Noodle and the Goose Again

MDS

MDS = Mango Deprivation Syndrome.

I've finally discerned what is going on with me as of late. It has been at least 6 months since I've had a decent, much less delectable, mango. It is messing with my mind. Last evening we were forced to try a mango smoothie made from frozen mango pieces that, at least in the photo on the bag, actually looked more like a real mango than those sad, sad, sad green rocks they try to pass off as fruit for $1.99 each at the grocery store. It was disappointing, to say the least. Didn't taste remotely like mango. Didn't even look very yellow. In the immortal words of Noodle, it was "SO NOT REAL MANGO MAMA".

I know.

Six months into being 'back' in the US. Six months into severe mango deprivation. My symptoms are myriad.

Case in point. Over the last two weeks I've become irrationally furious over the following:

1) That I can count on ONE HAND the number of Asian students in my girl's school and TWO OF THOSE FINGERS ARE MY DAUGHTERS for pity sakes. And what is more every single one of those Asian students is adopted and has freaking lily white American parents. They've been talking about racism (of course, because it was MLK day) and my girls were confused about where they fit. "Am I white or am I black?", Noodle asked me. "Are those the only choices??". YES YES apparently they are in THIS place, but in the rest of the freaking world? Yeah, Sweetie, not so much. There are exponentially more people in the world who look like YOU than who look like ME. Do you remember Asia? Do you remember when Mama and Daddy were the odd ones out? Do you remember when you could count on one freaking hand the number of white/blond kids in your school and I had a terrible time trying to find you in a crowd of your classmates because you all looked so much alike and it wasn't just the dang school uniforms??????  Seriously, I'm glad that the school is talking about racism and that there is a substantial African American population at the school, but, but, but, but I think we need to live somewhere else.

2) The absence of any decorations, indications, products or recognition that next Monday is the Lunar New Year aka Chinese New Year aka Spring Festival  which is the LARGEST and most celebrated holiday in the world. Just not in this particular portion of the American South, so it seems. I know. I said it was irrational anger, but even in Indonesia where as recently as 15 years ago it was ILLEGAL to celebrate the holiday it is now a National Holiday - day off of work - and you can buy oranges and fireworks and red envelopes and piles of the frightfully garish red and gold decorations on street corners and the grocery store. And folks? I checked. The percentage of Chinese people in Indonesia is NOT HIGHER than the percentage of those in the US who might be celebrating this holiday. As Noodle said when we were scouring the aisles of a craft store for anything remotely Chinese New Yearish or Dragonish, "It's like there are no Chinese people here at all, well I AM HERE AND I AM CHINESE. Deal with it".

3) The lack of decent mangoes.

Point two.

This week I ran into a woman (Dutch/American) who had just returned from Indonesia - specifically from Jogja and even more specifically from the Center I worked at the University there. When she said, "Apa kabar??" to me my knees nearly buckled, my heart lurched dangerously and I seriously felt like weeping. Apa kabar? How are you? How are you? Apparently not quite as "here" as I might be.

Which might explain,

Point three.

My recurring dream that we're somewhere in the actual physical transition from Indonesia to America. Sometimes packing in Indonesia. Sometimes in airports. Sometimes in Ohio. Sometimes unpacking in our house. But never never never settled here. Always trying to manage the transition somehow. And when I wake up it takes me some time to reorient myself and figure out just exactly where I am (the dog licking my face is helpful on that score).  Where am I again? Who am I again? What?????

Which leads to,

Point four.

The really most bizarre of all.  Yesterday I returned to the campus I was formerly associated with (and the reason why we were living in NC in the first place) before becoming unassociated with and moving to Indonesia to teach nearly 5 years ago. Just before Christmas the Religion Department Chairperson (a different one than before) asked me to teach a class this semester. And I said. YES. So there I was yesterday, back in the same old classroom (though the blackboards have been replaced with white boards!) opening my mouth to teach (a different class than before, thank god) once again, as I did for years, years and years ago. I am deeply grateful for the chance to teach again and I genuinely like and enjoy the people there (the ones I didn't so much are mostly gone away) but folks, the rabbit hole that I've fallen down has gotten curiouser and curiouser. The students in my class could not even identify a photograph of a highly decorated Mosque as being a "religious building", though they thought perhaps the golden scribbles might be some sort of writing.  Some sort of writing. Ya Allah!!!!!!!

