Mom Wisdom by Carolyn

While my two sons were growing up, my kitchen was always fully stocked in case of a culinary emergency. When you considered the shelves upon shelves of provisions in our walk-in pantry and then combined that with the copious quantities of food contained in the refrigerator/freezer in the kitchen, and then added in the foodstuffs in the additional refrigerator/freezer in the garage, and then counted the back-up food supplies in the full-size freezer, well, you see what I mean.

The amount of food I kept on hand, ready to assuage my family's hunger pangs, was the stuff of legend. There were jokes among family members and around the neighborhood that my house would be THE house to stay in in case of a long-term power outage, alien invasion, or nuclear holocaust. We might be without electricity, plumbing, or anything else, but at least we wouldn't starve!

I delighted in planning meals, grocery shopping, and cooking for my family. As my boys grew older, I began buying snack food as well as my usual groceries to be sure the friends who visited them could be fed at any time hunger struck. In their teen years, they often had a large group of friends over in the evenings - about dinner time. Some evenings I only cooked for the four of us; other evenings I cooked for eight or ten. New friends were often taken on a "tour" of all the possible food-vending locations in the house. Our house was a popular hangout!

When my boys became old enough to get jobs and make their own spending money, they also developed a habit of driving through fast-food establishments to pick up a meal for themselves on their way home from work. Over and over, I remonstrated with them for spending their hard-earned money on junky food when there was a house full of food waiting for them, free of charge (at least to them). "Son, why in the world would you spend your money on food when everything you might want is already here for free?" I just couldn't understand it. I had that same discussion with each of my boys many times during their teen years, without successfully convincing either one of them to quit spending their earnings on food they didn't need to buy.

A few years ago, the boys moved out of my house into a house they shared with several roommates. They pooled their money with the other guys and bought community groceries so they could save money by making meals at home. Money was tight for them. Apparently tighter than it had been when they lived at home, and they became cautious with their spending. During a telephone conversation after several months of living on their own, the subject of one of their roommates' spending habits came up. My son indignantly said, "Mom, he keeps picking up fast food on his way home from work! I don't know why he wastes his money that way. I asked him, 'Dude, why do you keep spending money on fast food when we have plenty of groceries in the house that are already paid for?'" I couldn't keep from chuckling. "Mom wisdom" had prevailed again!

-Carolyn

Poor Baby by Carolyn

     It had been a long day of no adult conversation, no one to talk to except a 4-month-old child. Again.
Most of my days were that way, so when my husband called to say he would be late coming home from work that evening, I decided I had to get out of the house.
     So, I packed the baby into his car seat and headed out to the mall.  Not really because I needed anything, just for something to do out in the real world where there were other people, the sound of other voices besides my own. I shopped for a while, window-shopping mostly, and then decided to head back home. By that time it was dark, bringing some welcome relief from the sizzling heat of the August sun.
     The huge mall parking lot was mostly empty by then. As many women do, I felt a little uneasy about my vulnerability as I pushed the stroller through the lot, but I reached my car without mishap. I unloaded the baby from the stroller and buckled him into the car seat. I closed the door to the back seat and pulled on the handle of the front driver's side door, ready to get in and start the car. It didn't budge. I ran around the car and frantically pulled on all the door handles, hoping that one of then would be unlocked. No such luck.
      Now I had a dilemma. Should I leave the baby in the car and go looking for help, or should I stay with the baby and wait for help to find me? I dithered a while, looking anxiously around me at the vast, almost empty, dark stretch of asphalt, partly for help and partly for danger.
     After a few minutes, the baby realized he was alone in a dark, hot car, which was not moving as he wanted it to. He opened his sweet little angel mouth and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. That, of course, made me cry.
     Finally, help arrived. A man walking out to his car saw (or heard) my distress and asked if I needed help. I explained my situation. He couldn't fix my problem himself, but he offered to go get the mall security guard to assist me.
     A few moments later, the security guard whizzed up in his little golf cart. He pulled out a "slim jim" and began trying to slip it around my car window to reach the door lock. Throughout this delicate operation, the baby continued to scream. His pudgy little face was bright red, his cheeks were tear-soaked. He was mightily perturbed. I crooned useless reassurances to him through the car window.
     The security guard worked and fumbled and tried again and again, but could not get the "slim jim" to work. Finally giving up, he offered to call the police to see if they could help. So, added to my fears about how hot and the baby was and how frantically upset he had become, I began to fear what would happen when the police arrived.
     My fears were two-fold: Would I be arrested for child endangerment? Or would a news crew show up and shoot video of what a bad mother I was, making me the top feature on the ten o'clock news? Or both? Well, I am happy to report that neither of those fears came to pass. The police arrived, had a good chuckle or two at my predicament, and unlocked my car within seconds. I wasn't chuckling. I was hugging my baby, crying with relief, and thanking God.

