A Year In: Looking Back on Our Pandemic Adventure

Who buys a place, takes a cross country trip, moves into it sans furniture, and starts a whole new life in the middle of a pandemic? We do, that's who!

We left Beijing on January 28th, anticipating a two week break before we’d be allowed back at school, assuming the COVID crisis would be over by then. Oh, the naivety! Needless to say, we haven’t made it back yet and see no evidence that we will any time soon, nearly six months later.

We have finally landed at a longer-term hitching post. After two and a half months in Thailand and the same amount of time in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California, we have trekked across the country in our new-to-us 2003 Toyota Avalon and taken possession of a condo in Madison, Wisconsin, Don’s hometown.

About six weeks ago, on one of our evening walks around our hilly and deer-filled rural neighborhood outside of Placerville, California, we revisited the circuitous, never-ending conversation that many internationally employed, displaced people are having: where do we go next? The conversations about when will we finally get to go back to Beijing, what our jobs are going to look like next year and everything related to our lives back in Asia always end in speculation and we had largely dropped even talking about these what-ifs.

So, with summer upon us and wondering how we would keep occupied once our jobs wound down and the girls weren’t endlessly busy with their schoolwork, we allowed ourselves to explore possibilities on one of our evening hikes.

Our BC (Before Corona) plan for the summer had been to spend a big chunk of it in Madison, possibly renting an Airbnb, with Charlotte having the opportunity to get both her driver’s license and her lifeguarding certification, and the rest of us just relishing family and friends and biking and kayaking and drinking beer and eating cheese. A reunion was in the works for all the McMahans – a convergence on Madison in late June, just as we were winding up our school year abroad.

Alas, that plan was struck off the calendar many months ago, but we continued to wonder if Madison might be a place we could call home until our callback to Beijing. But the money! So many of our colleagues have spent exorbitant amount of money since being exiled from China. Those who have been fortunate enough to have gracious family or friends to stay with have lost less money but perhaps more of their minds.

So what if, we thought, we could find ourselves a little apartment to buy? After more than 20 years of living abroad together, Don and I were tired of couch surfing summer after summer. Was it time to grow up and find a little place of our own? (We do have a home on Vancouver Island that we will eventually retire to, but we are letting a renter pay our mortgage until the time comes.) Well, the stars aligned almost as soon as they came out that very evening, and within days we had found our modest little ‘covid condo,’ put in an offer and had it accepted. A few weeks later, school was out for the year, and with a week-long stop in Seattle to see my sister, an across-the-ditch border visit with my dad and brother and a pedal-to-the-metal trip across the country (with stops in Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills), we find ourselves slowly settling into our new life here in Madison.

I’m still a little bit confused waking up in the morning and remembering that we live in the Midwest now. There is some cognitive dissonance since we are living in a modest apartment where we feel a bit like college kids: collecting thrift store furniture, sleeping on an inflatable mattress and hanging our clothes out to dry on the community drying rack outside. The big difference between those days and now is we are 55 and 60 years old, and have two teenagers along for the ride!

I am presently sitting on our still-unfurnished balcony with a lone $2.95 plastic lawn chair that I bought from Goodwill a few days ago. Soon this place will be a haven, once we have plants and herbs a grill and a table and chairs. I can picture it perfectly. Even without the amenities, however, my view is of green grass and tall leafy trees. We are in the city, but the property is so set back you’d never know it. There is no traffic to be heard. We are a two-minute walk from Lake Monona, one of the lakes on the Isthmus of Madison, and we are surrounded by parks. The governor’s mansion is just a short walk from our house. A plump little bright red cardinal shows up nearly every time I go out on the balcony, and I swear it’s my mama. There are squirrels scampering branch to branch and little baby rabbits everywhere.

For the paradisiacal landscape, there is A LOT that needs doing in our condo. The kitchen appliances are on their way out – there is no light in the refrigerator and it drips steadily, the dryer shuddered to a stop yesterday and the oven has a decade’s worth of grease in and around it. Don is a dreamer, though, and has big plans for kitchen improvements, carpet removal and the like.

Yup, our not-quite 900 square foot covid condo is in need of some serious fixing up. That said, we are seriously happy here. It’s our new home for the foreseeable future until we can return to Beijing, and will be our summer bolt hole for years to come. All of our expatriate friends will understand the complexities of rocking up to various (and generous!) relatives and friends’ houses over the summers, having to carefully calibrate the amount of time gracious hosts can deal with various impositions before it’s time to move on and unpack and recalibrate all over again. Our 1982 Toyota campervan is too small for the four of us to coexist now that the girls are teenagers (This apartment is almost too small for spoiled North American standards, though most Europeans would find it highly manageable and our Hong Kong friends would celebrate it as a mansion.) For me, my main complaint is the one bathroom shared by three other folks who all require their ablutions at the same times of day that I need mine. I also need my “Leah-space” but the balcony will soon become that nest, at least until the cold sets in. Let’s hope we’ve found our way back to Beijing by then.

