Forgotten Crime

Honey Nut Cheerios tumble into my older sister Roz’s bowl, the cascading round O’s matching her blue eyes. I carefully pour milk into her bowl, making sure that her Cheerios are evenly covered.

I am Roz’s prevention policy against frustration; I spoon her sour cream, set minutes on the microwave, and towel-dry the glass dishes. Spilled milk, crystal shards, tears; in these things resides the reality of disability.

Putting down the carton, I ask her, “Are you going to miss me while I’m London? Four months is a long time.”

“Yeah, I’m going to miss you.” Picking up her spoon, Roz looks up at me.

“Who’s going to pour my milk in the morning?”

A month later, I trudge through the breathing rooms of the London Imperial War Museum. Taking the antique, metal elevator up to the Crimes Against Humanity floor, I enter the Holocaust exhibit.  These rooms are cooler than the rest, more quiet, still with secrets. I pass Hitler, and the smell of burning books wafts to my mind as faded Stars of David on blue breast pockets droop behind smudgy glass panes.

I glance to my right, and my stomach turns at the sight of a gleaming white table. I cannot yet read the plaque, yet somehow I know this table’s story. It is not a good one. As I draw closer to it, the table seems to rest on its haunches, taunting me, sinister and slick, its clean white metal hiding dirty black deeds.

The dark room propels me forward, betraying me, forcing me to stumble forward unwillingly. I stand before the table, and read:

Children…mental retardation…T-4…genocide rehearsal…unfit for society…sterilization…experiment…

Murder.

The words on the plaque blur together. I turn to the table, its dead red eyes reflecting children’s screams and their naked exposure to white-coated probing, flashing cameras and sharp instruments, scientists taking detached notes and emotionlessly practicing their cruel sciences under the guise of research and –

I see my sister’s face in the scared eyes of the littlest ones.

In an alcove off to the side, I sit on a bench in the darkness and grieve. Next door, the sterile and sightless scientists sit, still and silent in their frames, the horror of their actions forever frozen.

Wiping my eyes, I desperately wish to ask them, “Would you have thought differently if you poured her cheerios every morning?

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

–Mary Oliver (Dream Work)

Life Motto: Feed Yourself and the People You Love

On my mind as of late…

“If you can master these things, you’re off to a really great start: eggs, soup, a fantastic sandwich or burger, guacamole and some killer cookies. A few hints: The secret to great eggs is really low heat, and the trick to guacamole is lime juice—loads of it. Almost every soup starts the same way: onion, garlic, carrot, celery, stock.

People used to know how to make this list and more, but for all sorts of reasons, sometime in the last 60 or so years, convenience became more important than cooking and people began resorting to fake food (ever had GU?), fast food and frozen food. I literally had to call my mom from my first apartment because I didn’t know if you baked a potato for five minutes or two hours.

The act of feedisting oneself is a skill every person can benefit from, and some of the most sacred moments in life happen when we gather around the table. The time we spend around the table, sharing meals and sharing stories, is significant, transforming time.

Learn to cook. Invite new and old friends to dinner. Practice hospitality and generosity. No one cares if they have to sit on lawn furniture, bring their own forks or drink out of a Mayor McCheese glass from 1982. What people want is to be heard and fed and nourished, physically and otherwise—to stop for just a little bit and have someone look them in the eye and listen to their stories and dreams. Make time for the table, and you’ll find it to be more than worth it every time.”

-Shauna Niequist

Always

Are you always sad? someone asked.
(Always is such a long, long time.)
I couldn’t say. But.
If sadness was a sea, I’d drown in it.
(Salty and warm, sadness is.)
(Cold, too. Sometimes.)
And I happen to love the sea.

I’ve been wondering lately:

How much of love is decision and how much is feeling?

Grounding Love

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton

Sharing Bananas: Cultural Lessons in Generosity

The law of the American jungle is to remain calm and share your bananas.

 –Anne Lamott. 

Pulling up to a stoplight in Ocean Beach, I look to my right and notice a man holding a cardboard sign that says, “Can you please spare some change, homeless and hungry, thanks.” Feeling guilty, I root around in my bag for something to offer the man and pull out a Luna protein bar. Ironically, Luna bars are advertised as “the whole nutrition protein bar for women.”  Somehow, I don’t think that this man will mind. He probably needs the extra folic acid and calcium more than I do. I check my door locks, roll down my window a crack and hand him the bar. As soon as he takes it, I roll my window back up and look forward.

Whenever I encounter this kind of person at a stoplight, I am always faced with the same dilemma. Should I give him money? Is he going to try to approach my car if I ignore him? Is offering a Luna bar enough? I’m sure he must get tired of hearing the click of door locks being checked, the blare of the radio being turned up, the squeak of windows being raised – like me, most people will do anything to avoid making eye contact. Countless times I’ve driven right by, not even giving thought to the implications of the tattered cardboard sign and rusted shopping cart.

You see, I’ve been taught not to share my bananas. I live in a culture where what you have is yours and what I have is mine. My family used to live in a house where our lawn connected with a small side-strip of our neighbor’s grass. My dad would often mow our neighbor’s bit of grass when he was working in our yard. One day, our usually good-natured neighbor came out and yelled at my dad for coming onto his property. Don’t cross my border, don’t touch my bananas, he was saying.

United States citizens pride themselves on protecting their borders, always trying to find a way to keep “them” or “the others” out. However, I’ve encountered some cultures that seem to have mastered the art of sharing bananas, loving neighbors, breaking down borders. Last summer, my friend Rachel took a trip to India. While there, she visited a safe house just outside of Mumbai set up as a refuge for women and children rescued from prostitution. The center was simple and poor, full of people needing refuge. As soon as Rachel and her team walked in the doors, the women running the house ran to the kitchen and immediately began to heat water. When Rachel asked what they were doing, the women replied, “We’re putting on water to serve the chai. You have traveled so far, you must be thirsty.”

It was clear to Rachel, even through the interpretation of a Hindi translator, that hospitality and generosity were deeply engrained in these women. Their selflessness was overwhelming; there was never any question they would share what little they had with their guests. So often at home, I have to be reminded to put the chai on, to pass the banana, to share what I have.

It was only 7:00 a.m., and the Mexican sun was already beating down on us unremittingly. My fellow travelers and I decided to brave the heat and set out for a day at the beach in La Paz. We spent the day at la playa swimming and splashing in the cool water. In the late afternoon, we beached ourselves on the sand and began to build a sand castle. Interested in what we were doing, some of the locals came over to join us. We all sat on the edge of the beach, toes in the cool water, constructing a veritable sand kingdom.

It was a team effort; black, orange, brown, and white hands scooping sand into towers and moats. Some of the Mexican ladies traveling with us brought us offerings of fresh mangos splashed with lime and sprinkled with fiery chili powder. We descended upon the cool, ripe fruit and began to pass mangos around. We passed the fruit in a sort of rhythm; take a bite, juice running down arms and face, pass it on, repeat. I don’t even know whose hands were holding the mangos I was eating, but I’m positive that at one point we were all eating off of the same mango. By the end, all our hands were identical orange; sticky-sweet sand fingers working in sync to craft our sandy empire.

In Mexico, faced with the challenge of overcoming cultures and colors, I am willing to share my mangoes. Sometimes, all it takes is a taste of someone else’s selfless chai, mango, banana; encountering a different way of doing things is the first step in changing the way we ourselves think and act. And after those experiences, maybe we will be quicker to share our bananas back home.