MamaStories

During the Transition Training we watched a lot of images and videos of Transition Initiatives, and at first I watched them with mixed feelings of joy and anxiousness. My heart sank because I inevitably thought: “I can’t make that happen.”

That sinking feeling stems from the fact that, though I arrived here over 11 years ago, studied, married, bought a house and had a child here, I still don’t feel at home. Why? Not because of the people around me: I have found each and every one of my colleagues, neighbors and friends - Americans or not - to be sincerely welcoming. So it must be me.

I always assumed children have a natural sense of being at home, for I myself, as a child, felt at home, without ever a shadow of a doubt. But was it because of something a child does or is, or was it because of what my parents did and modeled? Or was it because of the place?

The place was Antwerp (Belgium), a city within half an hour’s drive of the city where my grandparents and aunts and uncles all lived. A place where my family can trace and place our ancestry as far back as the 1700s. And a place with a culture in which “migrating” is the exception. You see, Belgians don’t leave Belgium: the emigration rate is less than a percent. And Belgium is a small country, about the size of Maryland, so children “leave” (for college, or to live) to within at most a two hours’ drive away from their parents. In my family I was the third (out of four now) in the span of two generations to move abroad, which makes my family exceptionally migratory.

Let’s put this in context. The United Nations Commission on Population and Development concluded in 2006 that only 3% of the world population is an international migrant (with most migrants moving from developing to developed countries). The kind of mobility within the United States that makes for big moves, in contrast, is high: the Census of 2000 determined that, within 5 years, no less than 8.42% of its respondents had moved to another state and an additional 2.86% to a foreign country. That number has in all probability gone up in the last couple of years.

So let’s just say that my Amie is seeing a home very different from what I saw as a kid. We see family once or twice a year, not every weekend. Mama and Baba have strange accents - and so does she, insisting on “woh-T-er”. Mama and Baba can’t vote and they don’t know how to negotiate certain communal systems. So I am afraid that Amie will not know what “home” is, or that she will call “home” something that I would call but a weak version of my own rich childhood memory of home.

And so I must ask myself: can I, dare I, make this place my home? What if home means not just the core family of the three of us, not just lengthy visits (visits: that says it all) from grandparents and aunts and cousins, not just local traditions with good, good friends that we see often… but also the wider culture of a hometown?

The Training helped me realize that I should make this hometown happen, for myself, for Amie, and that it is possible. That this what a Transition Initiative could mean to me, my family, and the people in my community: not just becoming more resilient in the face of peak oil, climate change, and economic crisis, but first and foremost what our trainer called  “becoming indigenous toyour place”: coming home.

{Previously, about Transition: the giving of gifts}

Amie made a heart for me this morning. Hearts within hearts, then she cut it out. As she was giving it to me she saw Baba also needed a surprise. After a couple of minutes she came running to him, with… a brain.

1. warm and bright out, emptied all the rain barrels, stashed them upside down, and reconnected gutters
2. raked leaves, emptied pots and containers, stashed them in shed
3. Amie raked leaves too (cough)
4. drank two large coffees (more milk than espresso)
5. baked and pureed 5 sugar pie pumpkins
6. will reserve puree for pumpkin bread (not for today), will freeze rest
7. will roast pumpkin seeds later
8. made leek and potato soup
9. made veggie stock with the dark greens of the leek and other veggie scraps, will freeze in cubes
10. boiled sweet potatoes, then fried with caramelized onions and lots of ground pepper
11. will have sweet potatoes and soup (with raw milk) for dinner with homemade bread and (not as yet homemade) butter
12. will freeze leftovers
13. miraculously found room in my fridge for raw milk delivery for friend
14. started new wheat grass sprouts
15. Amie is having an early dinner of boiled carrots, humus and a farm fresh (chicken) egg omelet… with ketchup, and she promised she would try the potato leek soup {tried it, did not like it}
16. which reminds me I have to make a go of the chickpeas next year
17. looking forward to evening, work on novel again - lots of good ideas!

I am very fortunate to have handmade items in my home. Many of them are Amie’s, of course, most of which I’ve already shown here. There are also  those made by strangers and mostly presented to us as gifts, a lot from India. The ones I want to show you here are two quilts made by my Mom and my mother-in-law (MIL). Both are fantastic crafters with needle and thread.

My Mom made this quilt a long time ago. I always covered Amie with it, in the stroller, when we went out on a chilly day. I dug it out a week ago, sewed back the plain strips on the three sides (for tucking in), and hung it in our bedroom.

