's nothing floating in there. What was solid is gone; dissipated into the ether. I'm trying to search for a proper metaphor to explain what's happened to my life over the last few months but I can't think of anything but the melted ice. Once it was there and then it melted away. True, it's just become a part of something bigger; but then it's lost that unique little bit that made it so different from the rest of the H2O molecule collection. I suppose that's how it always goes. You've got to lose a little to gain a lot. You've got to make yourself fit in if you want to blend in.

What am I thinking, this is a terrible metaphor for my life. I'm not blending in. How can an insecure, thirty something, mom blend in as a student anywhere? How can a literature major really ever blend into a profession full of techies? If anything I'm like fly in a bowl of soup; drowning in an explosion of familiar yet heady flavors. And that's how I'm feeling now. Drowning and losing myself in school, work, motherhood, life.

Thankfully, some flies can wade themselves out and you can make ice all over again. All it takes is effort and motivation to stay above what's bogging you down. Now where can I find a metaphor that'll help me get some of that? Even an analogy would do...

*****
I need to write less about my life right now. I think that's the problem. I sound like I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown! That's quite boring and melodramatic, don't you think?

Why We Poop

JT (as we were driving away from our house and on his way to preschool): "Mommy, do birds poop everywhere? Even on the roof?"

Lien: "Yup, birds can poop anywhere, even the roof."

JT: "But why do birds poop mommy?"

Lien (Oh, he just HAD to ask why): "Why do you poop? Birds poop for the same reason every animal poops..."

JT: "Animals?"

Lien: "Do you know the reason why all animals poop? It's because all animals need to eat and people are animals too. Whenever you eat something, your body just takes the stuff that it needs and gets rid of whatever it doesn't. That's called digestion..."

JT: "..."

Lien: "All animals digest the the things they eat and so after the body gets what it needs from the food it gets rid of the stuff it doesn't need and that's where poop comes from. So that's what your body does, and that's what birds do too. And that's why birds poop."

JT: "I'm going to bring my toy to school."

**********

Later after telling J that JT asked why birds poop.

J: "Well, because everything poops. Duh." End of lesson.

Expectation Gap

This morning I dropped off three of my cousins at our local BART station in order for them to visit my sister via the next San Francisco bound train. My cousins, aged 15, 13, and 11 had never taken BART on their own and were decidedly not city kids. Despite the trip being fairly simple with the kids only needing to remember to take the San Francisco bound train and get off at the 24th Street station we were all nervous. What if they got off at the wrong stop? What if they got on the Dublin/Pleasanton bound train instead? How on earth could we think of sending these clueless kids on BART by themselves without a working cell phone? They couldn't even remember to charge the one they had, how could they remember to get on the San Francisco bound train to go to San Francisco?! Oh my freaking GOD whom I barely believe in! As I bought their tickets all the things that could go wrong ran through my head. I could just imagine my aunt's frantic calls about her missing children and it would be all my fault (well, all my sister's fault for insisting that I drop them off at BART in order for her to take them to a museum rather than her driving the 20 minutes across the bridge to Oakland to pick them up, but I digress).

I wasn't the only one who was nervous, the kids were nervous as well. MayMay the 15 year old worriedly kept repeating the name of the station while the ever prepared LinhLinh, aged 13 handed me a pencil and scrap of paper so that I could write every possible direction and phone number I could think of in case some unfathomable thing should happen. On my way back to the car I wondered how on earth, I, a person who had navigated the whole of Oakland, CA; one of the most dangerous cities in America by some accounts; via bus between the ages of 13 and 17, get to this paranoid point? My sister called me to ask if I had mentioned that the trains heading towards San Francisco are the Daly City or Millbrae bound trains. Daly City? Millbrae? Of course I didn't tell them that! They were going to get lost, I just knew it! Either that or some dangerous person of unknown motive would lead them astray somewhere and we'd never see them again because I didn't tell them they were supposed to get on the Daly City train because the don't always mention that a Daly City train is the same as a San Francisco train. How on earth did I think they could do this? What on earth were our parents thinking when they let me take BART and the bus when I did? How did J's parents let him fly across the country by himself at 8 with his mom only dropping him off at the curb and saying, "see you when you get back?" Is it really that possible that previous generations had more trust in their children? Could it be that all my paranoia, a feeling that I share with many many parents I know, is harmful? How can kids become resourceful if they are never really in a situation that requires them to be resourceful?

