the stuff you hate

why is it that so often the stuff you hate doing - like getting out of bed to jump into a freezing cold pool, or eating a bowl of broccoli instead of banana bread, or dropping off the kids at school in the morning (or picking them up in the afternoon) - ends up making you feel so good? quite often, as soon as you've won the battle against inertia and gotten warmed up enough that the water starts to feel comfortable, you actually ENJOY it.

i swear i am eating broccoli right now. in my bathing suit, just about to go to the pool. see?

for years, my exhusband picked up the amazons in the morning and dropped them off at school. then, for reasons he will explain, somehow related to boundaries or something, he told them he would not.

so i took over. after i drag myself out of bed, rush them through breakfast and then grouchily get them into the minivan, i discover that i love the anticipation humming through the car. i sometimes ask them about their classes. we take stock of what was forgotten at home and how to deal with it. i hear about the plans for the afternoon. if we pick up a couple of their friends along the way, i eavesdrop on their gossip and get a sense of the temperature of the moment. there are good reasons why they should be more responsible and get there themselves - and some days i force them to.  90% of the time, i take them.

then when we get to school, if i can get a parking spot, i walk them in. mainly for one reason: so i can walk out into the stream of kids coming in.

the best thing about the united nations international school in nyc - apart from it being a vast range of cultures and races - is that it goes from kindergarten to twelfth-grade. i get to see the kindergarten's wide-open faces as they skip into school under their enormous, colorful backpacks. i love that so often, they still want to hold a parent's hand. i get to see the toddler siblings running and tripping, looking adoringly at their big brothers or sisters. the junior schoolers on their scooters or dressed in costumes for a class event. the middle-schoolers proudly balancing projects, dioramas and posters and boxes of cupcakes, as they march in with a sense of purpose. they feel so grown-up, they own the school now and they know where they are going.

and then those bleary-eyed teenagers, the girls still awkward in occasional heels and those tiny tiny shorts and skirts, dripping with make-up (they have to start somewhere!) the boys, still just boys, their faces sometimes red and smarting from the occasional shave, and in their big men's bodies that they don't know what to do with. even if it's spring, there's a bit of chill in the morning air, because the day is just beginning.

sometimes, i just start laughing to myself because i was once a kindergartener, a fourth-grader, a thirteen year-old and a high school senior. i can see myself and the amazons in every one of them.

don't you remember holding the hand of your first-grader and looking with terror at those enormous, threatening adolescents and wondering how yours would ever make it? and now, looking at those upper schoolers and realizing that they are just as vulnerable and fragile as the little kids.

because it's u.n.i.s., they are often speaking different languages and wearing vastly different clothes (until they turn into teenagers). sarah kay, the brilliant young performance poet, was a u.n.i.s. student. so was ishmael beah, the child soldier who wrote "a long way home," and sarah jones, the actor who can be 15 different nationalities consecutively in her one-woman show and john zorn, the experimental musician.

because it's u.n.i.s, the school guards and teachers have seen the kids go from bright-eyed five year-olds to defiant adolescents and they don't let them get away with anything. the authorities watch them walk in with a sense of care and discipline as well as affection. one guard i've known for 14 years said to me almost bursting with pride, "look at those kids, they are all happy to be here!" because it's u.n.i.s., the kids seem to walk in smiling - even the upper schoolers with their intense academic pressures and clear lack of sleep - and the excitement of the day to come is almost palpable.

when i get back into my car, i'm smiling too. i'm exhilarated by the optimism. i have perspective - that irritating job is just a job, the traffic and the weather will be different tomorrow.

 like finishing the broccoli and moving on to kale (i REALLY am right now), i'm energized and almost euphoric. it's a meditation in itself. how can anyone feel bad with all those smiling kids promising you a better world?

in my mind, the best way to stay healthy and happy is to stay engaged. to revel in the spirit of others and stay buoyant and purposeful.

you're here because they need you here. WE need you here. you need their energy and positivity as much as they need yours.

muslims are constantly told to be generous, that anything you give away, God will repay ten-fold. i believe that includes your energy. it's an effort but it pays off in a big way. every faith tells us that.

we're all in this together, that's what dropping the amazons off at school makes me remember. we're all on the same path.

that's why the stuff we hate to do is quite often the most crucial.

off to immerse myself in cold water! (lap swimming when i really would rather have another cup of tea, remember?)

The C-Word - Love and Cancer

I was at a book reading recently, chatting up a woman about all my book ideas about cancer, being a single Muslim mother in Tribeca (it goes on and on). The woman is an editor so it seemed like an opportunity. Been out of the literary world for so long that I am grasping at any straws I imagine. Now, instead looking for possible third husbands at events, I hunt down anyone who has anything to do with writing. I hope that somehow, my story will seduce them. People who have nothing to do with books seem fascinated, anyway.

