Sense memory flashbacks

Honey called this morning to say he forgot his wallet and ask if I could please bring it into work with me this morning. He doesn't work too far from my office, so he'll swing by and get it.

When I opened the drawer that held his wallet, I was struck by a sudden comfortable rush of nostalgia and timelessness. There was nothing exciting about his wallet. It's just a black leather bi-fold that's been worn a little thin around the edges. But that's exactly what gave me such comfort. It's like most other wallets he's ever owned - at least since we've been together - and almost exactly like each wallet my dad has ever owned. Non-descript, black, bi- or tri-fold and worn at the edges from the time it has spent in back, or front, pockets. A wallet like that, in my mind, belongs to a man who cherishes time spent with his family and friends and who is much beloved by those same folks.

I love the sudden rush of comfort that the familiar can bring.

My grandmother's kitchen always smelled of gas. I was probably in my 20s before I consciously considered what that odor was. I was never fond of it per se, but it pervaded the kitchen, and since the house was small, to a lesser extent, the entire house. But now, whenever I catch a whiff, I'm enveloped in contentment. And it has to be old gas with a used kitcheny smell to it. Gas in a furnace room? Nope. Gas in a new house kitchen? Pff. As if. Gas in the kitchen of the homeless shelter Honey and I used to volunteer in? Yup. The same goes for the vague scent of pine in a pre- or post-rainy sky. It's very rare, here in this part of the East Coast. But maybe once a year, right after a rain, the conditions are just right and I can smell a vague trace of pine on the air. It reminds me so much of northern New Mexico, and even of the desert southwest Texas and southeast New Mexico. The air has to be dry enough to carry it. It's so gentle, so delicate and fresh. It smells like life and renewal. (Honeysuckle has that same quality, for me.) The few times I catch that scent here, I'm at home and at peace, if even only for a few minutes.

The other day, I was eating a peach over the sink. It was particularly juicy and a droplet started making its way down my chin. I was instantly a gradschooler eating one of our backyard peaches in the sun. Back then, whole streams of peach juice would weep down my chin. I can't recall how sticky I'd get. Probably not too. I'd make short order of the peaches anyway, and as I was accustomed to drinking out of the back hose when I played outside, I'd likely wash off my chin. But it felt so good and right, even though I was a grown up, not in play clothes, in an air conditioned house, standing over a sink like some civilized stiff.

My mother in law was in town the last few days. Which meant my sister-in-law and nephews came over a few times. I have sense memories of my grandparents that I cherish: the rouge gel that Grandma colored her cheeks with, the smell of whatever cologne and hair product concotion Grandpa is part of his daily routine. I wonder what sense memories my nephews will take away from their visits with their grandparents. I wonder what sense memories I'm building now, in my adult life, that will comfort me decades from now.

The Devil You Know

This began as a comment response to Virginia Gal's latest post. As frequently happens, I started running off at the keyboard, so I just made this a post of its own.

The reason why most Americans are less fearful of homegrown terrorism than they are of foreign terrorism comes down to people being less afraid of the devil they know versus the devil they don't know.

White people have been in America waaaayy longer than Arab and Muslim people. So, when a white asshole bombs a building, it's perceived as a freak event, because virtually every American of any creed or color knows 1,000 basically nice white people for every 1 white average jerk. However, very few average Americans - and I mean statistically, racially/ethnically average (still about 70% white) - personally know or have met more than one or two Arabs or Muslims. So, when an Arab or Muslim asshole flies a plane of mid-week passengers into a building, it's not perceived as a freak event, but as, "wow, this must be the norm!"

