Blonde. Jane Blonde.

Well, we are almost certainly going to make it to the States this summer. I won't go into the sordid details--and yes, they are sordid--but suffice it to say it's been an icky business the last week in particular. Just between me and thee, over the weekend, when it was understood it would be a no-go, I came the closest I've ever been to suicide. Not in a petulant way, little Silver wasn't getting her way, but rather because I don't think I realized until that point just how important it is to me to make this move.

I don't think I can explain how deep the need is without sounding like a complete debutante who can't make it work for herself in a foreign country. You'll have to take my word for it that I'm not being a princess about this whole thing (if you knew me, you'd know I am NOT the princess type), and everyone familiar with our situation believes it's the best thing for our family.

Thanks to my parents, but not to my husband's ill judgment and bull-headedness, we are considerably closer to departure than ever before. But as the details get worked out between them, my son and I are basically being held for "ransom", which is a shitty position to be in, and the future is still held precariously in the balance. I'm infuriated with my husband but can't show it, and indebted to my parents for their generosity and understanding. So now one stress has been replaced with another, and I'm floating through the house, doing my housewifely things, preparing our belongings for the move, continuing to home school our bright son... but still unsure where our destiny lies. Is it yay, or nay?

To facilitate the cause, I've begun carrying around a little medicine bag. It's a tiny felt change purse decorated with a silver edelweiss flower I bought in Füssen when we visited Neuschwanstein castle (the one the Disney castle is based on) a few weeks before our son's birth. In it are an American quarter, St. Jude's prayer (though I'm not Christian, I do believe prayers go somewhere and are heard), an English pound, an Elizabethan groat, an American flag pin, and my favorite little worry doll. I carry it around everywhere and hold it in my hand when I can. I talk to my mother's father, who passed away two years ago, and who I believe has had a positive influence on the outcome so far. I talk to my other deceased grandfather.

The flower on my tiny change purse looks very similar to the flower on this ring.

Neuschwanstein Castle.


I also talk to my husband's deceased father--who died shortly before my husband and I met, and who my husband is certain helped us find each other--and beg him to soften his son to comply to my dad's terms, and not to try to strongarm my father.

I might sound pretty wacky to some of you, but I won't apologize for my metaphysical practices.

Anyway, while I was thinking all this out a little while ago, my husband and son were rough housing before bed. My son said to his dad, "I'm James Bond! Who are you, Daddy?" James Bond was my son's very first hero, a few years ago. My husband said, "I'm James Gond!" I couldn't resist piping in with, "Well, I'm Jane Blonde!" and managed to elicit a rare amused smile from my husband.

I couldn't help but wonder how Jane Blonde would fare in this tense, delicate situation my family and I face right now? Much better than I, I'm sure.

Will we or won't we???

It's been a rollercoaster ride all the way.

I'm dropping by today to say that whether we relocate to America or stay here in Germany is hanging by the thinnest of threads. It's an agonizing time right now.

Wish us luck.

A Womb with a View

My son is the light of my life.
He's very special, and a natural nurturer.

He made this object out of computer paper and tape,
and decorated it with chocolate smudges.
Can you guess what it is?

Why, it's a Womb with a View, of course.

How do you romance your mind?

I didn't intend to post this morning, but a comment on the previous post--from a blogger on another blogging forum--prompted this response from me.

While everyone is entitled to their opinion about what they might consider worthy reading material, it's my own opinion that bashing a particular genre as illegitimate is being pathetically closed-minded. Romance seems to receive the brunt of this prejudice, and yet it's the highest-selling, most lucrative genre out there. What does that tell you? Those nay-sayers automatically assume that writers of genre fiction are largely bad writers writing predictable material.

Sure, in romance the girl always gets the guy (or the apprentice always gets the evil sorcerer several books down the line, or the spaceship commander gets the big ugly alien, or the good guy always dies, or whatever ending is appropriate for your favorite genre--including literary fiction), the journey there is never the same and can hold as many twists and surprises as a Dickens novel.

As for the writing, every single genre out there boasts some excellent writers who can not only dream up interesting story lines, but use language exquisitely to carry the reader along a fascinating journey. By the same token, there are also writers out there who, for all intents and purposes, can't put a proper sentence together and shouldn't be published at all, except that they have fertile imaginations and a great hook that sells.

Just as there are different types of intelligence--and one type isn't any better than another--there are different genres that fit different personalities or emotional needs. A person's IQ isn't lowered just because he or she likes to read about romantic love and steamy sex, or dragons and magic. Just as it doesn't automatically make you a great intellectual if you prefer literary and science fiction.

Read, and write, what makes you feel good, or what inspires your imagination. You don't have to like every single genre, you don't even have to sample from every one that doesn't spark interest. But snobbery and prejudice are so unattractive whatever form they take. They not only severely limit a person's experience, but colors one's character a certain shade of bland.

How boring.

Here's a fun exercise...

Two years ago, I realized two things about my writing:

1. I didn't feel that literary fiction was my niche. I had, and still have, little to say in the way of literary fiction.

2. Almost everything I had been writing revolved around relationships and romance. ...Including, to a certain extent, the horror novella I had recently completed.

