Nature... Nurture... Dunno

I've had adoption much on my mind lately.

A few years ago, this wouldn't have been unusual.  When Laney was new to me, I thought about it constantly because I felt not only unequal to the task of being a mother, I felt unworthy.  This is probably true for all parents, since being someone's parent is a uniquely humbling experience.  But I think it was aggravated for me after years of failing to get pregnant and, at least how I saw it, failing at being a woman.  And I worried and worried that a failure like me was lacking the fundamental skills required for mothering.

But, finally, that fucked up mindtrip came to an end and I grew some confidence.  Laney is my girl.  She's mine until she grows up and then she's her own (but still a little bit mine, right?).

Which brings me to lately, in which my cousin's husband, Michael, has begun poking around Ancestry.com. This led to some emails among me and my cousins and my brother discussing my paternal great-grandfather, a fellow named Francis Patrick Nolan.  I found myself very curious about old F.P.  I wondered what kind of man he was and if he was funny, or quick-tempered, whether he was musical, whether he was mean.  This curiosity left me curious about why I was so curious and what all this curiosity meant for my own kid.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Am I curious about F.P. because his blood runs through my veins?  Or because he was my grandmother's father?  I lean towards the latter.  As my grandmother's father, he had a material effect on the woman she was; a complicated woman, hilarious and loving but also prone to a kind of coldness.  She could be mean.  She could be wonderful. It stands to reason that when confronted with the specters of her parents, I'd be curious about who they were, since the parents they were to their daughter informed the woman she was, the mother she was to my father, and so on and so on.

But there's that blood stuff too.  The blood and the DNA that have been passed down for generations.  Biology binds us to the ones that came before too, right?

I can't help but think that my father, whom she never knew, has had a much more significant impact on who she is than her biological grandfather, whom she may one day find.  But that is a question of the past that'll be resolved in the future.

We'll have to wait and see if she'll be interested when her cousin's husband starts farting around on Ancestry.com.  Will she want to know about my mother's father in the same way I'm curious about my grandmother's father?  Will she want to know about him because that will help her to understand her own grandmother?  Or will she, lacking any shared DNA, feel no connection to him at all?

There's no way to know until we know.  The quality of having been adopted is not, after all, monolithic.  Different adopted people have different relationships to their own adoption.  For now, as I wonder about this stuff, I have to accept that it is what it is; which is a bit of tautological rhetoric loathed by some (like Laney's grandmother).  But I think it's a convenient idiom: this is a situation over which I have no control.  Laney will have to work out her own connection to the past. I'm blessedly, blissfully done with feeling like less of Laney's mother because of biology.  


She is a curious kid, though.  I wonder who she gets that from?

Stupid New Yorker

I have very nice neighbors.  My immediate neighbor planted a rose bush in the corner space because I once told her I loved roses.  The next neighbor down brought Laney Halloween cake mix and frosting last year.  But the best gift* comes from my neighbor, Michael, who subscribes to The New Yorker but reads it on his iPad - he gives me the print copy.  It's a weekly treat courtesy my nice neighbors.

Well it was.  Until today.  Today I was leafing through the issue he brought by yesterday and I started this article that I thought was about sex. I am delighted by the idea of super-literary, softcore New Yorker style sexiness.  But it was a story about corn sex.  And corn sex is difficult.  Just to be clear: not people having sex with corn. I'm talking pollination.  I'd just as soon not think about corn sex with people.   Apparently, it's radically difficult for corn to get pollinated and this weather exacerbates exponentially the difficulty.

Furthermore, according to the article I could not stop reading and which I expect is true because, well, it's The New Yorker, the effects of our current climate abuse won't be felt until 2048, when Laney is my age.  I'll most likely be dead, so what do I care?  Except, all things being equal, I'd prefer for my daughter to live in a world with food and where she can walk outside and stuff.

In short: it scared the shit out of me.