Some fuel to this anti-Arab or anti-Muslim prejudice, at least in my lifetime, is that the only images of Muslims we've received in the media have been of the PLO shooting old Jewish American men in wheelchairs and tossing them off the boughs of cruise ships; terrorists bombing discos frequented by Americans in Berlin; bombing our barracks and embassies in Beirut; masked gunmen killing the Israeli Olympic team in Munich; Muslim men with scarves covering half their faces chanting "death to America" and burning effigies of presidents, and flags; jihadists hijacking our airplanes in the 80s or blowing them up over foreign destinations; and not the least of images, women who must cover from head to toe and be beholden to the men in their lives, walking several paces behind their husbands who view them as nothing more than machines to make more men. (I'm sure that last image was harsh on my part, but seriously, they treat women like shit in most of these countries.) With the exception of the cultural sexism, are those vicious behaviors freak occurrences in the Arab world and among Muslims? Almost certainly. But how can you expect an average American - who may or may not have ever met an Arab or Muslim - who only gets that news and those images to think that there is not a threat posed against him from the average Arab or Muslim?

Speaking for myself, even the American who wants to look beyond the bad news events and knows that most people in the world are basically decent, if flawed, still views the Arab world with a good dose of suspicion and distrust (as evidenced by my assertion of their sexism). I believe in working to deliberately stamping out stereotypes, but the anti-stereotype PSAs and campaigns that arose after 9/11, intending to help the average American know that the average American Arab or Muslim wasn't out to get them, were a bit too little too late by at least 15 years. I'm glad they were there, but by the time they ran, we'd been getting Arab/Muslim terrorist news since the 70s. Why was it only after the towers were destroyed that the Arab community and "moral media influencers" felt the need to make sure people in Omaha knew that an NYC cabbie was not an enemy of the state?

The stereotypes are unfair to the vast majority Arab and Muslim Americans, but being counfounded that the average American buys into them is like being confounded that someone who's only ever gotten food poisoning off of shellfish is extremely suspicious of the ceviche you made. No matter how bloody awesome, slap-your-momma good the ceviche is.

All that said, it isn't like white men have been profiled, at least in the past. It just isn't as obvious, because, most Americans are familiar with white men so they don't notice profiling. How do I know? Before the days of 9/11, when I traveled by air by myself, I was pulled aside for a random swab of my carry-ons for explosive materials, or open bag check maybe 20% of the time. When I traveled with Honey, it was 80% of the time - and I can only assume it was higher for him, traveling alone. Why? Because Honey fits the physical Timothy McVeigh stereotype. He is an averaged-height blonde with close-cropped hair; a blue-eyed young man who is quiet and carries himself with a military bearing. He looks like he could be the type who'd join a government-fearing militia. (THANK GOD, Buddha and Oprah that he's exactly the opposite!) It did distress me that once 9/11 happened, the airport distrust of him entirely dissipated immediately. Just because we have a new threat doesn't mean the old one has gone away. But his profiling wasn't problematic because as an educated white man ascending a solid career ladder, in a society built to support educated white men in power, even if he's inconvenienced for 5 minutes, he faces basically no other prejudices, suspicions or harassments.

And that's where it's harder for Arab Americans or frankly, for anyone who looks like they come from a predominantly Muslim country. If the dark skinned guy with a prayer cap is pulled aside for extra check, no big deal. But that same guy gets side-long glances everywhere, all the time. He's probably been the direct recipient of a racial slur from some raging asshole at some point in his life, or at least the recipient of some insensitive comment from someone who may not have known any better. He's hypersensitive to his differentness in this WASP-affluence society. That's not to say he shouldn't be pulled aside for a check; it's just to say it probably feels as much like yet another indignity as an inconvenience.

I genuinely hope the recent cowardly murder of Dr. Tiller and the horrible episode of at the Holocaust museum will re-open our eyes to domestic threats. American-grown extremists are out there and, I suspect, since we turned our backs from them, they have been quietly steeping in the past decade or so. Unfortunately, through first-hand conversations with people who have this experience, I've learned how hard it is for law enforcement officials to make a move on extremist groups and individuals. I know we like to complain about all the damage that the Bush administration did to our civil liberties - and I do think he did - but there are still plenty of levels of bureaucracy out there to protect us from wrongful investigation and arrest. So much so that people like that bitter old white supremacist from last week, who may have indeed been on a watchlist, are still able to do what he did. A watch list is just that. Our law enforcement agencies, from the fed through the local, don't always have the teeth we think they do.

