MamaStories

Ok, very very depressing post here… I repeat: very…

Who hasn’t seen that old tv-movie, The Day After? I watched it, on Belgian television, when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. I don’t think my parents knew what it was about, and they probably weren’t paying much attention as it unfolded, because otherwise they would have yanked me away immediately. I still remember the many weeks of depression, anxiety and nightmares that followed it.

Clicking through the channels last week I stumbled upon a rerun. DH warned me: should you watch this? But of course I am not a kid anymore - whatever that means. He became annoyed at it because it is such a bad movie, but I was (again) glued to the television.

What captured me 20 year ago captured me now: the slow decline of individuals (physical, emotional, spiritual), of society and civilization in the aftermath of nuclear war. It’s a long movie, so there’s lots of time for declining. The grind of it, the slow seeping away of hope is just excruciating. And you know that that’s how it would be. Worse, even.

This time, what stood out was the scene in which farmers congregate wtih an official to be briefed on how to replant the crops. The idea is that they scrape away the top layer of the topsoil that is contaminated with fall-out. The farmers nearly rebel. There is no more gas for vehicles  - there’s a neat shot of a number plate being trod underfoot - and only some horses and carts. And what to do with the dead soil? And what is safe? And what to grow?

Someone has posted the entire movie in segments on YouTube (thanks a lot: now I can revisit my obsession endlessly!), and you can view the scene here, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Then I read Sharon’s post, about a study that shows that the only way to avoid the critical 2 degree temperature rise is to reduce all industrial emissions worldwide by 100%. This post also contains a link to an earlier post of Sharon’s about what her children’s future will look like. She writes that writing this piece made her cry. So did reading it, for me.

And to top it all off, I read in the news that there was an accidental firing of a Patriot missiles in Iraq. Nice going!

Do you ever have that feeling that you’re just pretending? Pretending that it will all be ok? That it won’t be so bad? You look at your child and you just can’t believe that she won’t have what we have - I’m not talking about Lego and bananas, but about water and food, health and safety.

You feel like you want to shield her from this knowledge - even if you can’t shield her from the future - and you want to let her be happy and carefree for as long as possible. But you also feel like you want to prepare her. And some days, well, the future looks so bleak that no kind of preparation seems adequate…

How do you deal with this kind of hopelessness? I know, I know: you stop watching The Day After! And you tell yourself to stop it, because this kind of thinking won’t do anyone any good. But beyond all those negatives?

 A little update to my Simon Says Peter Says entry.

When Amie wants to play the game now, she says: “I want to do Peter Says”. Then she does what Peter says, yells “No!” and undoes it.

“I want to do Peter Says” is a strange way of asking for the game, isn’t it, because she knows it is really called “Simon Says,” and that is how she used to ask for it.

We figured it out quickly. What she really means is: “I want to do what Peter says.” That’s the game: doing what Peter says - the forbidden! - laughing real hard when we react accordingly shocked, and undoing it.

Sigh. Her love for Peter was stronger than we thought. Already she is choosing the boys who we say are bad for her. Already she is laughing at our protests!

• Complacency 

I probably shouldn’t have watched “Dimming the Sun” on NOVA/PBS yesterday. Did you see it?  I stumbled upon the last half hour of the program by accident and by the time it was over, all the old feelings of hopelessness, helplessness and inadequacy made their comeback. And of course, whenever they do that, they are worse than before, because I was yet again lulled into a false sense of security, yet again complacent.

When I went to bed, there was my Amie, sleeping so soundly and sweetly, with not a care in the world. I lay down next to her and wept, whispering empty”sorries”. I couldn’t bring myself to saying: “I’ll make it all better.”

• Dimming the Sun

So what was the program about?

It turns out that, since the seventies and eighties, when air polution in Europe and Northern America went virtually unchecked, said air polution  has been “dimming” the sun, that is, reflecting the sunlight back, in effect cooling the earth . Another contributor to this are contrails: the vapor trails left behind by high-flying aircraft.

This has veiled the actual degree of global warming, which, if we take the dimming into account, now seems much more advanced than we thought. Since the 1990s, Europe and Northern America have been cutting down on polution, which sounds like a good thing, for health reasons, obviously, but it is a double-edged sword: it opens the door to more global warming. And, as James Hansen put it:

In a way, it is unfortunate that the small particles were in the atmosphere because we would have realized much earlier that the…how strong the greenhouse effect is, and would have had more time to make the adjustments that are going to be necessary to slow down and eventually stop the growth of greenhouse gases.

• Ethiopia, 1984

The most gripping example of this dimming for me was the footage of the great draught and famine in the Sahel: Ethiopia, 1984.

