My mother has a cold room. It’s full of large, out-of-use Tupperwares from when we were kids that sit under inches of dust and haven’t seen the sun in years, keeping in company dozens of glass jars and bottles, long emptied of their relishes and jams. Broken down coffee makers that worked their very hardest for dozens of Duffys sit at the back of the shelf, only to circuit a short and one hard-working day, to have made their last lonely cup. Then, they retire to the cold room.

I don’t know it is about the spring that sparks a fury of needing to get your year’s collection of items – important and non-important – categorized, thrown out, put in a box, or given away. But the movement is there, and we are definitely a generation of unclutter, or at least the best of us thinks we are. Recycling bins get usually filled once a year with old toys and the clothes make their ways to swaps with the girls over hummus and tea.

I want to think i’m not a clutter bugs, but the truth is, i probably am. Piles upon piles of newsletters climb over the kitchen counters, gathering with them water bills and file folders and ribbons and scotch tape, and migrating somehow to the stairs, where they wait patiently to go to Mom’s office to be sorted and told where to go.

I guess the problem is it’s just so easy to accumulate JUNK: first you’re single, free and easy, living in the wind, then you’re married, which comes with it’s own wonderful set of parameters. RESULT: You rapidly double your possessions. I get his left-handed guitar, and he gets my old typewriters. It’s a trade off.

Then, you add a child. And POUF! Your free and easy lifestyle is the only thing that’s in the wind. You’re left with the treasured art of kindergarten, birthday cards where your child’s 4 year old friends write, “i love you,” their first blankie, then trikes, bikes and wheelbarrows. Their first medal for soccer or skiing adorns their bedpost.

And then come the animals. I actually have a laundry basket upstairs – that was full of clean laundry – which my cat Switch started sleeping in, and for a week i couldn’t bear to put the laundry away, because at at first i thought it was cute. But little by little, i needed the sheets and dish clothes under the large, orange beach towel on top, which Switchy had somehow claimed. Now it’s been a month, and she refuses to sleep anyway else.

Last Christmas eve, my father dropped off an old two keyboard organ, with all the bells and whistle, that he bought for us in the early eighties. The thing was practically the first synthesizer ever invented. He claimed it was for Leila, for Christmas. Thanks, Dad.

I give up. I should just sign myself up for one of those hoarder shows and get it over with. Unless I decide, right here and now, that I WILL NOT BE A COLLECTOR OF JUNK ANYMORE.

NO, NO, NO. NO MORE JUNK.

A valiant attempt to see junk to the door, i will make. A closet of family reunion cookbooks and games, i will give away. A closet or two with unnaturally high piles of laundry, i will vacate.

Next thing you know, I’ll have a broken coffee maker or some old Tupperwares stashed away. I’m sure I’ve got an old calendar or two around here – and i know i’ve got papier-mâché. And maybe that won’t be so bad after all.

Do all girls turn into their mothers?

My Dad, sitting with my brother's PhD Dissertation in Archeology. Possibly the proudest day of his life.

I know that as a writer, I’m not supposed to obsess about publishing. I’m supposed to put my head down and keep writing, and never to get discouraged when the rejection letters come.

But over the last year, I’ve had so much positive feedback on my work, that it’s hard not to feel like the world has forgotten one lonely young memoirist… blogging her way through the world.

Last year, after going to City Book Club, a book club where we’d invited an author to come, I  got home late and I called my husband on skype.  He was in China at the time, it was his noon, and he seemed especially entertained by me – here it was practically the middle of the night for me, i was slightly intoxicated, and bursting to tell my news: “Babe, I’m going to be a real writer!”

Although i had always considered graduate work, it’s not until i completed my first manuscript and attended a writing workshop or two that i started to get my feet wet in the world of writing. But something in that Book Club meeting had gone right that night, and i knew i was destined to get better at the craft. If i like it, and if my readers liked it, well then, i would evolve, grow, and challenge myself in new and interesting ways.  I dropped the idea of doing my Masters in Education, and i started following a new path: a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing!

The idea lingered over the summer, but it wasn’t until I started polishing my portfolio at length that i started thinking about which schools i would apply to, organizing references and engaging with Admissions Offices all across the country.

