Exceedingly clean fun

Firefighters, trucks and hoses fill the village square amid screaming children. And a strange white substance floats on the wind, clinging to bodies and clothes and piling up in a mountain on the cobblestones.

At first glance, it looks a bit like a disaster zone.

Image by Arie Farnam

But on closer inspection, the screams turn to shrieks of delight. The children run toward the white spray and hurl themselves into the mass of foam.

As a foreigner at this spectacle years ago, I was initially a bit disturbed and concerned for the children's health. However, the foam turns out to be mild bubble bath. And this has become almost an annual event in our small town now.

The volunteer firefighters come to the square during some special occasion and fill it with a huge cushion of foam. Then the children romp in it. 

Is there anything more aptly called "clean fun?"

I stand back against the a railing and watch, though I can't see much with my eyesight, just a white blur and the wriggling shadows of the children. There is a slight distance between me and the other watching parents.

I am a foreigner and that "odd lady who teaches English and grows herbs." I'm a reasonably well-tolerated modern version of the village witch. They even call my house the "Gingerbread house" because it has red-stained wood siding and white window frames. It also stands at the edge of town near abandoned land. 

I have mixed feelings about this community, which has not so much taken me in as allowed me to exist in a foreign land. There are a few people in town--now after 12 years--who might come up to me and talk, if they were here. But most who know me won't and I cannot see them, so I don't even know which of them is present. 

I am not the only one who suffers from the cold edges of this community. Many of the elderly are left alone and when I greet them in the street and stop to talk, they are at times bitter and at times simply astonished to be acknowledged. 

Still I am glad to see that there are those here who struggle to build community. The firefighters are among them. They are volunteers in a country where volunteerism has a bad name--an aftertaste of forced community service under threat from the old Communist regime of a generation ago.

And now the firefighters have started this new tradition--one they care enough about that even though they were called out on a fire and an auto accident this very afternoon, they managed to come to the village fair as promised. We had given up hope and started for home when we heard about the accident. 

We all came running back when the trucks came down main street and the children cheered as the sun touched the horizon. And I know they will remember this all their lives. The children will remember that the firefighters are good, not scary, and that they keep they're promises. 

I have no illusions that this means the community will be healed of all the wounds of the past. There have been many. (It has taken 12 years but finally someone whispered to me that the reason we have no Roma in our town--except in my family--is that there were pogroms against them 20 years ago and they were all forced to flee.) 

Yet community leans back and forth between exclusion and inclusion. This is part of a shift toward inclusion and community strength. It is somewhere to stand.

What ableism does

This isn't a whiny post. I swear. In fact, I'm actually a bit delighted to have run across such an elegantly simple example--a way to show what mundane, everyday and--yes--even well-intentioned ableism does. 

Photo by Arie Farnam

Here's the scene. I  recently met a lovely woman at a workshop. She has a son my kids' age. They share a lot of traits in common and enjoyed playing in the kids' part of the workshop. At the end of the workshop we exchanged contact information, chatting lightly about how we would get together sometime.

I do usually follow up on such contacts but only rarely ever see the person again. There are good intentions and then there is the chaos of family life, jobs and the daily grind. 

But this time, the contact came through. This woman was eager to see us. I had invited her to bring her family to my place and she took me seriously. Finallly, the date was set and they came, including her hsuband who I had met briefly at the end of the workshop.

At the workshop I used my white cane because it helped to persuade people to identify themselves verbally. He had seen that and seemed a bit cold when we were introduced. 

The family arrived while I was cooking lunch. My husband was at work and the kids were running wild about the place. I welcomed the guests and brought them into the kitchen. Then I returned to the stove. 

"See," the woman said gleefully to her husband. "She can cook just fine." 

He mumbled something unintelligble and she turned to me.

"He didn't think you'd be able to cook," she told me.

I feigned confusion and laughed. "I know people say Americans can't cook, but I've been in Europe for nearly twenty years. I'm civilized now." 

The man shrank back a bit more and seemed ready to flee. 

The woman corrected me. "No, he wondered how you'd cook with a white cane." 

I put my arms out as if I was holding a stick and stirring a giant cauldron. "You use a very big pot and stir," I said. 

We all laughed. 