This quilt was a collaboration between my MIL and her MIL, Amie’s great-grandmother, who lives in Kolkatta, India. It was made from my husband’s baby clothes and blankets that my MIL had saved. The border on the other side has “Hit Tima Tim Tim,” a Bengali nursery rhyme embroidered on it, in Bengali script and transliterated in Latin script.

Together they add cheer and warmth to our small bedroom .

Some day I hope I will have the peace and quiet - in my life as well as my spirit - to sit down and make a quilt, or an embroidery. Though I have never had the patience for any kind of needlework, and in my youth was known to look down upon it, it appeals to me now, especially if the picture in my head also has Amie in it, sitting next to me, working on her own thing. Maybe in winter we’ll attempt it.

Our new house - bought a year ago - came with two rose bushes, and this being our first Spring here, we got to see the roses for the first time. Amie also got to draw and paint one:

The context was thus:

Grandmother sitting by, also drawing the rose, and grandfather, on the other side of the world, witnessing via webcam.

In the evening Amie watched March of the Penguins. We had shown it to her about half a year ago but she wasn’t interested then. This time she was, going “oh so cute!” and so forth, but really paying attention when the little chick dies of exposure and the mother mourns over it.

- what happened to it?

- it died because it was too cold.

- but no, it didn’t get dead. Look, it’s moving, like this. [makes sad little movements with her head]

- no, sweetie, it’s dead.

- what is the mother trying to do now?

- the mother is so sad she is trying to steal a chick from another mother.

- stealing isn’t nice.

- see, the pack doesn’t allow it and the chick is back with its mother.

When we went to bed she wanted to sit in the pile of blankets to keep her egg warm. Then she wanted to talk about the penguins.

- I especially want to talk about when the chick got dead. I liked that.

- you liked it? Do you mean it made you happy?

- no.

- so you mean you are interested in it.

- yes. It’s interesting.

I had to explain again why the chick had died.

- but I didn’t see any blood.

- it wasn’t wounded, it was just too cold.

- can I have a baby penguin? It’s not too cold here.

- it’s too warm here. Penguins like it cold, but not too cold.

Seconds later:

- promise me we will die next to one another? [this while holding my head, her nose nearly touching mine, her eyes locked to mine]

- I can’t promise that, sweetie. We don’t know when we’ll die. It’s mostly not in our control.

- we could die in an accident.

- yes, or when we grow old and it’s time.

- but we don’t die on the cross. Only Jesus died on the cross. What is Jesus’ Mama’s name?

- Mary - not the Mary we know. A different Mary.

- What’s her last name?

- I don’t know.

- Jesus died and then Mary died too. They went far away. As far as… Auntie R. That was a long drive.

A little later:

- Mama, can we have another baby? But I want it to be a girl. We can call it Amie.

- but you are Amie. So we couldn’t call her Amie!

- but what if I die? And I still want to pinch your arm? [arm pinching is a leftover from nursing: she does it when tired or sad and when falling asleep]

I was dumbfounded. A weird thing, that statement: “Amie” (II) would still be pinching my arm, and that seemed to make her feel better about dying. Such a strange concept of identity, such fearless exploration of what death is and what it means to her! She soon fell asleep.

I’ve written about how I want to communicate to my daughter about death here.

A new law will be coming into effect on 10 February, called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). It demands that all products for children aged 12 and younger be tested for lead and phthalates, and that those that haven’t been tested yet are considered hazardous and may not be sold.

It’s about time that lead and phthalates are banned from children’s products - manufactured in the States or imported from abroad - and that the manufacturers have tests to show their safety. But this well-intentioned law suffers from two problems:

1. It applies to any and all “consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age and younger”: from toys and clothing to books, games, sports equipment, furniture and DVDs.
   
2. It applies not only to products being made right now and after 10 February, but also to products that are already on the shelves. This means it doesn’t just put manufacturers on the spot, but retailers (or resellers) and second-hand sellers, as well.

Consider that

Lead testing promises to be expensive — from several hundred to several thousand dollars per test, depending on the product. And each batch of each item must be tracked and tested, making compliance brutally expensive for items with small runs. (source)

No wonder the law in all its generality is creating a panic. For instance, for a while there it seemed as if many thrift stores and second-hand shops were going to have to close.

But there may now be good news for them. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the law,  drafted a Memo to clarify the law. “The commission does not have the authority to change the law but can decide how to interpret it” (source).