May I reiterate how truly blessed I feel despite the modesty of this cozy little place filled with moldering carpet and a tub that scares the bejezus out of me? We are can-do people who love a good challenge. Within the course of a week we have manifested bunk beds for the girls, a dining room table with four five-dollar Mission style chairs, two top-of-the-line love seats (even if they are upholstered with old-lady flowers), and a plethora of other necessities. One forgets that when starting out with nothing, that it takes time to realize and accumulate what one needs: pots, utensils, salt, pepper, lamps, shower curtains, hangers, a can opener – it is a list that is both added to and struck off daily. Our thrifting skills are becoming honed.

Between our buddy Eydie and our Madison sister Ellen, we are set with mugs and coffee tables and dishes and towels and blow up beds and sheets and pillows. It’s been like moving into a dorm with roommates we already know. At least there’s no getting-to-know you phase. It’s straight to the “Get the hell out of the bathroom,” and “Give me some space” phase, niceties not required. Of course, we’ve been living in hotel rooms and smaller spaces than this for chunks of this six-month corona working vacation so this is not new to us. We are old hands at being together 24/7 in small spaces. The fact that we have moved into the non-transient part of our journey and the last place we will live before we eventually head back to Beijing feels like a gift beyond measure.

So, long story short: we’re home. For now.

Peeing on the Train

 It appears after a long day of waiting around for something to happen, I’ve finally gotten my wish. Our train departure back to Beijing was early afternoon and the day was drizzly and chilly so we had a late breakfast, hung out in our rooms and the cozy little library room on our attic floor of the hostel and then met up again for lunch in the dining room – also an agreeable hangout spot, even though plates came in paper bags, cutlery needed to be requested and the coffee was instant.

We got to the train station in plenty of time but found ourselves in the wrong part of the station so even though we had already gone through a security check we needed to do it all over again. On top of that, before boarding our train, each piece of our luggage was subject to a rather thorough search, including the opening of our toiletry bags and a rifling through of all our personal objects, including underwear. 

 

Emily had her hand sanitizer confiscated, the ultimate irony, since there is no soap available in the train toilets. Fortunately, mine was not found. Most certainly, people were left behind because the train departed some minutes early and there were many people behind us in the queue, having their personal effects strewn about. I’m not sure what all the security is about, but the Capitol of China always receives special deference and rules. It’s inscrutable. Nobody ever knows why. At least foreigners don’t.

 

Upon finding our seats, we found an elderly gentleman sprawled across the two of ours, gnarled hands with a wooden bauble bracelet on the left, clinging to a rather large stick. His mask was (and has remained) under his chin because he alternates between cackling apropos of nobody and spitting loudly into a plastic container, where he appears to be collecting his throat juices. He summons the sputum from the deepest spasms of his throat and horks it out with a noise that matches a camel in heat and that would have offended the deepest of sensibilities pre COVID, but now provides terror for those around him. 

 

We showed him our tickets and he only laughed, waving us toward the rest of the car, which we were happy to avail ourselves of. He has a rolly, metal structure, the kind used for carrying groceries as his suitcase of sorts. He has multiple bags and water bottles, a red fold-up stool, and a scarf all bungy-corded to it. It was perched beside him, blocking our way. After a lengthy discussion with the train attendant, we removed ourselves and sat several seats away until the train started filling up at other station stops and we were forced to return to our original seats. He had since moved across from our seats and I can see him perched on the edge of his seat, blue unshod sock on the seat beside him, his hands clasped around his knee. He’s wearing a camoflauge baseball cap and all-around, he looks rather well-groomed and dressed considering the sounds emanating from him at regular intervals. I’m guessing he has some dementia or perhaps mental illness, and I would find him quite enjoyable because he’s fairly jovial and spunky. It's just the regular sputum spewing.

Our fellow passenger with spittoon, stick and luggage

At the last stop I decided to brave the bathroom. I’m never sure what to do in a Chinese bathroom with a western toilet. Almost always the seats are left up because people here are used to hovering over seats, probably because squat toilets are normal here. I’ve taken to not putting the toilet seat down either because I’d rather hover than sit on a dirty seat anyway. That said, it’s different in a unisex bathroom that has been used a myriad of times before I make my entrance.

 

So suffice it to say, the bathroom is dirty, the toilet seat is up, the rim of the toilet is riddled with urine as is the floor. But I am prepared. I am wearing my mask so as to smell nothing and because, well, COVID. I have brought in my own toilet paper because even when facilities do provide toilet paper, they run out quickly. I also have my non-confiscated hand sanitizer.

 

Apologies for the forthcoming details, but its’ not a story without them. I hover over the seat, making sure I am positioned low enough (because I’ve made that mistake before), and I begin my stream. Just as I’ve started, the train lurches and I feel wetness. On my pants? My underwear? I can’t tell. I gently reposition and finish the job, hoping I’ve only imagined this not-new-to-me trauma.