And I’m happy to report that I will be attending my longest residency ever – the first of five – at 2 weeks each! No six year olds, no phone calls, no meetings that can’t wait, no students rescheduling midterms or missing deadlines …  JUST ME, AND WRITING, and a PROMISE. A promise to myself that i will learn more, practice dedication and continue to live the life of an aspiring author, setting aside time each day to work to refine my skills.  Vermont College of Fine Arts, here i come.

Thanks to all the people who have helped me get to where i am today; in the midst of the endless query, but sometimes breaking out the “Well, I’m a writer…” at parties when people ask me what i do. I couldn’t have done it without my constant supports~ you, my readers.

Don’t worry, I’ll report back.

moduffycobb

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“Bamboo rafter”

moduffycobb is using Instagram – a fun & quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo, then choose a filter to transform the look and feel of the shot into a memory to keep around forever.

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  fromaggi

  Can’t wait to hear about these adventures!!! · 8 months ago

Taken at Yangshou, Guangxi Province

Instagram: Instagood.

I’ve been thinking a lot about perception, and how much I’ve learned about the people in my life using Instagram. As you can see from its description above, Instagram describes itself  “as a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends”: basically, a twitter feed for photographs. Here are a few reasons why i like the idea of ‘sharing your life’ on Instagram.

It really is a great way to visit your friends.

Take my friend, Mancuso (pictured above as the hippie at the campfire). He lives in a super small town on British Columbia’s west coast, and we’re rarely in contact.  I talked to him twice in the last two years, once when he was randomly home on P.E.I. and wanted to get together, and once when he pocket dialed me and sounded just as surprised as I did that he’d called. I mean, let’s just say, long distance communiques are just not this man’s strong suit (nor mine, to be completely honest). Since he’s joined Instagram, i can now see the houses he’s building, the arizona grapefruits he captured on his vacation, and his sweet pooch. It makes me feel closer to him – somehow. Instagram is a bit voyeuristic like that. You’re where? You’re doing what?

Photography as Art

And many thanks to those people who are out there taking pictures constantly of beautiful things, like the grass after it rains, Paris in the springtime, or long, luscious spiral staircases, where the edges have been blurred and you feel like you’re melting into the photo. How wonderful is it to check out the gorgeous gardens someone has built over summer, the magical half eaten milk and Santa cookies of Christmas morning, or the interesting perspectives one can create simply by holding their iPhone under a bridge. This is your beautiful life going by.  Welcome to it.

Glorify the Daily. 

There’s no question. Our lives turn into drawn out cycles of days and nights, blurring together at the seams, and we rarely stop long enough to realize how blessed we to be alive, to see the true charm of a bowl of espresso, or to feel the heaviness of a cloudy day in our tummies. Instagram celebrates the little things in life: your best friend’s super cute baby eating squash for the first time, a bright blue door in a run down neighborhood, or a daffodil bursting forth from the cold, damp ground. (Oh! Oh! Imagine if there was an Instagram for smells?! …mmmmm….the first 30 seconds of chewing a piece of spearmint gum, a fresh pumpkin from the garden, the floral essence ylang ylang…Amazing!)

The only #FAIL of Instagram

Since our lives are becoming increasingly visual, we’ve seen the rise of the “inspirational post-it” note. I’m not sure how i feel about this. Now, don’t get me wrong, i’m definitely up for free enlightenment wherever i can get it, but there’s something about the “free advice” of my internet friends, some of whom i don’t know personally, that doesn’t ring true with me. I’ve always been a fan of paper, of markers, and of inspiration. Who isn’t? I’ve adorned whole walls in former apartments to collections of wise words. In years past, you have to find those ‘best quotes ever’. You had to look for them, wait for them. I acquired my favorites from years of pawning through old books and poetry and recopying them onto the backs of envelopes. They meant something to me. I guess to be fair, the overused inspirational quotes are not themselves a fault of Instagram, but possibly of the 27 million users that the social media icon has acquired.

Overall, Instagram, i think you are wonderful. Thank you for sharing the beauty in the world.

Readers – please share your thoughts on Instagram – have you used it? Do you like it? What are your highlights? Or is “the online sharing’ thing getting a little out of control?