In my critique group, I had received many unpleasant comments about several of my stories sounding like a Harlequin romance novel. Since I hadn't read romance novels up until that point, I decided to start and see what I could make of them--and if I could write a romance novel, myself.

Well, I discovered that I actually enjoy reading romance novels, though they sometimes depress me, and I do get tired of them after a few and have to move on to something else for a while. I also discovered that writing romance is fun, too, though I have yet to complete that novel I started two years ago.

While researching romance writing, I happened across the Harelquin website. Not only does it promote its own, very numerous imprints, but it has a free online library where visitors can read short stories that parallel the current novels of the month. It also features a writer's section where there are online workshops, message boards, and, among other things, a Writing Round Robin. One of the featured authors begins a chapter of a short story, about 1,000 words long, and then readers can submit subsequent chapters for online publication every two weeks or so.

I did this once, two summers ago, when I first started out in the romance genre. Of course I didn't get selected. I didn't expect to. But it was fun. And it wasn't until this month, that my timing was right on (or should I say write on?). Not only did I remember to check in on the current Writing Round Robin, but I managed to check just last week, shortly before the new one began. I promptly made my way to the online library and printed up a good dozen short stories to get a good idea of what and how to write. And, I've been having a lot of fun with my research!

So when does the new WRR begin? Well, today, actually, which is why I'm writing.

I just downloaded the first chapter of the new WRR, and plan to get started writing the second chapter this afternoon. Yeah, I'll submit the chapter. And it's highly unlikely any of my submissions would get chosen. But it's good practice, and good fun.

And it's a wonderfully non-committal way to get myself back into writing fiction. I may not get published, but I'm still a winner any way you slice it!

Oh, the summer time is comin', and the trees are sweetly bloomin'...

Oh, the summertime is comin',

and the trees are sweetly bloomin',

and the wild mountain thyme

grows around the bloomin' heather.

Will ye go, lassie, go?

This is the chorus to a song close to my heart. We sang it a lot at the Ren Faire I worked as a musician.

I got these lovely flowers for Mother's Day. My husband took my son out Saturday morning (everything's closed here on Sundays) to pick out my flowers.

I think they're the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. My son decorated a card with three sunflowers on it. "This is Daddy, you and me," he said when I opened it. On the flap of the envelope, my husband had written, "Für unsere liebe Mami... Because you are the only angel that lives on earth." The inscription brought tears to my eyes, because it was a rare declaration of the depth of my husband's affection.

My husband also gave me a new backgammon set. Our old one is a glass board with glass stones which we got from a Folksfest carnival two years ago. I've been wanting a real, fold-up board ever since, so it was a lovely surprise. The day was relaxing, quiet, pleasant, and we got a good many games of backgammon in, as well! We're pretty well matched as players, so it's always a toss-up who'll win.

Black moods and sesame-seed bagel cravings...

I can't even blame my mood on the weather. Today is my favorite kind: impending rain and thunderstorms accompanied by a nice cool front.

To everyone I know, I'm an anomaly in this respect. I love rain, clouds, mist, thunder, wind, dramatic weather of the cool and cloudy kind. It comforts me. It rests contentedly behind my eyes. It doesn't burn my skin or make me sweat or hurt my eyes.

So, it's not the weather that's making me crabby, either.

I don't know what it is. When I awoke this morning, I felt pretty normal. But The Mood descended over me like a black shroud as I was blow-drying my hair, when my son sneaked into the bathroom and stood quietly beneath me. When I lowered the arm holding the hair dryer, I bonked him on the head with my elbow.

"Ouch!" he said. "Be careful, Mommy."

I was irritated that once again he had snuck in without knocking, a habit I'm trying to break him of. He's getting too old to walk freely into the bathroom when Mommy is in there doing mysterious Mommy things. Like taking a shower and personal activities of that ilk. I tried to be decent about it, but the irritation leaked through when I said, "Sweetheart, darnit, knock before you come in!"

And then I was reminded by him, for the umpteenth time this morning, to call his kindergarten teacher to find out when the fireman is expected to arrive for the kindergarten demonstration.

Today is speech therapy day, and normally we skip kindergarten (which is like preschool, and daily attendance is not required) on Tuesdays to concentrate on that activity. But the fireman is coming, and my son didn't want to miss it. So, I had to call to find out when he was coming, so we could work that in before zipping off to speech therapy.

And it was that final reminder that pushed me over the edge. I didn't want to be reminded again, and it wasn't even 8 am, yet. I didn't want to deal with phone calls in a foreign language and kindergarten and firemen and speech therapy and my diet, and my son's inevitable begging to take him to McDonad's as we sometimes do on our way home from Tuesday speech therapy, and cleaning the kitchen, and changing the sheets and doing more laundry and folding it and spending the afternoon trying to reign in my son's energy to sit the afternoon learning to read, write, add and subtract, and the further inevitable begging to play our favorite computer game afterward...

And so, that's why I'm crabby. Oh, and I'm sure PMS might have something to do with it, as well. Nice synchronicity, there, she adds wryly.

And so I thought I'd use the downtime--before picking up the boy from KG to bring him to our appointment--to do a little blogiting. And you know what? I don't even feel like that, today.