 

No, unlucky again. It’s my underwear. It’s soaked. I had neglected to pull it down far enough (because I didn’t want it touching the toilet bowl, which was shimmered with pee) and the lurch had caused me to miss the toilet bowl aim and soaked through my panties instead. Oh, lord. 

 

I sussed out the situation, still hovering, I sighed and pulled up my underwear, but quickly realized they were wet enough to saturate the pants I was wearing, the offending aroma would also be all around me and my fellow passengers, and I would be in an uncomfortably wet pool for the remaining two plus hours and then a taxi ride home.

 

Normally, I would have thrown out the underwear and let it go, but it’s a great, quick-dry pair (but not quick enough!) that I am rather fond of. Fortunately, I had just enough toilet paper left to wrap up the panties. But first, I had to take them off.

 

The train, by this time, was at full speed, and I was in a snug toilet  facility with people waiting outside to get in. Already two times people had attempted to open the door, even with the sign clearing showing it is in use. 

 

Okay, you can do it, I told myself. One pant leg at a time. I wrestled one leg off while balancing on the other Birkenstocked foot. Then I pulled off the one side of the underwear. Easy enough. I was breathing heavily, and my balance was faltering. I leaned my head into the corner of the wall as I attempted to slither out of one side of the wet panties. 

 

One leg accomplished. Almost. First, I had to re-put on that pant leg before I could tackle the next. Somehow I had turned it inside out in my ministrations so with full weight of my body on my head in the corner, I right sided the pant leg and leveraged it back onto my leg.

 

On to the next side. Leg off. Final side of underwear off. Pant let back on. Done and dusted. I wrapped the underwear in the remaining toilet paper, the package looking like one of those giant winged period pads women wear at night and wrap in copious amounts of toilet paper to disguise in the bin.

 

So out I came, as discreetly as I could and slunk back to my seat, sliding my sodden underwear into my backpack alongside my iPad and jean jacket.

A view of the toilet and our friend's luggage

The spitting man across from me gave me a sprightly smile as I commandeered myself into my seat and dear Don got to hear yet another story of Leah peeing her pants. 

Morning Observations From My Balcony in Tsing Tao

I am sitting on a little balcony at our hostel, which used to be a church, overlooking the city of Qing Dao. It’s a pretty, cobbled view, especially for China. Qing Dao was a German concession early in the last century and it’s where the beer comes from! People can buy beer in plastic bags here: you see them walking around with sloshing bags of yellow everywhere! 

From my view here, the tiled rooftops with cement chimneys topple intrepidly forward to the higher apartments, which then ends at the sea. It’s pretty, though in a ragtag kind of way. Restoration has not been a priority in this quaint little European town sitting on the Northern sea of China, but then neither has destruction.

 

It’s quiet, too, at least compared to Beijing. Now, at 8:48, I hear buses in the distance, I am just now hearing a plane, there are a few cars backing up with that incessant beep that accompanies reverse and some clattering of boards or some sort of manual labor going on. And now a motorcycle. Now a honk. But not much considering I am in the middle of a country of a billion and a half people.

 

We woke up this morning to no new texts from our unwell Charlotte who stayed back in Beijing to take an extra week of classes to prepare for her senior essay, meaning she slept through the feverish night and hopefully she is on the back end of whatever is getting her. We also woke up to news in the NYT that the Chinese vaccines are much less effective than all the others worldwide with, perhaps the exception of the Russian Sputnik. The vaccine we received, Sinovac, was also called out to be 20% less effective than the other vaccine available here, Sinopharm. So there you have it. We are somewhat protected, but a lot less safe than we thought we were. Ugh.

 

Not knowing is often so much better than knowing, even if it kills you sooner. Ha! I just think of all the time I have spent both reading and prognosticating/worrying about news, and I wonder if I couldn’t have written a bestseller during that Trumpian time instead. Certainly, I could have been much happier, and not much in my actual life would have changed, not knowing. That’s the thing. I know I am meant to be a global citizen and informed and all that, but why exactly? I actually feel that I would likely be living a purer, more holistic life if I did not have all the knowledge of the world banging at my doorstep and begging me to let it in, which I have been prone to do. And still it calls. “Look at how everything is going to hell! You can’t do anything about it, but come and absorb all the mayhem, death, destruction, evil and despondency! It’s free for the looking! Really! It’ll make you a better person!”

Really now? I fear I have done myself a great disservice and lost much time in the pursuit of knowledge and staying current. On top of my writing, this summer I wish to read voraciously – fiction, beautiful fiction that tumbles me around in the warmth of its characters and treats me to adventures and experiences and emotions that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I want to be titillated by words and swept to faraway places sans plane rides and masks.

