Women's Work

One Foot In, One Foot Out (In Honor of the 20th Anniversary of The Joy Luck Club)

I have no Asian family.  I have no Asian family tree...not a branch, not a twig, not even a leaf.  I have no Asian roots. 

 

All I have is my Asian face.

 

Still, I am an unlikely first-generation immigrant of sorts.  I’m a Korean adoptee of unknown origins...found, fostered and foisted onto American soil, into the waiting arms of a caring, typically-Caucasian middle-class family.  That makes me a product of a typically-Caucasian middle-class suburban upbringing, except – somehow – I don’t feel typical at all.

 

I am American.  I have an American name.  My official family tree says I spring from Scotch, Irish, and English stock.

 

I am Korean.  I have a Korean name.  But my adoption papers say I have no Korean family.

 

Which is real?

 

Sometimes this dichotomy makes me feel free, unfettered, unbound by convention.  Sometimes it makes me feel confused, alone, dangerously ungrounded.  I have never quite found my "place."  Asians have rebuked me sharply for not responding in their native tongues.  Other ethnicities – usually Caucasian – have cracked derogatory racist jokes in my presence, overlooking my Asian heritage because I "fit in" so well.  World War II veterans have elbowed my husband knowingly and winked slyly, congratulating him on his choice of an Asian bride (I still haven’t figured that one out yet, but I suspect it has something to do with subservience).  I exist between two worlds, but fit comfortably in neither.

 

So this is my immigration experience –

 

made in

Korea,

 

but assembled in the

United States.

GRACE

My niece has a new baby, and we are all in love.  I have had the honor of holding him many times in his first ten days.  While holding him, I felt calm and comfort.  It seems to me that a healthy, much-wanted infant bestows grace on all who love him, a little bit of heavenly calm.  Congratulations to all of us.

Zen and the Art of When

Yoga has been my love, my salvation, my strength.   It has helped to quell my mental storms.  It has soothed my body and stilled my mind.  But recently, the calming, tonic effects of yoga have diminished slightly, especially at night.  Lately, my mind dips and swirls and careens endlessly through the night, a whirling vortex of inner noise, chattering about matters both weighty and inconsequential, leaving me foggy and befuddled in the dawn.  I lie awake, thoughts colliding, breathing deeply, wondering desperately: “Zen?...When?”

 

Last Sunday, weary after another sleepless night, I found myself shuttling children back and forth between various activities.  It was a gloriously sunny, windswept day.  At one point, between dropping off one child and picking up another, my exhausted body rebelled. The beach beckoned, if only for a brief, stolen moment.  And not just any beach, mind you...I wanted Dania Beach...still a little funky, still a bit wild and untamed.  Plus Dania Beach happens to be home to Grampa’s Bakery, purveyors of the world’s most stupendously, outrageously, decadently luscious buttercream-filled doughnuts.  Naturally, it was practically mandated that I pick up a couple of doughnuts on my way.  I savored a single doughnut on the beach, enjoying the breeze in my hair and the sun on my shoulders.  With my senses almost fully engaged, I felt tantalizingly close to zen.  But my mind prevented me from delighting fully; it knew there would be karmic payback for that doughnut...it was just a question of when.

 

Later that afternoon, I stood in my kitchen tucking into my second doughnut. As I was polishing off the last few crumbs, David arrived home.  Yes!  I had barely enough time to race to yoga.  I grabbed my gear, filled my water bottle and sped out the door.  Arriving just a few minute late, only one spot remained in the crowded class.  So I unfurled my mat between a pleasant, roundish man on my right and an athletic, tennis-playing woman on my left.  Something about the man set off a small warning bell...something someone had told me...but the warning eluded me, and I shook off my concerns.

 

Let me digress a moment and briefly explain my latest yoga passion: I’m a recent devotee of Bikram Yoga.  Also known as hot yoga, it’s conducted in a superheated room: up to 100 degrees or more, with humidity hovering somewhere in the 80-90 percent range.  So yes, you’re sweltering, even before moving a muscle.  Start moving, and the sweat flows copiously.  It’s invigorating, cleansing, calming, and challenging.  Holding a pose properly requires enormous concentration; done correctly, one is elevated into a meditative, or zen, state. 