I went back to the stove. I had to make gravy for the chicken-pasta thing I'd made. Nothing fancy. The kind of gravy I've made a hundred times before. This was a day with kids and I had chosen not to wow my guests with anything fancy, but rather to make bland, kid-friendly food. 

Still I'm not sure what happened. Maybe my hands shook just a bit. Maybe I was distracted by chatting and nerves. Maybe on some level, I wasn't really laughing, even though I didn't feel bad about our light exchange. The husband of my new friend warmed right up and we were soon in the midst of lively conversation about parenting.

But for the first time ever, my gravy clumped. My mother used to warn me about clumps in gravy but I've been fortunate that even when I first started out, I never had problems with lumps in my gravy. This time, the flour solidified into hard little globs, not lumps so much as gravel. 

I felt my face flush and my hands really did start to shake. My throat closed with fear. 

Over lumpy gravy. 

But I gritted my teeth and thought fast. I found a slotted spoon, strained the gravy and finished the lunch. All was good. The guests barely noticed my anxiety.

But here is the thing.

If the gravy had been lumpy and the hostess was not blind, it would have been just a bit less than perfect. We would have laughed about it and muddled through. It was because I had been told that there was a question about whether or not I could cook because I was legally blind that it mattered. 

Sure, no one would have said anything. But they would have gone on believing that I couldn't cook well because of my vision, rather than that I am a less than perfect cook because I have other things to focus on.

If a Hispanic person at a gathering is addressed as the maid by accident, it isn't just a social gaff. And if a child from a poor background is mistaken for a slow student, it isn't just a misunderstanding. These things have deeper roots and wider ranging consequences.

There is a reason they're called "loaded" issues. It's the difference between a gun that's loaded and one that isn't. 

I had fun with my guests and the kids had a blast. It was one of only two real playdates all summer and I was glad for it. I was also utterly exhausted by the end. The strain of making sure I don't fulfill someone's stereotype takes it out of me. 

That is what harmless, everyday, well-intentioned ableism does.

I'll do as my children do

The first signs of autumn are tapping at the window in my part of the world. Whereas the sun used to be up half the night, The horizon is now only bruised with dim light when I rise at 5:30.

Creative Commons image by Latisha of Flick.com

Yes, I get up that early even during the last days of summer vacation--actually especially during the last days of summer vacation. 

At 5:30, my energy is bright and focused. I write, do daily spiritual practice, read and even work in the garden once the sun is up. But all too soon the kids are awake. Usually by 6:30. I'm hoping against hope that this propensity to get up early will mean they'll be a bit easier to rouse in the mornings when they're teenagers.

But that's probably wishful thinking.

The kids have been with me for six whole weeks. Unlike most families in our area, we have no nearby grandparents to send them too. Their friends all spend their summers with grandparents, so our street is oddly silent. So, mostly the kids are pestering me, rather than playing.

Just now I hear them rustling awake and landing the first blows of sibling rivalry of the day. A howl and a screech... and the brief time for contemplation and writing is at an end.

And there's another sign of autumn: it's pouring rain outside, which means we'll be inside today.

I've almost made it to the end of the long summer full of often-sick, usually bickering children. School starts Monday. I'll make it. I'm planning autumn-themed stamp painting, baking chocolate-calendula muffins and Spot-It games for today.

But being forced to get up at 5:30 just so I can write a bit puts me in a certain mood, like this poem by an unknown author. It nails ten things that have happened in just the past twenty-four hours.

Watch out, kids. Someday there will be payback. 

“When I’m a little old lady

When I’m a little old lady
Then I’ll live with my children
and bring them great joy.

To repay all I’ve had
from each girl and boy
I shall draw on the walls
and scuff up the floor;
Run in and out
without closing the door.

I’ll hide frogs in the pantry,
socks under my bed.

Whenever they scold me,
I’ll hang my head.

I’ll run and I’ll romp,
always fritter away
The time to be spent
doing chores every day.

I’ll pester my children 
when they are on the phone.

As long as they’re busy
I won’t leave them alone.

Hide candy in closets,
rocks in a drawer,
And never pick up my clothes
from the floor.

Dash off to the movies
and not wash a dish.

I’ll plead for allowance
whenever I wish.

I’ll stuff up the plumbing
and deluge the floor.
As soon as they’ve mopped it,
I’ll flood it some more.

When they correct me,
I’ll lie down and cry,
Kicking and screaming,
not a tear in my eye.