 

The church bells (in China!) just rang nine times and I went to knock on the door of our daughter and her friend to wake them up. It’s time to commence a day that will begin with breakfast and going to the beer factory!

 

On the way back to my writing aerie, through the little sitting area, I saw Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit and Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. I’m not the only one who loves to read tomes: endless description of minutiae, but somehow all beautifully rendered, even in it’s all misery and diurnal ramblings. When I saw Franzen’s book, I actually thought, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t already read it so I could enjoy it for the first time.” It’s one of my all-time favorite novels even though nothing of note occurs in it that I can recall. 

 

So the keyboard is growing hot as am I so I will probably cease my ramble-write soon and head down to breakfast. I have a Kindle full of books on my phone. There will be no excuse to not lose myself in the actual joy of this trip or on another page-turning one if I need a break from present reality.

 

A dove has just alit on a tar-paper-used-to-be-tiled roof in front of me. It is strutting and now pecking at its body, fluttering a bit, flailing its tail. Now walking again, each step an orchestration, A wing lift and a flight down to a lower ledge. And off it goes, with a soft whiffle.

 

Close observation might just be my ticket to peace. Now I hear cooing, full throated, right from the breast of a bird. And I am noticing how birds swoop, but tend not to fly far. From roof top to roof top. That said, one just flew farther afield than I can now see so perhaps this is not always so. And one just flew directly over my head as I was writing this last sentence. I noticed only because of the shadow that fell on my typing hands. How lovely. Today I will watch and listen to the birds. They will be the touchstone and meditation for my day.

Train Writing

 

We have just set off on the train to Qingdao. It began with an early morning wake up and Don making French toast and bacon for the crew while we scrambled to get everything ready. Actually, there was no scrambling: Emily and her friend Clara were meticulously organized and I got everything sorted the night before in spite of having shared three pitchers of margaritas with some of my dearest friends on the first Monday of our summer vacation. Such decadence and delight!

 

Charlotte, our oldest daughter, woke Don up in the middle of the night, complaining of a sore throat and fever. She isn’t accompanying us on this trip because she has one more week of school to work on her extended essay for her Diploma Program. I guess that plan is out the window: at least for today. So…there is some guilt about leaving here behind in Beijing, though I think, in spite of not feeling well, she’s happy to have the house to herself. One more year and  she’ll be on her own so it’s a good thing to leave her for a night or two every once in a while. She’s got Kim and Kyle downstairs and Zhang to check in on her.

 

The seats are so narrow that my right arm is draped over the middle armrest and my elbow is practically jabbing Don’s belly as I write. He’s already sleeping as the train whooshes out of the city and into the Chinese countryside. This position is not exactly conducive to writing that flows. My shoulders are hunched and the drop-down table is too far away from the seat to be of any use when typing.

 

Clara and Emily are sitting in front of us and they have no window! What is the point of train travel without a window? I felt guilty telling them they needed to sit in the stark seats since we were the ones who paid for the ticket and they were the ones much more likely to be using technology. Even so, I’d like for teenage girls to be looking contemplatively out of a window rather than fixating on a screen. Maybe we will trade halfway through the ride, though then I’d feel resentful if they eschew gazing for gaming.

This is my third day of writing for two hours and I look forward to it and feel present and alive as I do it. I know that much of the journaling part may not be shared with anyone, but I suspect there will be some gems. That’s a part of  the writing process that I love – going back and finding the part of the ore that is streaked with something valuable and then mining it and turning it into something akin to a gem. 

 

Yesterday my friend Kyle asked me, as we were walking home from our Monday margarita session, if it made a difference to my creativity if I wrote on the computer or in the old-fashioned way with pen to paper. I have dozens of writer’s notebooks that are waiting to be mined, but I am glad I switched to the computer some years ago. I used to think it made a profound difference and I wanted to write all of my first drafts on paper, but I’ve discovered that it doesn’t. Practicality and speed and efficiency aside, my heart and brain coalesce into my fingers and what needs or wants saying is equivalently accomplished on the computer keys.

 

From this vantage point on the train, I can see the bathroom sliding open and closed and possibly will smell it soon, too. The dining car is just in front of us and cup noodles and tea and some kind of gristly meat and rice are on offer. 

 

I remember how I used to so look forward to going to the dining car for each meal when we traveled across Canada a few times in the summers of my youth. I can recall the pungent smell – the mélange of meatiness and odiferous vegetables and prepackaged sauces all prepared in close quarters. It was compelling and abhorrent at the same time. Even at breakfast, when just cereal and toast were on order, the aroma lingered, like damp socks on a wet balcony. 

 

We’d have to sign up for our family dining times and order all our meals the days before, ticking our preferences off on a tiny paper with a stubby pencil that reminded me of playing Yahtzee. Though the food was closer to hospital-grade, the joy of watching the sunset across wheatfields or whisking through small, siloed towns, through tunneled mountain passes, or over shaky metal bridges spanning raging rivers as we ate was invigorating. During the slow times of the day, we would often go to the dining car to play cards, Rook or Uno as I recall.

