Happy Father’s Day!

Rainbow Pop

I am seven and have just endured a day of yard work under the tortuous leadership of my sadistic older brother Jeb. He hit Francine with the rake and she sulked in tears under the tree refusing to continue. Kay tried to smooth it over, but Jeb threw her in the pile of leaves. Miraculously, we somehow made enough progress for Dad to pile us into the back of the suburban and drive us down the street to the gas station where we each get to pick out our favorite flavor of rainbow pop. It is a sunny spring day and Jeb, Kay, Francine and I are all allies while we sip our pop out of old fashioned glass bottles leaning against the car in the gravel driveway. Dad buys a case and we all drive home. I get to sit in the front seat. Next to Dad.

Snot

The winter means ski trips and stolen moments with Dad on the chairlift between runs down Crystal mountain. Dad has me giving him a book report on Ramon Quimby, Age 8, which is one of my favorite books, because I am also eight. It’s so cold that my nose is running and I can’t feel it. He looks at me, removes a leather glove, pulls a Kleenex from a pack of tissues in his pocket and puts it over my face.

“You got a runny nose kid.”

When he pulls it away, I feel as if half my face has been removed.

“Well you have snot icicles hanging from your moustache.”

Devo Dad

The Schmo residence is the first on the block to get MTV and my father has seen a video of a song he wants to find. Arriving at the door to Tower Records, he disperses his seven children with the mission to locate a cassette tape by a group of five or so men with slicked back hair, one wearing an oversized white suit jacket. We scour the store before I find a record cover with five men wearing funny red hats. He takes a look at it and declares the search over. He buys all of Devo’s cassettes and once in the car, we play thirty seconds of every song, fast forwarding to the next to try and find the right tune. Dad doesn’t have to try very hard to make the experience fun for everyone. By the time we arrive home, we have discovered that Devo is not the right band. Dad hands all the cassettes to me and Devo becomes my favorite eighties band of all time.

It is the following week when we are watching MTV and the video reappears. Dad jumps off the couch. We kids sit with our jaws dropped, staring as our dignified and serious Neurosurgeon father uses his right hand to karate chop across his left forearm singing along with The Talking Heads, “…this aint my beautiful wife, these aren’t my beautiful kids…”.

Thanksgiving

It is the awkward years. Dad and I had not spent much time together since I had turned 16. I came home, he left the room. I phoned, he handed the receiver to my mother. We just didn’t have much to talk about. But I insist on staying connected to the family and at least trying, no matter how disastrously I fail. This year, I have decided to make Thanksgiving dinner and include everyone in the event. The idea of his children in his kitchen messing up the order of his spice rack is enough for Dad to offer to take us all out to the Yacht Club for turkey and gravy. But I am determined. I’ve planned out the menu, assigned each sibling a dish, timed out the items and began chopping and prepping at nine AM that morning. Dad has been up since 5 am and coming in and out of the kitchen to periodically throw a discerning glance over my shoulder. As the afternoon wears on, each one of my siblings reluctantly begins their contributory dish. But then they get bored and leave the kitchen. So five various projects have begun in different corners of the kitchen. Dad enters, he sees me, I haven’t left the kitchen since I arrived. I’m smiling. This is me happy.

He puts on an apron. We don’t speak, at first. But he begins looking over my shoulder at the recipes and next I know he is beside me. Chopping. The other siblings wander into the room, Mom begins a puzzle on the kitchen table. Dad and I are rolling dough, talking about apple consistency. Tigersmiles is popping green beans over the sink. Joe begins peeling potatoes for his contribution of mashed potatoes. Georg is reading through his recipe, one step at a time. He thought he was making stuffing, but in the end it turns out to be a frisee salad.

Dad and I are working in tandem to have everything perfectly timed. I line the wok with oil, a few red pepper flakes, some garlic and a pinch of salt. He is over my shoulder with the beans ready to drop them on my cue.

“Not yet Dad. I’m letting the oil absorb the seasoning.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“In culinary school.”

“Hm.”