I’ll take all their pencils
and flashlights, and then
When they buy new ones,
I’ll take them again.

I’ll spill glasses of milk
to complete every meal,
Eat my banana and
just drop the peel.

Put toys on the table,
spill jam on the floor,
I’ll break lots of dishes
as though I were four.

What fun I shall have,
what joy it will be to
Live with my children....
the way they lived with me!”

— Author unknown

The door to the school

There is a single photograph of me from my first day of school back in 1982. In it my best friend and I embrace eagerly on the front steps of the red-brick school building. Our dresses are simple but bright. It looks like something out of Little House on the Prairie. 

But a glimpse of that photo brings a stab of agony. I can't remember the day itself, but I remember the sunshine of the summer before, the bike rides and the tree forts. Then I remember nothing

Creative Commons image by Diego Sevilla Ruiz 

As if I had fallen and been knocked unconscious for several years.I remember only dizzy snatches, fleeting images, fear, confusion and terrible loneliness. I've written elsewhere about the extreme ostracism and bullying I experienced at school--due to a disability, unconventional family background and a stubborn personality. What I know of those experiences comes mostly from the testimony of witnesses rather than from my own memories, which are muddled but still not without their toll. 

Now I can't help thinking on that photo and the aftermath as I prepare to send my first child to her own first day of school in a few days time. I try to hold back my anxiety. It's natural that I should have my doubts, given what I experienced. Yet, my child does not have a significant physical disability. She is well accepted by other children and generally liked by teachers. She is suspected of having a learning disability, but that will have to come clear in time and most importantly we do not live in an isolated rural backwater where difference is a brand and a reason to be culled from the herd. 

Image by Arie Farnam

No, we live in the middle of progressive Europe, where the school's motto is "a place for all." Sure, the school has some problems--very large, overcrowded classrooms, new and inexperienced teachers and a population steeped in racism and anti-foreigner politics. But my fear is surely larger than the hazards.

When I took my child for an evaluation to a specialist in learning disabilities, I was told that she is quite bright and probably only has a minor issue with attention that should pass within a few years. But then the specialist turned to me and suggested in completely innocent tones that I consider enrolling my child in the "Special School"  in a larger town, rather than in our local school.

Little did the specialist know how well I know the Special Schools. When I first came to the Czech Republic as a rookie journalist twenty years ago, a harried editor slapped a thick folder of documents down on my desk and grumbled that someone would have to deal with it and it might as well be me. I picked up the packet that night--it turned out to be a government report on Special Schools--and read it.

All the way through. In one night.

That was because of what I found within the first few pages: a staggering admission by the government itself claiming that it was channeling almost all children of Romani (ethnic Gypsy) background into substandard schools designed for children with developmental disabilities. My article on the report was in the forefront of a flood of condemnation and criticism of the Czech government by the foreign press. I later produced a documentary about Romani children fighting for a rare chance to leave the segregated, substandard schools and gain a place at regular elementary schools. 

Documentary film 2000 - Czech Republic The stories of nine-year-old Karel and fifteen-year-olds Anezka and Pepino as they fight to escape from the segregated special schools

I spent years going into these Special Schools, watching with rage stifled into a hard lump in my throat as bright children were forced to study table manners and preschool motor skills in sixth through eighth grades--merely based on the color of their skin. I interviewed officials with a straight face and printed their self-damning words in foreign newspapers, quoted by Amnesty International and the European Commission in their judgments against the Czech state. I was a foot soldier in the wave of largely foreign pressure that finally broke the wall and forced through anti-discrimination legislation.

And eight years after the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Czech state to end such discrimination, a specialist suggested my adopted, Romani, slightly brown-skinned child be placed in a school for those with developmental delays, just after she assured me the child had no such delay. 

And now, I try to tell myself my fear is only paranoia based on my own hard childhood on the front-lines of another battle for integration on the other side of the world. I was a foot soldier of another kind then and I took many wounds--wounds I'd rather my child could escape. 

Just as I experienced as a child, legally mandated integration does not necessarily mean willing and welcoming integration. The first to integrate public schools in the United States--whether they were African Americans in the 1950s or disabled Americans in the 1980s--often paid a heavy price. Today the Czech Special Schools continue under slightly different names and most Romani children are still segregated in them. But the law says I--as the parent of a Romani child--can defy the social norms and send my child to a regular elementary school.