I guess the cushion was Mitchy’s way of saying, “Now you can meditate from the comfort of your own home, babe.”

Mitchy’s great at knowing exactly what i need. Less wine, more quinoa. Less writing, more revision. Less frazzle, more meditation.

I’ve been “practicing” the – um – meditative arts for about a decade now, although i have yet to levitate off the ground in a cloud of transmigrational smoke.  Not that I haven’t huffed, or puffed, or prayed, or cried, but I honestly haven’t been able to hit the top shelf of the enlightenment hierarchy, even though i own not one but two copies of Chögyam Trungpa’s 1973 classic, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.

How can something that’s so easy and so mundane  – to follow your breath – be so complex at the same time? Much like a lot of other things, I blame TV. Child of the eighties, Micheal Jackson, Whitney Houston, growing up in noisy arcades with a lot of blings and beeps, no worry we have a hard time sitting and thinking. Then add a kid to the mix, the ever churning swirl of the mommy brain? Practically impossible.

I always seemed to start out on the right foot: positive intentions, good posture, and a clear mind.

Deep breath. There you go, Maureen. You’re doing just great. Can I make it to ten? In, out. In…out…. but then it would start. The voice.

I’m breathing too fast. I should slow down.
Ignore the voice, Maureen. Hold it, and exhale.
You call that meditating? I should be working. I’m procrastinating.
I am NOT! I’m helping myself calm down and develop self-awareness. It’s a life altering practice.
I’m hungry. I should have called that women back.
Deeeeeeeep breath. Focus.
Did I cancel that dentist’s appointment yet? Lei doesn’t even have any cavities.
I’m trying to breathe, here!
And you’re doing a marvelous job. Congratulations. You’re ALIVE.

And so it goes, year after year. For a while I tried to focus on the exact conditions that i would need to meditate – hence the cushion. Then I tried to focus on the schedule: six to ten minutes daily, with a weekly working up to half hour and hour long increments. This is when i bought a second yoga mat (in case I wore the first one out right away!) and got the kundalini yoga chants prepped on the CD player, thinking, it may be soon time for a guru!

Deep breath, there, Little Mo.

I guess now since i’m getting a little older, i may be finally realizing that I may never make it to that Tibetan Buddhist mountain retreat that I always meant to get to, and that frankly, I may be okay with that. I’ll stick with my thirty-somethings uses for my meditation cushion: laundry folding, bedtime out loud story reading, and exam correcting at my low lying, teak coffee table.

Folding tiny kid clothes? Meditation. Emptying the dishwasher for the fiftieth time this month, putting the groceries away or humming a song on a radio that you don’t even remember turning on? Meditation. Petting a purring cat and having a glorious, momentary lapse? Meditation. I bet Trungpa had big cats.

Maybe I shouldn’t give up on my mountain retreat …..just yet.

Please, share your meditation successes and failures with me, favorite tricks, sites or recites. I’ll meditate on them.

ever drink yogi tea? it sends us little reminders sometimes.

Last Friday night, for a minute, i died.

When my husband cautioned me against driving in “the weather” (in P.E.I., that means snow, and in this case, 2-4 cm), i scoffed. i told him he worried too much, and that he should live a little. I rolled my eyes.

“I’ve been driving for six years, babe,” i added (i didn’t get my license until i was 28). Like in an instant on an icy road, that would have mattered. It’s you versus the elements. And the elements don’t  exactly care about your driving record.

Grammie’s house was only an hour away and Lei was pumped for her sleepover. After a cup of tea with Mum, she cautioned me to go super slowly on my way back to town. The blustering snow was coming down a little harder now and the roads were covered. It was starting to drift. No problem, i said. I laced up my boots and kissed my six year old goodbye. I didn’t even think twice.

Little did i know that only moments later and probably not four kilometres away, i would catch my tire, and spinning out of control, nosedive into the ditch, and flip my truck; seconds later i would crawl out the driver’s side window upside down and to the icy ground beneath.

I passed a school bus once, because it was foggy and I didn’t see its lights were on. That was traumatic.

This was something else. This was divine intervention.