-Carolyn
   

Fish Explosion by Carolyn

     Bam!  I sat straight up in my narrow twin bed, my heart pounding in my chest, as the explosion reverberated through the house. The booming noise had awoken my sister from a sound sleep, just as it had me. We exchanged puzzled glances, not understanding what had caused the sound.
     We jumped out of bed, hurrying toward the living room, which we assumed to be the source of the boom. In our small house it didn't take us long to reach our destination. At first, we weren't able to comprehend the scene of chaos and destruction that met our eyes.
      Slowly, it came into focus. Mom was standing at the threshold between the kitchen and the living room, a damp dishtowel in her hands and her mouth agape. Dad was sitting ont the edge of the couch, his shotgun in his hand and a sheepish look on his face.
     The living room floor was awash with dirty water, colorful gravel, and broken glass. Here and there, a small fish darted about nervously, quite probably shell-shocked. More than a few lifeless fish bodies floated amongst the debris. Occasionally, a piece of seaweed or a portion of a small fish body dropped from the ceiling into the mess below with a soft splash.
     In spite of all the evidence before us, we were still having trouble making sense of what had transpired.  Until, that is, our eyes were drawn to the gaping hole in the living room wall where the fish aquarium had stood until just a few minutes earlier, when Dad had decided to clean his shotgun in the living room.

-Carolyn

A Stranger in No Land

I once bought ice cream in an empty bread bag.  It was closing time and the store had run out of containers.  So we bought a loaf of sandwich bread, let the owner keep the bread and put several scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream inside the bag.  To keep it from melting, we held the bag outside of the car’s window, as Peter our driver raced through the narrow cobbled streets of Arequipa, Peru.  It was August, 1985 and winter in the southern hemisphere. 

Ben’s best friend, Tom had moved to Peru to live out his dream of dedicating his life to serving others and putting to test his belief that “others” were any and all members of the human race.  He taught English at the university in the small town of Puno, high among the Andean mountains. He had also founded a theater company called “El Teatro de Pan y Paz”, where life size puppets representing the local Quechua people, taught the residents of rural communities about health care and literacy.  For months we had been writing to Tom to let him know that we were planning a visit to several South American countries and would love to visit him in Puno.  And for months Tom had been writing us asking when, if ever we would be visiting him.  As it turned out, the postal workers in Peru were on strike and our letters, along with thousands of others, were piling up somewhere in a warehouse, and never being delivered.  This was before email, Facebook, cell phones and in Tom’s case even a landline where one could place a simple call.  We decided that we would continue with our plans anyway. We visited Ecuador and Bolivia first and then took a boat across Lake Titicaca to Peru.  I got the worse sunburn of my life on that trip.  When it’s 20 degrees and you are grateful that the sun is shining, you forget that at 12,500 feet you are a lot closer to the sun that on the beach in Galveston. 

