My mother is white and my father was black. I am not alone in this. I grew up in the Bronx, New York City. Born in 1967. A relatively safe time and place for a brown girl of ambiguous ethnicity. As the mother of two little brown girls, I like to believe that race doesn't matter much. But the election of Barack Obama woke me up. Ignorance is everywhere. Race labels ring in my ears. They stick and they stain. Even when they fade. This is my rant, from “post-racial America”. Hoping to shed some light.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

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.
Posted by BROWNGIRL at 2:21 PM
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