In the meantime, I suppose all those of us on the ground can do is work to recognize our own fears and work against them. And maybe, just maybe try to befriend someone who is different from us - racially, politically, religiously, regionally, sexually, etc - so that we can mutually influence one another. Build our tiny bridges where we can.

Thirty-three is the new twenty-t ... aw, who am I kidding?

In the last few days, I've been scanning photos from my senior year of high school onto our family server. I've been knee-deep in nostalgia.

My early teen years were defined by my general social ostracization. As an opinionated, then self-assured, new kid in a small town, the swift, round rejection by my peers was complete by the beginning of 8th grade. But sometime after my junior year, I began to slowly pull myself out of the rubble of my crushed spirit and explore and relish, my own identity. If ever there was a time in my life when I was at the pinnacle of my confidence and receptiveness to new experiences, it was my senior year. Specifically, from November 1993 through September 1994. They were bookends: 1. my first big solo trip that crystallized my sense of self-sufficiency (it was to DC, my then-favorite and highly-romanticized city), and 2. the first stirrings that we may not be able to afford a complete year of college, which began to chip away at that same sense. (In the end, I had to drop out at the semester due to lack of funds.)

That year seems like yesterday. Okay: mostly yesterday. Last week, we'll say. When I was 18, though, my 30s seemed so ridiculously far away. So far away, in fact, that I actually doubted I'd reach them. My inability to imagine myself over 30, and my own ego, led me to believe that like James Dean I'd rock the world with my talent and then meet an untimely death, immortalized forever by a brilliant performance and a fuckin' awesome portrait of some sort, preferably captured by Annie Lebowitz. I would be young forever.

Well, I'm not old. I still feel young. So, I must be young, right?

Not necessarily!

Friday, Honey delivered some news to me that put me back in my chronological place. "I had to visit one of my guys in the hospital, today," he told me as I prepped the salmon for dinner.

"Oh my god! What happened?"

"Heart attack."

"Is he doing okay? One of your older guys?" As if that question had to be asked. Who has a heart attack under the age of 50, anymore?

"He's doing fine. No. He's 36."

36. Let me write that again:

THIRTY-SIX.

I'll be 33, soon. Just five years younger than my father was at his first heart attack. My cholesterol always hovers around - often above - the danger zone. Not good. NOT GOOD! But I'm in decent shape, right? Not the slimmest I've ever been, but still a healthy weight for my height.

"Was he morbidly obese or something?" I implored. (Gotta find something to cling to.)

"No."

I winced. I could feel the grim reaper rest his bony fingers on my shoulder.

"But he's a smoker. And our job is really stressful. And he had a family history ... basically, of all the big indicators, his weight was the only thing that wasn't a factor."

It has been almost six months since I scaled back my work hours to part time. I did it to re-evaluate interests, focus on my chronic health concern and reduce my stress. I put "reduce my stress" at the bottom of list because, while a concern for me, it wasn't the biggest reason I wanted to scale back to part time. However, knowing what I know of my family heart health history, and hearing the story of my husband's young employee, I'm now thinking low-stress should be a key aspect to every job I seek hereafter. Maybe the reduced stress has already been stealthily saving my life.

I'm old enough now to know that my 50s aren't forever away, nor are my 60s or even 70s. My imagination does allow me to see myself older, and my adolescent ego has mellowed. I want to offer my talents and gifts to the world, but I'm happy to let them slowly trickle out. No need for a single, glorious, creative eruption. This means, of course, that I would like to live to a ripe old age and learn and give for years to come. And that means that I need to stop assuming my body will self-repair the way it did when I was 18 ... which was not, despite my grand delusions, last week.

(photo courtesy of flickr.com creative commons. asirap photostream.)