We arrived at a small port on the Peruvian side of the lake and took a bus to Puno, where we knew Tom was living.  Ben left me at the bus stop, which was basically a storefront, with our luggage, while he went to look for Tom.  He remembered from his teenage days in Bolivia, that it is not that hard to find a foreigner in a small town like that.  He would just start asking people if they knew an American man who taught English at the university and be pointed in the right direction.  Confident in my two semesters of college Spanish, I sat on one of our suitcases on the sidewalk.  Few minutes after he left, the thought occurred to me that I knew no one in this town, had no telephone numbers for anyone in the entire country, and really did not speak the language well enough to find my way back to the airport in Lima if I had to.  I don’t remember panicking too much though.  Somehow, I had faith that Ben would find Tom and come back for me.  I did not feel completely out of place.  The people looked familiar, the same coloring and built of those I had grown up with back in the Middle East and the mountains and the arid cold reminded me of my hometown of Tehran.  About half an hour or forty five minutes later, Ben came back and reported that apparently there were two American men teaching English in this little town and the one that he was pointed to was not in fact our friend Tom.  We decided to get a hotel and go back out in a different direction to search further.  It was getting dark when we found ourselves on the streets again and started asking passersby if they knew someone with Tom’s description.  All of a sudden a voice from above asked:  Are you looking for Tomás?  He is in Arequipa.  We looked up to see a young man at the window of a three-story building.  He promptly came down and introduced himself as Daniel, a friend of Tom.  It turned out Tom had gone to the next major city for an operation and was recovering at the home of a friend there.  He had had no idea that we would be coming through to visit him.  Daniel took us to the train station, where the only public phone nearby was kept on a pedestal in the stationmaster’s office.  He gave us a number to call Tom at the home where he was staying in Arequipa.  We got through and realized the only way to see him would be for us to go there the next day.  We bought a train ticket for the next evening and relaxed a bit, now that we knew where our friend was.  Daniel offered to show us around.  By the next evening, that little desolate town became a place where we knew some friends and were invited to go back to, the next time we were in Peru. 

The overnight train arrived in Arequipa at 6:00 a.m.  Tom and his friend Peter were waiting for us at the station.  Peter was also an American but had been living in Peru for many, many years.  His wife and kids had moved to California in order for one of his sons to receive treatment for his special needs.  Peter was finishing up medical school and would soon join his family.  It was obvious that he really did not want to leave his adopted country, where he had become one of its people.  He arranged for us to stay with a couple that were his neighbors. We spent the next day visiting the sights of Arequipa, a colonial town set in a valley.  The next evening, Tom was speaking to a group of young people about his theater project and we went along to hear him.  At the end of his presentation, Peter offered rides to several of the attendees.  I kept looking at Ben to see if he had the same concern as I:  How is he going to fit all these people in his little five-passenger sedan?  But Ben had already reverted to his “we are not in the US” mode and thought nothing of piling in eight people, several on top of each other.  I didn’t even bring up the need for seat belts or safety. Eventually, we dropped off everyone and were back to just the four of us in the car, when Tom expressed a craving for ice cream.  It turned out that he could not get good ice cream in Puno.  By the time the product made it to that isolated corner of the country, it had melted and frozen back up so many times that it was not worth eating.  So Peter abruptly changed directions and turned the car around so we could find somewhere to get ice cream.  Years later when I myself ended up living in South America, I realized that Peter was actually a good driver.  But that night in Arequipa, I was a bit scared for my life.  He not only drove very fast, but I noticed he did not stop at stop signs or traffic lights.  I asked him whether he had ever wanted to be a racecar driver.  He replied that no, but he had driven an ambulance in Vietnam.  I figured if he had survived that experience, then I was in good hands. 