I assessed my condition as soon as i left the x-trail, upside down,  tires spinning and the headlights still on. I didn’t have a scratch. I wasn’t broken, i wasn’t in pain, i could see; i was intact, though i looked down at my body to be sure. I was ALIVE.

When I was calling the tow truck, i saw another car go into the ditch on the opposite side of the road. I cursed.  I was ALIVE.

When the policeman invited me into his car to get my statement, he ran my plates and was kind enough to remind that that my truck was no longer registered. You’re two months overdue, he said. Yes i was; and I was ALIVE.

When Mitch’s sister and husband came to my rescue, i was in a state of shock. I just kept repeating, “I’m ALIVE! I’m ALIVE!” I kept thinking that there must have been a reason that i crashed, like to prevent an even greater catastrophe down the road, maybe one where i wouldn’t have been so lucky.

But unfortunately for my glorious x-trail (“exy” to those who knew and loved her),  she left this world a brave soldier: windshield shattered, windows blown, airbags deployed. We collected the scattered items that Exy had carried, and before i left, my brother in law handed me a crumpled up parking ticket, half frozen and covered in snow.

so long, old girl

Needless to say, the experience has left me thankful not only for my life,
but for every precious moment in it.

When Mitch and I were traveling through Vietnam, we met an elderly French-speaking gentleman who drew calligraphy on scrolls. We sat in his small shop and had tea and oranges with him for a whole afternoon, listening to his stories about the French occupation of Ho Chi Minh. Before he left, he gave us a gift: a beautiful scroll which read, “Live for this moment. This moment is your life.”

And I thought about him on the road that night, as i watched them tow my crushed truck out of the ditch.

And I thought about Mitchell waking up on a Saturday morning and not having a wife anymore, and I thought about Leila not having a mother. And I cried my eyes out. And I thought that I must not be finished here – that I must have been saved because i have work to do yet in this life. How crazy does that sound, now, only one week later.

The next day I had tea with my dear friend, and when she handed me a cup of licorice tea that said, “you are unlimited,” i burst into tears again. It reminded me of the time just after we lost our babe little t, gone to the ether. A friend asked me to select a card from her oracle deck, claiming that they were always poignant. The card I chose read, “Acceptance”. And that was the day i started to let go.

By Monday the physical manifestations of stress had set in: the pounding headache, unphased by the ibuprofen, the walloping head cold, which came out of nowhere, and not one, not two, but three cold sores, which violently attacked my upper lip and put me in the grouchiest of moods. By Tuesday, I was bed-stricken and couldn’t work. yikes.

So it’s been a week of crying thorough car promo videos (who does that?) and regrouping, in a desperate attempt to move along to the next chapter. Yesterday Mitch and I went to see the Exy one last time to “collect our personal belongings”, as instructed by the insurance company, and i admit, the experience was therapeutic. (If you can call bawling  – into a six foot tall man’s open arms beside a crashed car  – therapeutic. Thanks honey, you were great about that.)

And life goes on. The moral?

Live for this moment. This moment is your life.

the big climb to somewhere

Hey FurtherMo fans!

As the blog is officially one and a half years old, I have decided to upgrade to an actual DOMAIN! I know, it’s unheard of. I know you’re all thinking, what’s next for the blog, is she going get to get a cookbook and cook every single thing in it, posting her creations each day? Or will she learn how to knit scarves so she can report?

No, indeed I will be keeping along my writerly way, trying desperately to delve deeper and deeper into the realms of the Canadian publishing industry, sending off my query letters and following the signs of the writers who’ve gone before me, using all of the tools at my disposal to unearth the creative energies. Here’s to a productive 2012.

You can now find me here, at www.FurtherMo.com ~ a small step up but an important one. And I resolve to blog stream a little more; i promise to write meaningful and relevant posts to entertain and provoke sentiment from you, my thoughtful readers.

I kind of feel like it’s a bit of a graduation, of course, although admittedly, there are always many more steps to climb. Some will be higher than others, and most uneven. In the dark there will be some twists and turns.

This kind of reminds me of a video I watched last night, oh the places you’ll go at burning man, which is a kooky and fun rendition of the dr. seuss classic. I hope you enjoy it.

Anyway, happy birthday, FurtherMo.com.