She told me about a novel that everyone was talking about, [SIC], written by Joshua Cody. What she found fascinating, she said, was that he was so interested in sex. His book is a raunchy and musical ride through his romantic and occasionally drug-addled adventures whilst undergoing a very difficult treatment.

Reading more about the book – I am sorry to say I haven’t read it entirely yet - I find myself both cowed by the beauty and poetry of his writing and shocked by the sheer nakedness of it. He writes about his experiences vividly.

My own version of cancer seems tame and predictable in his shadow – he sneers at the pastel-covered cancer memoir genre: diagnosis, realization that life is wonderful, and eventually moving to a little cabin in Vermont . I would inspire only disdain. His is a dangerous, vicious, thrilling book. All the things I once thought I was. Now I’ve unwittingly fallen into the standard cancer-memoir-protocol though I’ve never read one. (Albeit with no cabin in Vermont. I am still in my leaky, garage of an apartment in Tribeca).

But I find myself relating to his book in another way. If nothing else, when you are single when you have cancer, you long to have someone chronicle the transformation of your body. In the same way that when you are pregnant, your body bloats and ripens and turns into another beast entirely, your body when you have cancer, morphs and betrays your expectations again.

It is both frightening and beautiful, in the way that a Francis Bacon painting is - a beautiful ode to the human form, even in its most grotesque condition. While having chemo, one’s skin turns pale. At times, blue, at times, mottled with red spots. The flesh seems to fall off the bones. And the bones, those bones, become so sharp and apparent. You lose your hair – and people forget – but that means ALL your hair, on every inch of your body. There is something alien about the body so hairless and pale, I wanted to take pictures to explore the strangeness.

In my case, my fingers and tongue took on a blackish tint as if stained with ink. I had tiny, burning sores on my cheeks and wide swaths of little blisters on my ribs, like stripes. I think about the woman in the cancer support group in Fight Club. Bald and wasting away, she was dying to find a one-night stand before she left the world. When I first attempted the occasional date again, not long after I stopped treatment, a guy told me I reminded him of her. I protested, I was so mild-mannered – but the desperation and loneliness must have been obvious.

My cheeks and eyes were sunken and my lashless eyelids were burning and swollen. My eyes stayed bloodshot for months afterwards. While I didn’t approach anyone, I longed for a warm body in the bed beside me. To be held and kissed by a being still surging with life, still pliant with flesh. I felt like a succubus, yearning to feel someone else’s life force inside me.

Perhaps, though, because I refused the steroids and tried to keep up with Pilates, I never had the adrenaline-fueled energy to roam the streets at night or to go to parties and bars, like the character in [SIC]. I generally was in bed by 9, usually with Rara, who was just 10 years old and frightened, wrapped around me like a scarf and my mother sleeping fitfully on the sofa, a few feet away.

And then of course, there is the movie, 50/50. That very funny Seth Rogan comedy about a young guy (played Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who gets cancer. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/8824832/Joseph-Gordon-Levitt-How-I-made-cancer-funny.html Since his insane girlfriend cheats on him, he is forced to go to bars with his buddy who uses his friend’s cancer as a pick-up line.

This is where the cancer experience of women and men parts ways. The line, as everyone knows, would bomb. Basically, women (not all, but most) are hardwired to want to take care of people. A woman will sleep with a man because she feels sorry for him. A man? Not often.

The statistics are something like this: three out of four men leave their wives/partners within a year of their cancer diagnosis. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/05/07/marriage-and-cancer-a-fairy-tale-it-aint/ A woman is six times more likely to be separated or divorced after a cancer or MS diagnosis. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110105401.html

While the narrator in [SIC] had an encounter with a fellow cancer patient, she was an exmodel. And even then, she didn’t come looking great.

For the most part, if you are a woman, telling a potential suitor you have cancer (or even HAD cancer) is akin to telling him you’re a leper.

Add to that, three very tough and fashion-fascist daughters, very involved parents, complicated exhusbands and the disastrous ruins of my financial life post-cancer and mid-recession; and almost anyone I met would run screaming in the other direction.

I did have one date, not long after the chemo finished. I did my best to ice my eyes and tried to use make-up to make up for the pallor and lack of hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. Upon shaking my boney hand, he looked pale himself. He tried to squirm out so quickly. He had barely received his order before he looked at cellphone and remembered another appointment in Williamsburg that he was already late for.