For decades, the seasonal monsoons, which had kept the Sahel going - hanging on by its fingernails - stayed away. No one know why, but it now seems that it was due to that same polution by Europe and Northern America - which satellite pictures revealed reached deeply into the Sahel. These particles blocked the sun’s yearly warm-up of the oceans north of the equator. This in turn blocked the ocean from drawing the tropical rainbelt around the equator up north for a while. That meant that the land at that longitude was no longer getting its much needed monsoon.

The images of all those starving and dead children… They gripped us in the 80’s, and we all contributed to Aid. But I wonder: had we known, had it been pointed out to us, that it was we who were directly repsonsible for this, would we have changed our lifestyles?

• The End of the Trees and the Soil

The Sahel was an example of the consequences of dimming the sun in the past. The program of course also looked into the future. Today’s climate models predict a maximum warming of 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, but this young climate scientist, Peter Cox, thinks it could very well rise by as much as 10 degrees Celsius, or 18 degrees Fahrenheit.

Within a matter of years, many plants would die. Also the trees. The soil would simply blow away… Just writing this down makes my head feel top-heavy! If you missed the show, see if they will rerun it in your region, or read the transcript: even without the images, it brings the message home.

• Children

The program ended with children - because they’re the future, you know. The climatologist, Peter Cox, was shown playing on a beach with his young son. But it wasn’t sentimental tear-jerking. When Cox took the last word, it sounded like an understatement (and this from the most pessimistic of global-warming scientists, and the father of a child who will live to see his predications come true):

One of the real driving forces is that you leave an environment that is comfortable for your children. And if we carry on going the way we’re going, we’re not going to do that. We’re going to leave an environment that’s much worse than the environment we lived in, and it will be down to what we did when we were using that environment, and that would be, tragic, really, if that happened.

It already is tragic, in my eyes. As you know, I am one of the pessimists about what will change - Hansen says we have a decade before we reach the point of no return.

That’s why I say “sorry” to Amie, but not “I’ll make it all better”. I’ll do my best, and every little bit counts, makes it a little bit better, I know, but in the end, I often despair whether it will be enough.

I don’t want to promise what I can’t deliver.

• Dreaming

We are dreaming about moving to a new place. For us that means selling this one and buying another one of approximately the same price, which means that, if we want to move, we need to move out- out of Brookline.

We’re currently in a 1050 sq.f. basement apartment in a condominium. We adore our cozy little pad, but we miss direct sunlight and a view of the sky! Bumping up against short-sighted condo-rules and residents, and the constant feeling of being walked-all-over (by our heavy-footed, insomniac upstairs neighbor) are wearing on us.

We love Brookline too, especially our “Corner”, but we can’t afford to move into a house around here, let alone one with land. Just moving up a floor will exhaust the budget. And to be honest, I get way too uspet about the incessant, false orchestra of air conditioners and leaf blowers in these crowded burbs.

If we move out far enough, we could even buy a 1500 sq.f. house on an acre of land for the price for which we could sell our little basement. That sounds like a good deal!

• Land and house for a child

We’re looking for a sizable plot because we want to grow our own vegetables - preferably permaculture style - and keep some animals, like chickens and goats and bees. We won’t complain if the lot is partially wooded as well.

As for the house, we would like a little bit more living space - 1500 sq.f. would be perfect - because we want one another’s in-laws (isn’t that a nice way of putting it?) to come visit for longer stretches of time. After traversing a wide-open space of at least 1,000 miles, and in most cases 3,000 miles, to visit us, they get cabin-feverish in our cramped and dark quarters. And we relish the thought of having friends, any well-wishers, staying over.

As I wrote in an earlier entry, our daughter Amie plays a large role in this plan. She is forcing us to more thoughtfulness, accountability, and action. Because, one of these days, she is going to ask: Why? And: What did you do? I dread that day, and I dream of it with a passion. And I want to be ready. But most of all, I want her to be ready.

• A natural child

I want Amie to grow up in a more natural environment, one in which she will know what a goat is, and even how to milk it. One in which we can let her run around butt-naked, if she so pleases. And lift a log and marvel at the world underneath.

If she fits into a place that wears life and death on its sleeve: the slow geography of the land, the biology of the tree, the quickness of an insect, the poetry of a field… if she can learn about these through immersion and hands-on, face-to-face encounters… will her understanding of the world and herself be richer? I think so.

If she feels at home in the natural world with its examples of wholesomeness and self-sufficiency, calm and beauty, and occasional disaster… if it makes her aware of her own freedom and responsibility as a human… will she become a kinder, more flexible, happier person? I believe so.

Who will contradict me? (Go ahead, you will only make me stronger.)