I can’t remember if we actually ate that ice cream or not.  By the time we got home, it had softened too much and we had to put it in the freezer.  I think we might have forgotten all about it, as we got busy talking and laughing and wondering what we were doing so far away from all that was comfortable and familiar.  But I know that despite the physical hardships that both Peter and Tom had to deal with, there was something about embracing others as your own that had made their hearts a little bigger and their souls a little happier.  I know this because like them, I chose to pack my bags up one day and leave my parents and a good paying job to live the same adventure for almost thirteen years.  I ended up in the warm tropics of Venezuela.  I did not experience much material discomfort.  The roads were paved, the cars had seat belts and there was plenty of delicious ice cream.  But just like Tom and Peter, I got to be one with others and got to see friends in the faces of strangers. 

-Susan

On Common Sense by Andrea

" Did you ever stop to think that we women who do too much wouldn't be able to do too much if we weren't competent, strong, intelligent, courageous and determined? We might, however, be a bit lacking in common sense."

The above quote is attributed to Ann Wilson Schaef in Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much. As I read it my mind began to buzz. I realized that I had never really thought about what common sense means, what value it has for life. I believe I have common sense, at least I have been told so since childhood. Would someone know if they didn't have it?

First, let's think about what common sense is.

Where I'm from, it is a highly prized quality. The elders will say, even of the very young, 'that child is really sharp, lots of common sense... Honey, common sense will take you places book smarts or money never will.' If one possessed book smarts, but lacked common sense, he'd be mocked. And being told you didn't have any was as great an insult as being called a liar or thief.

Dictionary.com records the definition of common sense as 'good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.'

The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as, "the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way".

How does one acquire common sense? How does it apply to my life as a woman? 

Is it possible to be as powerful and skillful as today's woman is and miss the boat on having common sense? Is this lack of common sense the reason why our "dream lives" are so often elusive? We want impact, purpose and meaning. We practically kill ourselves and others with our agendas and superhero like speed... doing too much, going too fast and getting no closer to the life we think we ought to live.

So what is common sense? How can it keep me from doing too much?

Common sense is knowing most of the time good enough is good enough.

Common sense is knowing you are enough, right now, just as you are. Yes, you!

Common sense is going to bed when you are tired and getting up when you are rested.

Common sense is living one's life with a sense of rhythm, not rushing.

Common sense is knowing that we are here for a reason and that God uses our lives as they are. He will help us to maximize our unique gifts and strengths as needed.

Common sense is loving yourself so that you can love other people.

Common sense is putting first things first, second things second and so on.

Common sense is using what you've got while you've got it. YOLO (you only live once)!

Common sense is recognizing every day you wake up is a new day. Who doesn't love do-overs?

If the essence of common sense is 'having practical knowledge and judgment to live in reasonable and safe ways', then the very act of doing too much indicates a lack of some common sense. Doing too much is unreasonable and unsafe. It has become a habit of western culture. I have bought into the deception along with most of the women I know. We are capable, strong and mighty. Hear us roar! But our sister Ann might be right. Doing too much screams loudly that we are a bit lacking in the most common of senses.

Common sense is believing old habits can die, even if their deaths come slowly. We can change. We don't have to live hurried lives. We can kick back a little and enjoy the ride. Isn't that what we want?

Observing the world is one way we develop common sense. But not just by looking at what others are doing. We also have to slow down and look at our own lives and ask tough questions of ourselves.

Is what I'm doing working for me?

Is it getting me the results I want?

Oftentimes asking 'Why?' in response to what we observe  and do provides the clarity needed to make sensible, profitable decisions that will lead us to a reasonable and safe life. We have to be wide awake and thinking. Reflection and practices that are in line with solid beliefs will make us wiser. Common sense is wisdom. And wisdom takes us places and gives us experiences that book smarts and money never will. Wisdom is using what we know to dictate what we do. As we know better, we ought to do better. This is common sense.

A diet of healthy boundaries and exercising sound judgment can reshape a life of doing too much. Let us run the race marked out for us. It’s different for each of us women. Let common sense lead us along a path of peace toward the lives of which we dream.

Isn't that what we all want? 

