Eid Mubarak

I've started and deleted this post many times.

So Eid Mubarak.

Ramadhan Mubarak

Fig
Originally uploaded by George Kaplan

I can't fast this year but I have to do something. I thought I'd start the month out by giving this tender present to the basket.

Ramadhan is all about wanting & waiting, holding out with a community until the moment you all take a bite. It is a slow down in the year because time always moves slower when you're waiting for the sun to go down. And it is also the excitement of seeing people, people you always want to see but don't get a chance to, at the most delicious and anticipated time each day.

The preparations are elaborate because if you can't eat, you at least want to be planning food, washing fruit, slicing cheese, watching bread rise in the bowl. All these preparations promise that the sun will go down. When it does you can slice up the fig, give one half to your lover or sister or friend and collectively enjoy the most perfect satisfaction of breaking your fast.

Called By a Higher Power

I have been called to be on a jury pool. I'm supposed to call in the weekend before (it will be in December) to see if I'm needed. The timing isn't great (when would you have two weeks where nothing else needed to get done?) but I am excited about the very possibility of being on a jury. In true fruitfemme fashion, I am exactly who I think should be on a jury!

On that note, let me retell my best "worst juror" story ever. I was with a woman in the courtroom and we were waiting for her hearing (she had been charged with assaulting an officer--she spat on him.) And this woman is in front of the judge (who shall not be named but who I think is heinous) we'll call her judge martin (wink, wink.)

So the woman before judge martin had been on a jury in judge martin's courtroom. The trial was 3 days along when the woman stood up and stomped out of the room, disgusted with the whole thing. Judge martin sent a bailiff after the woman. She took off, got in her car and went home. So they sent a sheriff deputy to her house to bring her back. And she HIT HIM. So now she was in front of this same judge for contempt and assaulting an officer.

At least I know not to try anything like that. I hope they pick me. (I hope I don't regret hoping they pick me.)

On another note: The Spanish Story Hour at the Library mentioned in a previous post.
So Khubz & I get there about 15 minutes early. There's one woman (her name is Berta) with her 5 month old who says something to me in Spanish. I freeze. All my spanish flees from my mind as suddenly, I am 5 years old and trying desperately to talk to my uncle in Arabic. She was saying things like, "My baby is 5 months old." I've said this sentence in Spanish when Khubz was 5 months old. Nothing, nothing, nothing--"uh, que?" So there was this nervous tension anyway, coupled with the strange energy anytime you interact with other adults as parent at these kinds of things.

So we get over that and her English waay outshines my Spanish and we exchange pleasantries about problems sleeping, joys of babbling and talking etc. etc. So at some point we trade names of the kiddos and hearing that my daughter's name is distinctly Mexican she asks, "are you teaching her Spanish?" this was said with some level of fear, surely, as she was currently experiencing my finesse with the language.

But it leads us to that moment. I'm not here with Scully. There's nothing obviously queer about me & Khubz here at the library. I'm clearly not ashamed of my family and yet it is hard, hard, hard to come out to Mexicans and I simply won't come out to Arabs. And it's not that homophobia is more present in one patriarchy than another. It's that I need something different from Arabs than other folks and this seems to have spilled over into Mexicans when it comes to Khubz.

So that's going on. This is also my opportunity to prove to Khubz that there's nothing wrong with her family. And frankly, this is my opportunity to practice so by the time she picks up more on nuance I'll be more smooth.

With that thought, I forged ahead. It was not smooth.

Me: Um, su mama es Mexicana, es de Tejas.
Her (deeply puzzled expression): Su mama?
Me (looking right at Khubz): si. Su mama.
Her: Su mama?
Me: Si. Es mi compañera.
Her: Tu compañera??
Me: Mi novia.
Her: Tu. Novia.
Me: Si.
Her (in Spanish & English): Oh, I thought, you're not her mama?
Me: Oh, si. Si. I'm her mommy.

Pause. (actually, there were lots of pauses all through.)

Me: Tiene dos mamas.

Stunned silence. A long moment later,
Her: She no have a dad?
Me: Nope. No dad. (sing-songy, looking only at Khubz.)

More silence.

Well, this is about over, isn't it? I think. When will the story time actually start? So it can end! Storytime starts with me, Khubz, this woman & her son and random kids who were already at the library. The facilitator does a great job reading the story in spanish and talking the story through in english.

Five minutes into the first story, Berta jumps up. She thrusts her son into my arms while quickly saying something "I've got to go! I've got to go!! You hold my son?!" Sure, I take her son all the while glad that I didn't have incontinence anywhere near that dramatic after giving birth. The facilitator tells us all that she had forgotten her cell phone on the bus on the way here. The bus is back so this is her only opportunity to get her phone. Okay.

So it was all good for about 2 minutes.
After that, her son (5 months old, remember) noticed that he didn't see his mom, he didn't see anyone he recognized, and this person (me) now clearly identified as a stranger was holding him. He begins to wail. WAIL. To the point that every librarian in the children's section comes over at one point or another to check on this clearly overwhelmed mom. Khubz, for her part, was not about to let me hold some newcomer while she was on the ground. We eventually found a compromise where I held the boy and she held my pinky. We walked back & forth, we looked out the window, we rocked--nothing.

5 minutes pass.

5 more minutes pass.