 

And the reading I would do! Book after book! I wonder if I ever ran out of material or how my parents kept up with my voracious reading. I suspect I read my father’s Louis L’amour and my mother’s Maeve Binchy when I was done with my own clutch of books. I vividly remember reading Valley of the Dolls, a book about fashion models addicted to barbiturates. Though my father never censored my reading as a youngster, I believe he suggested this one was a bit beyond my years. I begged to differ, already carried away by the sensuous sex scenes I had yet to read about other than the milder longings of teenage girls in Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, a classic coming-of-age novel hidden under many a pillow of girls from my generation. 

 

Back in those days, our vacation bags must have been stuffed with books. Now it’s Kindle all the way for me, mostly reading off my phone app. I have at least thirty books to choose from at any given time, and all the room in the world for extra sundresses and shoes. In the same way I can now easily type my deepest thoughts on a device, I can also read to my heart’s delight with absolutely no qualms about not hearing the crinkle of the pages or smelling the mildew that permeated my secondhand treasures.

 

It’s difficult for me to pack lightly, even for this two day foray to the coast of China. In addition to a several changes of clothing, I have two scarves to change up my look, an assortment of jewelry to mix up my look, a sunhat and a baseball cap and a jean jacket. My vanity makes compact packing a challenge so I’m grateful my books nestle in my phone – a treasure trove that fits in my pocket

 

Writing and reading and intermittently gazing out the window as verdant landscapes punctuated by industrial cities hurtle by: I can’t imagine a better way to spend my time on the train.

 

Every Day is My Day

It’s Sunday morning and I am sitting on the balcony off our bedroom. The sun is streaming in, but it isn’t too hot yet. It’s perfect. I believe this may become my writing parlor. I’ve coffeed and meditated already, both from my Ikea chair. In just a little bit I will wake up my daughters and we will take the dog and their daddy out for a father’s day breakfast. I’ve already given the father-of-the-house his morning coffee and he is happily perambulating through the news on his phone. 

Happy Daddy with his gals quite some years ago!

This summer, I think I will start my mornings out here rather than in bed, as I usually do. I am still nearby my sweetie, but it’s my own little sanctuary, and it will break the habit of scrolling through my phone and set the stage for my writing life. 

It’s so good to have a space of my own. I feel so in control and feel freedom when I have my own little enclave, which is really very small. But the light. The little wool carpet. The beautiful ceramic lamp. The coffee maker and the hot water dispenser for tea. My baby fridge and a little poof made for the kitty to relax on. Oh, and the windows that surround me and let in both light and the ambient sound of Beijing at work and play – today it feels like a little bit of perfection. 

I realize I don’t want much. I sometimes think that if I were on my own I wouldn’t need a space much bigger than the ensuite here. I tend to spend much of my home life in this spot and don’t crave the living room or the kitchen. Ha – that’s probably a testament to my non-domesticity. I don’t crave much beyond this. I mean, if this little spot were to be transported to a beach or to a deserted lake all my own, that might be better yet. But these are things my brain teases out of me when I am looking for comfort or ease. They also set the basis for my dreams so for now maybe it is better to imagine them, and when I get there, to live or vacation, I will be full of delight and wonder. 

For now, I am perfectly content being right here. I am rather in awe of myself for my present level of contentment. I could be straining and wishing I were back in Canada or the US on our long summer vacation rather than being stranded in China due to the year(s) of covid. But I’m not feeling sad. Maybe a bit nostalgic. At least now, at the onset of the summer, I am peacefully delighted that there is nowhere to rush to and nothing that needs doing other than walking Moon Dog and maintaining some semblance of order in the house. And communing with my family. And visiting with friends. All good. 

There will also be some in-China vacations where I will continue to play with words and churn out something publishable. Walk a lot. Eat beautiful food. Drink cocktails and coffee. Linger over delicious books that require some commitment. I like this very much indeed. 

I am going to go wake up my girls now and have them get ready for our daddy celebration. He’s already celebrating with his morning coffee and his sweet doggie curled up beside him. Life is good on this Father’s Day. It feels like my day too. This summer I plan for every day to feel like my day.

Setting Out on the Writing Life

My summer writing life has officially begun. I will be writing new material, collecting, curating and revising old material culled from book-upon-book of scribbles, publishing to my blog, and continuing a novel I started many years ago, and perhaps even reviving my YA novel I began pre-pandemic. I don’t have a definitive plan, and, as always, this seems a bit scattered. There is so much I want to write about, so much I want to complete, and so many genres I am dabbling in. 

