An A-List Blog

The Blogger’s Concierge gave my former blog, Perfect Welcome, an award for being an A-List Blog.  I think I  was the only one to receive that award before it (the award) died an early death.

However, it totally made my day (month/ year), as it was the only award I had ever won for my blog.  The  following is what I submitted for consideration – excerpts of the posts from my former blog, some of which I’ve  brought over to this one and modified them to suit.  You can click on the link to read the whole post if any of them catch your interest.

Thanks TBC.

I am amusing. A year ago, at 42 weeks and a day, I hit a low point in my pregnancy and birth moments as the doctors were trying to …. well the literal translation would be “unclench” the cervix to allow the Petit Prince to make his appearance. I had spent the day and night, and then day in the hospital to that end and, just like Rachel in Friends, watched as my roommate came in with contractions, went out, and came back in with a baby, while I was sitting around with nada. After the second day waiting in the labor room, the nurses sent me to my room to eat and take a shower before deciding what to do with me and my high security portal.

The contractions were starting as I made my way through the main public lobby in my openhospital gown, holdingmy own IV up high to avoid blood loss since the maternity ward couldn’t spare a rolling IV pole (are we in civilization here?), only to get into the tiny elevator where my husband wisecracked that my water would break and I would short-circuit the elevator and have to give birth standing up (don’t make me laugh!!), only to find my roommate surrounded by her baby and every known relative popping champagne in our room. Well, after a good cry of humiliation, I had to admit that the walk and shower did me some good because Petit Prince was born a couple of hours later.

I am ardent. In order to receive people with a heart and mind fully engaged, to go out with a light heart, or even to succeed in the skill of living at its most basic, we need to do everything possible to remain at peace with those we care about. And what a shame, what a loss, what a snag in the tapestry of human understanding to only care about those who think as we do.

I am apt. A square of chocolate can be the sweet impetus to get you to clean those dishes in the sink.  A cup of coffee with some non-dairy creamer (the white gold of France since it can only be bought in specialty shops at an exorbitant price) can give you the courage to tidy up the toy-strewn playroom.  And a warm pan of brownies, fresh out of the oven, can get you out of doors to attack the gardening (and tempt others to come over as well).  Even a packet of stale cookies, munched on standing up without thought or pleasure, can become the straw that broke the camel’s back where you throw the packet down in disgust and go start facing all the chores that await.  The Dessert Years.

I am adored. I confessed to my husband that it is quite a blow, a round of mid-life issues that I did not expect, and that I am really struggling with the fact that some aspects of my life can never be relived. This rant went on for quite a bit and culminated a couple of weeks ago in a pique when I started wailing that nothing awaited me but menopause (!!!), at which point Sir grabbed my hand to silence me and smilingly replied, “But honey – the best is yet to come!”

I am adept. Learning that we were not, in fact, pleased, they assured us that there are no problems, only solutions. But I don’t think they realize that solutions involve unmounting complicated beds that barely squeeze through the doors with our low ceilings, or that old furniture weighs more than modern Ikea stuff, and is going to involve relieving it of all its contents first. I’m guessing it won’t be a problem for them.

So Sir noticed that I’m a little dark and broody lately. Young Lady patted my head in sympathy and said, “Poor mommy. She’s tired!” And Young Knight has been hoping that by raising the frequency and decibel level of his pleas, he will be able to cut through the cocoon of my woes – all to no avail. Until I snap out of my funk (tomorrow, probably, when I have to start thinking of our New Year’s Eve party), I’m going to go lose myself in watching something on tv. Where there are no problems, only solutions.

I am articulate. Young Lady is eating bean sprouts – the ones I had … sprouted … all by myself for the very first time.

Young Lady, “When I’m a mommy, these will swim in my belly and make a baby.”

Me, “um, um, um”

Young Lady, “I saw it on the movie (at the children’s science museum).”
Peeling the hull off each sprout, “Maybe there’s a baby in here …. nope.  Maybe there’s a baby in here ….uh, nope.”

Me, “um, um, um ….”

I am accomplished. Wading through the crowds the week of Christmas (when you hope that you’re the only one not working and at the mall) is like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn and die. Except that you’re engaged in an activity nowhere near as useful as spawning – you’re buying plastic toys that will get a short shelf life only to add to the overflowing landfills. Don’t get me wrong – I’m on the more moderate end of the environmentalist spectrum, but the Christmas debauch can turn the stomach of even the least sensible.

