Bah Humbug.

It will be no surprise to anyone who has been with me this year that I am hardcore avoiding and dreading the holidays.  The past week has been another deluge of tears, not because my dad liked the holidays or his birthday at all - he was the biggest Scrooge in the state of Michigan, if not the whole Midwest.  But he was easy to shop for -- we bought him sweats, new loafers, a new Gary (his cooler) if his had broken throughout the year, and beer.  We asked what he wanted for his birthday and it was "to be left alone to watch sports".  And Charlie now rests on his chair, and we put on football even if no one is in the room and watching, and I open a beer and put it on the table without drinking it.  Instead of pouring a little out for him, I make his chair an altar.

I don't know how we will be okay, or when, but I know that it has to happen, because this dark year in mourning is not sustainable.  I miss too much about the world.  There is pathetic fallacy in the political climate right now, as we cage and tear gas children at our southern border, and fundraise to build a wall instead of feed or clothe our people who need it this winter, as we further fall into the sundowning empire of racism and white supremacy.  I just want this system of oppression to breathe its final breath and collapse already.

I want to create new traditions, to hold space for the loved ones I miss, but find paths around and through the loss to find reasons to celebrate.  This year it is about maintaining peace and not finding joy, but I want to relearn joy in the years ahead.  We made a list of things to do while we're on break:  sledding, going to the movies, bowling, watching football, playing soccer, indoor playground on Wagner Rd, coloring, reading, ice skating, hot chocolate, going to a hockey game, making cookies, walking by the river.

We are also struggling with raising bicultural kids and whether to and how to celebrate a holiday that is literally surrounding us (in my mom's house) with kids when we don't want to instill capitalist values into them.  I want the holidays to be a time of family, good friends and service to others, not "what am I getting?", but in times of grief, I've found myself shopping more this year, and feeling guilty about our usual rule of "one gift per child" that has worked so well in the past.   I will not go into debt to pay for extravagant presents that my kids will abandon in precisely one week, and I want them to feel the joy of helping, giving and being with people in love and with food in our bellies.  That is enough.

My own to-do list includes:  cleaning the house, spending time with friends and family, going to the gym at least twice a week, sleeping in, reading, writing, adulting necessities, date night with the hubby, fun activities with the babies.

I return to writing, I return to making lists, to help me think and process when therapy is not a financial reality right now.  When socialization is something I can't handle most days.  I will continue withdrawing for winter, but I am trying to get out and give hugs to people who fuel me. Be patient.  I am not okay, but I'm trying to figure out how to hold this grief and not drop my life in the process.

Karaoke at the Blind Pig

I never go out anymore.  I am the true introvert that I always dreamed of being, despite social tendencies before having children.  So, a text from B about her birthday karaoke at everyone's favorite bar was right on time.   It is so hard to reconcile myself with who I have become.  I miss my friends.  I miss having things to say to them.  I miss talking about things other than my kids.  I miss a functioning brain.

So, I didn't get onstage, but I did sing along and cheer my friends on as they sang, and it was beautiful to have a moment to myself, by myself, catching up with people I love so much and never get to see.  I aim to always keep myself alive, but it's difficult to not let your identity meld with parenthood.  Who am I without my kids?  I don't even know anymore.

All I really know is that Bianca and Noah singing 'Tenderoni' and Annes singing 'Eighteen and Life' was exactly what I needed in my life and it's so, so good to be home.

self-care is an uphill battle

I have withdrawn from social life this summer, which has given me a little fear of missing out, but it has been necessary.  I held it together at work this spring, teaching 6 or 7 classes a day, coming home to traverse parks and paths of Jersey until my young defiant hearts could go to sleep with relatively little pushback (haha, as if).  Tears came abundantly, at inopportune times, but I showed up everyday, for my dad, for my students, for my kids, for my husband.  The only person I didn't show up for was myself.

