Once, about a decade ago, I babysat my nieces and nephews while my sister and brother-in-law went for a much-needed dinner date. Around eight o’clock, probably an hour after my sister left, the youngest, a girl, began to tell me that she missed her parents. Holding her on my lap at the top of the stairs (at the bottom of which was the front door), I tried to reassure her that her parents would be home soon. Then, with all the drama a three year-old could muster, she frowned and clarified, “But I weally, weally miss them. I mean, I weally, weally, weally miss my pawents.”

I thought of her yesterday when the hobbit was whining and banging on the table (as he recently has taken to doing way too often for my taste) and I became aware of a weally, weally, weally big wave of my own missing swelling inside me - that of missing my Life Before Hobbit. As he banged and whined, I removed myself to the sink and began to wash dishes aggressively while his dinner warmed on the stove. I was wobbling between asking him politely to stop banging and ignoring him, between scolding him sternly and walking right over to the table to bang bang bang it until my fist could bang it no more. Various tips from various parenting books flitted around inside my head like flies and all at once I was feeling terribly annoyed and terribly guilty for feeling annoyed. I was feeling a lot of things actually, and all of them seemed to be boiling boiling in the great pot of my stomach. I thought of clicking my heels three times, but then I realized I didn’t in that moment believe there was “no place like home”. (After all, where is home anyway? And is it really so great?)

And then the hobbit grabbed the plate of cheerios in front of him and tossed it onto the floor.

*

Have you ever noticed how often people talk about the weather? I have. For some time now I’ve been noticing it, starting, probably, back when I was in college, and underslept, and of a mind to observe and analyze just about any human interaction in search of sincerity and meaning. A conversation would turn to the weather, and I’d think, dismissively: Don’t these people have anything better to talk about?

Now that I’m older and a wee bit wiser (she writes, hopefully), I see how short-sighted and naive I was back then. (And, yes, snooty in my dismissiveness, but please forgive me for not wanting to get into that just now.) Indeed, since those snooty days, I have weathered nearly two decades of adulthood and in that time have come to respect the weather greatly for its unfailing ability to rescue conversations from all sorts of extending silences. I’ve come to realize that whatever substance the weather lacks as a topic, it more than makes up for in goodwill. It is something all humans respond to. It bridges linguistic, cultural, political divides, and it can often lead a conversation to commonalities that might otherwise have gone undiscovered. It is evocative, the weather, and it is handy in taxis, in foreign countries, on ferries. It brings far away friends closer. It makes taciturn farmers gregarious. It is, simply, good, the weather, and I hope the next time you find yourself commenting on the cold and gray or that lovely evening last night, you revel in the connection you are making with another human being.

(Now, you are probably asking yourself what this has to do with anything. Well, the answer is not much. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about lately.)

(And, by the way, in case anyone is interested, the weather here today was bright, sunny and fully June-appropriate. The birds were happy, the insects were busy, and I was busy and happy.)

*

Speaking of connections, today I connected via email with an old friend who’s a reporter currently based in Iraq. According to his email, he’s spending his time getting to know soldiers, covering court martial hearings and contemplating the beginning of civilization on the banks of the Euphrates. He says it is hot where he is. Hot, and dusty, in case you were wondering. You can read one of his more recent dispatches here.

*

Speaking of dusty, the hobbit and I were stuck in traffic today. We were driving along that highway I mentioned in my last post. The one that cuts through the valley and is lined on either side by cultivated fields. Men were working in the fields, which were very, very dusty. Some were riding on the back of a big tractor like thing dropping something, presumably seeds of some sort, into the soil. Behind them, three others walked along with hoes possibly, something that was used to push the seeds in. Honestly, it was difficult for me to tell what, exactly, they were doing. (I was driving after all, and how many times do I have to admit that I really am a city kid, despite the rancher relatives? I mean, I wish I knew more about agriculture, I really do. But the fact is I know very little. Ho, hum.) Anyay, as I sat there praying that the poor, hot little hobbit could keep on happily babbling in the back there until we reached our destination, I was also watching the dust that was rising off the field where the men were working. Mixing with the heat, the dust formed a blurry band of light that stretched about ten feet into the air and looked to be the work of some special effects department somewhere. And the men - with their baseball caps and bandannas and rounding shoulders - as I watched them work, I wished I had the guts of my reporter friend. I so wanted to go into those fields, introduce myself and ask those men a few questions about their lives. I was thinking about them being immigrants, and wondering if my immigrant experiences resembled theirs in any way. I doubted it. After all, I was welcomed in England, I spoke the native language and I never made my living doing field work under the blazing sun. Still, I was hopeful we might find some common ground, and I figured that, if nothing else, we could talk about the weather. But then the traffic moved forward and I went with it.