Perhaps that’s why I watched the first season of “The Big C” with such satisfaction. Laura Linney chose to simply live with her cancer. She chose to enjoy the languid pleasures of summer without disclosing it and live as if every day was her last. Luckily for her, her cancer moved slowly enough to allow her to drag it out.

Perhaps that’s why, only months after I finished treatments, I fell head over heels for a sweet 27 year-old.

Now that I am well, possibly temporarily, but I like to believe, at least long enough to see my daughters out of college. I find myself longing for someone who knows my history. Who can appreciate the transformations of my life and body and appreciate, with satisfaction and understanding, where I am.

The same way in which, you call your old friends after you get run a marathon or lose 10 pounds, you want to someone who can really tell you how far you’ve come. Someone who recognizes the “you” in your new form. Someone who has patience and gentleness with your kids.

No house in Vermont yet. No new love story. Or nothing with legs. Despite that, as it turns out, I am still the cliché. Hopeful and optimistic. Looking at the life surging through the plants and animals and humans around me with awe.

Of course, there are times, when life hits me in the head so hard, I wish I’d had a ticket out of here. The material world can be harsh when you start slipping. People get tired of someone who goes on struggling. I get tired of it myself.

But on a strangely spring day in the middle of February, I am very grateful to be around for just one more.

the end of childhood

just shy of 3 weeks' into her freshman year at the rhode island school of design (RISD), sasha finds herself bleary-eyed and lost outside the district courthouse in providence. she's running on 2 days' with very little sleep because she got back from her first weekend back home in new york city the night before. she's still wearing the sweatshirt she wore back on the train, "The United Nations International School, NYC." it's the idealistic school she attended from kindergarten to 12th-grade. the lunch ladies had known her since before she was too small to carry her own money.

she's a bright but shy girl. when she was a toddler, city testing showed high levels of lead in her blood. we think that's probably why she developed ADD in adolescence. it makes her dreamy and easily carried away in her thoughts, so it takes some mustering up of will to ask a stranger which way to get back to the college. she looks up the road to a church steeple that looks vaguely familar.

last night, she had a sleepless night in a freezing cold jail cell, because RISD public safety had her arrested for coming in to tell them she mistakenly ignited a piece of paper on a bulletin board as she was leaving the dormitory (even though she didn't leave the spot before she was certain the entire thing had been extinguished). it was out in less than a minute.

when every wisp of smoke was gone, she walked out of the building and heard the fire alarms and the engines coming. she thought she'd better reassure everyone that it was not a serious fire, nothing was damaged and no one was in danger. she did what she had been taught to do all through her education at the United Nations School. be kind. be conscious. be caring. when she made a mistake, she admitted it, apologized and tried to rectify the situation as best she could.

even that night, she was tired. the first semester at RISD is known for being grueling. she'd had a studio class from 8am to 7pm and then she worked on her homework in her room for 3 hours before she and her friends had decided to go out for a cigarette break at about 11pm. she was spacey and she was sorry.

providence is small but the RISD freshman schedule is so dense so she's not been off college hill much except to the library. she'd never been in this part of town before. there's no one there to pick her up, her I.D. and cell phone had been confiscated, and they didn't let her get her wallet so she guesses she'll just have to walk back. her wrists are still sore from being handcuffed to another prisoner for hours.

the security guard at entrance of the courthouse nods her to the direction of the college and she heads up the road. sasha had never lived on her own before. until now, the biggest trouble she'd ever gotten herself into was bringing waterguns to school at the end of the senior year. they were confiscated by the teachers before anyone got wet.

that said, she's used to being the oldest of three sisters and taking responsibility for the pack, especially since she and sisters were on their own with me for the past 12 years. she realized how serious her job was while I was recovering from months of chemotherapy. so she doesn't complain and she doesn't get angry.

she is blinking in the sunlight and still trying to make sense of what happened during her arraignment. it was her first time in a courtroom. unlike her sisters, she's not a fan of "Law and Order." one of the men asked her if she was pleading guilty or not guilty. her father told her afterwards that that was the public defender. she wasn't sure what she was being told to sign, but she did it because she was told to.

afterwards, her younger sister told her that "the guy who said what happened," was the prosecutor. sasha said he told the judge that she had turned herself in and the police report showed that she was forthcoming and remorseful. the judge allowed her to go. sasha thought it was over.

that night, police were loathe to arrest sasha but the burly RISD public security officer insisted. he'd probably had it up to here with the boisterous new pack of freshmen. sasha said that when she "confessed," he said, "this is serious! the police are coming!" the arson police. they questioned her and quickly realized it was neither deliberate nor malicious.