 

Unfortunately, the vagaries of my mind have also invaded my body; merely maintaining my balance has been challenging enough of late.  Forget about zen...my mind wanders to when I can release the posture without seeming too disengaged.

 

Still...a new class, a new beginning.  In that optimistic frame of mind, I began class.  First posture was a breathing exercise.  Deep breath in, hands under chin, elbows up, backbend, exhale, back to starting position.  In, up, back, down.  I started to relax deeper into the posture.  Inhale, exhale.  Ahhh.  I took a long, deep, cleansing breath...I...I...wait...what was that smell??? And then it hit me. ”Uh-oh!!...I’m next to STINKY MAN!”

 

Another fact about Bikram: you’re in this heated room, often mat-to-mat and toe-to-toe with people who are sweating as much as you are.  Usually this is okay.  In this particular class, however, there are two men whom you want to avoid at all costs: I call them Stinky Man and Rain Man.

 

Rain Man sweats way more than the average person...no, make that three average people combined.  Buckets and buckets of sweat pour from him.  The teacher makes him stand in the corner so only one unfortunate soul is his unwitting victim.  Veritable rivers and rivulets fly off him as he moves through the poses, flicking onto whomever or whatever happens to be within range.  Getting splashed is unavoidable.  Mid-way through class, and then after class, the teacher has him wipe down the mirrors he has drenched.

 

Stinky Man is a different story.  He just...smells.  The more he sweats, the more he stinks.  There’s no rhyme or reason for his odor; he’s not particularly unclean or unhealthy...he just...emits. 

 

So there I was, standing next to Stinky Man, who had begun...um...emitting, rather profusely.  “You’re in rare form, buddy,” I thought as I desperately attempted not to breathe.  I sucked air in and out through my mouth, rather shallowly, my breathing contrary to yogic teachings, contrary to achieving any sort of peaceful mind.  Rather, I was simply struggling to finish the class.  It was a near-impossible task; wave after wave of noxious fumes emanated from him, so potently powerful that I could almost see the odiferous clouds rising from his body.

 

I wiped my face, took a huge gulp of water and then, as the water hit my stomach...uh-oh!...my afternoon doughnut reared up with a vengeance, churning and grinding, feeling sodden and leaden and greasy.  So now, a new, more pressing, concern: how to frantically concentrate on (1) not inhaling Stinky Man emissions while (2) not heaving watery doughnut bits all over my mat.  We turned sideways to move into our forward bends and Stinky Man’s ass hovered right near my face, practically under my nose.  Urk.  Gag.  Karmic payback, indeed!

 

But amazingly, unexpectedly, struggling ceased.  Suddenly, I was rock-solid...strong, flexible, balanced, sane.  My pose was steady.  My mind was clear.  As we moved into the next poses, I stood as still as a statue in each...unwavering in my stance, solid in my balance.  My mind was humming, yet perfectly still, honed into a laser-sharp focus, the outer world distant.  Oh, yes...I would call this zen.  Most definitely zen.  I was serene and peaceful...flowing, being...existing within a calm, contented, focused otherworld.  When did this happen? 

 

The feeling stayed with me throughout the class.

 

What the hell just happened?

 

Turning the events over in my head later, I could only surmise one thing: by focusing so hard on not gagging or not throwing up, I may have forced myself into my own version of sacred space.  Maybe my answer to zen does not lie in contentment, or harmony; maybe my zen springs from discontent, from disharmony.  Not from ease, but dis-ease. Perhaps the messy bits of my life...the thoughts that keep my mind spinning through the night..are the cluttered yin from which my spiritual yang springs forth.  Perhaps I achieve zen only when the noise in my head is so overwhelming that finally all thought is obliterated. It's not exactly a comforting thought - knowing that extreme discomfort seems to inspire my spiritual awakening - but it just might give me a direction...or point me toward a path...

 

Or maybe it’s a simple reminder that doughnuts, yoga, and overwhelming stenches are not an ideal mix.  So from now on, I think I’ll go to yoga on an empty stomach...and be on time....and hope that when I find zen again, it will be under much sweeter circumstances.