As for second-hand children’s products - thrift stores, consignment shops, and other used-goods stores:

Sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards. (Memo)

How about the retailers whose entire stock is bound to become contraband? Those that sell clothing and toys made of natural materials such as wool or wood (not painted) may be off the hook, for the Commission is considering giving also them an exemption (source).

All others may have to consult their lawyers. For them too, the CPSC seems to bending the rules a little, in what to me two  rather confusing paragraphs:

1. The new safety law does not require resellers to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold. However, resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties. (Memo; my emphasis)
2. While CPSC expects every company to comply fully with the new laws resellers should pay special attention to certain product categories. Among these are recalled children’s products, particularly cribs and play yards etc. (Memo; my emphasis)

Does this mean (”while”) that that only those “certain product categories” should be actually tested?

Can the small shops afford to run these tests on their suspect stock? Many can’t, like Amanda Christina of Hearts and Trees, who will no longer be able to sell her homemade art, handicraft and nature study kits.

And what about children’s books, for instance? From a Boston-based article on this matter:

This Wednesday, Amazon.com sent a general letter informing its vendors that, if they did not certify their products by January 15, the items would be returned at the sellers’ expense…

To make matters worse, even publishers that have already had their products tested for lead will be forced to retest…

“All of us are totally in the dark,” says Terri Schmitz, owner of the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline. “I can’t make a decision, because I don’t know what the regulations are. We’re all sort of in limbo here.” (source)

You may even find the shelves of your childrens’ library empty…

To be continued, no doubt.

Go to Cool Mon Picks SaveHandmade for more information, resources, and a way to respond to this law.

I’m not going to give too much away. I’m going to try. If you know us, please look away, or not too closely, or don’t look at the pictures (okay, I won’t put any pictures). Sigh…

We are making all our Christmas gifts this year ourselves and out of materials we already have (most of them trash and recycling bin bound stuff).

Funny, writing that: “all our Christmas gifts this year”. We’ve actually never been Christmas gift-givers. True, we don’t celebrate Christmas, but you know what I mean: it’s the holidays, and it’s nice to give, and receive. The reality is that I did always have the ambition to give my loved ones that something special, but when I considered the cost of treating everyone to what they deserved, I was too daunted to go ahead even for my closest friends. In the end not even DH got anything, and neither did I.

But now we are doing this frugal living experiment (we spend a max of $125 a week on food and all consumer goods, including books), in the spirit of the Riot 4 Austerity. And when the time to think of gifts came around, I found that I am no longer daunted! Shedding  any considerations of the money cost of gift-giving has liberated me to now get to giving!

Amie and I started early, several weeks ago. We made up a list of what we could give and who we would give to. Then we started gluing and painting and drawing and cutting and sewing, oh it’s been a feast!

The cost as well as the crippling expectations have fallen away. It’s home and handmade, by myself (not known as a particularly handy or crafty person) and a three-year-old… People will just have to love it! Not that that stops me from putting heart and soul into it. On the contrary, oftentimes I find myself still at it while Amie drifted away an hour ago.

Okay, so there are some expectations, but they are not the usual ones that come with Christmas gifts (did I spend enough? is it what they expected? is it the right color? will it get lost in the pile of other gifts, more fabulous than mine?). These gifts, simply because they’re home and hand made by my daughter and I, are of a wholly different world altogether.

You’ll see…

Yesterday one of the headlines in Google was “Economy Contracts as Consumers Retreat“. There is a nice rhythm to that phrase, don’t you think? And, also like a good line of poetry, it says a lot in the most subtle of ways. The bellicosity of this phrase reveals what we all really know about consumption in a more-is-more, me-firs, “free” market: it’s a battlefield.

Who are these consumers at war with on this field, and to whom are they losing the upper hand? And where can they retreat to, to which safe haven?

Since beginning the Riot 4 Austerity I have had some conversations with friends and family members about reducing one’s footprint. I’ve noticed a couple of things. First, that invariably the first two questions from family members  are: (1) Are you in financial trouble? (2) Isn’t 64 F (17 C) too cold? No to both. That was easy.

But friends have more complicated, diverse reactions. They run the gamut of (1) a smile (you-goofy/silly-people-now-on-to-a-different-topic) to (2) “why on earth would you deprive yourself of Coke and cable”, to (3) “I really admire that but we just can’t do it like you”. So far I am ashamed to say that I haven’t made any convert, but then again I’m so non-confrontational I am probably the lamest activist you’ve ever met!