Because what can we do?  Neither Obama nor Romney are going to talk about it because American politics are stupid and rather than admit there's a problem, it's a lot easier to construct convoluted Kenyan, communist conspiracies and ignore the derechos and droughts. And we have a media that seems to believe that despite the science having been decidedly decided on the very real threat of climate change, that guy with the Bachelors in Metereology from University of Phoenix that James Inhofe put on the Exxon/Mobile payroll should still get TV time. And also, all the rest of the retired senators and congressmen will have made so much dough from the revolving door between the Capitol and K Street, that they can buy their progeny a future.

But I am not prone to pessimism (I am, however, prone to alliteration).  So, I'm putting my faith in the next generation.  As I've mentioned before, my own generation is pretty sucky, but we feel OK about that because at least we're less sucky than the baby boomers (although, to be honest, that's a pretty low bar to clear).  But the next generation is just going to have to be awesome and fix it.   Leaving those of us in my sucky generation with two obligations: (1) make the kids aware of the issue and (2) teach them science.

I try (and fail... but I try) to make our obligation to the planet a theme around this household.  I'm going to redouble my efforts.  We all should.  We need our kids to believe in this and to believe they have the power to do something.  Because we're too crazy to fix it now.

But we're less crazy than we were.  I know that seems hard to believe when you turn on Fox News, but remember Freeedom Fries and that whole Dixie Chicks thing?  We're a little less crazy. 9/11 broke our national brain and it takes a while to recover from that.  But I think we are.  And I am hopeful that when Laney enters the adult world, those people running for office on the God Will Take Care of Everything ticket will be like Larouchies were in the 70s.  And the only media figures saying that there's no such thing as climate change because it's cold in winter (which is sort of like saying "there's no such thing as gravity because, look, planes"), will be broadcasting from the tissue box in the local looney bin.

And I'll turn down the AC.  And ignore James Inhofe.  And encourage our elected officials to quit being such pantywaists and at least TALK about some climate legislation.  Because this shit is seriously scary.

* Actual my favorite Michael gift is that sometimes he drinks with me and makes me laugh.

Idleness

There was this article flying around the internet recently about the benefits of idleness.  Did you see it?  You're on Facebook - you saw it.  I confess that when I saw the title, I thought, "Fantastic.  Now not only will I constantly be dealing with shit I have to do, I'm supposed to feel guilty about feeling like I have to do shit I have to do."  To be fair, this isn't really what the article was about.  But, you'll forgive me for the wrong assumption because the internet is just chock-a-block with articles about how you're doing everything all wrong. Especially those of us in the working mom camp.

Anyway, I did read it.  And I didn't love it. He lost me a bit when he got to the paragraph lauding the woman who was totally relaxed since she got an artist's residency in France.  I'd be pretty relaxed if I had an artist's residence in France.

(I tend also to generally disregard anything in which someone leaves America, goes to France and figures it all out.  It's been a cliche since Gertrude Fucking Stein.)

But then he goes on and talks about the whole thing where you feel like you HAVE to being doing something all the time. I'm a person who reaches for her phone to check email when I'm stopped at a red light. If someone gets on an elevator with me and pushes a floor before mine I think they're really rude for wasting my time like that (fortunately, I have a phone that I can check during that 5 sec interval). I once made a home-from-school daily schedule where tasks were delineated within 5 minute increments.  


That's not cool.

This evening, Laney is at a friend's.  I'm going to pour a glass of wine and read a Carl Hiassen novel or re-watch last night's Bunheads.  You should be idle with me and start watching Bunheads.  It's Gilmore Girls with ballet.  Last night American treasure Kelly Bishop narrated a ballet she'd choreographed called "Paper or Plastic."  The grocery store cashier was cast as the devil.  Nature died.  Seriously - that show is so great.

The Kids Today

Hi, guys.  It's been a while, but I got something to say.  Which is:

As you settle into the middle part of life, weird, unexpected things will happen which make you realize that you are not 26 anymore.  Like your back hurts a lot.  And you suddenly notice this one long hair growing out of your chin. Seriously, you guys!  It was like three inches long!  And, EVERYTHING makes you fat. Aging is gross. But I have hope that old age will be better.  Forty years from now, I plan to be walking around with bright pink lipstick outside of my lipline and an askew wig.  And I bet I'll think I look fucking amazing.