Someone PLEASE BRING ME A REAL MANGO.

SOON.

The States

Earlier this Fall, Noodle completely bombed an "Identify the States" quiz at school. Looking at a map of the US, the girl recognized 3 states - North Carolina, Florida and Texas, which I'm guessing she knew from the Spongebob episode where Sandy the Squirrel is missing Texas.

After being an indignant parent - "Unfair!! If they asked about THE WORLD she could place any country. Or a map of Southeast Asia! How many American fifth graders could get all those countries correct???? Or properly place and name the provinces of China????" - I realized we might have some remedial work to do here.

My immediate thought was The Game of the States which I recall playing as a child with my brother and my Mom. Yeah, it is available again - riding on the apparent wave of reissuing all the "old" games for nostalgic parents/grandparents to buy for their wee ones who would just really rather have a DS. But imagine my surge of happiness when I dug up our very original (one might even say vintage if one were selling it on EBay) game from my childhood (I'm guessing we got it for Christmas sometime in the late 60's or early 70's).

I hauled that thing home and we've been playing every other evening or so (interspersing it with CLUE). The girls like the buying and selling - sell your furs in Maine for $400, buy them back in Nevada for $300 - ah sweet Capitalism. Plus, they seem to be learning what State is where, and importantly as we ponder doing family vacations here, how one gets from here to there, where ever there may be.

My girls may have a chance at being "Ameri-kan" after all.

So.

So.

I'm finding it a danged odd thing to be so inept at living well and easily in a place and a space I inhabited 40 some years of life, before dis-inhabiting it for only 4. Only 4 years away. It doesn't seem to justify how puzzling things are here. Puzzling. Yes, puzzling. 

The first little while - we've been home now for just shy of 2 months!- it was okay. Surprisingly okay. Those first weeks were packed with family and with stuff. Boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. We were awash in stuff. First stuff from my Mama's house in Ohio - sorting out her life and dismantling her home. Then our stuff from storage. Mountains and mountains of our stuff from storage. "Is this ours?"  "Do you remember this"  we'd ask each other as thing after thing after thing after thing emerged from boxes. Truly, who was the person who once owned 15 long sleeve t-shirts and thought it a wise thing to pack away *that* many books? Who could have possibly possessed all these possessions? 

Now we're somewhat settled in our house, things have found their way to closets, shelves or the charity of our choice. We've tamed the jungle in our front yard, gotten the children properly enrolled in school, started dental reparation work on the girls teeth, spent hours at the Public Library and the neighborhood park, acquired a cat (kitten, Zora Cat) and Pak T (which is Baba's new name) found a job. He started working last Monday and the girls head off to school this Wednesday. 

And then I begin my sojourn as one of the masses of the unemployed a work and write at home Mom and house repair woman/lost soul. 

I'm a little bit daunted. This is new for me, not having a job where people call me Dr. and take notes when I speak. Isn't there something I should be doing right now? A syllabus to prepare? Some lectures to draft (actually the answer to that one is yes, as I'm to do some speaking on behalf of MCC, the NGO with which we were in Indonesia, this fall). I'm a little. bit. daunted. 

And a bit culture shocked as well, I think. Fitting back in poorly, though I've stopped speaking Bahasa Indonesian in public places where my slow to get the picture brain seems to think people don't speak English. I've been spinning my wheels on so many things, having to make so many decisions - where to hang what picture, what phone service to get, how many clothes do my kids need for school (no uniforms? eeek), what to make for dinner every damned evening, how to negotiate the thick soup of a rapidly changed and changing culture and society. The last time I lived in the US W was the President and pretty much every phone on the street was as dumb as I feel much of the time. It is so confusing and everything costs so so so so very much. The possibilities seem endless - the average grocery run for example - and I'm overwhelmed. 

I felt this way in Indonesia too - confused, overwhelmed, dumb and lost. But there it made sense because I was "other", I didn't fit because I didn't. Here, I should. But here there is much that I don't want to fit, much that I want not to get swept away by. So much. Just so very much. 

Just the other day I found myself saying, "I don't want my children to grow up in this culture" and I have not one idea what that means. At least not yet.  Oh y'all, ya wanted me to return to blogging, so this is what it is. At least for now. One ferhoodled of mind woman. 

I promise pretty pictures in the next post!