Self-care is bullshit as a mom of young kids.  I wish I could mince these words and put it eloquently, but when I am home alone with them, I sacrifice sleep to buy time to read, write, practice yoga, meditation, breathing.  I have spent three weeks trying to sleep, getting enough water, trying to eat fresh fruits and healthy options, but allowing myself to honor my whims.  Most days, I still cry, and scream and swear.  They say, "mom, don't say bad words" and I say "fuck that".  The only thing I could give up was the desire to see my own friends, so I fell asleep when they did and tried to devise new ways to have fun the next day.   Establishing a routine of playing, eating and resting was what I needed to do first.

What I have come to begin thinking about now is how self-care is not really pampering, or yoga and breathing, but doing the mundane, the things you don't want to do sometimes.  In an idyllic version of my life in which I could pay someone to watch my children for hours of my day so that I could care for myself, I would chant, meditate, read, work-out, garden, write with abandon.  Sometimes I am bitter than I do not have a life where that is possible, but I envision that for myself -- and I try to include my kids in these activities as often as they will join me.

So, I have come to realize how doing the dishes can be meditative.  How singing with my kids can be its own form of incantation, like nam myoho renge kyo.  I may not sit in front of my Gohonzon and chant the Lotus Sutra, but I am repeating, "I love you, you're worth it" to and about my children more than a hundred times a day.  Cleaning a corner, or a bathroom floor, or doing a load of laundry is not the self-care I want, but it's what I need.  Structure, order and a routine of life is somehow helpful to pushing the abyss to its relegated time and place of midnight.   I have come to accept self-care in the 15 minute intervals when both kids are magically tuned into the same show without fighting, for the first time in a week.  A beer on the deck while they're splashing in the pool.

strength, mama

I have been sorting and stacking, cleaning and organizing this long, rainy weekend. 2018 will be remembered as a spring of rain, and the flood has been consistent. The only constant is change, after all. God is change, according to Earthseed. Written on looseleaf ripped from a composition notebook in 1997, I bring you a poem that has so much relevance now, 21 years later, because I am searching for the strength, in so many aspects of my life. I see how strength does come in numbers, much more now than I saw it then, when I was concerned about the units of pain my own body could endure, alone. Growing up a bit has caused me to know that while I hold some strength within, I pull it from others, from the world, from the wet ground and plants that bloom despite the circumstances. I give you strength as I receive it from you - this is the mutual aspect of love that I didn't understand at 17. I am never empty, because the love I receive from everyone around me, of this world and of the ancestors, fills me everyday.

strength, mama

strength in numbers, mama says,

as I’m closing the heavy oak door.

walk by myself to my car,

frosted gloves close minus hands       in

I wish that I could’ve met you when I was

relevant

when my mind wasn’t washing

valet-parked cars in Illinois.

when I had some opinion

to share with everyone

strength in numbers

you ring through me

as a reminder

I don’t know where you are, but I want

to buy lamps with you.

I want someone’s name to put on an emergency card

on the “in case of emergency, call _________” line.

I don’t think

I’ll ever have

someone to pull up the covers around,

fluff pillows for,

strength don’t come in numbers, mama

it comes from stomach muscles

and resistance to tears,

detachment from those who

“aren’t good for yr self-esteem.”

so strength me until I cannot strength anymore.

I need a little weakness

drumming through my veins.

-lmf, circa 1997

meditations on motherhood (again)

days like this always toy with my relationship to society's determinations of what womanhood and motherhood means -- because we flaunt our gifts on social media, as if somehow proving ourselves to be good mothers through consumerism, and long to be away from our children.  or at least, i do.  but it's a rainy day, we are stuck inside with one sick child and the other one napping, it has been a morning of tantrums, screaming and fighting and I intended to go to the park anyway, because my sanity is at stake on a daily basis, but it was pouring too hard to make that a reality.

I woke up, made breakfast, did dishes like I do every weekend morning.  my husband had made me a lovely brunch, there is a beautiful bouquet of white roses and bright violet plumes that I don't recognize, so I am still quite privileged here, friends.  I raise children with my husband, who is a more adept parent than I am and I have significant moral support, but on weekends, I am alone.  Mulay and I make our lives and jobs work by essentially trading the kids off, and rarely see each other.  we are working this hard because we know it will be worth it in the future.

