Checking Those Boxes

Kids are taking off for college in a few short months. Not ours, not for a long while. But I have heard a lot of talk, from fellow parents, about the trials of the college admissions process. The anxieties shared by students and parents alike, about GPAs, SATs, APs, along with proper documentation of volunteer work hours, achievements in extracurricular activities, trophies and scholarships, awards and citations. How to prepare and produce the perfect admissions essay. What to share, and what to omit.

The New York Times ran a Race Remixed piece last week: “On College Forms, a Question Of Race, or Races, Can Perplex.”

Yes, I know.

All those beleaguered multicultural kids applying to colleges have to formally qualify their racial identities, in the throes of the most pressurized experience of their young lives. They are craving approval, marketing their own self-worth, trying to stand out in a faceless crowd. Some may deliberately manipulate the facts of their genealogy in order to tip the Affirmative Action scales in their favor. The article says it all – so I’ll share my own dated experience.

I applied to colleges in 1985. I remember toiling over applications at my mother’s cluttered desk, in her private office at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was the Chairperson of the Science and Math Department, with a state-of-the-art IBM Selectric typewriter available for my use. The “delete” key never fully erased errant letters, so I took pains to compose and correct my essays by hand, on paper with pen, before sliding the triplicate forms behind the rotor clamp. Checking boxes was a science in itself, lining each one up so that the striker for Capital X would land with pinpoint precision. Neatness could be a deciding factor in the admissions ordeal.

Each application posed the Race question. Some forms wanted one box checked. Others directed to check all that applied. My targets were: New York University; Wesleyan University; Sarah Lawrence College; SUNY Purchase. In cases where I had to be uni-racial, I chose black. My mother instructed me to do so. And I would have, even without her guidance. Not because I was trying to “get over”, but because black was my identity. If I had to choose a singular identity now, I would still pick black. Or “Other”, if given the option. But here we are, in 2011, and the statisticians have finally figured out to include “Multiracial” in the list. And isn’t it a beautiful thing that we each get to decide for ourselves?

According to the Times article, and the latest census data, vast numbers of multiracial people are living in our midst. It looks like my daughters will be the beneficiaries of this browning trend, and will never have to pick one race label for themselves. If they had to make a percentage-based statement, it would have to be white. But I trust they will identify as multiracial. It should be easy for them.

I am so grateful for that little line of text, “Check All That Apply”.

Who Killed Bambi?

The closest emotion I have to hatred - I mean the blanket hatred that underlies blind racism - is directed at deer. I really hate them. I'm a gardener, on a mountain, in a wooded area. My garden is a test kitchen for deer. I can name six plants that the deer don't touch: Peony, Daffodil, Barberry, Mint (family), Autumn Clematis, Myrtle. Everything else gets nibbled, often destroyed. In ten years of gardening on the mountain, I have been made a fool of, I've been robbed, I've been victimized. I don't appreciate the beauty of a caramel-colored doe, or a mightily racked stag, peering over a bush, softly masticating tender greens, its gentle eyes staring. I throw rocks at them. And they are slow to yield. I shout and hiss, and they leap away, only to return in dark of night. 

On a recent  morning, I was enjoying the view of our backyard, from inside, when I caught the telltale movement of a deer's head bobbing behind a lilac bush - only one garden predator attacks at that height. As I lunged for the door handle, poised to hiss her away, I noticed a tiny movement on the ground. It was a newborn fawn, about the size of a cat. Its freckled fur looked like it had just been towel-dried, unkempt and spiky, not quite wet. The tiny faun bobbled to its feet, barely able to stand. I stood in rapt amazement, quiet except for my abrupt release of the door handle, which made enough noise to alert both the mama doe and my spastic deer-hating dog to the circumstances. 

My 40-pound, brindle coated cattledog/mutt Pumpkin made her best attempt to get out: picture Gene Kelly in Singin in the Rain, running up the wall and flipping back to feet-on-floor. We call  it the alley-oop. At a target peak of 5 feet off the ground, the force behind the move is indeed threatening. The mama doe hesitated, then took several slow leaps out of sight. Her tiny baby wobbled, then hopped. Hardly managing to balance on all fours, it made enough little hops to finally disappear behind the brush, while poor Pumpkin hyperventilated beside me, denied the kill once again.

I knew it was fawn season. Reports were rampant of fawn sightings on our road. Oh my God! They're so cute! They're so bee-uuu-tiful! And they will grow up to be garden-killers, if the coyotes don't get to them first. I knew that damn doe and her damn baby would be back. Hungry. But I enjoyed sharing my fawn story with friends who know how much I hate deer. The irony wasn't lost. I thought, "This is my punishment for saying such terrible things about deer all the time. This is the universe telling me to give it up already. This is Nature beating me. And I thought we were friends."