Hairstory

Funny thing happened the other day…I got my hair cut. The event in and of itself is no big deal, of course. In fact, as a short haired gal I typically go under the scissors every 4^th week or so. But this time I was back in my hometown and got it cut at my mother’s salon - not the same one that I went to growing up but many of the stylists from that time started this one and are still going strong. Seeing the men and women that I remembered from all those years ago brought back a lot of memories and got me to thinking…what is it about our hair? Am I the only one for whom specific cuts and styles are connected with particular moments in life?

I’m thinking about how important it was to me to grow my hair out from the short pixie cut I’d had for years in order to look the part of "ballerina" when I joined our local performance company. For a while I had to shellac it to my head and pin on a bun fashioned out of pantyhose to create the look. Even once it grew out though I still didn’t have the soft locks that the role of “little Victorian girl“ required for the Nutcracker - I slept in huge prickly Velcro rollers before each performance just to tame it enough to make do.

Of course all of that was the price one paid for art, right? But on the home front one had to deal with, first, Dorothy Hamill and then Farah Fawcett. Every tweenie bopper had to have those hairdos, but I could never pull them off. When I opted out of the performance company after a couple of years, I went to one of the women at the salon, thinking that, finally, with just the pre-teen scene to deal with, I, too, could have the perfect haircut. Wrong. That cut was a disaster, leaving me with what could only be called, had the term actually been coined then, a mullet. A big curly fro on top and longer hair down the back. All of which I tried to blowdry and curling iron into submission. I cried and cried that night and to this day associate those awkward teen years with that haircut (though a look at pictures from the time confirms that I probably shouldn’t put it all on the hair).

Before senior year, I cut it all off and wore it short again, but it  wasn’t until college when I couldn’t afford haircuts that I finally came into my own with my hair. Letting it grow out had it’s wretched moments to be sure, but “bob” was something my crazy curly hair could sort of manage. There are all sorts of freedoms and independence that come with college and living away from home, but in my memory much of that inner growth is associated with the growth of my hair. My longer curly do was feminine and, dare I say, sexy and I finally felt those things for myself.

Fast forward to the adult years and you’d think that “hair” and “emotional barometer“ would no longer need to be in the same sentence…huh-uh. Several months after I got married and around the time I got pregnant for the first time I cut my hair again. Enough to be called “short”, but really not all that drastic. But when I had the miscarriage I suddenly felt a need to change things, shake them up. To take control in any area that I could. One trip to the hairstylist later and it was super short and red. So red that I just. wasn’t. sure. So I took a picture of myself and peeked at it every few hours to see if time helped my perception of it. Every look at that photo was more shocking - it was just soooo red. It was a full day - and a whole round of email attachments to friends and family - before my husband fessed up to having PhotoShopped the color a few shades brighter for better effect. Fortunately for him, my sense of humor was intact. 

These days my hair is back to brown (though I think about my red from time to time) and I’ve had the same sassy short cut for a while now. The cut I got at my mom’s salon wasn’t one that will likely make history. But then again, let’s give it some time.

I'll do it later

Hello, my name is Elizabeth, and I am a procrastinator.  This week at work, I procrastinated.  I did other stuff, too, but mainly I put off doing something I was dreading.  I had high expectations of myself doing said thing early Monday morning, but then I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and then I had a bunch of meetings, and then it was almost 5.  On Tuesday I thought about doing it all the way to work, but when I got to the office I ended up futzing around on the internet a bit, and then having some meetings, and then going to lunch.  And on throughout the week…Emily emailed me and I had to write her back immediately; I had to work on something that’s not due until May; I needed to clean my desk.  The last straw was when I actually called a contractor about getting our kitchen remodeled, which is something I’ve been putting off for a year, but even that was better than doing my dreaded task.  And the task?  It wasn’t nearly as awful as you are probably thinking.  In fact, today, Friday, I finally did it, and it took 10 minutes and was totally harmless.  However, I realized that this is a bad habit of mine, stemming from college days and probably before, and I started wondering why I put myself through this.