*

Today, Thursday, was a good day. The husband woke me up early with a cheerful long-distance call and instead of going back to bed I got up, made myself a large cup of coffee and did some writing and some emailing. The hobbit woke up an hour and a half later in a good mood. We had a happy morning, free of whining and banging. And so it went. I talked to a friend who’s also momming and cherished her understanding. We laughed. The hobbit laughed. We got stuck in traffic on the way to pick up my niece and nephew and there was no whining or banging there either. For lunch we ate Mexican food with the niece and nephew and then the niece and nephew pushed the hobbit around in a shopping cart while I did errands. Later, the hobbit played in the car while I cleaned it. We had neither banging nor whining at dinner and after dinner we did the bath time dance, cracking ourselves right up. Before bed, the hobbit kissed a picture of his dad. We read a pop-up book and The Cat in the Hat. And then I fetched myself a large glass of wine, chatted with my sister while making my dinner then sat to watch the rest of the day play out over the lion’s paw in the distance. I listened to public radio via the internet. I read an email from a dear friend in London.

I wrote.

Mid-thirties, good sense of humor, creative, compassionate, reasonably sure of her place in the world……….

Ho, hum. I had intended to write about my last days in London right up to the morning of my departure. Unfortunately, darn it, life got in the way. Packing took time. Saying goodbyes took time. Sleeping, eating - these thing still had to be done - and, as always, the little hobbit needed looking after. After all, it was not as if the little guy had a clue what it meant to be moving and was sitting around encouraging me to make notes on our life so he could read them when he grows up. No, no. I mean, in the first place, he still doesn’t speak English. But more important, as far as the hobbit was concerned, in those last days, life was going on as it always had. He had stuff to do, and as he was still lacking in the ability to do most of that stuff for very long without falling on his face or into a fit of frustration, he needed my help in doing it.

Now here we are in our new, temporary location in sunny, rural California. We are staying at my parents’ house, which used to be my grandparents’ house. These are my grandparents who used to be in the ranching business, and who have been succeeded in the business by my brother, who lives down the road with his family. A little farther down the road from them is the barn. At the barn are the horses, and the saddles (plus the reins, the ropes, the brushes, the rats, the cats, the bats, etc, etc) as well as the corral where, as a child, I was taught by my grandfather how to climb up onto a fence and onto a horse.

My surroundings could hardly be more different from London. In front of me is a yellow-brown hilly horizon that looks very much like the paw of a giant lion (not that I’ve ever seen a lion, giant or otherwise). The cultivated fields in the valley between the paw and me are alternately green and brown and uniformly rectangular. There’s a two-lane highway out there, too. Highway 156, running east and west, between San Juan Bautista (my temporary home town) and Hollister - populations 1,744 and 35,690, respectively.

Given all this difference, and beauty, you might think I’d be bursting with energy to write. Unfortunately, the fact is just sitting here at the computer is requiring great effort. It’s been three weeks since we arrived, and in that time I’ve written next to nothing. This is not for lack of effort I’ll say in my defense. Probably every other day I’ve tried in some way to put thoughts on paper or on screen. But all I’ve managed is a lot of false starts, a few quasi-compelling titles and some scribbles that are about as comprehensible as the ones the hobbit has taken to making on just about any surface he can find. (The most recent victim = the edge of the tub in my bathroom. Doh!)

Wanting to make some lemonade out of these writing lemons, I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about this particular block and its possible causes. I’ve stared out at the lion’s paw from the bench on my parents’ deck, sat behind the wheel of the car in various strip-mall parking lots, let half my brain go a’wandering while the hobbit and I strolled through what little there is of San Juan, and lo and behold, after all that thinking, I believe I can safely say I’ve got some lemonade. In other words, I’ve realized what the problem is and the problem is this: I’ve lost my point-of-view, darn it. I’ve become like one of those winter-scene shake toys after it’s been shaken. My identity has been undone and all the little bits of me are colliding with each other, causing confusion. I’m a mom living with my parents in the place where I spent my childhood summers. I’m a sister trying to catch up with siblings who have been living their day-to-day lives without me for four and a half years. I’m a loner who’s suddenly surrounded by people. I’m a writer who’s not writing. I’m a city kid living in the country. A Californian who actually enjoyed the London weather. I’m a mess, really. A right disaster. Yikes.

