The Power of a Story

Today, my daughter turns five.

In her Montessori classroom, there are no cupcakes, no balloons, no party favors.  Instead, they will tell the story of her life.

The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...
The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...

Her classmates will gather in a circle around a candle "which represents the sun," and she will walk in a circle around it, holding a globe, once for each year of her life, while her classmates sing.

Around and around and around and around ...
The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...

After each turn around the sun, one of us will show the class a photo of her at that age, and remember something about her: how she took such good care of her first doll, how she loved her first tutu and was dancing from ealy on, how much fun she had playing with hula hoops at her first friend party, how she discovered her love of reading.  The story will begin with her birth, and continue until she reaches her current year.

A long time ago, Mommy and Daddy were very happy together (or: because they had [sibling]) ...

But they knew that someone very special was missing from their lives ...
(child says: "me!")

I love this ceremony, because it honors the power of our stories, the importance of giving children narrative roots that empower them to find their place in the world, to determine their futures. Even her classmates who were adopted as older children (there are some in my daughter's school) tell their stories, with as much information as they have.

The Earth goes around the sun, tra-la-la ...

It requires children to listen to one another, to learn about one another, to appreciate each other as unique individuals. It helps them to see people as people: multidimensional, growth-minded, incomplete.

Around and around and around and around ...

I wish that we were all so fortunate, that we took time to tell each other our life stories once each year, to look both backward and forward, to know each other in more than just three dimensions.  Perhaps it just takes too long now to circle the sun.  Or perhaps we are too afraid of the power we might discover in the retelling?

Lottery

My father played Powerball.  But not until the jackpot was, in his estimation, worth the drive over the border to New York State (because Jersey didn't sell Powerball tickets then), where he would also visit the Rockland Bakery, coming home with a half-eaten loaf of fresh Italian or challah or raisin bread, danish, and if I was lucky, a scone.  This motivating figure was something over $50 million, so it wasn't often that he went to buy tickets. Still, he had his red-ink pencil-bubbled-in card--a study in numerology, some combination of birthdays and anniversaries and other dates whose importance we would never know--which he brought with him on each trip, as if he were a professional gambler.

I often wondered why he would drive the 20 minutes to New York to buy a lottery ticket for a jackpot that was $50 million when it wasn't worth driving there for, say, five million.  But my father was not a man you could cross-examine.

We never did win the lottery.

My colleagues all bought a ticket today, and assumed I'd had, too.  I hadn't.

"But when you start thinking about all of the things you'd do with a billion dollars," they reasoned, "you feel happy."

And maybe that's exactly why I didn't buy a ticket.

Not because I don't want to be happy, but because I don't need to buy disappointment.

Sure, it's entirely possible  that I'd win.  But if I don't?

Maybe I've spent one too many hours of my life dreaming and even planning about the probable futures that become impossible after all.  I don't know if that makes me a pessimist, a realist, or a curmudgeon.  But one thing is certain: it will never make me a lottery winner.

Did you buy a lottery ticket?

Respects

I was making small talk with a student as he got up to leave my office, as I usually do at the end of advising conversations: bookending the visit with questions whose answers make both of us human, or diffuse the tension or anxiety that comes with vulnerability.  When I asked him what he was doing for the fall break, he mentioned he was catching up on sleep, watching movies, and that he might go into the City, which in these parts means "New York."  It's not an uncommon answer, especially for international students during their first year here.

"Oh, that'll be fun," I agreed.  "What do you think you'll see?"

"The museums, maybe the Guggenheim ... probably not Ground Zero, even though I'd like to go."

It was an exclusion that begged the question: "Why not?" I asked.

"It's not a place for brown people," he said, shaking his head slowly.  "We've done enough damage.  I wouldn't want to offend anyone."

It took me off guard.  My student is from Pakistan, but as far as I'm concerned, he has as much right to Ground Zero as anyone else.  He's a gentle soul.  He's disappointed by the current political situation in his home country.  No one would be able to tell he's any different from the 3 or 4 million other people with U.S. passports who are brown (this only counting Asian "brown").  I wanted him to feel like he could pay his respects, too, and honor those lost when the towers fell.  Because that's what it would be for him: honoring them.

I told him as much: "you're not responsible.  We know that.  That site belongs to you, too."

He was skeptical.  And as he left, I wished him a good adventure, knowing that he wouldn't venture anywhere near the southern tip of Manhattan.

It made me think about other incarnations of guilt-by-association, and wonder how we can even begin to heal if we can't even return to the site of our pain, to pay our respects to the dead.

#Microblog Monday: Food for the Dead (Arborio Rice Pudding)

Our road was thick with cars this weekend, even after the hordes of Halloween revelers departed, leaving streets littered with candy wrappers.  On Sunday, I wondered momentarily about the traffic as we walked up the block to the farmer's market before I realized: of course. All Souls Day.

We joke about the Catholic church on our street, the weekly parade of speeding SUVs in a rush to be saved, and in a rush to get to brunch afterward (no offense to my Catholic readers intended: I believe that this behavior is a particular feature of the people who go to this church).  But truth be told, even though I left the church years ago, I sort of like the proximity of this one; walking past on Sundays, I think about my father, who would never miss a service, and the weekly ritual of mass, and the children's choir, and after-church trips to the park to see the zoo and ride the miniature railroad.

I remember All Souls Day as one of those hard-to-breathe holidays, not because it affected me emotionally, but because the air in the church was heavy with incense.  My father loved incense-laced holidays.  Though I liked the drama of the incense-swinging, to me, holding my pre-adolescent breath and hoping that the smoke would clear quickly, it seemed like an oppressive way to celebrate anything, or to remember the dead.

Years later, I learned that the Day of the Dead had been previously celebrated in Mexico during the summer, and was changed by the Spanish conquerors of Mexico to November in an effort to convert the indigenous people to their beliefs and get them to celebrate All Saints Day and All Souls Day. The contrast between the incense-filled Catholic church and the colorful outdoor parades and altars of Mexican culture couldn't be more striking.  During my years in LA, I loved the Day of the Dead celebrations, with their parades and music and stories and food.  Now, as a veteran of loss, I'm glad to see Day of the Dead celebrations becoming more common, given what I think is our cultural ineptitude at talking about death.  We need a better language for public grief, one that doesn't wave away the holes left behind by loved ones, but brings us together over them, and lets us speak their names.

As my children and I walked to the market yesterday, noting the creative parking jobs of the larger-than-usual-crowd, I told stories about my father, joked about how he'd disapprove of my not going to church, remembered him as a talented artist, told my son that he would have been proud to have a grandson that just might be interested in architecture.  And though I didn't build an altar, I imagine that his departed spirit would have appreciated this adaptation of arroz con leche, similar perhaps in flavor to atole left for the dead in Mexican celebrations, to fuel them for the journey ahead.

Arborio Rice Pudding

1/2 cup Arborio rice
4 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split
3/4 teaspoon almond extract

In a large saucepan, place all the ingredients, except the almond extract.

Bring it to a gentle boil and then turn it down to a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking to the bottom, for about 30 to 40 minutes. Taste the rice to check for doneness. The rice should be very soft and plump.

Take the pudding off the heat and stir in the extract. Pour into dessert bowls and stir in some dried or fresh fruit. Serve immediately.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is?Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.