Image from the film Walls by Arie Farnam

If I dare.

We attended a Romani culture camp and support group for a week this summer. During the adults-only part of the program in the evenings, we were told in no uncertain terms that we must admit the harsh realities to our children. Both psychologists and a very credible Romani man who rose from a ghetto kid to be the first Romani city council representative in his heavily divided city told us we must tell our children.

They are proud to be Romani. They sing Romani songs and know the Romani flag. Last spring my daughter proudly told her kindergarten class that she is Romani. They smiled. They don't know the word "Romani."  They only know the insult " Gypsy" and my daughter doesn't know it because we don't speak such words in our home any more than I'd use the N-word. 

Once my children came home talking about how some people called Gyps steal and saying they heard it at preschool. I gently explained to them about prejudice and poverty and social exclusion. But they clearly did not understand. I stopped short of saying, "They mean you. Don't you get it? They mean you."

I wanted to spare them the trauma. I wanted them to be proud of their roots... for just a little bit longer. The harsh words and judgments will come soon enough. I tried to get my kids to homeschool but my daughter refused. She thinks only about being with her friends all day.

And now the door is before us. Looming in my mind, hard red brick.  I know that behind that door bad things will happen. Maybe some good things too. But there will be pain.

Creative Commons image by Michael Davis-Burchat 

So, I sit down with my little girl and tell her. I tell her that Gypsy means Romani. I tell her some people have a sickness in their minds that makes them believe lies about people who are a different color. I tell her about the school segregation. We've read about the segregation of schools in America. She has two great story books about Ruby Bridges and can quote the tale. I explain that when I first came to this country, that was the way it was here, that Romani people--like Black people in America--went through slavery and prejudice and school segregation in substandard schools. 

She turns to me, her face still unconcerned, and reaches a hand up to my hair, turning gray. "But, Mama,,that was a long, long time ago," she says.

Oh, my child. No, it was not.

The primary anti-discrimination law has just passed and it goes into effect September 1, 2016. That law mandates integration for children of all backgrounds and abilities. Because of that law, my daughter can have an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) if she does turn out to have a learning disability. And she cannot be barred from our local primary school based on ethnic background. But even five years ago, segregation was almost universal and today it is still widespread, due to the lack of legal knowledge and advocacy skills among Romani parents. 

My child, you will be the first Romani child to attend your school, much as I was the first child with a significant physical disability to attend mine. 

But I smile and give her a hug. "You will do fine," I say. "You are smart and you have many friends. Only remember that if someone says otherwise, it is against the law. The law is about them and the problems in their heads, not about you. You will do fine." 

We must both believe it.

The unsung deeds of teachers

Given that I"m a writer and a language teacher, many people might well be surprised to know that I got mostly Cs in elementary school. I was not considered a good student. I was often accused of not paying attention because I doodled instead of facing the blackboard. 

Creative Commons image by Latisha of Flickr.com

I couldn't see the blackboard and the fuzziness of the open air was very boring. I often "took notes" with my doodles. Before I could write, I drew diagrams of things the teacher talked about. My second-grade teacher recalls coming over to scold me for not paying attention during his lecture on the solar system, only to find that my doodle was actually a reasonably good diagram of the planets. 

To his credit, I vaguely remember his lectures on the planets, whereas I remember little else from my elementary school years. But most teachers did not have the patience to observe first and scold later, as he did. So mostly I was a very poor student. 

Because I had a physical disability, I had an IEP and when I was in the sixth grade someone put "typing" on my IEP because my handwriting was still atrocious. I still can't make out handwriting to this day with my eyesight. And that was how a special education teacher named Irene Froyd was assigned to teach me to type. 

We had an hour a week in an airless room in the basement of the elementary school with an electric typewriter. I remember hating those lessons. The room was stuffy and dim and the work was grueling. But I also remember going to them dutifully and without complaint. I knew in some deep part of me that it was necessary. . 

Still I was reportedly very difficult. I was stubborn and contrary and I didn't want to type difficult things. I gave the teacher grief. We agreed in September that I would type The Night Before Christmas as a holiday present for my mother, because it has so many semi-colons and plenty of difficult letters in it.

Okay, I remember agreeing to that, but I don't know for sure how much argument there was beforehand.