In writing circles, particularly fiction writing circles, we spend a lot of time talking about point-of-view. We usually refer to it as “POV,” and we do things like question a writer’s chosen POV, find fault with her sloppy POV shifts or his inconsistent POV. We talk about omniscient POV, first-person POV, third person distant, third person close. I’ve talked about these things. Often, confidently, perhaps even pedantically. But, honestly, it is only in the last few weeks that I’ve really begun to understand, I mean REALLY understand, the significance and the power of POV, because it’s been in my life, not in my stories, that my POV has been murky. This has been no exercise. This has been day after day of waking up and not knowing what to do other than look after the hobbit. Afternoon after afternoon of feeling lost. Evening after evening of looking back over my day and wondering how I managed to do so little and remember even less. I’ve come to understand that a clear point-of-view is no less important for an ordinary person trying to live a life as for a narrator trying to tell a story. Just as it is impossible to tell a good story if you’re not sure of your take on the events, it is impossible to feel fully engaged in life if you are not sure of how you relate to the world around you. If your identity is in bits. If you feel more liquid than solid. Truth be told, I remember feeling this way when I moved to London. I remember a day when I was asked to sign for a credit card transaction and could not for the life of me remember how to sign my name. No exaggeration. I was paralyzed. I had lost a sense of who I was, of where I began and where I ended. I was a blur to myself then and I’m a blur to myself now.

The good news for me is that in realizing this, I discovered my current point of view, and in discovering it, I was able to write this little bit. Thank goodness.

Friday, 25 April, 8:34pm. I don’t know about you, but I have difficulty describing the sky. Especially if you deprive me of the word “beautiful.” For example, right this moment, the sky outside my window is beautiful, but that word alone doesn’t tell you anything about its softness or the calming effect of the particular shades of blue and purple I’m seeing. Nor does it say anything about the fact that right now, the sky outside my window is made more attractive by the old chestnut tree that stretches elegantly between my window and the sky. The whole scene is deeply comforting. The tree is silhouetted. It looks navy blue. And beyond the tree stand my neighbor’s houses, looking cozy, with a few windows lit up by lamplight here and there.

All of these details seem especially important right now, since all around me, on the floor inside my window, are piles and piles of possessions waiting to be packed. I’m leaving London in a few days. After living here almost five years, having a baby here, getting a master’s degree here, getting to know London and Londoners, mastering the Tube, toughening up - I’m heading home, to family and the familiar. I’d say it is hard to believe, but it’s not. It is time to go, and going home feels right. What I find hard to believe however, is the fact that in a few days time, London will no longer be where I live. That this physical environment that surrounds me right now will, in a matter of weeks, be nothing more than part of a set of vague memories. An emotional touchstone, to be sure, and permanently part of the being I call “I”. But suddenly part of my past.

Saturday, 26 April, 11:10am. The hobbit slept late this morning, which means that I slept late, which means that, instead of waking in response to the sounds of a hungry hobbit, I was able to ease from sleep listening to the sounds of the neighbors playing football with their kids out back, of birds chirping and a cat meowing. The sun was high. The sky was a washed-out shade of light blue. The tree outside my window was the color of dried mud - green-brown up where the light hit it, slate in the shadows.

I was glad for all this, and I lingered in the bed, again aware that my days in this flat are numbered. I was glad, too, when, after the hobbit finished his breakfast, the hobbit and the husband and I stood at the window together to do a little neighbor-gazing. In one yard, parents and children were busy setting up for a birthday party or baby shower, we couldn’t decide which. In another, a neighbor we call Mr. Nick was playing with his boys and sipping some hot drink from a tall Starbucks-issued cup. In a third, the shades were pulled on the upper windows where the new baby sleeps. We figured she was napping. In a fourth, we saw no people, inside or out. Just a bursting-with-color spring garden. As we stood there making our guesses, the husband and I, the hobbit babbled and babbled and tapped on the window. And the birds chirped.