disapproving, the scowling RISD public security officer closed the door on the little room sasha was held in while he conferred with them. sasha heard the same RISD public security officer say, "let's teach her a lesson - let her spend the night in jail." the next thing she knew she was being handcuffed and put in the back of a squadcar and drove her down to the station. she was still in her UNIS sweats - and she ended being stuck wearing the same clothes for the next 24 hours.

sasha had never heard the term "paterfamilias." when I was in college, the college administration became your guardians. they were protective of their students and our reputations. they tried to keep us out of trouble with the police and help us learn our lessons within the safety of the school administration. they would never have wanted to ruin the entire academic career or mar a life with an arrest record - especially when their job was nurture us and help us grow.

when sasha got back up to college, she was worried because she'd missed her morning class. her next class wasn't til 4pm so she thought she might have time to shower and change and have a quick nap before. she went back to RISD public safety to get her ID and phone back so she could call me and her father.

when she got there, they told her she was suspended.

she was forbidden to be on campus without supervision. they told her she could not leave the office. no longer a person, she is an insurance liability.

half-asleep and disoriented, she was made to sit in a chair for the next 7 hours until james (her stepfather) could drive up from the city to collect her. she had no cell phone, no computer, no book but she kept falling asleep anyway. a kindly school administrator brought her back a bagel but she was too tired to eat.

back in NYC, I got a call at 1:03am from the head of RISD Student Life. "your daughter's been arrested and she's in jail," he was seething, so angry i could almost feel him spitting through the phone.

i said, "are you sure? sasha? why?"

he said, "she set a bulletin board on fire."

at first, I almost laughed, thinking this was some kind of joke. "really?"

"we take fire very seriously at RISD. sasha has a lot to answer for!" he speaks through clenched teeth.

"there must be some mistake, sasha isn't that kind of a kid. she doesn't do those sort of things. what happened?"

"sasha is 18. she is an adult. if you want to know what happened, you'll have to call the police station." he gave me the number of the police station and his cell phone - though he made it clear he despised all the freshmen, and sasha most vehemently.

like sasha, i am equally baffled. i have never been handcuffed or put in jail or had an arraignment. i call the police station and the kindly police officer who had arrested her, reassured me. "she's a good kid, don't worry," she tells me. "i'll try and tell her i talked to you. they'll release her in the morning and she can call you then." she tells me that she wouldn't have even arrested her at all if RISD public safety hadn't insisted. "there was no real damage to property, no harm to anyone," she says. "i don't know why they wanted to send her down here, but it will probably be dismissed in the morning. there's not even a real charge."

i call the director of resident life again and tell him i am a single mother with two more teenagers at home. i am six hours away from providence and not sure what to do now.

he sneers and tells me that his only comfort is that he never made the mistake of producing his own teenagers. "i really shouldn't do this since sasha is 18, but i'll call you tomorrow and tell you what's been determined."

the next morning at about 11am, he calls to tell me that it's likely sasha will be sent home. he's not sure yet, but one should make arrangements to collect her. i've got parent-teacher meetings for rara and zarina and james is shooting a movie but he manages to shut down his crew by 2pm and drive up to providence.

a week later, sasha is summoned back to the school for a "disciplinary hearing." in a panic, i take her to a clinical psychiatrist to see if i didn't understand - and she was secretly malicious. but no, a thorough examination makes it clear that she is the girl we know and love. no desire to hurt anyone or destroy property. on the other hand, she is diagnosed with ADD inattentive disorder. in other words, she is shy and spacey but gentle, not defiant. we bring the psychiatrist's report to RISD.

RISD suggests she find an advisor for a disciplinary hearing. after 3 weeks in RISD, she has no one to turn to. she tells them that, so they suggest another student, just one year older than her, who is equally clueless about how to respond.

for two hours, sasha is grilled by four administrators and four students, none of whom had read her telling of what happened or the psychiatrist's report or any of the additional papers she included. sasha is not given any of the information used against her by the college. though there is a scratchy, black-and-white security camera film - which only shoots a frame every 3 seconds. in it, sasha passes with a group of kids, laughing and horsing around. her hands are never in frame, so without her own testimony, there was no proof she ignited it.

despite the scowling RISD public safety officer, sasha has to prove that she turned herself in. that is not on the record. now those campus safety officers, locals with a reputation for harshness towards the artsy rich kids who attend the college, have full police powers.

of the other students who witnessed the event, two came forward and corroborated sasha's story while the third one was so intimidated that he simply threw sasha under the bus. he was a boy who'd had his romantic advances towards sasha rebuffed and wasn't inclined to help at the risk of looking bad (he'd been there and done nothing to help).