I am not a consumerist, which means that I do not desire gifts, flowers, cards, or candy on holidays.  I want time and memories.  yet, I have been in a funk of sobbing for days, for those who are incarcerated and cannot see their kids, for those who have lost their moms, or lost their daughters and sons, parents of varied genders who don't fit into the binary celebration of parenthood, the loss of my father and grandfather in a short period of time, being stressed at work.   I feel burdened under the weight of motherhood right now, in that nothing I seem to do is good enough, the right way, and my patience wears thin, everyday.  even on days of supposed celebration, I find myself potty-training, fighting two stubborn mini versions of myself through every section of our day; I yell way more than I want, but I cannot stop the rage from exiting my throat.

with the greatest of intentions (often different than impact), I am trying to raise free, black children.  I want them to educate themselves as broadly as possible, in many languages, on many continents, in the world as well as the library and the school building.  I want them to have consent over their bodies and ask for consent from others.  I want them to know their value, their worth, their beauty as well as the history that black skin carries, that they will carry, but that they do not have to stay in America, where this disparity is the most deadly.  I am trying to raise people who value knowledge, who play fair, who read emotions like books, who talk through their frustrations, who use creativity and activity as outlets for rage, who travel and learn.  Creation not destruction is what I want to teach them.

but here's the thing:  just like my students, they teach me far more than I could ever teach them.  how can I preach equality, but not always listen to them?  why do I feel a need to be in control?  nas asks me questions like these, and sometimes I need to put myself in the time-out to consider the answers, because they are right.  sometimes i am unjust, i am dictator of the dining room, parenting is a series of wrongs, and all of the "i'm sorry"s, and "i'm just trying to love you the way i know how", which is never enough, or the right way, or at the right time.

For Digger

My dad passed away quite unexpectedly on March 20th.  There is a lot of writing to process, more tears than I ever knew were possible or legal, lots of beer drinking and telling of stories about everything that made him such a larger than life personality.  My family has never experienced a loss this close before, and I feel so blessed to have had him in my life for 64 years.  I wanted to share what I wrote and read at his memorial celebration on Sunday, to try to capture in words what an incredible human being he was.  Over 500 people showed up to his celebration, and we received hundreds of more calls, texts, cards, posts, flowers, food and offers of support from our community across the world.  On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support, and thank you also for respecting our need to grieve and process quietly by ourselves, as well.

For Digger

Read at his life celebration - March 25, 2018

Knight’s Steakhouse, Ann Arbor, MI.

By Lauren Fardig-Diop

My dad was the strangest person I’ve ever met, and from him, I learned to never
be afraid to be myself, even if no one else understood.  The strength that he
instilled in me, from not letting me quit a sport or game without trying, from pushing
myself physically on the field, to his honesty, his integrity, his humbleness make
me the person I am today.  I have so much respect and love for his inability to be
anyone but himself. To say that he was a simple man isn’t true, he was very
intelligent, but he was a guy’s guy, a sports guy, a barbershop guy, a guy who never
wore socks and cut his hair the exact same way since the 80’s.  His catchphrases
run through my head as I’m trying to sort through the memories that are flooding
back from 38 years of being his daughter.

The ice rinks he would make for us in the backyard every year.

That he was always up early, going to the gym with the boys.

His chair in the family room, always tuned into hockey, to crime dramas, to golf.

That we used to try to play a game about who could embarrass the other more,
me with dying my hair and walking into Knights, him by showing up at Halloween
High school to check on me.

The videos he would make of us, documenting every moment of our vacations,
hockey trips, ballet recitals that he got dragged to every year.

His wardrobe - dress sweats, golf shirts, loafers, no socks.  

That he has a sandwich on the menu at the Brown Jug.

Getting calls to be his DD at Frasers or Knights when I got my license.

4th of July at the Jacksons every year.

Tubing on the boat on Torch Lake, and watching him water ski with Tommy Ross
at the wheel.

Making Amy take the bus outside of East Lansing because he wouldn’t go to
Spartyland.

Sports talk radio and traffic tipster Digger.  

Watching wim watching Danny wear Maize and Blue on the ice at Yost.

Going to softball games in Birmingham as a kid and tailgating with him
and his friends.

Michigan football games every Saturday at the Big House.