Dad cuts the onion up for Georg’s stuffing/salad. He dices into identical thin slivers, his hand working the knife with expert precision.

“Where did you learn that?”

“Practicing on peoples brains.”

“Nice.”

Grandpa’s Fritters

I am home for Christmas and there is a strange older version of my father living in my parents house. Dad moved Grandpa home a few weeks after his 100th birthday. I’ve met Grandpa three times in my life, and now he is shuffling about in a wing of my parents house, designed for his comfort and ease. Dad gutted two rooms, lay wood floors, and installed bars to make the bathroom handicap accessible.

Christmas morning finds my father up at 3 am to start making my Grandfather fritters the way my Grandmother used to make them. When Grandpa joins Dad in the kitchen, I can hear them talking as Dad buzzes about with the dough, the oil and the powdered sugar.

They talk for a few hours. No one talks to Dad for a few hours. You are lucky if you get a few minutes. I peek my head around the corner to stare. Yes, it’s true, my father is someone elses son. A son who just wants to make his father happy. And I get that.

Half a Euro

I’ve just returned from a walk across Bryant Park to grab my lunch and head back to eat at my temporary desk located in the Board Room of the New York office of my firm. I’m sharing the room with four colleagues when my cell phone rings.

A deep and barely audible voice. “Hello from Italy.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s your father.”

And I’m sure it is some imposter, because in thirty one years of life I have never once received a phone call from my father. And now, hundreds of miles away on a Rick Steves tour of Italy, my father has decided to place an expensive long distance call to me on his cell phone. To say hello. He must have gotten the number from my mother.

“Uh, hello.”

“Jane, your mother and I are having a wonderful time in your country. And I wanted to let you know that you can call the search party off. Stop looking. I have found your future husband.”

Now I am sure that our planet had been invaded by aliens that have taken my fathers human form and this man speaking to me is but a pod from some other world. My father doesn’t call me on the phone, he doesn’t address me by name, he doesn’t think of me when on vacation in Italy, and he certainly doesn’t care about the state of my love life. Unless it means he has to pay for a wedding. Which he had already told me he had no intention of financing after I turned 30. No, this man was definitely not my father.

“That’s great. I’m so relieved. Is the food good?

“Better than when you make it.”

Maybe it was my father. And in the background I hear my mother saying, “Oh stop it Joseph. Be nice.”

“So you are enjoying Italy?”

“Immensely. We have met the greatest group of people. But it’s the tour director that I’ve picked out for you. He’s seven feet tall. Right?”

And I hear a group of about twelve or so people chiming in behind him.

“And I know you like ‘em tall. He’s right here. I’ll put him on.”

“Dad. Dad. I’m at work. It’s not really a good time.” I look anxiously at the faces of my co-workers who pretend to be lost in their e-mail but are sucking up every word that I am saying.

I get up and start to head for an empty room in the office. But before I can find one, my Dad has put someone else on the phone.

“Buongiorno. I am Alfio. Your parents are delightful.”

After a short chat, my father gets back on the phone.

“Dad. What is going on?”

“Don’t worry honey, If you don’t like him I’ve got a few more that I met in Germany. I gave them your e-mail so you could follow up with them at another time. But I took their photos so I could show you what they look like when I get home. So take care, we will likely call you again from France. Especially if we meet some men on the train.”

There are howls of laughter in the background and I swear I hear the clinking of glasses, wine being poured and my father smiling.

“Okay then. Bye.”

“Yes. Ciao. And Alfio says he will call you later.”

Happy Father’s Day Pops!!

Look how much you have changed over the years…

I’m grateful for your presence in my life. Hope your day leaves you feeling appreciated.

Love, — Your Favorite Child

Filed under: Uncategorized, Family of Origin, Holiday

Dolly Parton

My mother has just had a double masectomy and Dad has returned from the hospital for forty five minutes to take a shower. He doesn’t expect to find me and Tigersmiles in his closet emptying out Moms bra drawers into green glad bags.

“What are you doing?”

Tiersmiles and I look at eachother and stop what we are doing.

“We didn’t think she would want to see them when she got home.”