Mitch ordered about a dozen books filled with area maps, ride revues, restaurant guides, and touring strategies (everything from  to half day honeymoon to where to watch the parade from if you have a child under six  & need to get out before the crowds, etc. ) We poured over them for months.

And on the morning of December 18th, Leila woke up to a special delivery from Santa Clause: three boxes, gorgeously ribboned and wrapped, and a letter from the jolly old man himself. One box contained a beautiful pink princess dress that Santa’s letter instructed, “must be worn for your lunch with the princesses”.

Our girl happily packed up her princess dress (and as many other dresses she could find) and prepared for the magical take-off. Whether we were ready or not, Disney was happening. Mitch and I both took deep breaths and gave each other pep talks.

We arrived in Orlando without too much of a problem, with no winter snow or delays. Our Disney plans were shaping up. We had four days, and Mitchell insisted that we must be very tactical about our arrangements – no spontaneous whims (which i am prone to). I agreed. Logic. We would plan well, execute well. Monday we were going to start at Disney’s Hollywood Studios: we planned to take in a few shows, a couple of rides, and have an easy day, as we knew Lei would be tired from traveling.

But then something happened. I started to feel nostalgic. And I got whiny.

I wanted to ride the teacups, go on the ‘it’s a small world’ boats, and basically re-create my own five year old Disney experience. I didn’t want to go to Hollywood Studios,  I wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom -  see the Cinderella castle, and be carried away by music and floats. I wanted to melt into ice cream sandwiches and blow bubbles with four year olds.

“Mitch, this is what Leila wants,” I argued, “to see the castle and the princesses.”

“Mo, she doesn’t even know about the castle,” Mitch contended. “And it’s eleven o’clock. We’ve already missed the prime time when the books say you need to arrive,” he continued, flipping through our gigantic unofficial Disney guide, wide-eyed, rubbing his temple.

“We won’t have to aim too high,” I said, “we’ll just go and check things out and see where the wind blows us.” I was completely Disney mesmerized, drunk on my own memories. Mitchell gave me one of those looks I know very well. This is a bad idea, Mo, but we’ll do it anyway.

Day One: Disney Disaster

Needless to say, our first day at the Magic Kingdom was far from perfect. The anticipation was amazing – waiting in line from the parking lot for the small ferry which would carry us to the grounds, and seeing that beautiful castle in the distance. Sidewalk chalk lay scattered through the lines of the hundreds of children who waited for the ferry, with things like,  i love you, mickey and my dream come true written by five and seven year olds. I thought i was going to cry.

But when we finally got through the gates, it was 11:45, and the crowds were already rushing around us. We walked rather aimlessly at first, but decided to wander towards Fairyland, soon realizing that Leila was getting hot and tired. She hadn’t even gone on a ride yet, and wait times in the lineups were saying things like: 45 min, 1 hour, or 1:30.We managed to get one Fastpass (Disney’s special cut the line system), and it was for 6pm. And we couldn’t get any more Fastpasses – until that one expired. We wandered into a 3D movie, enthusiastic about the prospects, only to be asked to leave when the projector broke or there was some technical problem. “Mickey’s lost his hat,” the stage manager simply said.

The queue to see Rapunzel from Tangled was also a hundred people thick, with many of the adults not even having kids with them. Leila was hot. And she wanted to go home. We tried to distract her with an ice cream cone, filing in line for over twenty minutes. And for a fleeting Disney moment she was happy. But when i walked away to get napkins, a woman bumped into her and her entire ice cream splattered all over the ground. Mitch rushed to her rescue, and for a moment she was inconsolable.

Then the music started, and all of a sudden, there was Cinderella. Disney was saved!

The days that followed we took all of the book’s recommendations,  adhering to each little instruction. After that first day, our days began at 6:30 am, and we entered the parks by 8. The mornings were cool and the traffic was light. We were impressed by Disney’s Hollywood Studios and spent a full day at Epcot (sun up to sun down!) Day Four was our Magic Kingdom redemption, where we got an early start and everything worked out absolutely perfectly, hitting all the roller coasters and boat rides that Leila could handle, and by 1:00 we  headed home for a swim, returning in the evening for Disney’s crazy electrical parade.

