Just bad enough

I checked out the online bios of some of my new literary discoveries the other day and it turns out that quite a few of them are (or were) borderline criminal. One of them, G. D. Roberts, thought that with a bit of luck, there was money and fame to be made and he turned his life into a fine piece of literary art. “Shantaram,” is the title, and it’s well worth a day or two in a hammock. I’m off to visit ‘the continent’ but shall return shortly.

homesweethome - part two

When you move around a lot you become an expert in some odd disciplines. Picking dentists for instance. I have become an expert at locating benign dentists around the world. I can point out the psychos almost instantaneously. They usually have TV screens overhead and take x-rays of your bite gear every other visit.

Over the years of moving from place to place, I have also developed a hawk eye for functional communities. They are the ones with sidewalks that lead to places such as parks, playgrounds, community centers, libraries, and shops.

Finding such a place to live in can mean real quality of life. Everything else from making friends and building up networks to finding that gentle dentist is a piece of cake after that.

However, settling into new places and getting used to its wheelings and dealings is not an easy task. You either get really good at it or you end up avoiding it by all means because it is rather time and energy consuming and it can be a killer for relationships.

Whichever way you take it, packing up the belongings of an entire family and moving them only to unwrap them in some unknown and most likely temporary place is not that much fun even when you are good at it.

Transitioning, as the first months are generally called, can be a real drain on everyone. In a way, every day starts again at zero.
It's a seemingly endless process of adjustments like a dog settling down on a flee ridden blanket.

But it is also exciting because all cards are on the table and it's your turn to pick and choose.

homesweethome --part one

After years on the road, tossed from one shore to another, and at times living without any commitment to any given country or culture, I have lately found myself pondering the idea of settling down.

But it’s not the kind of settling down where one gets a mortgage and a dog but rather it’s about finding a comfortable state of mind.

For one, I don’t think we will ever live in just one place. How could we since everyone in our family has different attachments?

The girls, for instance, still think they are Ticas hailing from the South Caribbean, Matt although being the most adaptable of us is, in his heart of hearts, still mostly American, and I for my part, truly enjoy a handful of European castles around me. Settling down in our case will mean to find a way of living in many places at the same time.

At night, before I fall asleep I like to mind-travel. My imagination creates an image of a place I have known well and I then recreate the sensations that made that particular place so real at the time. Sounds, smells, and even feelings come back to me in their colorful range of hues.

I see the green volcanic slopes, their peeks shrouded in mist. I can smell the rain coming in from the coast on a tropical mid-afternoon and I am back in our home in Costa Rica. A high-pitched twitter of voices rings in my ears. The back patio is filled with life and the children are chasing each other in the yard behind. I wonder whether I need to check on dinner but then decide to linger because I have tired out my Spanish for the day and just want to take in the moment, sniffle the sweetness of the approaching rain. It is that real.

While time moves on mercilessly minds are allowed to linger. Moments of our lives are engraved into the backdrop of our minds just like long gone loves, and so is our notion of home.

Once we have thrown out our anchor and connected, learned the language, followed the local news, made an appearance at the town fair, gathered friends and shared food, a place becomes more than a couple of coordinates.

England will be such a place, I am casting my anchor.

if

Linear thinking is big in the First World. In highly individualized societies, where choices start with birth, failure also is individualized. It is a way of dealing with the ‘losers.’ Since everyone has a choice, nobody is a victim and, hence, no one but oneself can be blamed.

Around us it works somewhat like this:

If you live in the right neighborhood, you can send your children to the right pre-school that will get them into the right primary school. That primary school will then prepare them (i.e., coach and train or, bluntly put, condition them) to pass the selective examinations to get into the right secondary school.

And getting into the right secondary school figures prominently in countries that have privatized education such as the US and Britain.

In those countries state education simply won’t do. It’s a known fact that is rarely questioned. Everyone seems to have accepted the educational chicken ladder as the way to personal success (i.e., Oxbridge and onward into the mills of accounting offices and law firms). The pecking order is harsh and the losers are many and sorrowfully young.

In the late sixties, Britain passed an education reform that introduced the Comprehensive School, a system where every child is admitted and subsequently moves along according to her or his abilities.

But it immediately came under attack and was ultimately undermined by the parents from well-to-do areas who insisted that differences are in fact good. Of course, these same parents are able to make sure that in a soup bowl of inequalities their children will float like oil. Needless to say these children are by no means smarter, just more privileged.

In return that has led the middle class to fear for the well-being of their offspring. After all, no one wants to be stuck with the hoi polloi especially when entrance into Cambridge or Oxford is at stake. So better to take out loans and pay whatever the tuition, tutor, or training sessions may cost to make the grade and get them into one of the cadre academies.

It’s always the same. As soon as education gets tied to income it becomes unpleasant and on average still mediocre. Or have I missed all the fanfare announcing the future generation of geniuses pouring out of the gates of these skewed systems?

At some point, of course, the insanity is exposed. Children who graduate from so-called elite institutions don’t all have successful lives, they aren’t all well off, and they certainly aren’t all happy.

But guess what? They must have made some wrong choices along the way. Maybe if they had networked a little better and if only they had joined the right country club, or...

However, whatever they did or didn’t do, one thing is for sure: you can’t blame their parents.

And maybe that’s what it’s all about.

One Eye Half Shut

There are moments when the glass is actually half full without having to squeeze one eye shut and wrinkle up nose, forehead, and a sizable part of the rear end. Moments when there is silence without absence, when everyone is happily and quietly pursuing the one or other interest, when no temples get slashed by the corner of desks, no arms get pinched by baby fingers, no melodramatic ballads get hurled in the air of a tired after-dinner clean up, and no story problems evoke lengthy vitriolic diatribes.

The other day there was such a moment. Zoë had logged onto Skype for a science jam session with grandpa, Lea had a sea of colors assembled around her, eyes steadied on a beautiful O’Keffe rendition of a poppy, and Jules sat by himself in the back of the yard making mud pies for our new neighbors, an extended family of snails.

Funny enough, I almost missed it. I guess I got a little too busy with squeezing one eye shut.

Cut down

It’s a strange thing with mothers. Even though they are irreplaceable in a person’s biography they are often omitted with a blurb about the author, especially in the classics.

Again and again as I pick up this or the other book from Shelley to Tchechov I find no mention of their mothers.

Yet we may rightfully assume they were born by mortal females who surely had some impact on them and their development. Fathers, on the other hand, are dutifully mentioned regardless of their influence as a parent. Ever noticed this?

I have a friend who patiently listens to my observations and then heaves a sigh and tries to push me back in line. Why do I care? After all it doesn’t really matter.

Why, for instance, do I notice and (what’s almost more reprehensible) mention that children’s plastic toy animals tend to be predominantly male?

I don’t know why I notice these things. But someone should. And someone should also say that it’s just a tiny bit off. So why not me?

Okay, okay, don’t tell me.