 One of the reasons was that this dreaded task involved making a phone call.  I dislike the phone so things involving phone calls are easy targets for me to procrastinate (same reason I put off the kitchen contractors for a year).  The other reason was it involved sharing bad news with someone – namely, telling an agency that bid for our business that they didn’t get it.  I know I’m supposed to be all “tough businesswoman” about it and deliver the message, but I felt bad.  Putting it off for a week didn’t make it any better, though, and you could say it made it worse because I had to think about it all week instead of just doing it and moving on.  I remember this mental game from college and the sinking feeling it gives me is the same, the old “I have to do this…but I’m not going to do this…but I have to do this…” routine.

 

I got so frustrated with myself I ended up on the Procrastinators Anonymous website.  One of the website’s pieces of advice was “get off the internet and do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing,” which did shame me off the internet temporarily.  One tip I’m going to try is to always begin the day by working on things you are prone to putting off, because as the day goes on you will have more time to think of excuses.  Also, I’ve found the first hour of the day sets the tone for the rest of it.  If I am productive and hardworking from 8-9, I’m more likely to be so the rest of the day.  Another tidbit from PA is that the hardest part is getting over the hump from “doing nothing” to “doing something.”  They promise that with practice it becomes easier and easier to actually do “something” instead of lying around on the sofa reading a book all day.  I think my problem is that I would much, much rather have the sofa and the book, but I can’t live that way and accomplish any adult goals.

 

So, are you an active or reformed procrastinator?  If you are reformed, do you have any advice for me?

Signs and Wonders (Soaring Like a Duck)

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m just not into team sports...not for watching, not for participating.  I’m definitely a yoga, dancing, stretching, meditating kind of gal.  Naturally, then, fate provided me with two rabid sports fanatics in the forms of Ben and Nicky.  Thanks to these two, I’ve attended all manners of games, a bit hazy on the rules, but nevertheless cheering enthusiastically (hopefully for the right teams).

 

Nicky, in particular, will doggedly obsess over a new sport.  This year, he was fiercely determined to become the Alex Ovechkin of the inline hockey rink.  He was so determined to play that he dipped into his savings to pay for half of the equipment. So determined, he forewent a Monroi, a nifty electronic chess notation gadget, in favor of a pair of really good skates for his birthday.  What can a parent do in the face of such determination, except sign the kid up for the local league, and hope for the best?

 

As expected, Nicky was the youngest and least seasoned on his team....scrappy, but obviously untrained.  Within the first week, he was traded from one of two “stacked” teams and moved onto the underdog team – a team with a laid-back coach and a mellow approach.  Their regular season was a mix of some wins, but mostly losses, with everyone having equal chances to play.

 

So you can imagine our surprise when this underdog team morphed into something unexpected – a serious contender in the playoffs.  In the double-round eliminations, they first squared off against Nicky’s original team – and won handily.  They fell in the next round, but just barely, losing to the other undefeated “stacked” team in a tightly-contested, heart-pounding game that spilled into overtime.  And then...final elimination to determine which teams would play for the championship title...another high-tension, high-scoring game.  When the buzzer sounded at the end of the third period, the teams were tied 7-7.

 

Overtime: each team scored once, maintaining the tie.  Shootout Number One: each team scored twice, maintaining the tie.  Shootout Number Two, the nail-biter: the first team to score would win.  Two players from each team tried and failed to score.

 

Our third player skated up to the line.  At that precise moment, two ducks flew overhead, graceful, soaring, and starkly white against the night sky.  I nudged Ben, pointing to the ducks: “Look – a sign!  We’re going to score, and win!”  Ben laughed condescendingly and called me crazy.  He conceded...well, maybe if they were doves...but ducks??  No way.  But then our player glided confidently toward the goal, took careful aim, shot – and scored! 

 

Now the other team was in the hot seat.  Their player skated up, moving surely toward the goal.  He, too, took careful aim, shot – and missed!  Pandemonium ensued.

 

So now this underdog team, underestimated but ever determined, is heading into the finals.  And no matter what the outcome of the championship game, they’ll emerge with trophies, a sense of pride, and a lesson learned that sometimes teamwork, heart, and fair play really can pay dividends, even when the odds (and teams) are “stacked” against them.