He sighs and shakes his head.

“Good idea. I was going to do it. But I haven’t had a chance.”

“It’s okay. I think we have it under control.”

Dad just can’t seem to stop watching.

“Really, we got it. We didn’t want you to have to do it.”

He’s staring at the pile of La Perla and Victoria Secret. His eyes trace the outline of the beautiful lace, the delicate embroidery, the tiny details.

“You know. I bought her most of those.”

Tigersmiles and I exchange a glance.

“I thought you were going to take a shower. Are you hungry?”

He is still staring. “No.”

“Where are you taking them? She might want those later.”

“I’m not going to throw them away Dad. I’m just going to hide them. So she doesn’t have to look at them.”

“Okay.”

And he turns slowly and goes to the bed. And he lies down.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Breast Cancer, Family of Origin, Melancholy Reminiscing, My Faves

White

It is the summer of 2001 and I am somewhere in the Sahara dessert in the back of an old jeep with four men named Mohammed and an Egyptian bodyguard named Hosnik. Hosnik was assigned to watch over me by a government, ever protective of their tourism industry. I’m not sure how much money the government charged my friends for my protective custody. But judging by Hosnik’s 1945 British uniform and 1920’s rusty pistol, I am guessing that they are not paying him much.

When I met the four Mohammeds in Karnak I was assigned a security force of eight. Three rode in an open jeep behind me, three in a van in front and two in the car with me, one on either side. Those guards wore bullet proof vests and carried semi-automatics. But their uniforms still fell off their bodies like tissue in some spots. And their boots were covered in tiny holes.

It all looked very official from afar. But we all knew it was a big show.

When I had to stop the caravan for a bathroom break, four guards entered the restroom before me, came out and signaled I could enter. I entered a room with three inches of standing water, rolled up the bottom of my jeans and waded into the room to hover ridiculously over the spot where the Turkish toilet was buried under brackish water in the back corner.

This was Egypt. I had learned to expect challenged plumbing.

Whilst pulling my drawstring pants back up over my falafel filled ass, I turned back to see two distinct holes that had been punched in the wall behind my Turkish toilet. Three men stood on the other side giggling at the full viewing access of my western sized ass.

Cursing at my useless security guards I shook my Tevas out onto the sand, got back in the car and continued in silence until the lunch camp. It was here that we left the six guards with their fancy guns and chest plates. Apparently terrorists don’t venture this far into the dessert.

But we did.

The next leg of our journey is by jeep. So here I am bouncing around in the back of the car and trying not to bump into Hosnik for fear his ancient pistol will shoot my knee cap off and we will be 100 miles from the nearest hospital. I had been suckered into buying the travelers insurance from STA, but I don’t recall it covering air lift.

Hosnik is happy. He smiles a lot and chat’s easily with the four Mohammeds. Two of the Mohameds never look at me, Grumpy Mohammed doesn’t look at me or speak with me, but Friendly Mohammed is patient with my broken Arabic. He seems to mildly enjoy my company. Or at least he doesn’t carry the same bitterness for my whiteness, typical of so many of those we meet along our journey.

Last night, before we left the city, he watched me struggling with my Hejab. For as hard as I tried to cover my white blonde hair and farmer bronzed fingers, I couldn’t cover my Western origins. In this crowd, I would always be white. I would always be a foreigner. And I wanted nothing more than to blend.

When I walked into a room, the mood shifted, the conversation lowered to slow whispers, people left.

It was as if Friendly Mohammed knew that I so desperately wanted to assimilate. To be one of them. When the waitress approached my table with a $30 Shisha, Friendly Mohammed shooed her away. I didn’t dare smoke in front of the others. Even if we were in a tourist joint where all the women dressed in vintage belly dancing gear because that’s what the Westerners wanted to see. I am a woman, and that would be inappropriate. Because I am white, they would probably let it go. But then I would be drawing attention to my differences. So I declined. Friendly Mohammed darted his eyes to the back door, inviting me to meet him out back.

I did.