For breakfast, I had Lucky Charms, which is ridiculous, because soon I’ll be in America, where I can buy Lucky Charms at a tiny fraction of the price they go for here. But the husband bought them for me the other day for a treat, because I love Lucky Charms. They are hard to find here in London and throughout our time here they’ve provided a taste of home. Silly, I know, but there you have it. Probably I should have had a big fry up, with black pudding and sausages, baked beans, grilled tomahtoes. But the Lucky Charms were nice. And the milk was delicious, and packed in a sensibly sized container. I’m not looking forward to the milk in the U.S. It just doesn’t taste as good. And it comes in such shockingly large jugs and boxes. The first time I went home after being in England a while, I was so stupid in supermarkets I really shouldn’t have been allowed to go on my own. There was so much of everything and everything was so HUGE. I remember my mom sent me to buy a few items one evening and when I returned over an hour later she looked at her watch and asked with shock in her voice where on earth I had been.

Some of you are familiar with the hobbit’s love of sweeping. However, some of you might not be, so I will tell you outright: my son, AKA the hobbit, loves sweeping. He’s loved it most of his little life and as far as I can tell, sweeping’s only rival for his heart is “talking” on the “phone” (where talking = babbling enthusiastically and uttering the occasional “umm” and “bye”; and phone = anything that can be held up to the ear (e.g., mobile phones, cordless phones, fisher price phones, refrigerator magnets, ipods, pieces of chocolate, clothes, stuffed animals…) I don’t know where he picked up his phone habit, since, as friends and family will attest, I am not much of a user, and the husband, well, he does most of his telephone communication at the office. However, I am pretty sure he got the sweeping habit from me since, as it happens, the hobbit and the husband have a crumb-dropping habit in common. But I don’t love it. Not like he does.

Take the other day for example. It was a gorgeous spring day, with a blue sky, warm sunshine, chirping birds, delicate blossoms - the works. So, I was not surprised when, arriving to pick up the hobbit at nursery, I found all the children playing outside in the yard. I could hear the happy laughter, squeals and squawks even before I turned the last corner into the lane, and it was all so cheerful I started to feel quite happy myself. As I approached, I sought my hobbit among the twenty or so little people running around the yard, talking to each other, talking to themselves, laughing, skipping, and so on. Was he running with that group? No. Skipping with those? No. Swinging on the gate? No. Hiding under the picnic table? No. Bobbing up and down on the little seesaw they have there? No. Clinging to the trousers of a teacher? No. Wandering around lost and wondering when his beloved mommy was going to arrive?

No.

Sweeping?

Sweeping! Of course! Just as I started to take a second look over the scene, there was a break in the crowd and at last I saw him: my little hobbit, contentedly but with great focus, sitting in the middle of all the chaos, sweeping the ground with a dust broom. Crazy baby!

I thought of this story this morning as I read about the latest crisis news coming out of the U.S. - about the grounding of hundreds of airplanes after 8 failed FAA inspections. Or, hang on, maybe it was that other crisis news coming out of the U.S. - about the collapse of the lending industry? Or, no, it must have been the news about that other crisis - about Iraq? No? Or that absurd letter I got from the IRS the other day, describing Bush’s Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which, as far as I can tell, is predicated on the notion that the best thing that Americans, many of whom are actually in debt, actually at risk of losing their houses, and/or actually at risk of losing their jobs, can do for their country is…spend more money.

No?

Well, anyway, something made me think back to the sight of my hobbit sitting there so contentedly, but what I couldn’t and still can’t decide is whether his sweeping was an instructive demonstration of how to keep one’s head in difficult times or a frighteningly accurate enactment of George W. Bush’s unique leadership style.

Anyone?

This won’t be my most coherent post ever, because it’s about feeling muddled. Sorry about that.

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a Turkish friend at her new flat. While we were having tea and talking about life in Turkey and life in London, the CIA and torture (as one does), she thoughtfully gazed at me over the coffee table and said, “I can’t imagine what it’s like, being from a country like yours. I mean, in Turkey we have our problems. We are poor and the people, we have no hope. But to be from such a rich country like America? With so much power over everyone? I don’t think I would like that.” She went on to ask me what it felt like, and I have to admit, I was stumped. Not because I’d never thought about the U.S.’s power in the world, or about my own complicity as an American citizen in the good, bad and ugly of American foreign policies and practices. But, simply, because when she asked the question so directly, and so comparatively, all I could think (and say) was that it was strange. Strange, and, well, not something I could really like or dislike, since, after all, being American, like being Catholic, and being from a big family, and being from San Francisco, and being a woman, and being White (or pale-pink-peach, as the case really is) is inextricably part of who I am.

