might is right

a friend recently sent me an email about her young cousin, yaman al qadri, a 19 year-old college student who was viciously beaten and taken into custody by syrian forces. another friend posted on her facebook page about the 14 year-old boy hamza al-khatib who'd been tortured and beaten to death. there is the recent story of sasha and RISD, the children used by jerry sandusky at penn state (and no one complained because they didn't want to jeopardize the football team, or the main money-generating activity at the university). friends at universities and colleges all over the country have told me about the way students are being criminalized for the smallest infractions especially if those students have not paid their tuition upfront. no one wants an insurance liability, even if ethics suggest otherwise.

in moments of uncertainty, do we always prey on the small? we use them to appease our fear. maybe that's how we feel we regain a bit of power and control in our world. are the smallest on the food chain likely to become casualties of the current global uncertainty?

correct me if my vision of a pattern doesn't fit. (my father used to tell me a joke that illustrated the human habit of imagining that everyone else is in the same situation as you are. the story began with two college boys and one lent the other his motorcycle. the second boy ended by crashing his friend's bike in a head-on collision with a car during the night.  when the owner of the motorcycle came to visit his friend in hospital, he asked how it happened. the second boy said, "the bridge was so narrow that when i saw the headlights of 2 motorcycles coming towards me, instead of passing, i decided to drive between them.")

on the other hand, there is the recent death of hana williams and the injuries of other children relating to the parenting book, "to train up a child" by michael pearl. the book that has taken the right-wing parenting world by storm and has thousands of adherents. it seems that the most defenseless amongst us are the first to suffer the effects of the fear that the world is slipping away. it's clear that the rigidity of the tea partiers and the harsh, unwavering judgement of people like ron paul will certainly take out the weakest first.

while people are rising up against "wall street" and the 1% - despite michael bloomberg and the administration's ongoing attempts to squash them - perhaps we should also be rising up FOR children.

we should be taking a stand for a kinder, gentler world that protects our most vulnerable and most quiet.

would you call it #occupyhumanity ?

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?

housing works

feeling a little dejected today.

a friend laughingly said to me, "you must have been REALLY bad in a past lifetime because i can't believe how much stuff is happening to you."

i've spoken to a couple of real estate agents who smile dryly and say this sort of situation is all too common in new york city.

perhaps it's divine retribution of sorts. i am one of those people who is very attached to my home. even worse, my neighborhood. it gives me a sense of stability and structure that allows me to run around, work freelance in different offices, be as reckless as i want in the rest of my life.

my home is my sanctuary. my base. it's where i feel safe. it's where i feel like i can protect my teenagers from the dangers of the outside world.

in the past two years, my living situation has been on a bit of a downhill slide.

of course, my irresponsibly getting cancer and not working didn't help much. add to that, an exhusband who chose to play out his own revenge scheme just as the family income and my health hit bottom.

now i'm not really in hell, but i am in limbo.

the past sweltering week has been the worst heat wave in nyc in decade.

i normally LOVE the summer heat but prior to that, we had a couple weeks of rain crashing through the wall like a giant waterfall and flooding the girls' bedrooms repeatedly and eventually drenching mine, too.

now the resulting mold has gotten so bad that one is choked by the smell upon opening the door.

i usually run in to grab a few things and rush out with a shopping bag, a runny nose, a cough and a raging headache.

(apparently, mold is much more toxic for someone with cancer or who has had cancer treatment - perhaps because of our compromised immune systems - and for people who've had lyme disease and asthma. that would be zarina, so she's stuck at james'.

since people keep asking me to write all my secret health solutions down - here's today's information - i get immediate relief from large doses of vitamin c, tumeric and chlorella. then a shot of wheat grass a little later. but even a tiny bit of sugar or dairy can bring the reaction all back. also, at night my lungs get so clogged i wake up gasping for air. at that point, i put some silver biotics in a nasal spray http://www.silverbiotics.com inhale deeply and try and get it down into my lungs. by the way, you know it's bad when you blow your nose and the tissue is streaked with black mold.

if i remember i put a couple of drops of "thieves" oil on my pillow, too. if i've heard a diffuser is good for that.

additional life advice - after some extensive research, the best homeowner's/renter's insurance company is amica and i recommend EVERYONE scrape the money together to get some because they will rescue you, even if it's just temporarily. it does make you feel better.  also, state farm is not covering any of my destroyed furniture because it's the result of poor building maintenance. check your insurance policy for water damage and mold remediation, it's very common in nyc and lots of companies don't cover it. so the "like a good neighbor" is being put to the test.)

not that i should really be complaining because limbo means living a few blocks away in a 4-star hotel with powerful air conditioning.

however, as sartre explains, hell is really the waiting room.

