Capital Idea for a Trip

Jose and I just celebrated our third wedding anniversary in our standard manner with a long weekend trip away. This year, after much less deliberation than usual, we settled on Washington D.C. as neither of us had ever been. Jose at first had some reservations. For himself, he wanted to see all the things he’d learned about in history classes, but he was afraid that none of it would mean much to me. In some ways he was right. Kennedy’s gravesite, or as I renamed it, Kennedyland, was one such example. Unlike my husband, I don’t remember exactly where I was when J.F.K. was assassinated, mainly because I hadn’t yet been born. So, taking a tram--yes, honestly an actual Universal Studios-type tram-- through the cemetery to see the eternal flame was not my idea of a good or even an appropriate day out. Nor was standing in line at the National Archives amongst masses of unruly children who had taken the concept of freedom just a little too far, just to see a faded piece of 250-year old paper known as the Declaration of Independence. For my husband, a big deal. For me, not worth it. I mean 250 years? Please. Big whoop-di-do. My brother’s lived in houses older than that. Never mind that off to the side was a copy of the Magna Carta, the 700-year old document on which the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights was based. It was, of course largely ignored by the throng of tourists. Glimpsing the White House from two blocks away because it’s now completely fenced in? No big deal. Looking down the reflecting pool from the Lincoln Memorial and seeing the Washington Memorial reflected in the water, just like Forrest Gump did? Big deal.

What impressed me the most about Washington, or D.C. as we hip persons in the know call it, is that the entire history of this country is squeezed into just a few square miles. From Kennedy’s gravesite you have a clear view of the Lincoln and Washington Memorials, the Capitol Building, even the White House if you squint. On that scrappy bit of faded paper that announced, “Enough! We’re starting a new country and this is how we’re going to do it,” I saw the optimism and idealism of a great country struggling to find itself. I saw that same outlook etched into the monuments of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and reinforced in the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the memorials of the Korean War and the Vietnam War, I saw solemn reminders of those ideals gone awry. But I saw the Emancipation agreement and I stood on the steps of Lincoln’s Memorial and looked out like MLK did when he delivered his famed civil rights speech to 200,000 people and it gave me hope that this country, even though at times it may slip, will continue to find ways to live the values on which it was built.

Happy Mothering Sunday

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day in the U.K.. Formerly known as Mothering Sunday, it’s the day when we offspring shower our mothers with flowers, chocolates, and cards that tells her what a wonderful mother she is.

My middle brother’s traditional Mother’s Day gift is a bag of compost. Not your typical gift, in fact it could even be construed as offensive. But not so. My mother is an avid gardener so my brother driving to the garden center, lugging a huge bag of muck home and dumping it in my mother’s potting shed for her means she doesn’t have to do it herself. It’s a perfect and considerate gift from a perfect and considerate son. As for me, I’ll be calling my mother this Sunday to wish her a happy Mother’s Day and to apologize for sending her nothing.

It’s not that I don’t care; it’s just that when it’s Mother’s Day for my Mum, it’s not Mother’s Day for me here in the U.S.. My calendar doesn’t have it clearly printed to remind me, and the card stores are full of St. Patrick’s Day and Easter cards. There’s not a Dear Loving Mother card to be seen. To further throw me off the scent, Mothering Sunday doesn’t fall at the same time each year. While Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November and Christmas is always December 25th, and Mother’s Day in the U.S. is the second Sunday in May, Mothering Sunday falls on the middle Sunday between Lent and Easter, and as you know, that changes from year to year.

If this all sounds like a lot of weak excuses for forgetting to send my Mum a Mother’s Day card—again—it is. Even telling myself that it’s better this way because my Mum gets two Mother’s Days, the U.K. one in March and the U.S. one in May, it’s a weak argument. Come Sunday, her mantelpiece will only hold two cards--one from each of my brothers-- and in her potting shed will be a new a bag of dirt.

As if this isn’t enough, my mother won’t say a word about it! She won’t grumble or drop thinly veiled hints about what good sons she has. She won’t complain about me to her friends and she won’t cut me out of her will. That’s the main problem with my Mum—she’s not normal.

My other friends have mothers who have refused to speak to them for months because they didn’t call for two weeks. They have mothers who pit one sibling against another or spend family holidays lamenting that their own offspring could never compare to the neighbors’ perfect kids. Not my Mum. She never sticks her nose into my business. She never tells me how she would run my life if she were me. She likes my husband and she waits patiently and silently for grandchildren from me. We can take her on vacation with us and she doesn’t complain about the food, the weather or the locals. She’s never embarrassed me by causing a scene in a restaurant or demanding to speak to the manager in a store. You see, she just not right!

I didn’t actually forget it was Mother’s Day, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this now with two days left to go. I did however forget until it was too late to do much about it. The only way to have a card arrive in time would have been to send it via Global Express Mail. At a cost of $25.25 it would have been worth it. But my mother is British; she’s fed a family of five for a week on $25.25. That kind of frivolous wastefulness is just so…well, American. I could have sent her flowers, but she’s leaving on Sunday afternoon to go on a trip to the coast with her seniors dancing club (understand that although my mother will be 75 this year, she’s about as senior as me—maybe less so (see October 26 posting below)). Anyway, sending flowers would be another waste if she’s not going to be there and we’ve already been over the whole wastefulness thing.

So, what can a lowly writer do, impeded by incomplete calendars and overpriced courier services? All I can do is write. Write here about how wonderful my mother is, how I wouldn’t swap her for any other mother in the world, about how fortunate I am to have her as a role model for how to live and that if I could clone her, I wouldn’t just be able to retire to that island in the Indian Ocean, I’d be able to buy it. And of course, I’d take my Mum with me.

So, here’s to my Mum and all the other wonderful mothers out there who can only wish they were as fabulous as mine.


HAPPY MOTHERING SUNDAY

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Dropping Out

I’ve been thinking a lot about society lately. Not how to fix it—I’ve already spent plenty of time on that with no solution. I’ve been thinking about leaving it.

My neighbor came by today to tell me he’s leaving. He’s quit his job, sold his car and possessions and is heading to South America, via the Virgin Islands. He’s going to travel for four months or so, then make his way back home to Australia to figure out what to do next. He’s just one of what seems like a long string of acquaintances who are throwing in the towel and checking out of the rat race. George is quitting his well-paying aerospace job to housesit and write screenplays in Australia. Charky just quit an already alternative lifestyle living on a boat and holding down a job in advertising to live on an island off the coast of Panama and run the local (possibly only) restaurant there. I’m not sure if the state of the world is getting to people (or maybe the state of L.A.) or if the people I know are just hitting that mid-life crisis age, but there’s definitely something in the air lately.

Jose and I have been watching The Good Life lately. It was a hugely popular ‘70’s British sit-com that made it to the states renamed as Good Neighbors. Tom Good hits 40 and decides he’s had it with the rat race. He and his long-suffering wife Barbara decide to turn to self-sufficiency. He quits his job as a cereal box toy designer and they turn their upscale suburban London home and garden into a smallholding, complete with pigs, chickens, and a goat named Gertrude. If you’ve never seen it, it’s worth watching. It’s an absolutely charming story and of course hysterical, but for me, it got me thinking. Could I do it? More to the point, could we do it? Jose and I together?

We currently live without many of the 21st century essentials such as television and a microwave. In the summer months at least 50% of the vegetables we consume come from the garden. We both commute to work most days by bicycle, rendering our cars dust collectors for most of the week.

Recently, we tried an experiment based on a yearlong trial we read about in the paper. During the month of January, we bought nothing new, except for essentials such as food, medicine and health-related items like soap and toilet paper. There were days when it was hard, especially early in the month while my mother was visiting and he kept dragging me into shops where temptation loomed. I didn’t succumb and now one month later, I haven’t regretted not buying these things, in fact I can barely remember what they were. By the end of the month, I was no less content with my life than I had been at the beginning. I was no worse off for not buying those things.

Going without new running gear and books I could borrow from the library is a far cry from living off the land, but I wonder, could I do it? What would we eat? A person can’t live on vegetables and eggs forever and I am certainly one of those people who would become a strict vegetarian if I had to butcher my own dinner.