But here’s the thing: I get the sense that none of my friends are happy in their role as consumers, to which they choose, nevertheless, to cling. I have the feeling that they all long for something different than a life on the battlefield/market. I have heard them talk of their need for something spiritual, a different kind of riches. For a return to daily rituals of comfort and belonging, like they remember from their childhood perhaps (because most children, if you let them, are so naturally at home with themselves). And for time: time to be at home with oneself and one’s family, time to reflect on something beautiful, to read a book, time for friendship. Time that is not hurried, not stuffed up with stuff, but calm and warm and ample.

They want these intangibles (a nice way of avoiding calling them “things”), but they seem to deny  that the only way to get them back is by taking them back from the mass  marketplace. Because in my honest opinion, that’s where we have traded them in, our time most of all, for stuff, for plastics, for vapid “entertainment,” for glossy magazines and a glossier, paper thin life.

The mass marketplace where we are at war. The “economy shrinks” as we “retreat” from a battlefield: what does that mean? The newspapers and politicians and Wall Street investors would have us believe that it means that we are losing jobs, so money, so stuff, so happiness. They would have us believe that the only way to win it back is to ratchet up our consumption again, to “have confidence in the market”. They want us to believe that the enemy is the Chinese toymaker, the Euro, the Japanese car manufacturer and the Indian telemarketer. And they want it to be taken for granted that our retreat can only be temporary and that a victorious recovery just around the corner. That there is no other place to be.

But I believe that we are really at war in that field with our worst enemy: ourselves. We have been pitched against ourselves. No wonder no one can win. And even if the market recovers, “victory” is only Pyrrhic. Pyrrhus after winning one of many battles said that one more such victory would utterly undo him. It’s the same with us, only worse. I’m saying that we have already been completely undone.

I’m not just talking about global warming, peak oil, and all those “obstacles” to economic growth and ultimately, of course, our self-preservation. I am talking also of our loss of our “spiritual needs.” Yes, let’s name them: love, home, kindness, peace, and time. I believe that’s what my friends have been saying, suffering. Not the loss of stuff, but of soul.

And no marketplace is going to return these to us.

There are many other ways to recovering  happiness. By avoiding the mall and the box store, and saving the money for something more permanent and less polluting to the body and the mind (a woodburning stove, in our case), or for a sense of security at least. By coming together every evening in the kitchen, cooking together and then sharing the meal at the dinner table. By congregating in the living room, telling stories and listening to music or discussing a book,  and playing board games or making art together. By staying home, going for a walk in the woods and listening to the birds.  By counting what we consume in energy and goods  and how much we trash our planet, and reducing those. By planning our garden, our self-sufficiency.

By knowing where we stand, as a family, on that marketplace: more and more on the sideline, less and less at war with ourselves.

I haven’t been blogging much lately. Summer at our burgeoning homestead has meant more time spent outside and in physical activities, like transplanting and planting.

There hasn’t been as much of planting as I would have wanted: just some herbs in pots and a an edible border by the side of the house (thyme). Mainly we’ve pulled out plants and weeds, moved and sifted through rotten woodpiles, dug up stones and cut down some trees (small ones, with bow saw).

We have mostly cleared the area that will be our vegetable patch next year. I’m afraid I didn’t take the earliest possible “BEFORE” picture of the jungle that was there. I really like the idea of taking pictures of the garden as it changes…

We decided to follow Mel Bartholomew’s “Square Foot Gardening” method. I very much like his engineer’s approach, and a high-yield small-space garden like that also allows us to make optimal use of what little sunlight our shaded garden allows in without having to cut down the beautiful trees. We hope to make the vegetable beds and to start building up that soil at least before the weather deteriorates even more.

What else has happened? We’ve had both sets of grandparents visiting as well as Aunts and other friends. It was real summertime, so much more treasured because we now live in this wel-lit house with this great yard and in this beautiful neighborhood. Those who visited who could make the comparison with our small, dark basement in Brookline were stunned by the difference. Even being sick - yes, of course, the second week of school, and I got it too - is more enjoyable when you can sit on the sofa with the sleeping child on your lap and look out at the trees and the birds…

Now it’s just the three of us again. It’s strange, for me at least, because our first guest arrived a week after we moved in, and we’ve head a constant stream since then. It feels now like I have to make myself “at home” all over again…

We also started the new school year, and of course there has been a lot of drawing, writing, and crafting, but about which in another post!