Half the Sky

After my parents divorced when I was six, and my mother's lover wouldn't divorce his wife, my mother took to hating men. She walked into a women's bookstore down the street called Half the Sky and found where she belonged, surrounded by the strongest women she'd ever known: intellectuals, writers, artists, sculptors, musicians, all with radical feminist views for the 1980s. My mother became the token hetero in this group and my brother and I became their children. I remember later in life telling people that I wasn't just raised by my mother, I was raised by a pack of lesbians.

Who's got it easy?

You don't know how easy you've got it, he says. Damn right, I don't. How easy I've got it? Who's with the boys during the meditation and breathing exercises each morning? Who's fixing their breakfast five mornings a week and getting them dressed while he's shaving and taking his shower and getting ready for his day? And more? Who's spending his day actively in an adult world, doing what he loves, with no pressure to make it to daycare in time to pick them up, get their dinner ready, do the same fucking routine over and over and over again. It's not me that's got it easy enough to be able to say, "Gotta work late tonight. Be home after they're in bed." Not me that's got it easy enough to be able to say, "Going to Petite Riviere this weekend to work on the condos. I've got a lot of stuff to take care of." A lot of stuff to take care of does not translate the same to me. It's not me that's got it easy enough to breathe in the peace and quiet and a break from the every every day the same, the same, the same. Sure maybe it's busy, but it's not the busy of the daily diaper, the daily tantrum, the daily on my fucking hands and knees getting kicked in the head under the high chair, picking up yet one more overturned on purpose bowl of whatever they didn't want anymore of. Yes, I've got it so easy. One week in my world and he'd never say that again. I'd give him that week if I could only figure out how not to feel the mother guilt.

Mario's Dog

Just going over some things from my past that I saved on a disk before moving to Quebec. I taught for seven years at an 85% hispanic elementary school in inner-city Dallas, teaching in the worst crime zip code of the city, 75217. At the time Mario drew this, he was in the second grade, in 1999. God only knows where he is now.

Fall in Quebec

If there's one thing that Texans don't get, it's a real Fall. The leaves are green one day, brown and off the trees the next.

Right now I resist the urge to pick up everyone's leaves and send them back to Texas. I want to say, Look at what this part of the world calls autumn. This is the real deal! A rainbow of reds, oranges, and yellows, the most brilliant I've ever seen!

I understand why all these Japanese tourists file out of their tour buses with cameras glued to their noses. It's spectacular! Ahhhh, to be in country with four seasons. I know...I'll be cursing the fourth season in a few months and begging for a trip to Mexico.

Teaching English

I started teaching English to adults last month while the boys are at daycare, a perfect job for me right now. I'm able to teach from home, over the phone. No dressing up, no traffic, no gas, no make up, no shower. Perfect for a mother of twins. For the ten minute break between classes, I'm able to do all the menial tasks that I hate...the daily emptying of the dishwasher, the daily washing and drying and folding of little clothes, the daily preparation of making sure a meal is ready for 5 and then another ready for 8. My students get an hour a week, spread out into 20 or 30 minute classes 2/3 times a week.

You get to learn a lot about people when you teach another language because you're always using the other person's life experience to build the vocabulary and conversation. Like Isabelle, that never fulfilled her life-long dream of being an architect because she dropped out of school to take care of her dying mother. And Sylvie, a member of the International Lego Association, with her 40,000 legos, that sleeps next to her end tables made of legos. There's also Luc, my philosophical contractor, talking each day on his cell phone in between job sites. He's just finished the Secret, recently translated into French, and now he's on a mission to have me using it as well. I'm the teacher and he's giving me the homework. My life sentence declaring what I want for myself is due Tuesday.

Four Leaf Clovers

I found another four-leaf clover this morning, the second one in the last month. As you can see, the one this morning is experiencing Fall, a little rough around the edges, a meal for a little bug. Both times I was sitting in my yard, staring down deep in thought, and focused right in on them, not searching or even thinking about finding one.

I read that the chances of finding a four-leaf clover are 1 in 10,000, which makes me feel better this morning. I spent last night in emotional turmoil, wondering how it is that I follow my personal dreams of being a writer and an artist while being a mother to young children, a good partner to my partner, and able to contribute financially to this family in the mean-time, before I start making money doing what I love and am passionate about. I don't know how women juggle it all and keep a balance. I do know that something must change within me and that change is starting now. Luck is here and there's more to come.

Though they are now 20 months old, they had their 18 month checkup yesterday. A little late, I know, but what can you expect with a healthcare system short of doctors? The offices are maxed out. The only reason we didn't have to wait until January was because one of the doctors came out of retirement to give the office a hand. He was an older man in his seventies probably, the doctor that originally started this pediatric clinic. He handled the boys like a pro, through their fear and panic, as his cracked hands moved them this way and that, checking their reflexes, belly, balls, throats, eyes, ears. And the ears...

Alexandre and Jacob both have ear infections and I once again have felt like the bad mother, having waited too long to go to the doctor. I waited so long that Alexandre has the worst kind he can have, I'm told, since I couldn't quite understand the French word he used. Sounded like oozing, so that's what I imagine. This explains his wake ups in the middle of the night and his horrible mood over the last week. He screamed bloody murder all the way home from daycare on Monday, throwing his grapes into the front seat and kicking his arms and legs violently while strapped into his car seat. I took it to mean that he was just letting off steam like he so often does when he sees his mommy. They are prone to usual fits when I pick them up. Eruptions of frustration. It's like they've been holding everything in at daycare and use me as the release.

For the record, Jacob is now taller, heavier, and has a bigger head than Alexandre. For starting out in the world at just over 4 lbs, that's quite an accomplishment. He weighed in at 28.83 lbs and 32.87 in tall.

The lost Texan is finding her way in the cold French land. With two babies under my belt and enough language to move myself around, I've finally, after over two years, started to work again. I want this first entry to be the beginning of the next phase in life, where my life in a new land will be written, where the lives of my beautiful twin boys will be documented, and my struggles and successes will be recorded.