Yesterday my family had what we call Pajama Day. It was a lazy Sunday, and the girls and husband and I hung around the house all day. Of course, by about 4pm we're all really sick of each other, and my husband is taking secret cigarette breaks in the driveway. We call that Calling His Grandmother, although the girls  know he doesn't have a living grandmother. During one of such breaks, I peek at him through the kitchen window and he covertly gestures for me to come outside. I'm thinking maybe he's craving a little alone time with me - even just a couple of minutes. So I tiptoe out, and then see by the look on his face that he's about to tell me something unpleasant - maybe awful. Then our dog Pumpkin runs by. She's supposed to be in her pen, a.k.a. The Corral, whose 7-foot walls can't contain her when she really wants out. She's not allowed to be running by. Husband rolls his eyes, then tells me: Pumpkin has killed the baby deer. It's in the driveway.

I look past him, and there it is. Bambi. Tiny and flat, lying on her side, with a big bloody wound across her middle. 

As a Mother, I am heartbroken. As a Gardener, I am vindicated. As a Hater, I am only mildly conflicted. 

We forbid the children to go outside, and of course they have to have an explanation. So we tell them the truth, explaining that Pumpkin was acting on her natural instincts, just as she had done before, with the birds, the groundhogs, and the neighbor's cat. They want to see the corpse, but we deny them. Husband puts his manly pick-up truck to good use, and hauls the little carcass away. 

Today I am still glad that there is one less deer on this mountain. I'm sorry for that mama doe, but I don't like her or her kind. 

Do I sound like a racist? I think I do.

100 Days of May

I don't believe that May has passed, and I only posted once during the entire month.

Maybe there's some truth to the theory shared by an administrator at my daughters' school:
There are really 100 days of May, squeezed into the 31 allotted on the calendar.

Our older daughter had three piano "events" in May. One audition and two recitals, one of which was on Mother's Day, which this year fell one day after her birthday. Somewhere in that weekend we squeezed in a slumber-birthday-party for her.  It took us a few days to recover. We also managed a visit from my mother-in-law, in honor of the bar mitzvah of her dear friend's grandson. It was a great occasion for our girls to celebrate a grand tradition of their Jewish heritage, and for my husband and me to drudge up the Hebrew School debate. Again. But that's for another post.

Our girls go to an independent school. You know, "private school". So their school year ends next week. That could have something to do with my recent overriding sense of dread - I mean excitement! During Memorial Day Weekend, we had an all-day outdoor eating event scheduled on each of the three festive days. We have too much going on. That's what everyone keeps saying: everyone has too much going on.

So earlier today, instead of applying any residual brainpower to writing something fresh and new, I posted a piece that I wrote last year, inspired by the imminent arrival of Father's Day. Because here we are again, sandwiched between the two parental holy days. We spent Mother's Day with my mother, making it more of a Grandmother's Day. And Father's Day is what we half-jokingly call Father-less Day. Because we have very few fathers/grandfathers in our family. But my daughters' father is very much alive, and we will celebrate him. And if I'm not too busy picking out end-of-year teachers' gifts on behalf of both the Pre-K and Kindergarten (I volunteered to do it again this year), we'll get him something nice. Something special.

Oh wait. Our wedding anniversary comes first. Hm. Help.

Father's Day: Photo Proof

The photo snapped after five blinks of a small red light, an electronic pulse at the center of our paired reflections. It gave us just enough time to prepare our best faces, frozen for posterity: 

I am adorable; you are enamored. 

I’m staring into my own reflection, watching yours. My smile is only half-formed. Tentative, as usual. You exude pride, satisfaction, and contentment, in your quiet way. Sequestered in that little photo booth, ensconced in the heavy teal of a fixed curtain across the back, and another pulled closed, we pulled close. In that tiny moment, we were fine.

I remember being eight years old that day. I had brushed my bangs straight, for our date, the rest of my unruly curls pulled back in a tight braid. I wore my favorite t-shirt: yellow with red piping, “ROCKY” spelled out in small, fuzzy, red iron-on letters: R O C K Y. My friends at school all loved the movie, and couldn’t resist the twisting of our family name. Mom and I thought the nickname was funny. I was so glad that you did too.

You swiveled the funny little stool around, and got the height just right. Then I sat on your lap, my feet dangling down, careful not to kick. Your long legs and slender frame offered ample room for my small self. You were four years younger than I am now! How strange, to see my adult features so clearly in yours. The creases in your smile, your half-shut eyes, collapsing for the camera just as mine do now. The thick, black arches of your brows, and that unmistakable chin. I am your child.

It’s always been “the picture of us, when I was eight”. I kept in my desk drawer for years, until a college friend gave me the tiny pewter frame. It fit so sweetly there. And thus ascended into the light, to a prominent position on my desk. By then the image was pure nostalgia.

The sight of your smile brings back your smell, your laugh, and the feel of your muscular hand gripping mine, when we walked anywhere together. Did you instruct me to sit up straight, or did I work that out myself? I’m convinced I hear your words: “Sit up tall, Melon Ball. Look right into the camera. See it? Just watch that flashing light.” My neck is stretched so tall. My posture is so unnatural. I am working hard at being a proper and confident young lady. I’m earning your smile, watching you watching me.

The writing shrouds that smile of yours.  As I dig, and dive, the deliberate dissection of our roots leaves little room for the light. Our photo deserves a shrine, elevation above the mire. A protected place, for the memory of your tenderness and affection. If I’m not careful, it will get lost in the tumult of this excavation. Buried in the muck.