Highlights? Lunch with the princesses at the Norwegian Pavilion – at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall. And was it worth it? Absolutely.

I think in some ways we’re still processing the trip, but it helped that we headed over to the Gulf of Mexico for a few days after to have Christmas with the folks, drink some wine and decompress.

Happy New Year everyone!

And now i want to hear YOUR Disney stories – please share.

I teach ESL at a local university. This time of year in our program, the teachers are in a flurry reading, correcting and marking exams. This time of year, we worry for our students. We worry that they won’t beat our English proficiency test, a rigorous four hour examination which has made its way into the lifeblood of our program. It is our entrance exam; it is our exit exam.

This exam will determine the placement of our international students for their credit courses here at the university. Although we promote literacy , best writing practices, and critical thinking skills (which we deem essential before embarking on a university education), our students demand practice exams and exhaustive grammar lessons, which we, in turn, dole out. The age old mantra: we teach       to the test. But that is only part of the picture.

Every year, our careful director asks herself (and us) how we can be the best teachers we can be. For starters, she runs planning meetings for all the teachers who teach the same courses so we can share ideas, pool resources and create large binders of ‘Best Practices’. Great lessons and new concepts are always shared.

Each semester we self-evaluate. We examine the relevancy and accuracy of our program, and asses our strengths.  We also prepare for the academic challenges of our students, amidst the busy lives we lead at home – at lunchtime teachers share stories of husbands and wives, lunches, buses, babies, magazine sales, and Christmas concerts. At night I flail about in my papers, envelopes, and staplers, moving piles of marking and moving three hole punches and around house.

December is crunch time for students. It’s amazing to walk around the library this time of year,  checking out the study groups in their back corners, scarves draped over long tables, worried eyes scanning large books, hands scribbling away their notes. They’re drenched in anxiety, anticipation.

 My mind flashes to our six year old on an amazing journey of early literacy. She traces letters and tells her teacher, “mes histoires“: her stories. Every three words is a big deal for her, the teacher says. Make it a big deal. When her father and I  look through her book of stories, we smile to each other with a parent’s pride: Maman danse avec Papa.

Her struggles learning French strangely mirror the struggles of my students, who, in a foreign country, are learning English.  Her classroom is a strange new vehicle, although she may not not where she is going, a different cultural setting, an unknown expectation. Both ‘littles’ and ‘bigs’ will have a long way to go.

The student’s anxiety slowly creeps into my weekend, and even into my dreams. I dreamed that one of the other teachers gave me an exam and I FAILED it; i failed the reading section. It was hard and I panicked, had a bit of an anxiety attack and tried to cheat. It didn’t work. Another teacher caught me red-handed, and then scoffing, told me that I should try a harlequin romance. I’m not sure if she meant to read it or to write it. I think my educational life is crossing over my writing life. I woke up in a sweat, looking around my bedroom in the dark.

This semester, when my students finished writing their exam, I started to mark them immediately. They botched the midterm, so I was expecting results. As a teacher it’s my job to raise the bar; as a mother it’s my job to give shelter to those wounded from it.

And I was never so happy that they passed with flying colors.  I mean, if it were me in China, and I was taking exams in Mandarin – being asked to write about globalization and the economy, then I’d be in a fair amount of trouble. I even gave them each an exit interview, sharing with them the strengths i believe they have, and the progress i know that they’ve made in Critical Reading. I try to make each student realize how far they’ve come, how much they’ve learned in the short time that they’ve been in Canada. I’m delighted for them in their success. Congratulations, I tell them, you now move on to the next stage of the game.

This semester has been a tumultuous one for me, with the impact of Grade One weighing slightly heavy on my heart still. I’m treading on the front lines of literacy with kids aged six to twenty-six. But something’s changed. I’ve now become a Mom  ~ of one of the students on the other side of my classroom. And I’ve realized that that the whole child (however old they may be) is so much more important than that one test, or that grade, or that teacher will ever be, in isolation. We are so much more than the sum of our parts. And that’s an awesome realization to have.

The experience has also made me quite a bit more sensitive to the needs of those students around me who are thousands of miles from their families in Asia and the Middle East, and who need an advocate for them as well as a teacher. They need someone to talk to, someone to share things with, and someone to be proud of them.