Creative Commons image by Jay Woodworth

I did try. I remember sitting there sweating, picking out each letter, week after week in the dim, gray, overheated room. And I remember my teacher's endless patience. She was not terribly inspiring (how could she be with the task of teaching typing?), only kind and gentle and endlessly patient. 

My typing of The Night Before Christmas was not finished until Easter. But it was finished. 

And I knew how to type. I started typing my assignments for school the very next year. And an amazing thing happened.

I became a straight-A student. By the time I was in high school I was two years ahead in math and English. My GPA and test scores won me full-ride scholarship offers from several universities. 

Was Mrs. Froyd the only one? Probably not. I don't remember much of my teachers from middle school but childhood memory is notoriously unfair. Some were probably very good and they no doubt helped in this transformation. But when I see young children struggling so much in elementary school I often think of that stuffy gray room and the endless patience of the teacher who gave my fingers wings.

Self-respect and the old lady in purple

“I’m too old to be respectable,” the woman in the overlarge purple dress cackles. 

Creative Commons image by Moyan Brenn

She reminds me of the poem When I’m an Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple, which my mother framed and put by the bathroom sink in my childhood home. 

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been what they call respectable,” I reply and grin shamelessly. 

“Just so that’s settled,” she brushes wispy hair out of her eyes and crosses the road on wobbly legs.

I look after her and think on “respect.” As the year turns round to the autumn, I am always reminded of elders and the question of respect.

I understand what the old woman means. She is too old to be considered “respectable” in this particular society, a society where “respectable” means successful, solid, emotionally contained, self-reliant and standard in appearance. It isn’t false modesty. She really is too old for that. 

She cannot fulfill the requirements anymore, if she ever could. And I can’t fulfill them now, even though I'm not that old. My appearance is non-standard, no matter what I do.  It isn’t that I couldn’t wear dark glasses to hide my strange-looking eyes. I see even worse with dark glasses, but I still could. Many people do hamper themselves physically for the sake of respectability. 

No, it is more a general constitutional inability. I have tried for a standard image and I can hold onto it for a day if I really have to, but over the long-term... it just will not stick. 

And being emotionally contained. Well, that too. I can fake it, but only for so long. 

I am not successful by most measures. I don’t have a great career and my wealth is only just sufficient for a modest, environmentally friendly lifestyle. As for self-reliance… That is something I have thought about a lot recently because it is often listed as one of the key components of self-respect. 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by self-reliance. Today it is often used to mean a person who needs no one else, who may help others but never needs their help, who is so strong in self that while they may enjoy the company of others, they don’t need it. They love themselves and thus don’t truly need love from outside. 

I have a confession to make as a spiritual person. I don’t believe in that concept of self-reliance. 

Creative Commons image by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

It isn’t that I’m against working hard and building your own life, being an adult and standing on your own two feet (or wheels as the case may be). I am all for the independent spirit. And I agree that you often have to “be  your own best friend,” i.e. get yourself the gifts  you wish others would get you and make time for self-care. 

But I don’t believe that real self-reliance actually exists. It is like how the ranchers who took over a federal bird refuge near my childhood home in Oregon last winter claimed to be rugged, self-reliant pioneers in the wilderness, asking for no handouts and insisting that others should be the same and thus abolish “big government.” And yet their key demand was to be allowed to use federal land for their cattle free of charge. 

And then to top it all off, they asked to be given food while they illegally occupied the buildings at the bird refuge. 

Those who believe they are self-reliant are invariably simply unaware of the beings they rely upon. Many great, pioneering businesses were built through environmental degradation, on the backs of others. Not self-reliance but reliance on stolen resources. Many who claim to be self-reliant had advantages they don’t even notice, privileges they assume everyone has but which actually rely on others. 

I grew up in a remote, rural area. We grew and raised a good deal of our own food. In a dry land, we had our own well and our own water. The winters could be so harsh that we were often cut off from the nearest tiny town of 250 souls by snowdrifts. 

One winter--the winter of the Great Ice Storm--we heard on the radio that our area was considered a humanitarian disaster area and officials were concerned that we must be starving because we had been isolated for a week and the electric power was down for many days. We weren’t starving. We had pantries and root cellars, as did our neighbors. My father and other men put on skis and went around to the neighbors to make sure no one was starving and no one was—not even the ancient man who lived alone with his goats.

Sounds pretty self-reliant, right?