Is she coming back? I begin to wonder. Of course, as soon as that thought occurs to me I follow it out to it's il/logical conclusion. The frantic nonsensical musings included, "there's no WAY I'd turn this little boy over to the state!" and "what do you supposed Scully would say if I came home with a 5 month old?" and finally, "that's one way to get out of more fertility drugs"

This is all funny because, of course, she did come back. To her red faced boy gasping for air between wails. Pobracito. Poor little thing.

So we finished out the story hour and she thanked me again and said she hopes we come next time so it's not just her and her son.

Doing my best I try to tell her "see you later" which would have been 'hasta luego' but it comes out like this: "Hasta manana--ah, well, probably not tomorrow, but, you know, hopefully, next time."

WOW.

So the long & short of this (long) story is sometimes there's just an element of surprise, a need for an awkward moment to understand because the world doesn't teach people to expect an arab lesbian with really pitiful Spanish and her Saudi/Mexican/American daughter at the Spanish Story Hour in KANSAS. And, sometimes, once you get through that moment, that surprise you can carry on with the business of getting to know someone.

Stay tuned. We'll be back at storytime next week.

It happens, right?

Quick call in to clc to check on Khubz. She is fine, she is happy, she is healthy, she is enjoying herself, she is playing with toys, she had a good time going outside, she is safe and she is well-rested. What more could two mommies want?

"did you know that she loves mustard?"
"no. . ."
"she loves mustard! We had hotdogs today for lunch and. . . "
"Did Khubz eat hotdogs?"
"Yeah"
"Oh, because I packed her lunch today and we don't eat hotdogs."

Lots and lots and lots of apologies from Kara, the lead daycare provider. She's really, really, really sorry and I really, really, really believe that it was just an honest mistake. She's got how many kids and they're hungry and it's chaos. I'm not mad at her but I am perturbed.

Now I'm not crazy. I don't fear that Khubz is going to suffer dire health consequences because she had a hotdog for lunch. I'm not worried that the pork she consumed will now preclude her from going to heaven. I am not terrified that she's had a hotdog and next she'll want to sing the star-spangled banner. So, please, know that I am not being ridiculous.

I am not turning in my notice at work so I can stay home with her. I am not looking for a new daycare. I am not designing a "no pig, please" t-shirt for Khubz to wear to daycare.

And since I am not flying off the handle I do think that means I get to rant about my f e e l i n g s . . .

The problem with all of this is that it represents the rub of my family against the majority. This is not the first conflict (duh) but it is one of the first where the primary point of impact is Khubz as opposed to me or Scully. And she is encountering this conflict in the absence of her mommies, in the absence of anyone who even knows there's any conflict at all. Because we represent the conflict and they are simply being the majority.

I don't want her eating hotdogs. Not because there is anything inherently destructive about one hotdog but because I want us, our family, her mommies, me & Scully to set the norm. They already set the norm with all of the rest of her daily environment: the music, the books, the rules, the language, the toys. And we have her in care there because we feel like their norm is generally compatible with what we want. We like their rules, their toys, their music. . .

But there is something about the way Khubz's world tastes.

It is wonderful to share food with other people & find out what their world tastes like. It's not a big deal that she ate a hotdog. I fully expect to delight her with funnel cake at the county fair and beef ribs at the rhythm & ribs festival. It is her everyday, her norm, her standard, her landscape. . . That's what I insist on keeping in family.

Please know that I am not hoping to keep Khubz in a bubble.
I am not delusional about all the dominant/crap I consume (just wait for the upcoming post on the library book sale.) I liked this whole rant better when it was punctuated by beautiful pictures of spices.

At least my hang-ups smell good

What is my deal with Khubz and the food she eats?

It starts with one small seed pod. But it doesn't end there.

I want her sense of home to be cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, lemons and pistachios. I want her to stay home from school with the flu bug and ask for fideo. I want her to go away to college and tell me that she misses black beans tostadas. I want her to look lovingly at her partner when in the grocery store and replace the minute rice with brown basmati rice. I hope when she turns on the news to find out about the next u.s. occupation of the middle east and sees men sipping qahwa and think, "oohhh. . . I need make some right now."

I expect she will want twinkies and gift cards to unmentionable places in care packages when she is studying abroad. (Likely because, despite my better self, I want twinkies and those same poisonous gift cards.) That's fine. But I hope she'll pull out the envelope of cardamom pods, cook up some rice and then take the softened seeds to roll them around in her mouth.

I know there is no way and no reason to try and dictate what her future will be like. It's not that. It's more that I think we draft the landscape of "home" every day. This is what my home tastes like (along with pizza, sugar cookies, banana bread.)

At first I said "I don't want most of her food to be white people food." But that sort of fictionalizes my own history. I did grow up eating meatloaf and goulash and spaghetti and that kind of weird but yummy green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup and those crispy onion thingies. But I also had mint tea and afghani meatball soup and lamb and okra and spinach/feta pies and dried chickpea candies and baklawa made with rosewater.

I fix goulash. It takes 10 minutes, is pretty cheap and totally easy. So I'm not saying the girlchild will have no exposure to american food. But having the daycare provide her 2/3rds of her meals mean that they draft the landscape. Not us. And the only place she's likely to eat kabsa or roasted eggplant with yogurt or foul is with us. And I don't want us to be up against the majority at our own dinner table. And somehow all that olive oil and tahana and burgl and parsley seems more precious and worth safeguarding.

In truth I doubt I'll keep it up (packing lunch for my toddler who is provided with perfectly nutritious meals at daycare.) But it seemed worthwhile yesterday. And it did again today. Tomorrow. . . ? Stay tuned.