Wait... where was I?

Oh yeah.  There's this one hallmark of aging that I'm calling for an end to and I am preaching to all my mid-life homies out there.  It is time to stop complaining about how entitled and spoiled Gen Y or the Millennials or whatever you want to call them is.  Just stop. There has not been a generation born to man which has not seemed spoiled and entitled to the generation that came before.  When you had long hair and wore flannel shirts and were boring everyone to tears by telling them how much more authentic Mother Love Bone was than Pearl Jam, there was some Boomer bitching to his friends about how spoiled and entitled you were.

Let's just stop it.  Let's just agree that while youth may tend toward callow and solipsistic, we bitch about them because we are jealous and would, in a New York second, trade our work ethic and finely honed resumes in for flat stomachs and hangover-free all night benders.  Let's stop bitching about the kids.    Mother Love Bone would never have relied on such a trite and obvious thematic convention.

When It's Hard Not to Believe

I've written about this before - about how I came to embrace atheism because I believe it is the most morally tenable position I can take (much like my vegetarianism, I hope you'll take my personal pronoun as it's meant - I'm not prone to evangelize on behalf of either of these things as I've come to them as right for me and not, necessarily, empirically correct for humankind at large... although, honestly, a little...).

That said, and having embraced this distinctly minority position, my ears perk up when I hear of others in my tribe. I've heard tell of a few atheists talk about how it gets hard to hold onto disbelief when confronting death. You know how they say there are no atheists in foxholes? Well, there are probably no foxholes anymore, but I bet when there were, they housed an atheist or two. I'm calling bullshit on that cliche.

For me, death isn't the problem. I like Roger Ebert's position on it, quoted(ish) from memory: "I was perfectly content before I came into this world and I expect to be perfectly content when I leave it." I think this is such a sensible way to approach death.

For me, my atheism gets hard because sometimes I dearly want to say to someone "I'm praying for you." When horrible things happen to people I love, when they're going through something awful, I'd like to be able to say, "I'm praying for you," since that feels proactive. Shit, I want to pray for people. I want to feel like I have some control over the terrible thing that is happening.

I was brought up, you see, churched. And not bad-churched. There was not bad touching. No nun ever beat me. My mother never told me I was making Jesus cry. I was brought up good-churched, loving churched. I was brought up to do the sign of the cross when an ambulance passed as natural as saying "Godblessyou" when someone sneezed. And, as a child, I believed that my sign of the cross meant that the person in that ambulance wouldn't die.

And then as I got older, my sign of the cross grew less miraculous. It became respectful acknowledgment of the potential seriousness of the situation; an outward sign that I did not want whatever poor soul was in that ambulance to die.

And then I got older still, and I recognized that sign of the cross as superstition. As much superstition as throwing salt over my shoulder when I knocked over the salt cellar. But less silly. More like knocking wood. Knocking wood is a valuable superstition; it's good to be aware of your hubris. It's good to want that person in the ambulance to live.

I think for a lot of people "I'm praying for you" is a lot like that sign of the cross - but more personal. And it means much the same as "I'm thinking of you." It's a comfort when you're going through terrible things to know that people love you, care about you. I've gone through no great tragedies beyond those that a woman my age would reasonably expect to, yet even those tragedies were alleviated with the knowledge that people loved me and genuinely, desperately wanted to alleviate my suffering even though they knew they couldn't. Suffering is lonely work. Knowing that people care helps a bit.

We are all of us, believers and atheists alike, helpless to the gods or fate or nature or whatever. I imagine prayful people might even tell me that that's the point.

Sufjan Stevens has this wonderful song "Casmir Pulaski Day" that he wrote about a friend who died of bone cancer. It's the saddest song I've ever heard and makes me cry every time I hear it. It touches me even though that song is steeped in his Christian faith; a faith I have rejected. At the end it goes:

All the glory that the Lord has made

And the complications when I see his face

In the morning in the window

All the glory when He took our place

But He took my shoulders and He shook my face

And He takes and He takes and He takes

I don't believe in god. I don't believe that a man called Jesus walked the earth and then died for my sins and then rose again. But I also believe that all stories are true. And he takes and he takes and he takes ... I get that. All these stories are true.