• A child in a community

Of course, bringing our daughter into nature is a necessary (in my eyes), but not sufficient condition for a child’s happiness. Nature won’t do the parenting for us! But our case of the “nuclear family” is extreme:  Amie has never met our nearest relatives, who live 1000 miles away. We have friends who have her and our best interest at heart, but circumstances conspire against us meeting more often. I guess Amie counts her group at daycare as her “extended family”.

This is not the best that we can do. Especially because, soon, the free and frolicking life of daycare will be replaced by the formal setting of school (I am still considering home-un-schooling, at least part time). I don’t know of any kid who calls his class his “family”.

Can we be it? Two people, the same age and with (more or less) the same interests and routines? Two people who, at the end of the day, would like to rest a bit?

Amie needs more diverse company, a more miscellaneous family. Siblings would be nice (an older sibling especially), but let’s add another layer of community: family and friends who come, not to visit, but to stay and be at home with us. Another layer of wisdom: if grandparents want to put their minds out to graze (i.e., retire), they can do so in our pasture! Another layer of communication: adult conversation, discussion of complex things, mature problem solving. Another layer of character and doing things: all the many different ways in which each of us experiences joy and grief. And another layer of time: the more people in a community, the more time there is between them, for them.

Hence, the bigger house. Not too much bigger: we don’t want to avoid one another! And when there is need for space, there will be outside, in the peace and silence of a garden and a wood.

• A happy child for a grim future

I believe that, in the future, these two aspects - nature and community - will be essential to survival. I am one of those people who have a grim view of the future, but who also believe that we each have to do our bit to make it a little less grim.

By “grim,” I should add, I don’t mean ”poor” in the current sense of no oil, no “freedom” to consume cheap and unhealthy junk, no “leisure” and world-travel, and - my goodness! - the necessity of physical labor! I believe that we can turn all of these ”crises” into opportunities for more wholesome lives in a better society. No, my “grim” refers to the fact that the majority of us will not see it that way, that there will be helplessness, chaos, famine and violence due to ill-preparedness and ill-will.

In such an environment, I want to inject some hope, namely my daughter. She can be a teacher of the skills needed to grow food and take care of animals and build shelters and tools, a safe-keeper of the rational will to manage natural resources responsibly, and a model of hard work with enthusiasm, purpose and fulfillment. She can show, by the example of her own life, that life in a “poorer” world can be richer.

I know! That’s a lot. And she’s not yet two. And she may not want to. But I’m going to give her the chance, and the time.

• Priority no.1: grow food

Growing one’s own food, because due to the rise in oil prices as it gets scarcer, most food will be too expensive, and there won’t be enough local food for all - so that will go up in price too. The idea is to grow enough food for ourselves as a family, to build up to more for friends and neighbors, and to lay the foundation for the poosibility of a larger food production, in case more need it. “Enough for all” should be the goal.

• So let’s do it already!

Sigh. 

I wrote about this in May. In fact, that old entry begins exactly like this one! What’s keeping us?

It’s not a risk - I would never call it a risk. Remaining where we are, in place as well as in life: that’s a risk, a sure one.

Sure, there will be times when I will complain about the crops failing, the water bill being higher than expected, that pesky goat… when I may wish it all to kingdom come! But at least those will be particular grievances that I can pinpoint, voice, and then set out to solve. That’s not what I can say about this dulled, vague life, in which our needs and grievances are manufactured by advertisement and “what our neighbor does”.

But I find the entrapment of our conventional lives to be tight-fitting, not easily shaken off: financial security, immigration issues, anxiety about good schooling… And then there is character: if you’re one to always over-prepare, you’re never ready, especially in a situation where you can never be prepared enough… And, oh, let’s not forget that there are two decision-makers (more, if you count the mortgage-people, and the government, etc., but mainly the two of us), and we’re not exactly on the same wavelength, cruising at the same speed…

So we’re working on it. I guess that’s what this blog is turning out to be: a record of our progress or lack thereof, and a public scrutiny to keep us honest.

Yesterday in bed, while gazing upon her sleeping face - so close by, her breath stirring the little hairs on my cheek - I wondered:

“Whose nose will she have?”
Her nose still has the infant’s buttonlike quality, but it is slowly taking on a character of its own. Just like the rest of her face. Last week I glimpsed the change. Was it that her hair lay longer and straighter after her bath (it’s curling only in the back now)? Or because she had that sleek palor after an illness (a bad cold, don’t worry), which made her seem… older? Or the look in her eye, with a deeper understanding behind it, and more difficult questions?

So will she have my big, pointy European nose? Or her Baba’s broader, flatter Asian nose? A bit of both? (Hopefully not all of both!)

Will she be kind? And good?

The anwer is simple:

She will have her own nose.