Dreams

On Tuesday night I saw Madonna.

She performed on stage in her Sticky and Sweet tour.

I saw it from like, .5 a mile away, but I still felt Madonna pulsing in the distance. She only humped her guitar once. She danced nonstop for 2.5 hours. Her show was seamless and smooth. She danced better and harder than any of her 20 year old dancers. Sometimes I don't think Madonna is huge b/c of her music, but b/c of her energy and essence.

One of my dreams was realized. Everybody has a list of things they want to achieve/see/experience/feel. Madonna was on my list. But for some reason, I really thought that it was unattainable. But my mother-in-law actually gave my husband the idea and we shelled out $85 for the tickets. And yes, $85 was really a cheap way to realize a dream.

Then something else occured to me: I have acutally achieved many dreams already. I have started my own family with the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. Every now and then I look at her and am baffled that she is really my baby. And that she is so beautiful. (Of course she looks nothing like me but is a spitting image of her father.) Today I was at the mall with the baby and my husband and I thought to myself how all the babies there looked retarded. Mean rigth? But I realize now that it was because I am just enamored by the beauty of my child. She is truly a beautiful essence. I know I'm her mother and I would say something like this about my own child, but I truly feel like she is special, and that she will become a presence in this world.

And then I realized that I have a really incredible man. ( I will get back to this.)

I think of the tribulations my mom has gone through in her experience with men in Thailand and the US- a "developing country" and the superior, where they have supposedly figured out their shit. And the stories are the same. Let me first say that it is not my place anymore to place judgement on anything that my mother has lived through or the decisions she has made that have affected me in regards to the men in her life. I think what made me come to this final decision and gave me will to act on it (which may sound too idealistic for any human being to attain but is still worth pursuing) is when I could see my mother as a child when she was telling her stories about growing up in a tiny room and waiting for her mom to come home from the brothel where she cooked for the prostitutes. And it was when she told me that the pain she felt when I reopened wounds feels like an untreatable sadness of failure - that only a mother feels when what she has given her child has not been enough. Now that I have a daughter, I could empathize with that feeling like I had never before. I finally understood what she really meant when she said, "you'll never know how I feel." I no longer thought that this line was just an egotistical ownership of her emotions that was just an excuse to ignore my emotions. She is right. I will NEVER know what it feels like to live how she lived and experience the pain she has experienced. Why would I want to give my mother more pain and assume that this is the only way that she could understand me? Why is understanding every emotion I have about her decisions the only way that things will be fixed? What is really broken? Who really needs to be understood? I came to the conclusion that nothing was broken anymore, and that we are really in the process of glueing things together and regenerating new limbs, because that's really my mom's greatest gift to me: survival and hope. I came to the conclusion that the person who really needs to be understood is her. Because right now, she needs my ears. And everything I think she doesn't understand about me is tainted by an old sense of vengence and anger that I didn't acknowledge I still had. But these feelings of vengence and anger were only remnants of something in me that DID die a long time ago...and once I realized this, I didn't have to reconnect with these feelings anymore. I just had to connect - to reconnect - with my mother again.

And that is another dream realized. My mom is safe and happy. Because I am safe and happy.
She is the woman of strength I knew she was. She has been transforming all this time, and I am finally seeing the colors. This makes me proud of not only her but myself because I come from her.

My dream of finding a mate who would be a father and healing addition to my family is ridiculously achieved. Not to brag. I think about the silly things, like when I am bossy he calls my bitchiness and neurosis "an annoying need to micromanage." Even when I am a pain in the ass to him, he still sees it through his love. I think of how he has transformed as a man in the years I have known him. His eyes still sparkle like they did in his baby pictures. His dignity and simplicity are entertwined. Inside him is an immoveable rock - and it is this faith in the goodness of people that has helped him navigate the rough waters of my family dramas. And belive me there were dramas. But he is still standing there, and strong and bright as his smile and blue eyes. He harbors no hatred, bad thoughts, or judgement about anyone. (the exception is 1 ex-starbucks shift leader...another story) Is that really possible? Can someone be so cool? Yeah, whatever you say. He's my husband blah blah blah. But if you know him you will know that he does not have 1 enemy. And all those who come across him love him or respect him.
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So you see, many of my dreams have come true. Now I will go and "visualize" more dreams. (Maybe I can visualize a varicose-vein free leg...) Hmmmm.....

peace to your motha...

no really.

September Grateful List: Okay it's all good.

This last couple of months have been one huge up and down transitional time. I have 2 major things that I am grateful for this month.

1. "Sabidee" in Royal Oak, MI:

A Thai restaurant run by a Laotian family. What do you know, I had to go looking for a Laotian family to find authentic Thai food...they make their Tom Yum soup OUT OF SCRATCH. Do you know how hard that is? They boil the REAL spices, w/ huge pieces floating around proclaiming authenticity. The reason this is so amazing is b/c almost every popular Thai dish can be found in a jar or container, which takes away the necessity of making these labouring spice pastes from scratch every time. BUT THEY LABOURED. And their shit is GOOOD.

I have to say seeing these galangal and kafir leaves floating around in an orangey broth excited me. Like, wow, is this for real? Am I in America? Are my taste buds messing with me? Do I have wings?