That Picture

I posted this picture on Facebook today:

But I agonized over it a little. See, the thing is, I didn't want to be one of those straight people who shores up her tolerance bona fides but smiling down benevolently on gay people. It's hella patronizing, n'est-ce pas ?

On the other hand, it's a nice picture. It's nice to see people coming home from military deployments to people they love, isn't it?

But if this had been a picture of a straight couple, would I still have felt moved to throw it up on Facebook? Or did I want to post it to make sure that everyone knows I approve, when my approval (as we used to say back home) is not hardly the point.

I went for it and posted it alongside an anecdote from, I think, Andrew Sullivan about all the good wishes gay people have bestowed on straight people and how it's nice to see that going the other way now. And that is nice. But maybe still not the best reason for posting pictures like this.

In the end, I think the best reason to share pictures like this is that it's good to be happily complicit in the normalization of images like this. The more we look at pictures of gay couples kissing, the more quotidian and unremarkable it becomes. And that's good. I'd like to live in that world. I'd like to live in a world where a picture like this gets a few "awwwws" and likes from people who just know these guys and not 50,000 people who feel compelled (like me) to pronounce upon their kiss.

I'd also like to live in a world where nice young fellows like this didn't have to go and spend a few years getting shot at in Afghanistan. But I guess that's for another post.

In Which I Suppress a Profound Urge to Punch Someone in the Neck

I've been leading this Girl Scout troop for about 5 years now. And, it's a lot of work and the cookie stuff stresses me out to no end. But, you know, I love those girls. All of them. Even though now they're getting to that age where some of them are kind of stinky and they yell a whole lot and are generally wild. But, I am firmly in the camp of these girls and I want wonderful things for all of them - no matter how loud or stinky they are.

And I'm really going to miss them upon my retirement at the end of the year. I love each and every one of those girls. But it's time for a break.

And then I read this, and was simultaneously seized with the urge to punch this asshat in the neck and re-up for another year. Here's the quote:

Nonetheless, abundant evidence proves that the agenda of Planned Parenthood includes sexualizing young girls through the Girl Scouts, which is quickly becoming a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood.

There are no words for how angry this makes me. Sexualizing girls through the Girl Scouts! What, in the name of decency, is WRONG with this man? What kind of a sick, twisted mind thinks of the Girl Scouts as a place where girls are sexualized? The Girl Scouts, for crying out loud! The Girl Scouts whose primary mission is empowering girls. To quote, "building girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place." An organization, not to put too fine a point on it, made up of LITTLE GIRLS! Who can see these girls and see them as sexualized? Who?

I'm glad you asked. I'll tell you exactly what kind of a sick twisted mind comes up with this: the kind of damaged, simple, and weird mind that is terrified of an acceptance of any sexuality beyond the most "traditional" (and I hope those scare quotes indicate just how ridiculous that word is... as if gay people sprang whole from a disco in 1975. It's just SO FUCKING STUPID). Accepting that two women might want to be in a relationship or that a child with a Y chromosome might feel more comfortable wearing pink is the same, to a mind like this, as actually having sex.

How sick is that?

And scoff and guffaw all you want at the notion of a Republican led war on women. But it's real and the front line is right at Planned Parenthood, an organization which Republican leadership would dearly love to see as Acorn Redux. Well, too fucking bad. You're not going to beat Planned Parenthood because there are too many women in America who have a real relationship with that place. And we'll fight for it.

But, for the love of decency, leave our little girls out of it!

I'm not re-upping for the Girl Scouts next year, because I just don't have the bandwidth for it, no matter how much I love all those little girls. But I am upping my monthly donation to Planned Parenthood. And I'm doing it in honor of State Representative Douchebag from Indiana.

In closing, here is a picture of my daughter who is a Girl Scout, who is aware that people are gay and that babies aren't picked in a cabbage patch and who is, absolutely and unequivocably an innocent: