Race in the 21st Century

Last year a friend of mine said, I think the next generation is blind to race. They just don't care. Not us. But our kids. It makes no difference to them. I thought about it. I didn't know.

Theo lives in a multi-cultural society and doesn't think much about race or skin color. Half his friends are half something. He himself is a faux Latino. But still, with the start of school he has started making observations. He says things like, "Koreans can't go to birthday parties on Sunday, because they all go to church." It is not racist, per se, and, in fact, in his experience, many of his dearest friends, who happen to be Korean, do all go to church on Sunday. He knows because he cares.

He never talks about race. But he talks about skin color. When he is trying to explain to me who a new friend is so I can understand he will say, "She is light-skinned," or "He is dark-skinned."

But here is the funny part. For him there is no association with race or culture. It is simply a characteristic, like eye color. And he does not even see it as a family thing. I was trying to figure out what he defined as light-skinned, and what as dark-skinned, especially in this huge, crazy mixed up melting pot of a city where we have every shade of everything.

So I started asking about our family. He is light skinned, and so is Benji. Ditto for me, Jonathan, his cousins. But my brother, he said, is "a dark-skinned" person. Not my mother, who looks just like my brother (though now her hair is gray) and not my sister, who looks just like my brother. He has dark hair and dark eyes, and he does tan better than the rest of us, but still, I was left confused.

But I like that for him your skin color is just something you are born with. It can come from anywhere and every family has everything. It is a beautiful vision of color, of race, of family, and of the world.

So maybe my friend is right. I hope so.

My Urban Child

When we drive by any green space that doesn't have a playground Benji shouts out, "Hold your breath! It's a graveyard."

The boy has never seen grass! O dear!

yahrzeit

This is an important day. This is the day I set out for Larkspur last year to see Natalie. I was supposed to go up to San Francisco for the Blogher conference, and to see Natalie, but I didn't sign up for the conference in time, but had already gotten Jonathan to agree to some childcare, so I went to see Natalie anyway. It ended up being Natalie's last weekend on earth--and I was there out of a quirk of fate--and it also propelled me to start a blog, since I wasn't going to actually go to the Blogher conference.

So this is, really, the anniversary of my blog, and of Natalie's death.

Very important.

So I wonder, is my subconscious going to rear its head? Am I going to be tossed and turned by emotions deep inside me at the cellular level?

I don't know.

But I am seeking ways to commemorate Monday, the day of her death. And Jonathan suggested Yahrzeit, the Jewish tradition. So I will do that. I will light that candle for 24 hours, and think of her and all she was.

I have decided I will also do a few other things.

Today I bought some Tibetan prayer flags on impulse. They are more Marin County than Whitley Heights, but who cares? I will string them up in the garden. I will plant some nasturtiums and marigolds--because she loved them both. And I will try to get her memorial mix from her sister to play on Monday all day.

Finally, I will do a little yoga, dance a little, and do a little meditation. Perhaps I will make a vow to compost in her honor. I don't know. She would like it. But am I up to it?

If any of you have any ideas, let me know. I am grasping for rituals...

An L.A. Secret...

After I dropped Benji off today I headed off for a treat: a hike alone in Griffith Park. I opted for the other side--over by the zoo. So I drove up past Shane's Inspiration and parked under the trees in an area I had hiked long ago with my dear friend William, and his mountain dog Ruth. I was looking for the old Griffith Park Camp, now abandoned--but I remembered a swimming pool high on the hillside (now empty) near a water tank, perched in a canyon overlooking all of Burbank and Glendale.

The great thing about Griffith Park is wherever you are you can spot your landmarks and see a fire road, so you can wander off, but never get lost. Today I stumbled upon the old L.A. Zoo--a small, cozy canyon where the animals were kept from 1912 to 1965. I had seen the old carved lions at the entrance to the current L.A. Zoo and loved them, but this was even better. I wandered around past cages and stone outcroppings that had once held lions, tigers, macaws and other exotic animals.

It was like falling into an old storybook. I wondered if the ghosts of the old monkeys and animals from afar were still there. They felt like it. I could imagine the old movie types strolling under their parasols in linen and ruffles, gawking at these amazing animals, dreaming of which scene they could use them in for their next movie.

It was the artifacts of 1920s L.A..

Trips We Never Forget

Isn't it strange those trips you take when you are a child, that are important, but you don't realize until 30 years later that they have changed the course of your life?

I think about it a lot now, because I feel like I am planting the seeds of the future in my boys with every little thing we do. And as I do it, planting seeds intentional and unintentional, I wonder what will stick, what will take root, what will last? Will it be the things I try so hard to set up? Or the spontaneous things I never even meant to teach, that stick in their minds forever?

My father is from California--Coronado to be exact. At least as much as he is from anywhere. He denies it, and has culturally renounced California and all it stands for, but despite that, Coronado is the place that seems to make him the happiest in the world. Except for perhaps Naples, Italy. But this part of him was hidden from us, because we lived on the East Coast and Europe. Coronado, California and Hawaii were only places in bedtime stories, where his most exciting childhood exploits took place.

When I was 11 we finally flew west to California to see my Aunt Judy and her family. We stayed in Coronado. It was June, so the island was fogged in. But I remember every detail. My father leapt into the water and body surfed huge waves, his head sticking out like a lion in the middle of a frothy mane. I had never seen anything like it, nor did I know that my father possessed such magical skills. He would leap out of the water whooping for joy. The waves were huge. I tried it myself and got so tumbled in the waves (they flipped me and pinned me to the bottom) I got a little freaked, but i LOVED it. We ate at Taco Bell. We watched my cousin Kristin swim (she later went onto the Olympic trials and I spent years trying to be like her, begging and begging my mother to let me be on a swim team like Kristin, and with intervention from my aunt, it happened--I joined the Sub Base Barracudas, where they told me, at 11, I was too old to ever be very good, or learn butterfly like my cousin--my dream--but I could do it if I wanted. I did. ) We ate honeycomb for breakfast (no sugar cereals in our house) rode bikes everywhere, and wandered around the castle-like Hotel Del, where my father had once roamed the underground tunnels and stolen dinner plates, which still graced our table at home-- a childhood prize.

...and, my aunt made this unforgettable dessert. It was made of fried tortillas, sprinkled with cinammon sugar, served still hot, with vanilla ice-cream and honey drizzled over the top. I have travelled the world and never had it again. Finally, on the Fourth, I cornered my aunt and quizzed her. What were they? How did you make them?

They are called Bunuelos (imagine an accent waving over the "n"). She couldn't remember exactly, but she told me the basics. I came home and tried it. I fried up my tortillas, sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar, scooped on the ice cream and drizzled. My family was silent. But I was orgasmic. I had waited 30 years and they were as good as I remembered.

And I thought of how that trip changed my life. I live in California, I love the Pacific beaches. I body surf, surf and boogie board with my boys. I eat tacos and burritos several times a week and swimming became a huge part of my life. All from that trip when I was 11 years old.

I guess I spent the next 20 years trying to get back to California. Two out of three of us are here now. And if Ian ever did come back to the United States and renounce his British citizenship, I bet he would end up in California, too.

Is there anywhere better?

Old Friends

Is there anything better than seeing an old friend? I mean an old, old friend, who knows all your stories, your dreams, where you came from and where you wanted to go. Someone who knows what makes you crazy, and knows what makes you happy, and could pick out a dress for you from two thousand miles away and it would be perfect? I mean someone who believes in you and knows you better than you know yourself sometimes and really really loves you and would do anything for you--who you have fought with and cried with and laughed with and written almost love letters to?

Is there anything better than that?

Because how many really great, really wonderful, old friends who have really known you forever do you really get in this life?

First Day of Camp

Today was Benji's first day of zoo camp.

Theo went when he was four, and I thought it was time for Benji to have an adventure, too. He is bored by Canyon School--much as he loves his teachers. He has been there since he was in utero. He knows every song, every project, every toy and every book. When I go to pick him up he is always in the corner, alone, reading a book. He doesn't play with friends, and he doesn't really talk to anyone after he says good-morning to the teachers.

He is so smart. So in need of stimulation. And so shy.

So I signed him up for a week of "Cats and Dogs." I drove him over today at 9. He wore his safari hat like Diego's, snapped up on the sides, some too-big shorts inherited from Theo, his favorite river shoes, and his Cars backpack, filled with lots of sunblock, food and water. He is proud, because now he is doing all that Theo does. (camp, backpack, water bottle, hat, sunblock)

I walked him up to the table and signed him in. I put on the zoo camp T-shirt--purple, with a mama monkey and a baby monkey. Then, I introduced him to his counselor, she took his hand, and he walked away.

He looked so little. So lonely. I wondered if he will say a word all day, if he will ask for help if he needs it, or just start to cry. I wondered if he will like it, and if he will be OK.

He is my little one, my shy one, and I worry so much more about him than I ever did about Theo. Is it because he is my baby? I know that physically he is far tougher than Theo. But still. As he wandered away in his safari hat, his hand in his new teacher's, so full of trust, it took all my strength to not run after him and say, "Forget it. Forget it! I will take him today."

I got in the car and asked Theo if he thought Benji would be OK.

"I think so, Mommy," he said.