 

And, if you believe in signs and wonders, as I do, then maybe – just maybe – the team should offer a tip of their helmets to a pair of snowy white ducks.

 

One Woman's Trash.....

My husband's church has a yard sale twice a year, the proceeds going to community outreach.  It takes the better part of a week to set up this indoor sale, and I usually help most of the week.  I really love doing this, and not for noble reasons.... if you work at the sale, you get first chance to buy.  Because of scheduling conflicts, the spring sale was yesterday.

I helped set up the linens area.  We had all manner of sheets, comforters, towels, etc.  But what caught my eye, and always does, were the old hand-made pieces, utilitarian items embellished with handwork.  I see treasure where many see old junk.  Who could part with a hand embroidered dish towel or apron?  A  handkerchief with crocheted lace?  A grandmother"s handiwork?  I feel a kinship with the women who made these items and sorrow that no family member wanted them.  So I bring them home: to treasure , to marvel at,  to inspire.  One woman's work, one woman's trash, another woman's treasure.

Economic Inspiration

The economic recession has my attention. I'm old enough to remember the dot-com bubble bursting, and that was definitely unpleasant. According to current news stories, this economic monster makes the dot-com look like a lap dog. While ignoring it or spending every waking moment in fear is tempting, I decided to just deal with it. There aren't too many things I can do about the widespread ramifications. I don't know whether I will be fortunate enough to keep my job, so I will be tuning up my resume. 

What I do know is that I currently have an income and I have choices about how it is spent. I know that I can take this opportunity to be a good employee. I can take this opportunity to re-evaluate my priorities. (I really enjoy reviewing priorities. That is the golden lining to every cloud on my horizon. Re-prioritizing time.)

Late in December, a friend and I were still in limbo about what we would do if the worst happened -- the economy collapsed, we lost our jobs, and we had to start over. I dusted off my copy of Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. My friend was intrigued and we started a club. We started tracking our spending and our saving and assessing how much we earned.

What I'm learning about myself so far is that I've got enough money coming into my life and it zips right out of my life again. Just being aware of that has made it easier for me to save money by packing lunches to take to work and having friends over to watch the movies instead of going to the theater. I've also learned that I'm more likely to spend when I'm with some friends than with others and I'm looking for other ways to have a meaningful friendship with spend-y friends. 

It is giving me an opportunity to live more creatively and to focus on actions that will help me achieve my goals instead of tools. I'm remembering that snuggling with my cats, sipping tea and reading can be far more satisfying than sitting at Starbucks, reading, and sipping a mocha. I've even found some extra time as a result. All of that shopping is a real time hog.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I had a neighbor growing up, who lived on something like 20 acres, all of it having been citrus groves, and some of it left in citrus. We used to climb up in the orange trees, all dirty and sandy, and pick the oranges, the juice gumming up our fingers as we ate them, and spit the seeds down to the ground. There's no polite way to eat an orange, really, unless you're one of those who cut them up and turn them into juice (and if you are, you are a Heathen). I have a very clear memory of climbing the trees – orange trees aren't very tall, but they're tall if you're 3 or 4 – and sitting up in them, feeling quite Queen of the World. That's favorite food memory number 1.

I just remembered, this evening, for no good reason, only perhaps it reminded me because I was eating peas, eating shepherd's pie when I was in England, at a tavern built in the 1500s. English food was not entirely to my liking (especially the coffee, weak and milky), but I liked feeling as British as eating shepherd's pie in a tavern from the 1500s could make me feel. Especially since we were in Lacock, where they had filmed the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth).* I was Elizabeth Bennett, only, unfortunately, in jeans, and Mr Darcy was a very, very good-looking Brazilian tourist on the same tour, only in an unfortunate yellow slicker.