Still, the exodus of my peers has started the shift of cogs in my brain and started me thinking about what’s I really important. The constant quest to pay off the bills and start saving for a house seem so futile when I see a million dollar price tag on a shoebox no bigger than the one we rent. But when I think about squirreling away money to run away with my husband and travel the world, or sell up and sail away in a boat, my attitude changes completely. In fact, my biggest obstacle is what to do with my cat.

And what about this whole self-sufficiency lark? Imagine a simple life without electricity bills, with fresh pesticide-free meals on the table. Imagine not caring what the neighbors think because they’re heading off into traffic and you’re headed into your garden to plant zucchini. Gives a person a warm fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it? Or is it just me?

Weather or Not

Hooray for global-warming! Finally, chronic wallflowers like myself have something to talk about at parties! I mean, take the weather yesterday. It was blazing in the morning, what Jose would call earthquake weather--hot, dry and still, as if it was waiting for something to happen. I know I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Everyone out on the beach path seemed a little more tense than usual. But by the time we turned our bikes around to head home, the wind had turned around too, unfortunately not in our favor. Underneath the stifling warmth was the occasional waft of cool air, as if the seasonal weather was trying to fight it’s way through the oppressive dryness. By the time we got home it was chilly and windy. Weird weather. I’m telling this story to you and I’ll probably tell it to several other people before the day’s up. The weather is a hot topic of conversation right now.

When I first came here, I would use the weather as a means to start a conversation with someone I didn’t know. The weather is a traditional British icebreaker. Phrases such as, “Lovely day for the time of year,” and, "Looks a bit like rain today,” could be used with passersby as a polite extension to the basic hello, which can come across as curt or unfriendly if it isn’t quickly followed by a remark.

“‘Morning.”
“'Ow do.”
“Turned nice.”
“Weatherman got it wrong again.”

This would be a typical exchange between two Yorkshiremen whose paths had crossed on a typical morning. It’s not exactly a conversation, but it’s friendlier than your basic nod of the head-type greeting.

I can’t say I was ever specifically taught to do this—it’s one of those unwritten rules of etiquette—but I learned it at an early age, carried it into adulthood and brought it with me when I immigrated. It’s tricky to use in Southern California. Until the rains hit, assuming they do, there isn’t much one can say, except, “Nice day again.” But after a while, people begin to stare at me as if I am deranged. Of course it’s a nice day again, that is why most of us live here. Finally, someone explained to me that it’s considered almost rude to talk about the weather—a sure sign that you have nothing to talk about. I thought that was the whole point. I do have nothing to talk about with people I don’t know. The weather is a nice safe topic, general and not too personal.

British people, as a general rule don’t ask personal questions. At least that’s the way I was brought up. So with the weather eliminated from my repertoire of small talk, I have no option but to stand in a corner at parties, clutching my drink and grinning inanely until someone takes a chance and comes over to interrogate me. Even if I’m too British to ask questions, I’m perfectly happy to answer them.

But now, there’s lots to talk about—spring on the East Coast in January, snow in Santa Monica—every day there’s a new weather phenomenon to use as a springboard for a conversation. No more need to pry into a person’s professional or marital status—always dangerous areas if you ask me—now I can jaw all day about rising sea levels, melting ice caps and even about Polar Bears being added to the endangered species list. Hoorah!! What’s more, everyone’s doing it! People in line at the grocery store are talking about the recent cold front that swept through the state and killed off our lettuce plants. Fellow runners are griping about the heat, or the cold, or the rain, or the lack thereof. The weather is finally becoming a socially acceptable topic of conversation. Before you know it, people will be getting out of their SUVs to commune with their fellow man about shrinking lakes and erratic weather patterns. Thank goodness they’re only talking, though. If people actually start doing something about it, there’ll be nothing to talk about. And where will that leave me? Alone in the corner with my slowly melting ice cubes.

Of course, if we don’t act, there’ll be no-one to talk to anyway, but that’s a different conversation all together.