Family vacations coinciding with hockey trips - to Vancouver, to Chicago,
and eventually, all over the country when Danny played at Michigan.  

That he named a beer cooler Gary, and traveled everywhere with him -
and we referred to Gary as if he was a member of the family.  

I’m trying to find comfort in this:  He lived more fearlessly than most of us
know how.  He got to see all 3 of his children grow up, graduate from college -
all get degrees from Michigan, get married and find our careers.  He got to spend
quality time with all of his grandchildren, who loved him more than life itself.
Every single child he ever met loved him, because there was a playfulness,
a love of life that radiated from him -- there is no one else like Digger and there
will never be anyone quite as unique as my dad.  As we made the trip here from
New Jersey, I was thinking a lot about how he would want us to have a big party
to celebrate life and not be sad, but the shock of this loss has left me unprepared,
without the right words to do justice all that he means to all of us.

Thank you to everyone here, and everyone who could not be here but has been
touched by Digger’s sense of humor, his love of beer, sports and community.  
Thank you for your support in this most difficult time.

Cheers to Digger, a Wednesday Night Drinking Club legend!

On arming teachers

I have never held a gun, and that is an intentional choice.  I see their incredible power to succinctly end life, I see how obsessively low folks will stoop to retain their power, I see their capacity for murder, genocide, and our civilization's end.  I have never held a gun.  And I never intend to, especially in a classroom.  I think that I should know what to do should the need ever arise, but I am also frank with myself that I am too anxious, consistently set my keys down in the wrong place throughout the day, and the horror of thinking about what responsibility I would have to have a loaded firearm on my person would be too much.  I don't trust myself, I don't want the responsibility and don't I have enough responsibility already?  My job is daily disrespected by a government that continues to take funding and expect miracles with our children, and while I would be willing to give my life to save my students, I could not bear the thought that a firearm issued to me could be stolen, taken and used to inflict harm in the building where I love every single life that thrives. 

More than arming teachers, I am concerned with a culture that cannot put the lives of its next generation before its weapons.  I don't want to raise my children in a place so infected by individualism and greed that they can justify not valuing their lives.  On a local level, I know this is not the case as I have lived and worked in communities rooted in survival despite frequent loss.  So many funerals.  We have been working on policy, on buy-backs, on stopping the violence events, on safe alternatives for youth for years.  But the guns are here, and no one asks how they got here, who brought them here or why black and brown kids continue to die at record speeds, with bullets shot from officers, from peers, from enemies.

That we can look our youth in the face and call them paid actors, or pass laws allowing semi-automatic weapons after tragedies continue to plague our schools, our homes, our churches, our streets is unconscionable to me.   That we have trained our youth with a culture of violence and a spirit of resistance and then seem shocked that they are rising up is the perfect irony.

But more guns to solve the gun obsession is not an answer we can accept.  School budgets have been slashed so much that in my tenure as a teacher, basic teaching needs like pens and pencils, copier paper and art supplies are diminished way before the end of the year.  I am forever needing to Donors Choose and save receipts to attempt to get a tax break for the hundreds I spend each year.  Technology isn't as accessible as it should be in my, and many public schools, and we don't have space to teach tech ettiquette in our curriculum, or adequate funding to train teachers properly on using technology in their classrooms.  Yet, rather than investing in the future of our youth and asking teachers how to allocate budgets, we are instead looking for budgets for weapons and weapons training.

Instead of investing in restorative practices, more social workers and counselors, advisory, special education services and ways to engage and help every single child we teach, we are taking our gun obsession to new heights, still and always.   Instead of asking, as a society, why this is a uniquely American problem amongst first world nations, instead of considering the militarization of police and more guns in the hood aimed at the people by law enforcement as part of the problem, instead of considering that mental health funding is needed, screening is needed (both in schools as common practice and in order to purchase a firearm), our representatives are bowing to the money and signing bills to put "In God We Trust" in school hallways, next to armed guards.