Her question stuck with me though (obviously, since here it is, guiding my blog post a couple of weeks on), and has sat on my shoulder ever since, like a parrot that doesn’t parrot so much as whisper almost inaudibly in my ear while I read the news and walk through my life as an American in London. I think now that if I’d been asked such a question by such a person in such a context earlier on in life, I would have said something along the lines of “It feels awful”, or “It’s embarrassing.” Alternately, I might have said “It makes me angry and ashamed.” Now though, as I enter my wiser years, everything, including what it feels like to be from the big, rich, powerful country that is the U.S., seems far too complex to be summed up by such answers. Let me illustrate -

The other day, I read an article in the International Herald Tribune about a book by Trevor Paglen. The book is about his research on secret U.S. military programs, and I should note that the article was not a book review, but a news article about a book, the news being both the secret programs described in the book, and the book itself, which is newsworthy because of the fact that it was written at all, it being all about secret military programs and all. I found the article to be both fascinating and disturbing, as well as, ultimately, both upsetting and reassuring. It was fascinating because secret military programs of any kind fascinate me, and because Paglen did some pretty amazing sleuthing to uncover all that he did. Similarly, it was disturbing because secret military programs of any kind disturb me, and because I’ve done my own snooping around secret military programs, and I know well that more often than not they lead to budget bloat, waste, myopic thinking, bad decision-making, and significant destruction of nature and/or human life.

The article was upsetting for a few reasons. First, because from it I learned that the budget for secret military programs is $32 billion. Thirty-two billion! All classified! Second, because after thinking about it a while, I started wondering about the quality of the press. Why did it take a photographer-geographer to write a book about these programs in order for them to get covered in the news? Why aren’t there investigative reporters hammering away at the story all the time? After all, we’re talking about $32 billion in unaccounted for government funds which is, according to the article, as much as the budgets of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation and NASA combined. At the same time, I was reassured, because, however it got there, the story was in the mainstream news, and because the book was published, and because to date, no harm has come to Paglen from writing it. Quite the contrary. He is free to publish photographs of secret bases, take his book on tour, do interviews and so on. Comparing this to, say, Turkey, where the Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk is hounded by the government for discussing unpleasant matters of Turkish history, I’d say the U.S. looks pretty good.

I chose the secret military program story, but there were other stories I could have chosen - stories that similarly triggered conflicting emotions. The contested Zimbabwe election for example - in a few ways it reminded me of the U.S. presidential election of 2000 and thus made me feel both disturbed and disgusted by what occurred in the U.S. then, and encouraged and excited by what is happening there now. The fact that President Bush was booed when he threw the first pitch at the Washington Nationals opening baseball game made me feel simultaneously sad, angry, ashamed and again, reassured that people could express opposition to a sitting president without fear of arrest or punishment of any kind. News from home about my friend’s organization that works to get kids into college made me excited about the real opportunities there are for people in America. News from Germany about a friend’s deployment to Iraq made me mad about the stupidity of the war and ashamed that it was my government that not only started it but then made such a mess of it.

So then, how does it feel to be from America? Strange, I tell you. Strange. And I think that’s why I like Thanksgiving so much more than the Fourth of July. There is room for complexity at the Thanksgiving table. It is about giving thanks, for whatever it is you might be thankful for. It celebrates the confusing, turbulent, fruitful coming togethers of early English immigrants and Native Americans. And it takes place in autumn, when everything is in flux. The Fourth of July on the other hand, is all about certainty. It takes place in July. People wear clothes in colors as crisp as red, white and blue. There is bright sun, baseball and good cheer. I like it, but in all honesty, it makes me a little itchy. And why am I writing about this now? In April? Because the question’s been on my mind for a couple of weeks now, and I had to do something to answer it.

I admit it: I’m a one-project-at-a-time writer, and again this week I was working on fiction. In other words, I don’t have much available for the blog. But I do want to point out something I noticed in the paper yesterday.

Anyone who’s been following the US presidential campaign knows that there are a handful of themes referred to repeatedly in the news coverage (race, gender, whether the extended Democratic contest is hurting the party, whether John McCain really is a straight talker, and so on), but none seems less contested than the idea that when it comes down to policy, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama really aren’t that different. I’d accepted this. They were different in other ways, I’d thought, important ways, but not policy ways.