Out back were the waiters, their ties loosened, hookahs dangling off their lips. He sat me down and paid one of the waiters a few coins from his change purse. One waiter moved aside and let me sit and Friendly Mohammed placed the hookah in my hand. Because he knew I wanted to experience something that was typical of the Egyptian life. But there was nothing typical about me sitting in my Hejab, surrounded by unamused waiters, smoking apple tobacco in a cloud of dust rising up behind a touristed shanty.

“Shukran.” Thank you. And I shot Friendly Mohamed a thankful smile.

Now today, we arrive at an oasis as the sun is beginning to set a yellow glow over the horizon. Desert sunsets are like that. Yellow. The oasis is a small but thriving town and I immediately notice the warmth of the people. It is a warmth I didn’t feel in the city.

I notice wealth, clean buildings, streets without garbage, and clear water running into basins in the center of town. The children here smile wide, they wear crisp white shirts over burgundy school uniforms. The girls sport headbands and knee high socks. I wander down where all the children are gathering after school and one of the girls pulls off my head scarf. Someone squeals and they fall into little girl giggles, swarming to touch my white hair. I ask them if I can take a photo.

“Minfadlik.” Please. But I don’t have to ask again because most of the girls aren’t shy.

“Hello…What is your name…How old you are…Thank you.”

They ramble off every English word they know. The girl with the ponytail is shy and she doesn’t want her photo taken. But the other girls convince her I am harmless. They touch my hand to show her that I don’t bite.

“Ma ismok?” What is your name.

“Fajr.” She smiles and let’s me take the photo.

“Ma’assalama.” Goodbye. And she turns to join the others

“Fi aman allah.” And I wave at them as they throw dust behind their thin legs, running back to their homes for dinner.

I explore the city, happy to escape the chaos of Luxor and Cairo. The oasis is clean, people are nice, they have proper toilets. I can walk the market without developing a crowd of salesman following behind.

“You are American? Follow me. I have an Uncle who sells carpets. I can make you a great deal. Come with me.”

In the oasis, no one seems to look at me with pained glances. Out here I am not someone to resent. I am just a friendly visitor with funny skin, light eyes and white hair. I am only one tourist, not part of a pack of hungry, greedy tourists trying to rob them of their culture and poison them with my Capitalism.

I wander back to the jeep and find Hosnik and the Mohammeds behind the local restaurant smoking Shisha. They stand up when I come around the corner and I realize that I have not rewrapped my hair since the playground. But at this point it feels useless. No matter how much I try to cover my hair, bleached white after a month at the Red sea, I can never cover up that I am a Westerner. I will never be able to assimilate; I can never slump down in a corner and observe the culture playing out before me like a local. I will always be a white foreigner and my physicality will always deny me from the Arab privilege.

The next morning, we take jeeps into the White Desert. I try to contain my amazement at the world transforming outside my window. The lonely desert is turning into the moon. Once the bottom of the ocean about a million years ago, the White Desert is miles of limestone formations sprouting up from the earth like life size mushrooms down Alice and Wonderlands Rabbit Hole. Everything is White. Some stone formations are the size of buildings. One looks like the profile of George Washington in one of those shadow etchings you get at Disneyland.

I am at home in the whiteness and it makes me giddy.

We light a fire. Grumpy Mohammed lays out our sleeping bags. Hosnik and I go into our nightly ritual of charades. This is how he plans to increase my Arabic vocabulary. But so far, we just act out funny sounding animals. And at this point, I figure I know the arabic word for 50 or so Northern African creatures. Tonight, his 6’3″ lanky body is framed by the light of the campfire as he slumps over and morphs into the form of a camel.

“Yella, Yella,” I sqeal. And we all laugh because this is what they told me to say to the camels when we were trekking into the Valley of the Kings.

“Yella, Yella.”

The four Mohammeds repeat with chuckles.

Maybe it was the Shisha, or maybe the long day, but Hosnik is laughing so hard now that he is falling over. And now all the Mohameds are laughing at Hosnik. And now I am laughing at the four Mohammeds. And I fall backward onto the white rock behind me.

That’s when I hear it.