I guess more than anything I want to experience a writer’s daily life. This is the summer where I have time and even some semblance of routine since we will be staying in China rather than globe-trotting, as we usually do. I will mostly be sleeping in my own bed, and when not, I look forward to writing in enclaves of China that will welcome a writing woman in a coffee/tea shop; a hotel room with a view will also do nicely as will a pool-side lounger. I’m not adverse to wearing a caftan and large sunglasses or even sipping on a cocktail as I scribe. 

Presently I am in my own bed, propped up by pillows, having just finished my coffee. I have yet to walk the dog or meditate. These will usually be things I accomplish first: routine things that will set the stage. Today I was excited, though, it being my first day. I wanted to get right to it. I don’t expect I will be writing two hours straight, as a rule, but when I do, I imagine the writer’s way of life will proudly thrum through these weak writing veins. 

I want to find out what a writing life could feel like/look like/sound like/smell like: fully experience what being a writer might be like absent of other obligations. The introspection and solitary nature of this lifestyle is hugely appealing to me. Since fourth grade, I imagined myself being a writer. I started as a poet and short story kind of gal, graduating to morose novels by seventh grade, and devolving into long and rather depressive but powerful pieces as my 20s slogged and I found myself adrift and unhappy with the circumstances I had allowed myself to fall into through religious sanctions I imposed on myself and the idea that I had to follow a set of rules that were ridiculously unflattering on me. In my thirties I was too happy to be writing much: adventure and new love was calling. This continued into my 40s with two daughters arriving and further disrupting plans for introspection and Leah time. 

Now at 56, I have written and published a fair amount: a novel, blogs, articles, 45 podcasts of Two Chit Chat Chicks to date along with numerous speeches, but I have yet to have had an extended, creative time of just writing and doing little else in the way of creative “work.” There has always been schooling or careering and parenting. So here I am with the summer in front of me and fewer obligations than I’ve had in some years and I truly do desire to fill much of my time with writing. For the love of it. For the fun of it. For the experiment of it. For the routine of it. For the “can I really do this?” of it. 

That said, I already have a twinge in my shoulder and my left wrist is revisiting its days of carpal tunnel throb. How can this be after a scant 20 minutes of writing? There are so many forces conspiring against me – social media, laziness, my own body! But I will persist. I’ll find a different place to write; perhaps my bed is not the best idea anyway. I will take stretching breaks. I will reposition and build up my frail wrists. I will turn off access to my internet. (Really, Leah?)

I don’t want my diurnal writing to take on a diary form necessarily, though I am okay if it does some of the time. I will cull out the best, most shareable bits, and insert them in blogs or my novel or perhaps even turn them into poetry. That’s the thing: I don’t quite know what to do with all this writing I will do and have already collected in copious notebooks of scrawny scribbles. While my writer’s life has not been consistent or prolific, it has added up over these 56 years. There are a lot of words I've jumbled together, and as I mine through the detritus, I am finding a few gems that merit polishing.

If you know me, you'll know I’m a sharer. I don’t want to write just for writing sake. I write to share. It gives me joy. It lightens my soul. It gives me affirmation. It’s part of my writer’s process, if not everybody’s. We teach kids in writer’s workshop that publication is the final product. In our day of blogging and self-publication, this is an easy ask. For someone who wears her heart on her sleeve, this shouldn’t be a problem. 

So wish me luck and I'll keep you posted!

I’m 18 Times Three! (Plus Two)

*I'm actually 18 times 3 + 2 since this is a two-year-old blog!




I have a math teacher friend who was enthralled with me turning 54 this weekend. “So many factors,” he marveled. I appreciated his love of numbers, but what I really loved was his end-of-the-evening surmisal: “You realize you have been 18 three times now, right?” Now THAT I can appreciate!

The longitude of three 18s makes me wonder if I shouldn’t be a bit further along the wisdom and acceptance cycle than I am, but that said, I’m largely content with my tiny place on the planet and what I’m doing to make it a bit better. For better or worse, I’m not nearly as vain as I used to be; I’m delighted with my teaching career, and my ego has settled into being a support teacher and not the homeroom guru anymore. As my sweetheart says, “You gotta get used to being a Robin, not a Batman.”

My little family in our little apartment in Beijing most of the time makes me feel vastly content and so thankful that we are at peace with one another and don’t half-mind spending time in one another’s companies. Charlotte and I DID have a little come-to-Jesus moment last night when she decided it was fine to not only be up, but to come to our bathroom for a shower at midnight. I definitively told her it was not, and how could I possibly be the non-interfering mother I work so hard on being if she isn’t taking care of herself.

“But that’s why I'm having a shower!” she argued.

“But why would you do it at midnight?” I countered.

“Because I’ve been busy until now,” she replied.

“On your phone? On your computer? In your bed? For the last twelve hours?” I demanded, hoping to stimulate guilt.

“Well, yeah,” she replied, completely without guile.

Point well-taken.