For my parents, they were forced to trust that I could handle myself at a fairly young age. I was the eldest child with younger siblings that I had to take care on my own from the time I was 7 years old. My parents had to work and could not afford babysitters so I was it with occasional supervision from my young aunts and uncles. These days, I can barely trust my 7 year old Evie to watch her little brother for 5 minutes let alone hours at a time. I don't trust her to be able to handle every negative situation that my creative mind throws at her. Am I giving her too little credit by not trusting her to take care of herself?

As I watched MayMay lead her younger sister and brother down the steps to catch their train, I couldn't help but remember the baby girl I babysat not so long ago. The one who needed my help for so long when I lived with her and her parents during my first year in college. I trusted her didn't I? Sure I did, because, of course they made it; safe and sound.

Hello Again

What a difference...what a difference...oh, what a difference a year makes. It has been almost a year my friends. Indeed, my last post was last August. So much has changed. Did I tell you that JT is four years old now? And Evie is leaving the second grade? How about that I'm about to complete my bachelors degree (if I don't fuck up) next week? I bought a [town]house! I got into a local law school! I am STILL working! WE HAVE NEW HERMIT CRABS! Hurrah! Everything is looking up up up! Ahhhhhhhhh...Do you know what that sound is? That is me breathing a sigh of relief. Very soon, I will have a degree, a career, a home with a[n] [off-]white picket fence, a loving husband, great children...ahhhhhhhhh! It's almost as if I'm a grown-up or something. I still feel like a fraud; like I'm still a child learning how to navigate a big world but I am at least getting the idea that perhaps I will always feel that way.

This big world is treating me better than I deserve at the moment. If there was ever a time for me to feel blessed, it is now. It is now now now...do you hear that sound? That is me finally getting some rest this summer. =) Yay!

PS Obviously, I need to come back and update more. My writing has suffered in the past 8 months. Sorry for the very crappy update, but it IS 12:37am on a weeknight and I've got a meeting that starts at 8:15am.

RIP Pearlie, Beloved Pet Hermit Crab

Evie's pet hermit crab Pearlie died today. She was attacked and killed by a stream of vicious ants that have been plagueing the house since Spring. (I seriously think our house was built on an ant hill and my dad is too do-it-yourselfer to allow anyone to call an exterminator.) Anyhoo...Evie was inconsolable despite the fact that J had warned that the hermit crab was doomed when it was brought home a little over a month ago.

Pearlie, named because of her/its iridescent shell, had been procured during a trip the kids took with my parents and sister to the Gilroy Garlic Festival. They came home with a braid of garlic and a hermit crab. I'm not sure what either had to do with the other either, but poor Evie and JT loved the little crab. They fed it, watched and talked to it on a daily basis. Evie even introduced it to her violin teacher. She was so excited to have a pet she could actually care for, hold, and feed.

***

We buried Pearlie in the garden about an hour ago. My dad had admonished Evie for continuing to cry over such a little thing. My mom continued to do the laundry and rolled her eyes at the drama. My parents childhoods were plagued by a poverty level totally unimaginable or appreciated by their American raised and born children and grandchildren. The death of the family hermit crab to them, was as small and insignificant as the death of a potted plant. To Evie however, Pearlie was murdered by the ants. She had done everything in her power to keep her pet alive and well. She fed it lettuce and gave it water in a bottle cap. She "played" with it by letting it leap off tall coffee tables in a single tumble. She had allowed her little brother to form an attachment as well by sharing in the hermit crab viewing time.

We washed Pearlie off and wrapped it in a paper towel and proceeded to the backyard. Evie was sniffling the whole time and JT was obviously puzzled as to what we were doing. I asked Evie if she would like to say something about Pearlie.
"Goodbye Pearlie, I'll miss you. I liked playing with you," she said before bursting into sobs.
"Goodbye Pearlie, you made Evie very happy, I'm sorry you had to leave us," I said.
I put the hermit crab into the small hole that I dug next to our growing squash plant and told Evie that Pearlie would help the plants in the garden grow. JT, who had been crying a little at the sight of the ants on poor Pearlie, began to howl, "NO MOMMY! DON'T DO THAT! DON'T LEAVE IT THERE!" He had not realized what "Pearlie is dead" had truly meant until I started putting dirt on it. I carried a sobbing JT into the house with a weepy Evie by my side, sorry for their heartbreak, but glad that they have the compassion to mourn the life of this small thing.