-Andrea

Affogato or Café Glace

The French chef on public TV is making an affogato, which apparently in Italian means “drowned”.  It is a tall glass filled with a scoop of vanilla ice cream dunked in espresso coffee.  At first I am fascinated by how he makes the vanilla ice cream right on the spot with liquid nitrogen but then I realize:  I know this drink!  It is no affogato; it is café glacé and it was my favorite treat when my father would take me to the movies as a child.  And a bittersweet sensation brings back a slew of memories.  Sweet, because they are reminders of a happy childhood, bitter because my Dad passed away eight years ago.

My father was a hard-working man.  As long as I can remember, he worked two, sometimes three jobs at a time.  He was the chief appraiser for the government’s mortgage lending bank in the country.  He did that job from 7:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.  Then in the afternoons, he free-lanced for two or three other banks, surveying and appraising.  He was an honest man and people knew that he would give them the fairest estimate possible, no matter who they were.  His client ranged from simple blue collar workers trying to get a loan to buy their first home in the capital, to the most powerful men in the country trying to buy and sell their properties and gain the highest profit.  He worked on weekends and late into the nights.  But somehow, he was always there to help with homework, stock the refrigerator with the best fruit in season, make up bed-time stories, prepare a bowl of pomegranate seeds on cool autumn night so our hands wouldn’t get stained, take us to the beach every summer and on short outings to watch daredevil motorcyclist jump off dirt hills outside of the crowded capital. 

Born and raised in the countryside of Khorasan, he had to get his country fix every weekend, so he would drive us on hikes and picnics on a regular basis.  In the winter, it was tubing on a snow-covered hill using the floor mats of our VW bug.  In the spring, a day on the banks of the Karaj river, sitting on Persian rugs and drinking tea.  A hard-core trip involved carrying pots, pans and a camping stove across a rickety rope bridge to make lunch on the other side of the river because it was less traveled and more idyllic. 

Another treat and a weekend ritual was chelo kabab for lunch.  To give my mother a break from cooking, my Dad would take one of our cooking pots and bring back food from this hole in the wall restaurant that catered to the working men but wasn’t a place you took your family to.  The kabob would sit on top of the basmati rice, which would sit on top of a layer of bread at the bottom of the pan.  By the time that pot would arrive at our house, the juice from the meat had seeped through the rice, carrying with it the flavor of saffron from the rice, and soaked that bread to an exquisite deliciousness.  My brother and I would fight over that bread, as my mother would set the table.

Every summer, we would go to the Caspian coast for a week.  Sometimes my father could not stay with us the whole week, so he would take us to Darya Kenar, drive four hours back to Tehran and return the following weekend to pick us up.  It was enough for him to dip into the grey waters of the sea a couple of times to let go of the stress of his drive and his work.  A creature of habit, you could set your clock by when he ate, when he took his obligatory afternoon nap and when he went to sleep at night.  But at the beach, he would take off his watch and just enjoy the few days of relaxation and time with his family and friends.

Anything I know about math, I owe it to him.  When I would get stuck with geometry, trigonometry, or algebra I would leave my unsolved problems on the dining room table at night before going to bed.  Sometime between getting home from work that night and the next morning, he would have solved the problems and given me the most clear explanation that no high school or college math teacher ever could.

And on those occasions when my mother had a volunteer committee meeting or a get together with her friends, my father would take me to Cinema Cinemond, a theatre dedicated to showing Disney movies dubbed into Persian. It was right next to Cinema Paramont and in between the two was a little café.  That is where we would sit while waiting for the movie to start and he would order me a tall café glacé.  More than the exoticness of the treat, it was the rarity of the opportunity to be alone with my father and have his full attention that makes this memory so precious. 

All that my father had built materially disappeared practically over night when the Islamic Revolution confiscated his belongings because of his Faith in the Baha’i religion.  By then we were living in the United States and there was no going back.  But the spiritual and moral inheritance that he left my brother and me are immortal and no earthly power will be able to diminish them.