Well, except for the part about checking on one’s neighbors. I have lived in a dozen homes since then and I have never lived in a place where neighbors relied on one another so much as we did there. We never even thought about “self-reliance.” 

Hunter-gatherer societies were built on community and mutual support. And rural communities are interconnected and generally much more supportive of their weaker members than are urban centers. We lived that reality, even though our neighbors were often not our best friends.  

And then, of course, there was our well. 

As I said, this was an arid land, officially semi-desert, even though we had pine and tamarack trees. The snow melt provides most of the water and it rains in the spring and then scarcely rains again for six, even eight months. A well in that country is a holy thing. 

Our well was 60 feet deep. When I was a teenager, I once went down to the bottom of it because I was small enough and my father wanted to put in a new kind of pump. I calmly did the work I was asked to do down there with a headlamp and then I made the mistake of glancing up just for a second before pulling on the rope to signal that my dad could pull me out. 

When they tell you not to look down when you’re up very high, you understand why. My father had told me not to look up and I was sure that was because he didn’t want dirt and sand from the walls to fall into my eyes. But when I looked up, I was gripped by utter terror.

It was night! I had not realized I had been down there so long. The moon was out, riding high and full in the sky. That was all my mind could think.

Then I realized that the moon was the opening of the well far above me. It looked so small 60 feet up that it was no larger than the moon in the night sky. I looked down again and gripped the rope as hard as I could. I was pulled up out of the well quaking with unreasoning fear and I never want to go down such a well again if I can help it. 

But here’s the thing that I’ve never forgotten about that experience: someone dug that well. 

Someone, long ago, before the time of electricity dug that well through rocky, hard mountain soil and lined it with perfectly fitted stones all the way down to the bottom. They had to spend a lot more time down there than I did.

My childhood home stood on the back of that anonymous stranger. 

Sure, my parents bought the land and the well fair and square. But still… I never could forget the neat rows of stones laid so carefully 60 feet beneath the ground in that narrow shaft.

So, I believe in self-reliance in a different way. I believe in being able to rely on yourself. I know what I can do and what I can’t. I am good with water and I can swim in strong currents. I was once sure-footed climbing rocks and trees. Now that I am older I am not so sure and I know my own limits. I know that if I do ever have to go down a long, dark well again, I can. But I will not look up. 

I know what my body, mind and emotions can handle. I can rely on that, including the weak spots. Self… reliance.

And I am not unconscious of the fact that my life is interconnected with others.

As for being respectable. That too has various meanings. What society today sees as worthy of respect is not necessarily what it has always been. There have been times and places where a person as old as the woman in purple would be respected for the achievement of having survived so many years. 

I have my own version of respectability and that is self-respect. As long as you have your self-respect and you live up to your own standards, then you are respect-able in the only way that really matters. 

The Great Divide of the Twenty-first Century: In search of mutual understanding between rich and poor

I have said my virtual hearth is open to any and all who seek a little comfort and soul nourishment. And I stand by that, because the ancient concept of hospitality is near and dear to me. Without lines of discrimination and without pre-judgment, you are welcome here. 

Creative Commons image by Urbansnaps-Kennymc of Flickr

That doesn’t mean I claim to understand every perspective in the world which is not my own or to truly know all kinds of people. I make mistakes sometimes, make assumptions or simply have a set of priorities that is not the same as someone else’s. While I have been able to come to deep understanding with people of all races, nations and creeds without much trouble and I have embraced transgender, gay and lesbian friends, while I’ve made common cause with people who perceive the world in opposite ways from mine, there are perspectives I struggle to grok. I say “struggle,” because I do try.

The other day I was observing two acquaintances of mine having an on-line argument about Social Security and poverty in the US. Both of the people involved are vastly wealthy by my standards and their argument was mostly about whether or not Hillary Clinton is bad or good news for poor people. Finally, one of them got fed up and said: “Never mind, you and I don't agree on this one, period. I'm going to Amazon to see whether I can buy something. Time to get rid of my decrepit 32" TV and upgrade to a 40" or maybe a 42".” 

Creative Commons image by Richard of Flickr.com

This person’s avatar was a white, fluffy dog and I suspected she was being sarcastic. I put in some laugh emoticons for her apt joke, but suggested that upgrading one’s TV to a larger size is too cliched when making fun of the concerns of rich people. I suggested saying you were going to Amazon to get a load of books or kitchen utensils might be less likely to support prejudice. 