Then yesterday morning my husband directed me to Obama’s speech on the economy, which I read just minutes before I sat down with the paper to read an article about it by New York Times reporter Michael Powell. In the middle of the article, Powell wrote: “Much of Obama’s speech, however, served as a reminder of the thin policy differences that separate his views from those of his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clinton gave a speech this week in Philadelphia on the housing crisis, and as often the two Democrats have walked in step.”

I read this as fact. I didn’t question it. I read the next paragraph - “Both Obama and Clinton spoke of an economy that binds the fates of financial institutions far more closely to those of Americans than many might guess.” - and looked forward to the evidence, which, when it came, gave me pause. Powell wrote,

I don’t know about you, but in terms of meaning, perspective, tone and yes, policy implications, it seems to me these two statements are significantly different. Why does everyone keep saying they are the same?

I like obituaries, and have for a very long time, probably for the same reason I like social history: I like learning about other people’s lives. I came across the following the other night as I read through the newspaper with a glass of wine in hand, the husband’s delicious chicken stew warm in my tum and the hobbit fast asleep downstairs. The headline alone was enviable, but to read on was to be transported back through the last century, and to be inspired. Funny enough, I came across it right after reading the latest about the Geraldine Ferraro Barack-Obama-is-where-he-is- because-he-is-black absurdity, and I liked imagining what Ms. Cornioley would have said to Ms. Ferraro. Something blunt and French, I thought. Something much more cogent than the feeble “Oh shut up already” I felt like saying when I read the story. I mean, come on. Is anyone else as sick and tired of this gender-race chatter as I am?! Both women and black people (which includes black women, I might add) get shafted in this world - even people who think this is the divinely inspired way of things know that this is true. So why is someone as accomplished and intelligent as Geraldine Ferraro spending time saying stupid things that pit them against each other? Why is she fueling a fire that threatens to destroy the tender green grasses of a re-energized, optimistic, confident Democratic Party? I came across a blog the other day that was raging with anti-Obama feeling, sourced primarily in the fact that he was a man. I just can’t understand that. I mean, sure, as a woman, I notice that Hillary Clinton is treated differently as a result of her sex. For example, in the YouTube/CNN Democratic debates that I watched a couple of weeks back (very interesting if you ask me, I recommend a view), when the candidates were asked to say one negative and one positive thing about the candidate to their left, John Edwards said he wasn’t sure about the color of Hillary’s coat. Ha ha, what a chuckle. Not. It was a relatively benign but obnoxious comment in my opinion, and it revealed that, regardless of what Edwards thinks of Clinton’s policies and politics, at some level, he also sees (and probably always will see) her as a woman, meaning, in this instance, an object whose clothes should have made her attractive but (in his opinion) didn’t. Did any of the other candidates have his outfit commented on? No. Did this annoy me? Yes. But did it influence my opinion of candidate Clinton in any way? No. If anything, it made me think less of Edwards, but it was just one of hundreds of details I absorbed from the debate and not even close to the most important one. As far as I’m concerned (yes, my rant is coming to an end here), Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both good candidates. They have different strengths and weaknesses, and they are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, not White Woman and Black Man. To succeed as President of the United States, they will have to be able, with intelligence, articulateness, diplomacy, wit, experience, charisma, power and wisdom, to transcend their respective woman-ness and black-ness, so as to influence and lead with all of their capabilities. I think they both are able to do this, so what I’m evaluating is how and in what directions will they influence and lead.

Anyway, back to Pearl Cornioley, whose obit started this post and will end it. What a life! I do wish I’d known her, and I’m very glad she got to live to the ripe old age of 93. Hope you read right through to the end.

“Pearl Cornioley, 93, a British agent who led Resistance Fighters,” by Douglas Martin (as reported in the International Herald Tribune).

This week, like every other, there are many subjects about which I could write. For example, I could write about Hamas and Israel lobbing missiles at each other (again). About the Venezuelan troops approaching Colombia because Colombian troops entered Ecuador earlier in the week. About the underground vault that is being built in Svalbard, Norway to safeguard hundreds of thousands of plant species against disasters like climate change and chemical and nuclear war. On brighter notes, I could write about Drew Barrymore donating $1m to the World Food Program, about opposition parties in Kenya giving power sharing a go, or about the still-interesting race between Obama and Clinton in the U.S.