The vanilla ice cream and the coffee in Café Glace, or Affogato, treat your taste buds to this contrast of the bitter and the sweet. And isn’t that what life is?  Aren’t we all a contradictory bundle of opposites?  But how wonderful that when all is said and done, what I remember are the sweet moments that my father spent loving me and showing me what really matters in this life.

-Susan

Loving Lessons

Staring at them, I feel my heart swell.  No other trophy, medal or prize has ever given me as much satisfaction as my children.  I am humbled to be the mom God chose for these two beautiful babies.  I give them each one last kiss good night without waking them, and drudgingly head to what awaits me.  Dishes, laundry, a moody husband, and the dreaded drawer I have been putting of tackling all summer that is full of pretty much everything.  I read somewhere that you should always do the hardest task first on your to-do list, so here goes.  I make my way to the drawer of doom, and I can’t even open the darn thing without some receipt jumping out at me.  I grab the trashcan and start to dump.  Broken pencils, pens that have seen better days, and have written their last words fill the trash bag like a piñata.  Forgotten journals, decorative notepads, and legal pads line the bottom of the drawer.  I notice a red Steno pad that has “personal stuff” scribbled across the bottom.   Not being my usual choice for a journal, too plain for my liking, it intrigues me.  I tentatively flip it open to the first page, and gaze at the title:  “Things I want to teach my son.”  A list of some of the things I wanted to teach my unborn child in my belly stares me in the face.  I run my hand across the page, and my eyes fill with tears as I playback memories with my beloved son.  From the first time I found out I was pregnant to his latest report card.  Every since I knew I had a child to care for growing inside me, I had no doubt I would dedicate my life to his well-being.  I read the list through blurred vision:

1.     God, family, everything else. (In that order)

2.     Never hit or disrespect a girl.

3.     God loves him

4.     He is precious.

5.     He can be anything he wants to be.

6.     Reach high because even if he falls he’ll land among the stars.

7.     Never give up.

8.     Don’t be shy.

9.     Say hi to everyone.

10. Can’t is not in a man’s vocabulary

11. If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try and try again.  If it still doesn’t work, try harder.

12. Work hard.

13. Listen to your parents.

14. Respect your elders.

15. Open doors.

16. Say please and thank you.

17. Thank God everyday for what he has and has not given you.  Be grateful.

I continue with entry by saying how there is so much more I want to teach him, but being pregnant, I am too tired to write more.  I add how excited I am to be a mommy.

I sit back. 8 years later.  So much has happened since that idealistic young momma first wrote that list.  This woman is different.  Life has thrown some curveballs, and what’s left is a stressed out, emotionally worn down woman.  The thought makes my held back tears finally spew out like a faucet.  Amazing how choices I have made, and decisions my husband’s made have affected my demeanor and attitude so much. How my unmet expectations have transformed me into someone I didn’t want to be.  I pick myself up off the floor, and creep into my son’s room again.  I can’t help but smile to see my son’s own face lit up with a smile.  What is he dreaming about I wonder?  What project is he creating in his mind?  How many goals has he scored in this dream?  I realize at that moment, that I am still the same idealistic young momma.  I still want nothing but the sky for my son, and now also for my princess sleeping in the next room.   The list created by that young mom, still remains as things I would like to teach my son.  With the addition of a few:

18. He is his father’s son, but he is NOT his father’s choices.  (or his mother’s)

19. Happiness is a choice.  CHOOSE IT!!  Regardless of the curveballs.

20. Life is such a precious gift.  God gives it to you.  Along with the talents that you have.  LOVE LIFE!  Use your talents to honor God. 

I bend down, yet again.  Give him another kiss on the forehead.  Walk to my daughter’s room, and do the same.  This time, the walk to my still-waiting-to-be-checked-off to-do list feels lighter.  I look forward to having the opportunity to check things off, but even more, I look forward to the love lessons I, myself, learn everyday. 

~Esmeralda