The clouds just broke open with lightning and thunder, and I think I'm just going to sit back and play my computer game for a little while. Haven't played it in weeks. Maybe it'll take my mind off my bad humor and my empty tummy.

Secrets Kill

A common secret that shouldn't be common, nor a secret.

Secrets kill your spirit, your mind, your body.

Last year I came to understand that the my greatest weapons over emotional abuse inflicted by a partner battling his own inner demons is to no longer respond to his outbursts, and to open my mouth and tattle.

Responding to verbal abuse creates justification for the abuse. And if you let the other person go on without visibly getting worked up about it yourself, you go a long way toward minimizing the situation. Eventually, the abuser gets an earful of his own blathering and backs down when he understands that you're not a sufficient sponge to soak up his feelings of inadequacy. He shuts
up because his words echo back to him and he hears their ridiculousness.

Useful phrases in my repertoire, when I start to get worked up in spite of my efforts not to, include:

Why are you shouting? and
Come back when you find something worth getting angry over.

In reference to my last post, my husband and I are both concerned about our son's readiness for German AND American first grade, both of which have very different requirements. Our son already meets his German requirements, which are minimal, but my husband is desperate to ensure our son's academic success in Germany, in the event we stay put. Germany is far less forgiving of students who don't excell early, determining as early as age ten whether they are university material or not and dictating the direction of each student's education accordingly.

So, to ensure that our son has an advantage over every other incoming German first grader, he wanted me to teach him to read in German this summer (in addition to a year's worth of American kindergarten curriculum which we've been desperately cramming the last few weeks) he told us that our son could no longer watch TV or play our nightly computer game after hours of afternoon of studying, and that I could not read any more books.

My infuriated response was to write about it in my previous post. But I kept quiet to him about it (because I also recognized his need to start a fight), and his mandate was never enforced.

In the meantime, I inquired of our son's speech therapist and kindergarten teacher about the best techniques and tools for teaching reading to German children, and they both stoutly insisted to let the school do it. They have their methods, and it's best when everyone starts off on the same foot. I told my husband this, and while he wasn't happy about it, never pressed me further. That's not to say the bug won't crawl up his ass later on and I won't get another earful.

But the pressure is off for the time being.

And I never even stopped reading, as if he could stop me.

My husband's problem is mild compared to other abusives. He's very caring, sensitive, thoughtful and responsible to a fault. He's an injured bird done wrong by his parents. and the result is a common Jeckyl-and-Hyde syndrome. But that doesn't make his behavior right or justifiable, and it doesn't stop me from feeling desperate, infuriated, and even depressed at times.

I work hard to make our marriage tolerable in our present environment. I work hard to remain in touch with my Self, in spite of my husband's occasional attempts to rob me of my individual identity. I work hard to instill in our son a sense of love and gentleness, and to help him understand that his father's behavior is sometimes inappropriate. And I work hard to ensure our son understands that he is boundlessly loved not only by me, but by my husband as well.

I try not to let this side of my life bleed onto this blog. I don't want sympathy--there are a lot more people who need a lot more help than I--but sometimes I need an ear to scream my frustration into.

And I need to get it across right now that it's wrong to assume that all people who receive abuse from their partners or spouses are weak and passive, uneducated or unintelligent, and take it all lying down. Abuse is a secret, insidious disease, and it is far more common and reaches into far more social sectors than you might believe.

And if you find yourself in an abusive relationship, start telling people. It's liberating and empowering. It strengthens your deepest belief that you don't deserve it. It makes you stronger to begin taking steps to better your life and your spirit, however you choose to do that.

Keeping secrets will only kill you.

Earning my right to read

I must earn my right to read, if you can believe that...

My son and I have been desperately ill the last ten days, and we're still not out of the woods.

Well, he is. I'm not. And now my husband is home sick, too, and will be home for the next week.
But I have learned one thing: Hot Toddies are not only yummy, but they really do help sore throats, which is my current ailment, caused by fever and unstoppable coughing the last week and more.

But that aside, my husband has now declared that I have to earn my right to read a book. As some of you know, I've been home schooling my son to prepare him for American first grade in the fall (the German system starts the basics a year later). So far, he can read several English words strung together in simple stories. I'm very proud of him, but he still has a ways to go to meet our goal.

But now my husband is feeling slighted that our son can't yet read German words, an issue which will be addressed when he starts German first grade in the fall. (Assuming we don't make it to America.) In spite of countless teachers informing him that our boy more than meets the requirements for first grade admittance, my dear hubby insists that our son MUST know how to read German before September. And to add and subtract. And to write upper and lowercase letters. (Those last two are already getting covered by our current home schooling.) And to ensure that I accomplish these things, he said I am not allowed to read any more books until our son can do all of it.

Talk about pressure. On me. On our son. Talk about utter assholery. And now I have to deal with his constant presence until he returns to work next Monday. So goes another week without writing. And I'm reduced to reading under the covers with a flashlight, just like a kid.

On another continent, I would never have put up with the bullshit that I do. I often marvel at how far my head was up my bum when I got married. Shoulda coulda woulda.