And then the grocery shopping! I mean, someone has to get the foie gras and seafood, smoked salmon and turkey, the bûches de noels … and it seems that it’s someone from each and every household in Ile de France. My maneuvering the enormously laden cart through the aisles of Carrefour in a desperate sprint to find cinnamon sticks resembled Fantasia’s hippopotamus dancing ballet to Ponchielli more closely than I’d care to admit.

I am ambitious.

I’ve been sleeping for the last two weeks. I’ve been spending long nights happily lost in dreamland, grudgingly awakened by Petit Prince’s incessant, “Mamaaa? Mamaaa?” I’ve been napping under the pile of clean laundry on my bed that I’m too discouraged to put away, and reading regency novels under my covers since I had nowhere else to go. We’ll call it early hibernation and I was in need of a spring.

I am aesthetic.

In the eternal life cycle of construction, heaven is the finished product – the gleaming floorboards, the graceful curtains fluttering gently out from a breeze that pours through tall windows, matte walls that illuminate chosen pieces of art by their subtlety, steam curling upwards from a tall mug of tea (unfettered by dust) posed on a three-legged table next to the loveseat, where a lucky soul is draped with book in hand.  A domestic nirvana.

Hell is the week upon week of drilling, banging, sawing, shouting, hammering, scraping, demolishing, smoking, interrupting.  It is the dust that covers every utensil unlucky enough to be left exposed in the kitchen, that covers every chair in the living space, every soap, toothbrush, lotion container, every article of clothing left drying in the laundry room.  It is the sand and pebbles on the bathroom floor that can never be completely removed, except by the bare wet feet that exit the warm tub.  Hell is the waiting, the waiting – the putting one’s life on hold, hoping that one day peace will come, but never being entirely sure.

And purgatory is the weekends spent in construction, when no one is there but family, and yet evidence that your life is on hold unavoidably crowds your view.

I am Apocalypse Now.

So it was in front of the computer that I first started noticing my nostrils fill up with acrid dust.  I didn’t understand why all of the sudden the dust was bothering me and opened the window to get some fresh air.  Instead I got a good gust of smoke, which made me immediately think that one of the neighbors had a fire in their fireplace.  I started to wonder if our little fires would be as obtrusive, and what could possibly be done about neighbor’s fires that caused my nostrils to fill up with smoke.  I was still wondering as I went out to get Young Lady’s library book from the outside studio so she would be able to return it the next day.

And that’s when I saw all the live coals.  “You’ve got to be kidding me,”

I am approachable.

When we would cross each other I would say, “Bonjour.”  And she would nod.  NOD.  I wasn’t even worth her opening her lips.  So I thought, “I may be friendly (think puppy – eager, pant, pant – prostitute for affection), but I’m not a glutton for punishment.  I’m from New York and I can snub with the best of them.

I am abandoned.

But it’s not my physical bearing that’s the problem.  At merely forty, I feel old.  Past sorrows weigh me down like a set of weights: memories of lying with my face on the cold bathroom tiles as I try to come to grips with the fact that my brother just committed suicide; the deaths and cultural tensions we faced in East Africa that warred against our humanitarian efforts (meanwhile the attacks on the Twin Towers happening in the very town we left behind); the knowledge that nothing is ever permanent or promised, and the very beings I love the most in the world are gifts …. or perhaps loans, meant to be fully treasured and cared for.  This tires me out sometimes, the fact that nothing is permanent or promised in this life.

I am altered. I carried his body, heavier in death than it was in life and sat in the truck waiting for the driver to come.  Tears streamed down my face, my chest constricted with grief that there was no more life in this baby.  We drove to the orphanage and as soon as we pulled up, one of the older orphans started pestering me about getting them a computer.  I said, “Not now, Dowood.”  He looked at me in astonishment and said, “Teacher!  Are you cry?”  With tears streaming down my face I nodded my head.  He asked, “But why?”  I choked out, “because Moguay died.”  He said, “but …. don’t cry!  It’s just an orphan!”

* This post originally appeared in my former blog, Perfect Welcome, and may contain some modifications or discrepancies in the names or comments.

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