of course, under the pressure of scrutiny, sasha dissolved into tears and was unable to speak.

the results of the hearing? sasha is suspended for two years. she can re-apply to RISD then.

the chances that she can get a place in another college after a disciplinary suspension are infinitesimal.

one of james' friends wrote a letter to RISD protesting sasha's treatment. as the father of a college freshman at another art college, he talked about his fear of the current criminalization of students.

he talked about the way in which the world has changed and humanity has been replaced by the requirements of insurance and legal structures. the way in which what is happening at all the #occupy movements is echoing what happened in the arab spring - and the way in which brutal police force has become accepted in retaliation for minor infractions. that we have become so accustomed to being treated harshly by the authorities that we are too frightened to protest.

in the meantime, sasha is sitting at home, in limbo. she's been cooking for her sisters, helping around the house. going with me to movies and surviving on the texts and emails of her friends who are all in throes of their first semester in university. they tell her about all their new friends and their favorite classes. occasionally, she bursts into tears, saying, "it's just so unfair..." but usually, she just says she's lonely.

more bizarrely, she wants nothing more than to be allowed to go back to school. she loved RISD. even though she spent the past two years studying art intensively for the International Baccalaureat, she focused on her passion, photography. RISD opened up a whole new world - drawing, painting, design. it was terrifying and thrilling. she knew she was behind the curve because she'd never learned those skills, but she was inspired by her classmates. "everyone here is so creative! they are always thinking of cool new things to do," she was exhilarated by the energy around her.

since our apartment flooded this summer, we've moved from one temporary home to another. our current tiny apartment is now crowded with all the things from sasha's dorm room. sasha shares a room with me and zarina shares a room with rara.

at 18, sasha is an adult according to the law. though if something goes wrong, or the college needs to be paid, they call her parents. despite that, what we can do to help sasha is limited. like everyone else today, we are subject to laws and rules that seem to defy intelligence and common sense.

everyone - from her school guidance counselor to people who've known her since babyhood - sent letters and emails to RISD vouching for her kind nature. we've had artists simply email to protest RISD's draconian response to a childish mistake. the administration responded with emails saying they needed to consider the safety of the other students.

as if sasha was not a student. as if her presence alone was a threat. however, no one from RISD telephoned or emailed sasha to see how she was.

we are all growing up through this incident. learning that all the idealistic things we've taught our kids - always take responsibility for what you do, apologize, be honest, protect your friends, trust your teachers and the authorities to look out for your best interests - are no longer valid in the present society. we've learned that authorities are not reasonable and wisdom is less important than face value.

this is where the innocence of childhood ends. but what goes in its place?

are you there, god? it's me, mum

there are moments when i hate my teenaged daughter. sometimes both of them. when i feel so exhausted and enraged i feel like going in there like freddie kruger from friday the 13th. (i hope i have my villains right).

because there are all these books written on adolescence and the stuff they go through. and it's true, it is hard to separate from your parents and forge your own identity and independence. but i swear to god, it is hard on a mum.

maybe even harder than it is for them. because you don't have any excuses. you HAVE to behave like an adult. even when you are screaming at them through clenched teeth to keep from throttling them.

it is so tiring to go out and have every bit of your outfit picked to shreds, then your body (and please, i am a lumpy and getting lumpier everyday, 45 year-old), then your way of speaking, your political attitudes. i am single and have two extremely antagonistic ex-husbands and a sharp-eyed mother and i'm not quite sure how much more battering my ego can take.

the amazons are with their dad this weekend and it's such an incredible relief. because one is scattered and disorganized and constantly changing her plans - which throws off everyone else. and the other is so angry and insecure and unhappy that she can't help taking it out on everyone around her. every meal becomes an exercise in diplomacy.

eating out is worse. we can't come to a decision on a restaurant and if we do, one kid decides she just wants to stay home. no one wants to walk the dog before we go. unless i run around in a whirlwind, tidying up before we leave, the process of leaving involves changing outfits 3 or 4 times, leaving shoes and bags in their wake, that i will have to clean up when i stumble in on my return.

walking down the sidewalk, where their humiliation of a mother is exposed to the world in the bare light of day, they begin to point out how hideous my shoes are and how badly my dress fits me ("no offense"). and, "oh no, noooo you are NOT walking around in that hat."

if i say something, the idiocy of my opinion is immediately pointed out. because the health teacher in school said, "you can't say things like that. i can't even be friends with you anymore..."

it's amazing i managed to make it this far without their help.

so are you there, god? can you take them back for a few years?