The sound of air coming out of a tire. A slow, smooth, hiss.

“Hissssss.”

And I look to my left. There it is. Staring me cold in the eye. A hands length from my nose.

A snake. A white snake. A hooded white viper snake.

No larger than the garden variety we would find when weeding the yard back home. But a snake in the desert is never a good thing. She is in strike mode, her body raised up about a foot from the coil of her tail. And we are miles away from a venom. I don’t recall seeing a kit in the back of the car.

I slowly begin to move my body to the left. I don’t break my stare. I speak quietly in a whisper that only Friendly Mohamed could hear over the raucous laughter.

“Snake.”

It comes out like a prayer.

And then everything happens fast. I have pulled away a few more feet from the snake and the snake strikes. Friendly Mohammed is on his feet and has somewhere found a large rock. Hosnik pulls out his rusty gun. Friendly Mohammed brings down the rock on the snakes head in a swift blow that instantly decapitates. Hosnik begins shooting at the sand around the headless body. The other Mohammeds scramble to avoid the bullets ricocheting off the rock. And I am still half laughing at ‘Yella,Yella’, trying not to wet myself with confused delayed emotional response.

But no one else laughs. They are all cautiously staring down at the sand.

“Pack up. White Vipers travel with mates. Where there is one, you will always find another.”

I get it. Every word. Everyone snaps into motion. I help Grumpy Mohammed pack up the sleeping bags and we move to the top of one of the white rocks. As we lay out the bags on the stoney surface of the white mountain, the mood begins to lighten. The Mohammeds are alive with chatter about the scene around the fire. They are re-enacting my fall against the rock and my cool response. I zip myself into my bag as Grumpy Mohammed shoots me an amused look. In the eye. He says something in Arabic, very quickly and all the Mohammeds laugh.

“Lil’asaf, anaa ataHaddathfaqaT qaliil min aläarabiyya.” Unfortunately, I only speak a little Arabic.

“Haadhaa Hasan,” That’s all right, “Anaa afhamuk.” I understand you.

And I feel like I’m sleeping on the surface of the moon.

When we wake up, we travel back to the base camp. When the jeep stops in front of the oasis, the Mohammeds all scatter and I am left alone in the big tent with all of the Bedouin. I try to tell them the story of the snake which makes them begin hooting and hollering and laughing and slapping their knees. And then one asks me what kind of snake. I shrug my shoulders because I don’t know. There is no google in the desert.

So I put my index fingers up over my head and flare out my other fingers to show the hood and they laugh some more.

“It was white.”

And the room goes silent. And no one laughs.

“Very dangerous. Not many out this way. I’ve never heard of one in this part of the desert. You are very lucky. Those are the bad ones.”

Filed under: Uncategorized, Melancholy Reminiscing, My Faves, Travels

Re-entry

I hadn’t seen Professor Johnson since grad school. But when a friend called me up needing advice on a conflict resolution program in the Middle East, I knew he would be the expert to consult.

I met him at the Starbucks across the street from my office and he was waiting very gentlemanly near the door without even a thought to join the line snaking in switchbacks towards the back door. Professor Johnson was not worried about getting coffee and he wasn’t in a hurry. He was here to see me.

My momentary befuddlement about how to greet my old professor was swept away when he raised his arm and drew me in to a small hug and light kiss on the cheek. Tall, in his late 60’s, with a head of white hair and an honest friendly smile that stretched across his face with relaxed purity, he looked like the ice cream man from a Norman Rockwell painting.

I noted almost immediately that he now had two hearing aids, as opposed to the one he used to adjust during his lectures when his voice would begin to drop to an almost inaudible softness. You know how sometimes when someone lowers their voice; they duck their head like they are telling you a secret that they don’t want others to hear. Well Professor Johnson’s voice would lower, but like you had just turned down the volume on your favorite news program, his mannerisms and gesticulation would be unaffected. He would just keep on giving the news.

“So good to see you Ms. Jane. How have you been?”

And unlike so many people that ask you that question, he really wanted to know the answer. I could feel it.