A recent delicious food memory was eating Greek mezze (I would call these little dishes tapas) in Washington D.C. at Zaytinya. The culture that gave us tzatziki is tops in my book – yogurt, plus cucumber, garlic, and lemon! I would never have thought of it, but it's brilliant (sorry, a bit of the Brit coming out). They served excellent fresh-baked pita – I didn't know fresh-baked pita has that "poof" to it, making it look as contented and fat as Santa's stomach. And we got broccoli rabe, which is one of my favorites. I like things that are bitter, for whatever reason – any kind of greens, Guinness, coffee. We also ate at a very chichi restaurant in Georgetown (this one I won't name, since I didn't like it), where our dinner cost about what my plane ticket had cost, but I dubbed it Food for the Bored. There was no other reason behind cauliflower mousse served in an egg shell, quail egg, duck served rare (so vile I couldn't eat it all, even at the exorbitant price), and other stuff that I don't like to mention.

I wish I could say I am an excellent chef, but, alas, I am not. I make things that are edible, don't get me wrong, and I'm always trying new things, I'm just not very good at it. I'm not fast, is what I've decided, so that meals that are supposed to take, say, 30 minutes, for me take an hour and a half. It's the chopping that gets me. Chopping an onion on the Food network takes approximately 15 seconds. In this Paula's kitchen, it takes 5 minutes. My favorite cookbooks are from Deborah Madison – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone & Vegetarian Suppers are the two that I have, and everything I make out of them is delicious.

I've debated which recipe to share with you , and I think I'll go with our recipe for Christmas pie. The pie is not for teetotalers, as the name will tell you. My mother makes it every year at Christmas, because if you ate it any more often you would be a fat lush. A word to the wise: if you cut the recipe in half, it will be a little soupy. Enjoy!

 

BLACK RUSSIAN PIE

(filling for two 9" pie crusts, plus 6 tarts)

**** does not cut in half well ****

6 egg yolks

1 scant C sugar

1 tbsp gelatin

½ C vodka

2 C heavy cream

½ C Kahlua

Chocolate crumb crusts

Whipped cream for garnish

Shaved chocolate for garnish

1. Beat the egg yolks with the scant cup of sugar until thick and lemon-colored.
2. Soak the gelatin in the vodka. First heat a small pan, then add vodka, then gelatin. Stir over hot water until thoroughly dissolved. Make sure the vodka does not become too hot or boil. Gradually add to the egg mixture, stirring.
3. Whip the cream until stiff and fold into the egg mixture. Put the bowl with the mixture into a large container filled with cracked ice. Flavor with Kahlua – gradually add the Kahlua, stirring (folding) thoroughly after each addition. Continue folding the mixture over the cracked ice until it begins to set (20-30 minutes; may not take that long). Turn into pie shells and chill until firm.
4. Garnish with whipped cream and shaved chocolate.

 

*In case you wanted to know, the latest Harry Potter film, Half-Blood Prince, was filmed in Lacock also.

Freestyle

I saw Revolutionary Road last night -- a good but terribly depressing movie about choices and options... It resonated with me on several levels: first, whenever I see people stuck in horrible relationships like that I'm glad to be single. But more importantly, I was struck by the desperate clinging to safety and security in the male character -- and I wondered too what extent I would be willing to do that. I'm not happy at all in my current job, but the safety and security keep me there. Unlike the couple in the movie, I could just leave and do whatever I want. Nobody depends on me, no partner, no children, I could move to Paris tomorrow. I guess the difference is that I still see options, there is potential for change, and I hope for things to get better. But if they won't, would I be willing to give up the safety and security I have, or would they trap me? I hope I would be able to break out, especially since life overall is more open and free these days. You don't have to marry, have children and move to the suburbs to be happy -- there isn't just one road to happiness that everybody follows blindly like in the movie. Which brings me to the topic of the month: freestyle! And while it is great that nobody tells me what to do, that I can do whatever I want, I sometimes wish for some guidance so that I wouldn't have to make all the decisions by myself -- so that I could blame someone else if things don't work out... I'm not religious, so no help from that direction, my family and friends are liberal and open-minded and don't really expect me to follow any specific path, and for the most part society around me doesn't have any preset expectations either. For better or worse, my path to happiness is in my hands alone. I guess in the end I wouldn't want it any other way, but I look forward to someone telling me what to write about next month!