Responsible gun ownership is not under attack with more stringent gun laws.  Banning automatic and semi-automatic weapons will not impact someone's desire to own a firearm, and caring about your community should mean that you are willing to jump through a hoop or two to ensure that only folks who should have guns are able to access them.  Though I think the 2nd amendment is sorely outdated with the ways in which technology has advanced, we can afford to disarm, we need to disarm our civilians if we intend to stop mass shootings.   But until we value life over profit, communal life over individual rights, black lives, Native lives, and brown lives, we will find ourselves in this place.  Right now, I am letting it simmer, basting in the discomfort and grief that has moved me to act for years -- because I still grieve for students and family who have experienced loss due to gun violence.  I save space for them, remember them and honor them in this pause.  Because we must move, we must act, we must resist, and we must let the youth lead us in the direction they decide.

mom rant #2350938450985460958346098456

Once all of my journals and paper things are destroyed in the inevitable world war (over penis size) that will cause us to need to re-author history, I bet that one notebook will miraculously survive.  Scholars and anthropologists alike will scour its pages for clues about humanity before the apocalypse, and they will get grocery lists, lists of work I have to get done, and rants about my kids' behavior.

My kids are the best people I know, but they show me their worst.  Part of being a mom is being the force of unconditional love and care in the worst moments.  They get my worst, as well.  They get a few hours with me every night when I am exhausted from a tough, emotional job and a long-ass commute.  We all project our best online, and I am not the best mom sometimes.  I try to be honest about my motherhood experience, and to share more joy than complaint.  I have some "private" mom groups that I might vent to, and a few unlucky souls that I might text in an exasperated moment when I am crying in the bathroom about why they don't listen to me unless I yell and threaten to hit them.  I am non-violent in persona and it's literally what I do at work, yet I find myself so enraged by the actions of the little people I created.  I cannot adequately explain the rage, but it is subconscious, guttural, and I believe that children are cute as adaptive survival technique.

Online, in public forums, I try to focus on their cognitive and athletic abilities, cute moments and "kids say the darnedest things" clout, but this bolsters the narrative that I am a good mom.  Most days, I am not.  Most days, I do not love or even like being a mom.  Most days, I am grumpy, I yell, I struggle to be creative about activities to engage them.  Most weekend days, I struggle to leave the house, or shower, because I am constantly cleaning, re-cleaning, cooking, re-cleaning, doing dishes, re-cleaning, sweeping, mopping, doing laundry and attempting to keep them engaged in activities and not kill each other.  It is a straight-up battle for survival from 7am when Sali wakes me up, until 9:30 or 10, when after 2 hours of trying to settle them down, they both actually fall asleep.  Most days, I suffer from massive anxiety about every noise they make, every ball they bounce, every stomp and scream.  I just don't know how to let it go, even though I've spent years trying.

I am making this public, because it's time to admit that I need help.  I HAVE a lot of help in terms of my husband, who has cared for them magically for years at home when they were young, takes Nas to school and picks him up, cooks almost every night and participates in the bi-monthly massive clean-a-thon that is Sunday afternoon.  I am not doing this alone, although there are days when motherhood is incredibly isolating and lonely.  But I need professional help, I need self-care help, I need babysitting help, I need yoga, I need nam myoho renge kyo.  I do not have family here (aside from my husband's brother and sister-in-law, who are also of great help!) and I do not have friends in Jersey.  I am an introvert with an extremely extroverted job, so part of this is by design - I just don't have more to give when I get home from work, but I have to figure out how to have time, energy and patience for my own kids.  I feel like I've dug deeper than all of the oceans to try to find this patience, and I am still short. 

I cannot end this rant without perspective, and admitting that I am extremely privileged to discuss my shortcomings as a mother, in a way that women of color in this country cannot, because white supremacy already narrates them as bad mothers.  The best moms I know are black and Latino, some of them single moms, working multiple jobs, and holding that shit down a thousand times better than I ever could.  They are the real MVPs and I am just whining.  I am also aware that so many women and men desire to have children and cannot, and how dare I complain about something that so many people would die for?  I know, and I am empathetic toward their feelings, which is why I try to share some of the realness of parenthood, because the grass is always greener and we always want the life that is not our own.  I am grateful, I am blessed, but I still need support, and love, and time to be alone, and an uninterrupted shower, and a day without being headbutted in my nose and having it sting so badly my eyes water.