As part of my weekend-long birthday festivities, Don-the-birthday-planner-extraordinaire, took me on a three and a half hour walking tour centered on the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, which had us cantering around the Legation Quarters and the Forbidden City area of Beijing. It made me thankful that this 54 year old body could cope with the many kilometers my Sketchers took me on. The tour group seemed to be ambling as I hotfooted it in fast forward, double-speeding on my stocky little legs just to keep up.




To prove just how well adjusted this 18-times-three-er is, however, Don and I indulged in a foot massage that evening, and I partook of a full body massage today. And, yes, living in China makes such luxuries affordable. BUT affording oneself these luxuries might be what an 18-times-three person brings to the game of life. We know how to take care of ourselves. And we do it.

As I write this, my 15 year old is wandering listlessly around the house, still in her pajamas at three in the afternoon, complaining about how tired she is (though she’s fairly recently gotten out of bed) and telling us there is nothing to eat, though the house is fairly bursting with food. I’ve eaten thrice already (most of it healthy), and have had a few vanilla lattes as well as had my indulgent massage. Oh, and I fit in a shower, did the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, and about two hours of editing report cards. That feels just about right for 18-times-3er on a Sunday.

Charlotte’s just now come in to my “mommy patio,” chomping on a carrot with a cookie in the other hand, and invited me to try on makeup with her. I think it’ll be fun. Why not? She might be able to give this aging momma some tips.

Aches and pains and wrinkles aside, though, I’d pick my age over hers any day. Life is good. Thank you again for your birthday wishes and encouragement. I feel all loved-up!

A Birthday Blog For My Momma

Yesterday was my first birthday minus my momma.* I’ve been blessed with her presence for 54 years, and no matter where I was in the world, she always made me feel special on the day of my birth. She often told me how after I was born, she kept asking my father, “Is she really a girl? I have a baby girl?” Though my mother baked nearly every day of her life, we always got to custom order our cakes on our special days. Over the years, I became a little jaded by all the delicious German baking and started asking for pies. Guiltily, ice cream is now my preferred mode of birthday sweetness. If its not my Momma’s Napoleon torte or buttermilk brownies, I’d rather stick with the cold stuff.

Upon waking up on May 31st, what I’ve always thought of as the perfect day for a birthday - nearly summer holidays, usually warm and sunny in the Western Hemisphere by that time, the day all contests and sweepstakes and things become due - my first thought was of my momma, which it often is these days. I told her that I was open to feeling her presence in any way she chose.

In the months before my mother passed, I told her that she would be even more present to me after she died than before. I told her she’d be like a bird sitting on my shoulder, never leaving me alone. She loved that image, and I know it comforted her to think that she might be closer to me in her passing. Since leaving home at 18, there have been precious-few years that I’ve not been living in far-reaches. In the long-ago times, she would send me long letters, then we graduated to emails and eventually to Skype. There was always, however, without fail, a beautiful birthday card sent many weeks in advance full of adoration and praise from both my mother and father. They always signed off in the same way:

Love Each Other,
EER and JR

As is my for-better-or-worse habit, I opened up my phone a few minutes after getting up and a message appeared from my father, someone who is in his eighties and a wonderful curmudgeon who is a new and recalcitrant user of technology. But there it was: a beautiful message of love, sent on behalf of both him and his dearly beloved wife. It must have been painstaking to tap it out on the cell phone that is seldom turned on.

On weekday mornings, I take our doggie out for a walk before the day clicks into overdrive. I try to use the time for a bit of meditation as well as exercise. Walking beside a joyful dog in the empty alleys in Beijing is actually a recipe for being grateful and attentive most days. As Moon Girl stopped to pee, I looked up to see a bright red bird, flagrant in the audacity of its color. It was high above me, but kept swooping and staying within sight. I’ve never seen a red bird in Beijing before and registered surprise before thinking, “Ah, Mommy.” The bird stayed above us for a nice long while, tailing and swooping.

Later in the day, at a meeting, an unlikely friend quoted a bible verse as we were talking about writing moderation, of all things. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It was in reference to something someone had said was impossible and Jonathan said his mother would always beg to differ when he said something was not possible, quoting this bible verse. Guess what? So would my Momma. Hello again, Sweet Erika.

My beautiful sister, Nicole, and her husband Carl sent me a voice message later in the day, singing happy birthday, complete with harmonies. My mommy and daddy phoned me on every birthday and did just the same. Please carry on the tradition, Sister. You sound just like our Mommy!

An ironic birthday surprise had been brewing all week, and none of the planners probably thought through how my mother might have had her hands in this one, either. My darling Don and lovely friend Kate arranged a cooking class for all of us and our families at a place called The Hutong, where they make you prepare all the food before you eat it. It made me laugh out loud because this is exactly what my mother would have thought the perfect and necessary gift for a daughter such as myself. She’s always encouraged my love of things other than domesticity, but also always hoped I could be a bit more capable in the kitchen, given all her lessons she’d given me over the years, and the culinary joy and passion she brought to each meal. I could just imagine her watching down on me as I clumsily handled the knife, Sophia the cooking Nazi teacher taking me under her wing, only to eventually give up on me as I displayed my ineptitude and greater interest in socializing over chopping. That said, at one point she took me aside and whispered, “These will be good skills for your daughters to have, yes?” Touché. Hello again, dear Mother.