We joined the Starbucks line. We found a table near the front door. I gave him the quick career run down. But there was something so genuine about him that I didn’t bother to throw in all the hyperbole and exaggeration that often accompany you telling someone from grad school how far you’ve made it in the real world. There is just something about his easy going and non-judgemental manner that instantly makes me feel safe. Safe, respected and appreciated.

I like that I can tell him the truth.

“And what about you? What’s this I hear about you working in Ramallah?”

With complete lack of ego, professor Johnson begins to tell me about his work negotiating with the PLO. He’s had an incredible career and an exciting life of meeting heads of state, living in the caves with Bedouins and helping resolve conflict amongst a nunnery in Iraq. It was his career path that first inspired me to study conflict resolution. I read his bio when I was selecting classes for my first year of grad school and I knew that one day I wanted mine to contain at least one of the stories I knew he could tell.

“Well, I asked you to meet with me because I thought you might be able to help my friend with a current project he is running in Gaza. He’s got Israeli and Palestinian kids playing basketball together to overcome their differences. He’s thinking about adding an educational element to the program and I think you could help him.”

I tell him a little about the program. And somehow he knows exactly what I’m avoiding trying to say are the weaknesses of the organization.

“Sounds like you might have a little trouble with re-entry. You can take these kids away from their communities and their parents and introduce them to kids that they learn to appreciate as being just like themselves. But when you send that child back home, he has to survive. And in order to survive, he has to assimilate. How do you get him to retain what he’s learned. How do you affect his re-entry into society?”

Then he looks me straight in the eye.

“What’s your attachment to this project Jane?”

And I know that he wants to know where I’m coming from before he answers so that he can only give me the information specific to help me solve my problem myself. That was how he would teach. I would wander into his office hours wanting answers and he would ask me questions. He would qualify my questions and try to help me figure out what I was really asking. Even if I didn’t know.

“Because when I heard this man speak, it inspired me. It reminded me of what we studied. What you taught me. And he’s making a difference. He’s doing it. What all of us talked about. He’s doing it.”

A smile spread across Professor Johnson’s face.

“Well that’s a good reason Jane. I think I can help.”

And we talked and he encouraged and offered consult and made me look at things in ways I never really thought to frame them. Or at least ways I hadn’t thought about in a long time. When we were all finished, I had established next steps and Professor Johnson wasn’t rushing to throw away his coffee cup or looking at his watch. He was really, truly listening to me. He was being of service.

“How did you get into this stuff?”

I asked him because I really wanted to know.

“That’s a good question. Let me tell you.”

And he told me about his brother-in-law being taken hostage by the Lebanese. He told me about moving to Cyprus and commuting illegally to Beirut for six dedicated years to negotiate with terrorist and arrange his brother-in-laws release. He told me about being passionate, being in the right place at the right time, letting things fall into place. And I could see that he loved what he did, and that his path had found him. He was combining what he was good at with the circumstances in his life.

And as if he knew that hearing all of this made me doubt my career path. He leaned across the table and gently encouraged me.

“I think you are going to do great things with your life and career.”

“Too bad you are not a fortune teller.”

“Jane. Look at all you have done with your life. All the different areas where you have gathered expertise. Those experiences are always applicable and can always be pulled forward. You just have to take the opportunities as they present themselves.”

He went on. But his voice dropped. I could see his lips moving and observe his tender and thoughtful expression as he carefully chose words that I couldn’t hear. But it didn’t matter, I was lost for a moment in my own head.

I sort of felt this little sting in my eyes. The sting you get when you read Hallmark cards or watch the Lifetime movie of the week. I felt a little, well, emotional. In broad daylight, in the middle of my work week, on a lunch hour mere steps from my office, I actually felt something real.

Professor Johnson was demonstrating for me what it meant to make a difference in other peoples lives without ever having to fly to Bosnia and live in the middle of a war zone. Without even having other people understand exactly what you were trying to say.

“Thanks Professor.”

“You know, you don’t have to call me that anymore. The name is Bill.”

But we both knew, he was still my teacher.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Life Lessons