Yet, I choose to write about my life with my baby (again). Ho hum. Compared to all that, it sure does seem simple. However, the fact is, my life with baby is a pretty big part of my life. So can I really avoid writing about it for the sake of feeling grand? Nah. Besides, there are plenty of other people writing about the above, and maybe the following will resonate in ways I can’t imagine (she writes, hopefully).

So. One thing you should know before getting into this post is that my baby, AKA “the hobbit” (so called because he is small, eats frequently with gusto, and has a generous, hobbit-like demeanor; not, as some have guessed, because he is hairy) really likes cleaning floors. I mean he REALLY likes cleaning floors. With big brooms, dust brooms, wet mops, dry mops, sponges, cloths, sticks, hammers, hair brushes, tooth brushes, whatever. He simply loves the movement. The sweeping of his arm back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The other day, I got a report from his day care teacher that said he’d spent part of his afternoon “cleaning the floor with the brush.” I had to laugh. That’s my baby! I’ve tried to figure out what it indicates developmentally, and maybe one of you readers will be able to illuminate this for me, but really, I don’t much care, because the fact is, sweeping makes the guy happy. It has for months and months, so much so that when my mom visited way back in October, she was inspired to buy him his very own, very attractive, very very zebra-striped broom, brush and dustpan set (which he LOVES). He is very focused when he’s cleaning. Very purposeful. He can do it for a half hour at a time, sometimes longer. Huffing and puffing as he maneuvers the big broom around tight corners or uses the tiny sponge to conquer the expanse of the kitchen floor. And I love watching him go at it. It’s great.

So, now that you know that, you should also know that we keep his zebra broom set behind a door just off the kitchen, at the top of the back stairway, of which the hobbit is afraid (because it is dark, steep and yes, a little scary).

And now that you know that, I can begin.

Starting in my teens, I spent a lot of time with children. I babysat often, worked at a day camp, played with my friends’ kids and spent a lot of time with my nieces and nephews (of which there are 8; 8 unique little creatures). From these experiences, I formed a couple of theories about babies and children, one of which says that they almost always understand what is happening or being said to them, they just take about 40% longer than adults to react. Taking this a step further, I concluded (based on very scientific observations, of course) that because most of us adults are usually in a hurry, we often fail to account for this extra time and consequently cause a lot of frustration for both parties.

I mention this theory as a lead-in to a sort of confession, a sort of public admittance that the other day I almost forgot it, and consequently, almost fell into a whole lot of frustration. Fortunately, I came to my senses just at the brink of a real power struggle, about which I’m still feeling a big Phew.

Here is what happened: The hobbit had just finished his dinner, and while I did some cleaning up and some snacking on the bits he hadn’t eaten (gross-sounding I know, but this is a confession, so full disclosure seems especially important), the hobbit walked to the door of the back stairway, got down on his hands and knees, and crawled with extreme caution to his zebra broom. Then he carefully dragged it into the kitchen. He’d never approached the back stairs this way, so I was a little surprised.

Anyway, as I snacked and tidied and listened to the BBC, the hobbit did his sweeping thing. What a merry pair we were. For a while.

Probably twenty minutes passed before I announced that it was time to stop cleaning and head downstairs for a bath. The hobbit looked at me earnestly while I spoke then went back to sweeping. This, I expected. After all, my announcement had come because I’d been watching the clock. The hobbit does not watch the clock. He just lives, which is great, if a little unpractical at times, and a pretty good argument for the existence of parents. Anyway, a few minutes later, I crouched down beside him and said, “I know you’re having a ball here babe, but you’ll be able to have a ball tomorrow, too. You’ll be able to sweep up a storm in the morning if you want to. But now it’s time for bath.” I smiled. I put my hand on the broom and applied a little pulling pressure.

The hobbit tightened his grip and applied a little pulling pressure of his own.

Uh oh, I thought, and then I took a deep breath. I said, “Sorry darlin, I know you want to keep sweeping, but really, it is time to stop,” and again I pulled at the broom, and again, he pulled back. My smile got tight, my tone a little less cheerful, I pulled at the broom. He pulled back, started to cry, and began moving toward the back stairs. I took the broom away. He threw himself down and pounded his forehead on the floor (as one does). My patience was just about tapped at this point, but then, suddenly, I remembered my little theory, and it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, I had overlooked something. Maybe, just maybe, he was trying to return the broom to where he’d found it. After all, hadn’t I been trying to instill this virtue in him ever since he started moving things from one place to another?