As it turned out Fluffy Dog was not being sarcastic. 

She was perfectly serious. Her TV was eight years old and she wanted a bigger one. She really did feel that was a reasonable change of subject in a discussion of the poverty experienced by older people who have worked all their lives and are still barely able to eat in retirement. 

She was offended because she thought I was implying she doesn’t read or cook enough. For the record, she says she also buys three times as many books as she can read and actually reads two books a week. She noted that she could outfit three kitchens, given her love of shopping for kitchen utensils. But she did not notice that my comment was supportive humor.

Needless to say she got mad and huffy and insisted that she knows what it’s like to be poor because she has traveled to 150 countries and volunteered four times at a soup kitchen, so she’s seen poverty.

Live simply that others may simply live - Creative Commons image by Dina-Roberts Wakulczyk

Oh dear. Where to start?

I believe that mutual understanding between those with incomes over $100,000 and those with incomes less than $30,000 would be a good start toward the survival of our species—I.e. surviving climate change, the refugee crisis, ISIS, endless war and all the rest of today’s troubles. We must be able to understand each other, but at the moment it feels like we are speaking different languages, both made up of English words with vastly differing meanings. 

I failed to understand or to make myself clear to my acquaintance, who isn’t a bad sort at all, although possibly afflicted with an impaired ability to laugh at her own foibles. So, I have been thinking on how to explain the vast gulf of understanding between us. First, we must know that we are missing each other in order to ever come together.

The fact is that I would be considered “very poor” by anyone making over $100,000. I live a lifestyle that is far below the average income or consumption in the United States and Western Europe. It is altogether possible that all of humanity could live at a modest level like this (even all the millions in China and India) without causing great harm to the planet or necessitating a massive die-off (though we would still need to slow down our fertility to avert disaster). That said, I don’t look poor . Most people who live at this level don’t, unless they have been hit with a disaster or a crisis. Poverty is as much about relative vulnerability to crisis as it is about the day-to-day material standard of living. 

Mine isn’t a lifestyle you can sit back and enjoy. That’s true. You’ve got to use a myriad of smart and hard-working hacks to make it work, but I don’t spend my days in drudgery and hunger. 

Creative Commons image by Hernán Piñera

It requires using and reusing whatever you can, considering second-hand clothes a non-issue, cooking mostly from scratch and growing as much of it as you can locally, using public transportation and finding fun vacations near home, using rainwater and solar for lots of things... It can be done and it can be done well. 

The only time my family notices we are "poor" is when we think about some major trips we'd like to take. That requires a lot of planning, but it is possible. We're currently working on a two-year plan to go to Corsica, where we will camp and cycle and have a blast without great expense. 

There are difficulties to be sure. Having a disability when you have little financial resources is hard. And it is much easier to do poverty well when you are part of a mutually supportive community that shares your troubles, rather than being isolated in relatively wealthy suburbia. 

But living in a country with sane, developed-world (and yes, that obviously means single-payer) health care and free, merit-based higher education helps a lot. But despite these advantages, we buy things at prices higher than those in the US, not lower the way you might think prices would be in a “poor country.” We simply live more simply and quite differently with different assumptions and priorities.

I’ve lived this way in the US too. The difference there is the feeling of constantly walking the edge of a precipice. I’ve seen those who did poverty reasonably well fall over the cliff and end in serious desperation. But as long as you’re lucky, you can live well on a modest income in most of the world. That’s the first thing I think rich people don’t understand. Living simply need not mean want and misery.

And what is it that I need to understand about the other side? Well, if I knew I wouldn’t need it anymore, would I? I do not wish to make jokes at another’s expense, but rather to laugh with others at our own antics and use it as fuel for change. I try not to be judgmental because even though my knee-jerk reaction is that "rich" people (by my standards) simply can't spend that much money without actually throwing it as confetti, I know from real conversations that this simply isn't true and that many people who have ten times the income we do feel like they are struggling.

What is the key to understanding? I start with this. All are welcome at my hearth, to be accepted and to find purpose. My aim is to feed souls and that hunger comes in many forms.

How to have a badass image

For those who were depressed by my last post, this one has a partial solution (even though it wouldn't really work in a rainstorm).