And that would be me.

Anybody else seeing themselves in this experience? Share your thoughts here, I would be so glad to hear them.

Now I always knew that I would have to face grade one some day, but I never thought it would come at the cost of a good night’s sleep, or an interminable conversation with my husband and friends as to what to do with Leila. We’ve always described her as our wild little spirit, someone different, vibrant and unique. We are proud of her in countless ways: for her thoughtfulness and her gratitude; her organized creativity, her musical intelligence and her determination steering the way.

For the woman that we know she will become.

But in the meantime, we are up against something big and strong, something not moving, not curving to meet her on her own bends: the school system. A rigidity unchanged since we sat in those teeny, tiny grade one chairs.

Although we’re trying to be open minded, our Leila is not used to conformity. Even in our family, our daily routines, and the hourly operations of this house, she has struggled. She’s not used to sitting in a desk all day, answering questions on demand. She’s used to action, to imagination.

We know that to her, school life begins and ends on the playground. The only daily reports that we receive are from her music class, which her father and I carefully follow. Last year’s highlight was Kindergarten Choir, in which they danced like bumble bees and mimicked rainbows. This is her truth in life, her raison d’etre.

Meet the teacher night didn’t go well. We were greeted with an impromptu critical analysis as other parents walked into the room, her teacher pronouncing that because we had taken the last month off kindergarten, Leila was already behind. She was in Mandarin classes in Beijing, i said, an attempt at her defense. Our decision. Our choice.

Next came homework. Another hurdle. An entire lineage of teachers, parents, grandparents, and other relatives in the mix, and the child will not read. Words on a page suddenly don’t make sense to her, and when her father and i sit down to do homework, a mysterious tummy ache appear out of nowhere. Our only salvation is to sing the homework, in rhythm and in rhyme. She laughs, clapping to the beat, forgetting for a moment that she’s doing it-  she’s reading.

But still, I worry. Frustration. Panic. A breakdown in the Superstore parking lot after Parent-Teacher interviews.

A voice inside calls to me,  just love her. Wait for her. Her time will come.

The deep breath of parenthood.

I call to others, questioning parents on the whens and wheres of normalcy. Some show sympathy, painfully remembering the days when their kids didn’t or wouldn’t fit in. She’s probably the next Steve Jobs, says my boss casually, shaking her head, her eyes growing wide as she remembers back, or  a pro surfer.

A pro surfer, I muse. I could handle that. Summers in Tofino, winters in Hawaii, and I catch myself drifting away, almost late for class with a pile of unmarked midterm exams in one hand and a cold cup of coffee in the other. Am I really the teacher whose daughter won’t confine to the slow, labored breathing of the system? Do i really wonder where she gets her impassioned, mercurial tendencies?

More than just the teacher, I am the woman who resisted authority, her parents, her older brothers, even to this day (by painful times) – her husband. The very slow learner whose explorations were not always academic, they were mystical, transcendental. I was stuck in epic Wordsworthian poems of immortality, and for that, well, I don’t apologize.

“… our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”

And so to my dear Leila, I will not give up on you. Let rainbows and choir practices be your guiding stars, and may we all catch up with you some day.

Love, Mom

P.S. As a post-script, here is a photo of what Leila would like to change her name to. I don’t know where she came up with “Ziley”, but I quite like it.

I may not be beyond a book of kids poetry yet. Enjoy. 

Taxi!

Wishy, washy, will he know?
Will he know which way to go?

I eye the streetscape, fast and slow,
grab her hand and No, No, NO!

One’s gone I missed it, time’s for sure,
next time next time, one I’ll lure

arm’s up high now, in the street,
bikes and carts and Beijing meats!

Leila clings, don’t lose me mom,
no I won’t dear, come along!

traffic wakes now its green light
buses, people fight or flight.

please please stop here, taxi please,
I wait for you in desperate need…

feeling faint now, hot and tired
stretch my hand four wheels desired

I see one coming! hold on tight!
we’ll reach it Leila, be alright!

Noodles swish I drop my lunch
there go the chopsticks off my bunch

here! we’re here, please stop for us!
he’s pulling over, Lei, enough!

And now we enter, slip inside
shī fu, we’re going for this ride.