our no-exit is a gigantic bed in a tiny room as befits new york city. fill it with a few teenagers and a dog and the hotel california gets a lot less glamorous.

nightly chocolates on the pillows lose their appeal when you've eaten all your meals in the bed (since no other furniture fits in here).

i desperately want to cook and sit at the table. i want to buy flowers. i want to have bowls of peaches ripening in the sun. my organic diet and juicing routine have gone out the window.

the puppy's getting antsy in the miniscule space. she now barks like a maniac every time someone comes down the hall and runs around in circles like a wind-up toy. i've smuggled in a few steak bones to quiet her down but i'm worried the rest of guests might not be friendly too much longer.

back at home, it looks like a sinking ship. we've dragged as much stuff as we can save into the one part of the apartment that didn't have water pouring into it. we run in from time to time to get the stuff we need.

the amazons can't find their clothes. sasha's lost her passport and the pieces of her college application she needed to do over the summer. rara is down in dc with my parents but she's panicked she won't be able to come back.
 
my homeowner's insurance says that they are ready to rip out the walls, clean the mold and put everything back in again but my building's insurance is dragging their heels. just as the building refused to repair the leak over the past four years. one of my neighbors, despite being a banker, knows a bit about construction so i asked him what was going on. he told me to call my handyman. i asked if he had anyone he could send over.  he laughed, "i'm not going to pay for it!"

another of my banker neighbors muttered, "just fix it yourself. that's what i would do."

not to sound all-girly and clueless, but i did pay a number of people to fix the leak over the years and now that i've been forced to be up on the roof regularly, i can see they didn't do a great job.

is the moral of the story that you should learn to do your own construction?

it's funny, in the legal tangles i've faced, i've spoken to lots of lawyers who've repeated what the most recent one did.

a kindly and high-powered gentleman, his retainer was more than my monthly mortgage payment. "i'm so sorry, my dear. it doesn't matter if you're right, it matters if you have the financial backing to prove it in court."

trying to think what a real amazon would do.

i just want my home back.

ah, new york city.

cocktail waitresses and mothers

back when i thought my life was my own, i spent some time as a waitress. one thing you learn fast is that when you're carrying a tray of drinks, you shift your weight so that when someone takes a heavy glass off the tray, it stays balanced. you learn to stop sometimes to re-arrange everything on the tray so it won't topple over when the next thing goes.

these days, as sasha prepares to go to college, i can feel our family shifting as we get ready to lose a cornerstone. sasha and i moved back to nyc on our own and every decision i made after that - where i'd live, who i'd marry, the work i did, what sort of food i'd eat - was based on being sasha's mother.

it seems like five minutes ago, sasha was so new that when someone said to me, "i just met your daughter!" it took me a second to realize who they were talking about.

james didn't just marry me, he married us. i always believed he liked the idea of getting a little instant family. so sasha set the tone for everyone else. she chose the first toys and then the other two got matching ones. it was her developing fashion sense that dressed the others. if she wanted to see a movie or take karate or ballet, then everyone else came along for the ride.

all three went to the united nations international school, because it seemed so perfect for sasha. all three took ballet and piano - but no one else took karate because she'd lost interest in it by the time they were old enough.

first, zarina and then rara wore sasha's hand-me-downs (of course, now zarina is taller, has expensive taste and loves shopping, so we all wear HER hand-me-ups).

zarina is becoming more responsible and serious and moving up into the oldest sister position. rara is becoming more defiant as she stops being the baby. we're rearranging the places. and realizing that, in 2 years, zarina will be gone, too. the family dynamic we developed over the past 12 years is evolving.

sasha's acceptance to her first choice of colleges gave her the confidence to make a series of rapid psychological leaps in a month that many less cautious kids made over the past few years - she's learning to cook, reading the newspaper, opened a checking account. without being asked, she walks to the supermarket and buys the missing items from the fridge or walks the dog or cleans up the kitchen. she's eating salad instead of cookies.

on the other hand, she comes home later and later at night. she tests out new nightspots (but, at least, she also goes to museums). i watch her nervously but i don't place too many limits right now. if she's going to fall, i'd rather have her do it here where i'm around to pick up the pieces then when she's far from home for almost the first (long) stretch of time.

so these days, i am adjusting the tray and wondering how i will balance the sense of liberation with the empty space (soon to be filled, i'm sure).

if you're happy and you don't know it...

i read somewhere - i wish i could remember where, maybe o magazine or maybe ode - that just the act of smiling changes your state of mind.

so as we drove back from syracuse on friday and we hit one road block and construction detour after another, i forced myself to smile.

sasha was playing a bunch of oldies on her ipod so that cheered me up, too - but i would have been swearing and stressing out and slamming on the brakes every 5 minutes - and i wasn't.

not that i was a jolly bundle of joy either, but i did arrive home after 9 hours of driving, without tense neck and shoulder muscles or back spasms.