The one preparation job I was given that I actually relished was breaking the beans for one of my favorite Chinese dishes - si ji dou - four seasons beans - a fragrant and spicy Sichuan dish that is so salty and spicy and crispy and peppercorny, that the satisfaction of this dish well-made, makes my toes tingle. It’s like vegetable crack. There were many a summer evening, my momma and I sat down on the back porch steps to schnabble beans in much the same way I did last evening. We were preparing them for the Mason jars and the pressure cooker, putting away vast amounts of canned beans for the year ahead. But the visceral feeling in my fingers as I prepared those beans last night - it was the same. Thank you, Mutti.

However you honor or remember your mothers is wonderful. I delight in finding my mother in the small things throughout the day and I thank her for being such an important and beautiful part of my first birthday without her physically here. I will keep looking for her in unexpected places. Not a day goes by where I don‘t smile and say, “Hi, Mommy.”

*Republished: written in 2019

Is This a Satisfying Thought?

 

I do love a fresh start. I try to have one every day as evidenced by the blog’s name, but this DOES feel like a time to reflect, think retrospectively, ponder what I want to do differently or better, and speculate on what I no longer want to do. I love an excuse to make a list and check it off, but I also love upping my game, even if it’s just a slight tweak.

I am a born pessimist and a learned optimist so little things that I can build into my day that remind me that everything is working out for me and that all will be okay until I die (and that will be okay too: perhaps even better), is something that I am always aspiring to do in order to reassure myself and build up and maintain my optimism muscle.

The latest technique I’ve been using that helps me reset is to ask myself, “Is this a satisfying thought?” If it isn’t, I can then decide to turn it into a better thought, think about something altogether different, OR shift gears and have a bath or watch a fun tv show or get lost in a book.

I suspect we’d be truly amazed if we counted how many times we put ourselves down in the course of the day and/or thought of worst-case scenarios or dreaded upcoming events or just let ourselves think about all the things we don’t like about our jobs or our moody teenagers or our partners who can’t read our minds.

People probably view me as a pretty positive character as I flit through the periphery of their lives, but if they saw the inward me, they would see someone who easily goes to places that are deeply self-critical and, to be honest, self-indulgent. Why am I thinking about myself this much, anyway? Obsessing on whether I’ve eaten more than I thought was appropriate for a woman of 55 with a rapidly degenerating metabolism or why my body is still the same one I was born with and hasn’t morphed into a Barbie version of me simply isn’t productive, yet still I persist. Why would I waste any of my brain power on self-critical thoughts when I have lived in this body and with this brain for this many years?

Saying “This is who I am and I am going to fully accept and love myself” and truly meaning it to the soles of one’s feet is a signal of deep evolution that I haven’t yet reached. It interests me no end that I easily accept and love (most) other folks without judgment or “I’ll accept you if…” bargains, yet the voice in my head beleaguers me with comments of inadequacy about appearance, brain power, effort, efficacy, skill, talent, ad infinitum.

It’s tiring to be this person. I wonder if you are tired too? Do you even notice the nonsense you allow your brains to tell you? I recently reread something by Eckhart Tolle essentially saying that we are the universe temporarily residing in our bodies. This is powerful stuff. When I meditate (she says beratingly), I have begun starting with this thought, coming at my practice from a place of power and infinity. If I am the universe then I can surely sync with it for 15 or 20 minutes and get a recharge as I listen to the fan hum and focus on my breathing, even when I am interrupted by great belches of reality every few seconds that have me scurrying back to the fan and the breath. It’s such an effort, even for this short period of time, but I’d like to believe it is one worth taking.

I know that many of our ugliest thoughts about ourselves are not even on the surface – they may be so deeply ingrained that they skitter across our brainwaves like a skipping stone with barely a ripple - but if we can start to notice what that critical self is saying, that may be the beginning of a new reality. Our own self-involvement is a given because really, how can we NOT be self-involved? We are here on this planet in our own bodies with our own thoughts. It is all about ourselves, isn’t it? But if I can begin to hear and then question those thoughts that are neither kind nor fruitful, then I can move toward my own acceptance and happiness.

“Is this a satisfying thought?” can bring us back to ourselves in an authentic way where we can then make a conscious decision to come up with a better reality and think a better thought: something that empowers us and doesn’t bring us down but lifts us up, and in doing so, lifts others up.

May your thoughts be satisfying. And when they are not, may you go back and adjust them so they are. This, I believe, is how we get to a happy new year. Which I wish for all of you. And me.