I tapped him on the shoulder and offered him the broom, then waited.

He stopped wailing and looked up at me. I said, “Listen little one. If you are going to put the broom back where you found it, you can do that, no problem. But if you sweep just one centimeter more of this floor, I’m going to take the broom away no matter how loudly you cry.”

I waited.

He stood up and reached for the broom. Just for good measure, I repeated the terms of the deal before relinquishing it entirely. I was prepared for anything you understand, especially the unpleasant task of taking the broom away and carrying the very heavy, very strong hobbit kicking and screaming downstairs. But once again the theory proved its merits: With great sense of purpose, he took hold of the broom, dragged it to the back stairs, got down onto his onto his hands and knees and put it back where it belonged. Then, steadying it, he crawled back out, threw a terrified glance down the stairs, and came running into my arms.

That’s my baby!

(Okay, so I haven’t offered you a solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Or a penetrating analysis of the US presidential campaign. But this is my life these days, and this is my blog. Maybe next week I’ll go to Norway to check out that seed vault. Or maybe I’ll just get out a little more. Until then, happy living.)

Here’s a benefit of being an expatriate I hadn’t expected: I get to celebrate my motherhood twice. English Mother’s Day (actually called Mothering Sunday) was yesterday (Sunday) and I had a great day. It all started at Mass on Saturday evening, when I was unexpectedly applauded and given a daffodil along with all the other mothers there. Then, Sunday, I slept in while the husband had first breakfast with the hobbit, and I actually felt refreshed when I joined them for second breakfast. Next, I volunteered for market duty so the husband could putter around the house with the little fella, and had the pleasure of bumping into some friends on my way (and they say London is a big city…). I walked with them a few blocks, delighting in the fact that it was just little old unencumbered me, them and their cute baby, and then I shopped slowly at the farmer’s market under a blue, blue sky. Finally, I stopped to sit on a bench and eat one of my favorite things - a sausage sandwich - before heading home. So far so good; and it only got better.

As the hobbit was finishing his lunch, we gave him his first haircut, which was a total success, if a little confusing for him, especially when we spritzed his hair with water. (This was actually a little amusing for us, I must admit. His confusion and the the scrunched-up face he made when we spritzed, I mean. Call me cruel, but it was just too cute.) Quickly, he got into it though, helping to comb his hair along the way. He really wanted to help with the cutting, too, but we had to draw the line somewhere, and just this side of sharp scissors seemed a pretty darned wise place to draw it, no? After that, we went out to buy him his first pair of real shoes! What a delight for this mom. Up to now, the guy has had these soft shoes that were great when he was crawling and just starting to walk, but now that he’s getting on toward running! Let me put it this way - the minute he had the first shoe on, he started stomping his foot like a wild man. He was laughing and honestly, I’ve never seen anyone so happy about shoes in my life. It reminded me of the good old days when my own mom would buy me sports shoes and I would go around showing everyone how much faster I could run with the new ones. Happy guy. Happy me.

On our way home, I stopped into a funky little massage place I’ve been eyeing for a while and found that yes, they could fit me in for a 30 min head, neck and shoulder rub. Whoopee! The husband and hobbit headed to the playground and I got to sit in a comfy chair and have some of my knots worked out. It was a totally unfussy pleasure, and completely without the bells, whistles, “relaxing” spa music, essential oils, and fluffy bathrobes that often make the experience of massage a little too precious for my taste. Ahhhhhhhhh.

We got in some family laughs before the hobbit zonked, and then we had a real hog up of a dinner (as my dad might describe it): enormous hamburgers and caesar salad by me, fried potatoes and ice cream sundaes by my husband. Wow-wee. Over dinner we caught up with each other before he heads off on another few days of work travel, and over sundaes we caught up with our friends on Lost, who just keep on being lost, albeit, fortunately for us, in an edge-of-the-seat sort of way.

A little reading before bed (Dreams of My Father, by Barack Obama; which I enthusiastically recommend), and boom, I’d say that was the best mother’s day I’ve ever had. And there’s another one just around the corner. Lucky me.

Let’s hear it for the mothers!