"they" (whoever that was) say that the muscles in your face make the rest of your body relax and calm your mind and so they did.

my friend janan delgado once told me that there was a hadith (saying of the muslim prophet muhammad pbuh) that if you are angry, sit down. and if you are still angry, lie down.

since i've tossed and turned at night, seething over some perceived injustice, i know this doesn't work for me - but it's the same theory. if you smile - REALLY SMILE - not just a forced, pretending to be polite pained smile; let it soak in and feel like you're standing on a beach listening to calypso and smelling tropical flowers, you WILL feel better.

just results of my test.

object memory

i was cutting fruit for the amazons' breakfast the other morning and i was overwhelmed by a sense of sadness. looking at the rows of organic strawberries neatly laid into the plastic boxes, i could almost see the fingers of the mexican workers carefully placing them there, the big ones at the bottom, the small on top.

i remembered reading somewhere about the way the migrant workers are treated, the abuse at the hands of foremen and business owners. i remembered reading about "the fields of panties" - where pretty young girls are raped between the rows.

i don't know if my particular box of strawberries came to wholefoods that way. i don't know if i was feeling particularly sensitive or if the articles just flashed into my mind at that moment.

but it occurred to me that objects might retain a memory, an energetic impression, of the emotions of the people who touched them or used them.

as i sliced the strawberries, i wondered about things, our every day things here in this first world, in this modern, convenient, upper middle class world and whether their journeys to us could infuse us with their sadness or satisfaction.

is it a purely poetic thought that food grown in pain would bring suffering to our bodies as we ingest it?

or that clothing pieced together by political prisoners, toys made underpaid children, would introduce yearning and hunger to our nervous systems.

there is a story - is it medea? where she makes a dress for her husband's new wife and the minute it touches the new wife's skin, it burns her alive, so that she experiences the pain that medea feels.

i wear a pair of burmese earrings my grandmother left me. she didn't leave them to me exactly, but an uncle bequeathed them to me since he is not married.

i don't know if they are the most beautiful earrings but when i wear them and look at my ears, i see my grandmother's pale pink earlobes. i feel i disappear into her, as reality bends, just for a few seconds. i can feel her love of opulence and magnificence.

my teenaged daughters are wearing saris that my mother brought back from india and i wonder if they can feel the hands of the tailor who used to use a pedal operated sewing machine when i was a teenager and is now part of the "new india" with a cell phone and a fancy electric machine - though his living conditions don't quite keep up. the new india is not so good for everyone.

if our objects, our clothes, our stuff, retain the emotions of their last owners or creators, then we have a responsibility to ourselves as well as to our consciences to look after the laborers who make them.

memories

standing on the edge of last year, letting the memories drip into the beginning of this one.

what a year.

my thrilling news: i walked out of the pool and back to my locker and miracle! i remembered the combination of my lock.

yes, my short-term memory is slipping back in. little by little.

i am beginning to think clearly. beginning to remember how to work.

the amazons are acting out, but i think it's finally the relief giving way to all the pent-up fear and anger and pain of the past year.

on january 26, i found myself watching the demonstrations in egypt and crying. and crying. i am frightened of the violence getting out of control. i am frightened for what will happen when the government collapses. i am worried that revolutionaries often don't think things out.

i don't know why, miles away in new york, it feels so immediate. so real. so possible.

working on park51, i see how close the anger - even in this country - is to the surface. i read the blogs, the diatribes. i see the frustration with unemployment, the unceasing bill collectors, the banks, the unclear government policy. people complain that americans are unintellectual, they just want things simple.

and i get it.

i just want things simple. i want little things.

like most people everyday, here's what i think when i lie in the dark:

if i can just get sasha into college (and figure out how to pay for it), get the hole in my roof and the stairs fixed, my car rat-proofed and get caught up with my mortgage and all those medical bills...

will i be able to sleep peacefully at night, then?

(the insomnia's also part of the remains of the chemo)

will the rightwing fundamentalist tea partiers take over? or will the obama administration manage to get ahold of things. will we ever get medicial care for everyone? medical care that doesn't leave you buried in so many bills you wonder if you should have just tried to treat yourself?

but in the snowy mornings, i am smiling again, looking around and feeling very grateful. for heat, food in the refrigerator, electricity, a telephone and the internet. peaceful streets.

for being here.

is it better to be alive than dead? i don't know. but it does seem better for the amazons to have me here.

(and thank you thank thank thank you again to all my friends and family for all their help physically, financially, emotionally. you are the reason i keep body and soul together. )