Side note: There are 2 reasons I think that this Laotian family makes authentic Thai that I have yet to find at a Thai restaurant in Michigan: 1. There is a lot of immigration into Thailand by neighboring borders. Thailand, when you look at it on a map, is surrounded by Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia. We're up in everybody's face. The last time I visited I remember absorbing a sense of the country that made sense to me- I noticed a national atittude empitomized in a a popular Thai phrase "mi pen a-lie" (translated as "that's okay," "it's cool, "whatever," "don't worry"). It is a laid-back attitude that I think has allowed the Thais to be centrally located on mainland Southeast Asia. HOWEVER, that is not to say that the country is a utopian and fully accepting place...lots of Muslims that live near the Malaysian border are not happy with how they are being treated by a government proud of their Buddhist nationalism.... Getting back to the owners of the restaurant, I think the reason they make such authentic Thai is b/c they lived in Thailand....(Oh, by the way, the class you're taking right now is called: TyiaTheory.) (Another Oh, my grandmother is a Laos immigrant who moved to Thailand! My mom understands the language...mixed blood baby, we're all muts.)
2. They appreciate the food and understand that Americanizing the food, or dumbing it down by adding sugar for profit, is not a good strategy to gain a strong customer base, since they can easily choose the Thai or Chinese restaurant down the street with the really bad decor.

(They'll be a quiz on this next week...)


2. The Woman Who Forgot Her Baby In the Car for 8 Hours:

Why? If anyone saw the Oprah special on this they will know who I'm talking about. An assistant principal left her baby in the car in the morning in late August only to find her after the school day ended. The baby died of a heat stroke.

This is one of the most horrific things I have heard of in a long time. And I have heard and experienced some crazy stuff. What makes this horrific is the simple fact that this WAS a GOOD MOTHER. She was a RESPONSIBLE citizen. She is an AVERAGE, REGULAR woman. She LOVED her child as much as any mother. Like most mothers, she was trying to juggle her life.

Yet, in this fast-pace lifestyle, her MIND got in the way of her INTUITION and overrided her maternal instincts of safety, protection. SHE KILLED HER OWN CHILD. And it could have been ANYBODY.

I am always moved by Oprah and the grace in which she handles her guests and topics. But today the way she wrapped up this incident gave me even more respect for her. Do you know that she doesn't have any children of her own? She said that when she heard of this story, the first thing she said was that "This child has become an angel for everyone to realize that they need to slow down." And for me it is true. This baby became a messenger. And Oprah did not judge this mom. This also made this story more powerful. Instead of crucifying her as some might, alienating this mom to be "one of that careless bad moms" (something we are always so willing to label on others), she humanized this mom's mistake, which actually allows people to see themselves in her shoes, AND allow oneself to see that one can prevent such a sad accident to take place. THIS IS the MOST IMPORTANT lesson in her story. That we can also SLOW down our lives. That I can slow down and must slow down. That the fears we have as mothers of something evil or bad happening to our children by evil or bad people are just as fatal as trying to be supermom and juggling a life in a fast-pace world.

As a mother myself, absorbing our modern-day cultural messages is an intellectual overload which is not always a consciously acknowledged (even scarier still). Seeing celebrity professional millionaire moms juggling their new movies and glamourized for their "post-baby" body, I ask myself why I am still playing with my belly flab scarred with stretch marks 2 years after the birth of my child. Watching crappy Rachel Ray recipes and reading about pesticides and animal cruelty while trying to make fresh organic exotic recipes every night, I ask how can I make fast and good food for my baby when most of our ingredients are already contaminated. Listening to other women in their twenties make voyages to India, China, or jumping from NYC from SF, I wonder when I get to be that "free woman" again as I find new ways to stimulate an almost 2-year old's mind with free resources.

What this adds up to is a huge amount of pressure on moms. Not only are moms moms, they are wives, teachers, professionals, cooks, therapists, dreamers of their futures, watchers of politics who also want change, affected by the beauty, weight, and age pressures that every other woman deals with. So how can we judge mothers? The worst judge of my mothering abilities, I have learned, is ourselves, is me. And the next person we judge the harshest: our own mothers for their mistakes and for what they COULDN'T do. If you know my mom, you know that this is an internal journey for peace that I am still on. (It's been going good lately.)

So I thank this baby and her mother for telling this story. I saw this baby in the car when she told her story. And when you can see this in your mind, oh it is so sad because this little thing suffered. She was 3 years old. And I am grateful for her for being a lesson about stopping and slowing down. And I thank her mom because all she was trying to do was be the best mom and woman she could be.


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The bed doesn't always have to be done. Fast food can be okay. Everything is just fine. As long as that baby is in your arms. As long as my baby girl is in my arms.

So I am HERE

Grateful List Summer 08:

1. GREAT friends
2. A Savings Account
3. Chinese food (GOOD Chinese, not Panda Express)
4. The ability to cook 3 times a day because you are not working...
5. Feeling good.

I am back. Was going to start another blog and tried using tyiatime as the name of that blog...only to find that I had already started this blog...6 months ago...

:)

February Grateful List

1. Birthdays
2. Ears that listen belonging to the beautiful head of my husband.
3. New and Good memories made with my mother.
4. Sesame Street :)
5. Aquariuses. They rock. My sister and my baby are my star Aquariuses.
6. A day off even when you think that you really should be working.
7. The advent of spring...
8. The love of family.
9. The roots of a strong family.