Monthly Archives: September 2018

Moments of Silence

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I have a new car. Another minivan. I laugh, “This is my last minivan. When it dies….I finally get MY car!” (Mr. Ornery promises to buy me a pink Lamborghini!) The last minivan decided to die a little before I was ready for it but this one better give me another ten years; ten years for the last little guy to get out of high school!

Farewell to the blue van that holds so many memories.

Farewell to the scratches and dents from boys’ misdirected emotions.

Farewell to whatever smell that was that was never going to come out.

Farewell to the stress of not knowing just exactly when after 150,000 miles it was going to konk out!

As with any new car, I now have the “gift” of Sirius XM. For two whole months. I’m trying to make the most of it. One of the channels I’m surprisingly enjoying the most (until I realized that they repeat content some) is “LaughUSA.” It hit me that I just wasn’t getting enough laughs in my life and this puts a smile on my face more frequently.

Recently, one of the comedians was ribbing with some of his audience. He joked about a man having a “worn-out face” from his marriage and divorce and kids. He retorts, “Look how great I look. I’m 64 and no wife or kids. I have something all of you want…..silence.” I paused. He was right. He had silence.

“Are these two yours?” she inquired genuinely.

“Uh, yes,” I hesitantly replied.

“Bless you.” The teacher overseeing “younger siblings” during the parent open house at the middle school shook her head. “You have your hands full! They are delightful, but…”

I get that a lot.  “Yes, pray for me,” I reply. “They are non-stop!”

I wouldn’t change this parenting gig for the world. But every once in awhile I could use just a little bit of silence. It’s what causes me to “need” to stay up for an hour or two after the kids fall asleep so I can recharge with my silence (ie, midnight or later). It causes me to grab my laptop and hide in my bedroom on the weekend for a moment of silence. It leads me to announce, “I’m taking the dog for a walk,” and scuttle out for a loop around our community as often as I can get away with it – silence.

And, it has led me to be okay with planning a trip to Croatia at the end of this month to spend a week in a villa with a friend and her friends…in the hopes of finding silence. We all know how crazy September is. The month where everyone who ever wanted to do anything, but wasn’t going to plan it for August vacation month, has now scheduled their events. The month when kids are returning to school and while they are in a “honeymoon” period of little homework or studying, the parent is intensely trying to figure out their schedules and how to keep up with this new routine. The month when the school honeymoon ends and behavioral slips are sent home, tests are scheduled, and everyone’s stress rises. The month when my work has ramped up, creating early mornings and late nights.

So, it just seemed right to say “yes” to a friend when she asked (and begged politely) me to join her. I never thought of going to Croatia, but I was hooked as soon as I spent some time on Google looking at the photos of beautiful water.  I’m not sure what my expectations are. I’m not sure how this introvert will connect with a group of people I’ve not met yet. I’m not sure if my saintly mother is going to regret her “willingness” to watch my boys for eight days. I’m not sure if my boys are going to spend the eight glorious days trying to get away with anything they can at home and school.

But I’m pretty sure that I’m going to find a few moments of silence.

And that will be beautiful.

Nike and My Brown-Skinned Boy

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It’s both sad (because of the backlash) and yet hopeful to me that a globally successful business is propelling the discussion around racial injustice.  I would almost feel bad for all those promising to boycott Nike, except for the fact that maybe with fewer people shopping in my area, there might be size 8 shoes still on the shelves for me!

That aside, the whole point of this issue has nothing to do with Nike or Kaepernick and everything to do with the fact that it’s time to start treating people with brown skin as humans. In an effort to make sure that my boys are in a good school district that can meet their varying behavioral and learning needs, I have chosen (for now) to live in an area that happens to be primarily white. It’s a choice that doesn’t always sit well with me because I yearn for more diversity (though my immediate neighborhood has families from Turkey, Russia, Ecuador and South Korea living together). So, every year I intentionally enroll my biracial children in a summer day camp within the city limits that serves primarily African American kids.

The first few days are a bit of a shock to them. Mr. Ornery came home that first Monday afternoon begging me to take him to Target to get a ball cap. Not thoroughly understanding the importance to him, I brushed it aside as we moved along to some evening sports activity or another. The next evening he continued to insist that he needed a new cap so off to Target we went. But I knew in my heart that he wouldn’t find what he needed in Target. In our “white neighborhood” all-purpose store he was not going to find the ethnic fashion apparel he eagerly sought. He also wasn’t going to find someone who knew how to braid his ringlet hair into cornrows at our “white neighborhood” SuperCuts.

What he was searching for was a better understanding of his identity. He was trying to figure out what part of him was brown skin and what part of him reflected the whiteness he saw all around. He searched for answers in outward appearances without thinking of the within.

“Why do so many of those kids at camp have brown skin?” he asks. “Why was like everyone in the Black Panther movie brown?”  Eventually, my answer became, “You know what? If you look at all the people in the entire world, most of them have brown skin. It’s just that it’s different where we live so we sometimes forget that. What matters is what’s inside people. How they act. How they treat others.”

My heart breaks at the continued discrimination and injustice. My heart breaks that people continue to judge others based on color, appearance, physical form. Bias is within all of us, but we are in control of our responses and our actions. We have a choice to be kind.

Mr. Ornery got a new ball cap. He wore it for two days. Mr. Ornery got cornrows put in his hair at a salon within the city. He wore it that way for three days (some of his hair was too short so it only was braided halfway). Mr. Ornery and his brothers will continue to wrestle with what it means to have brown skin in a country that can’t handle differences. They will search to find where they fit in and how to handle the pain of judgement.

I certainly don’t have all the answers. But I will continue to look for opportunities to talk with others and listen to others who are different from me in many ways. And I will continue to seek opportunities to do the same with my boys and encourage them to learn and grow in acceptance and wisdom.

Because I believe that we are all created by and loved by an amazing God. And we should show the same to others.