I'm told that my family thought I was a whiner when I was a child. My feet always hurt and I always cried about it. I grew up being told I had low pain tolerance. As it turned out, I don't. I have problems with the bones in my legs and they hurt... a lot when I walk more than a mile or two.

But believing that I had low pain tolerance I was sometimes confused. When I was in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador writing an article for The Christian Science Monitor on the construction of oil pipeline and the environmental fallout, I ran my foot into a metal grate and sliced a three inch gash across my big toe. The thing bled like you wouldn't believe but it didn't hurt that much. A storekeeper ran out and poured dry, instant coffee mix on my wound, which did make it stop bleeding. 

My interpreter was in shock and panicking. He got a taxi and we drove to a local clinic. When I looked out the window, I saw a rundown, dirty, Third World clinic and by then my brain was starting to kick in. This was the rain forest, an area with super bacteria. I had been told by other gringos that I had better not get hurt while I was down in the jungle or I'd be in deep trouble. And this was only the second day of my two-week stay in the humid, bacteria-rich rain forest. I could not afford an infected foot. 

I refused to go to the clinic and instead went back the little sweaty room where I had stashed my pack, including a very good first-aid kit. I cleaned and disinfected the wound with iodine and then bandaged it while my interpreter watched, wide eyed. Finally at the end he said, "You're badass." I blinked at him in surprise.

I am? What was I supposed to do? Cry? It wasn't that bad, just a little blood. Seriously.

I poured iodine on it and changed the bandage three times a day. I didn't get an infection and never felt like the cut was too painful. But the bones in my feet ached from all the walking I did on the rain forest paths. I still thought I was just sort of a wimp about that. 

Later I was told by a doctor that all that hiking I had done with backpacks had caused micro-fractures in the bones of my feet because they were positioned just a tad wrong and thus couldn't absorb the repetitive impacts of walking very well. As I've gotten older the pain has gotten worse and it's compounded by the fact that I'm visually impaired, so I can't drive and I have to walk a lot more than most. It isn't a good combination. 

Creative Commons image by Brent of Flickr.com

So, I was delighted to discover the idea of an electric scooter. I need something that can go as slow as a brisk walk (so it doesn't go faster than I can see and cause me to run off the edges of curbs) and which is small enough to go on the sidewalk. This week my first electric scooter came and I took my kids to preschool for the first time without pain. The scooter is tiny, a two wheeled contraption that hardly enlarges the area I take up on the sidewalk. It requires a bit of balance to ride but fortunately balance is one thing I can do. It doesn't really get me places faster because I have to ride on sidewalks and go really slow but it will mean that I can go many more places than I could before. I may have to push it up the particularly steep hills around here but it is going down the hills that bothers my feet, not going up. 

Euphoric from my first school run with the scooter, I sat down to work and started sorting emails. Then I got a message from the users of a forum I frequent with a question of uncanny relevance: "Are disabled people giving electric scooters a bad image?" The author of the question explained that he likes the look of these little scooters, which are actually widely viewed as a bit nerdy. He wanted to ride one but was afraid that people might think he was disabled if he did because so many people with disabilities are now riding these little gems.

My reaction went from joy that I could tell someone about my awesome scooter, to irritation that this clod thought that someone assuming he might have trouble with his legs was such a terrible thing and finally to dawning realization.

Oh, I get it.

So, here's what I wrote in reply: "I’m sure you meant to ask “Are disabled people giving mobility scooters a badass image?” Because disabled people aren’t bad and can’t give anything a bad image. Using a mobility vehicle that doesn't contribute to climate change and not letting a little health problem keep you out of the fast lane is badass, no? I mean when you see that disabled person riding down the sidewalk, carefully avoiding toddlers and pets, you think 'Dude, that lady is badass and hot too. I hope I’m that cool when I get to be old and not so mobile. Now I even want to get one of those scooters so I can be kinda like her and maybe she’ll even ask me out.'"

I'm in far too good a mood at the moment to let some unthinking comment get me down. Electric scooters look geeky but they get the job done. I don't really know or care if anyone except the preschool set thinks I'm badass anymore (at forty), but I do often look at people and think, "That's badass!" when they are pushing their limits and finding hacks to get around troubles. There is plenty to be cynical about in the world and I often am, but it's nice when a mix of technology and creative problem-solving takes away a burden.