moments:

calling my mom before i called the doctor’s office.

waiting by the phone while my parents, who were out at a dinner where my dad was being honored, called me back so my mom could call her pharmacist sister and physician brothers to decide on the best treatment for me.

and then calling kaiser.

driving myself to safeway at midnight to pick up medicine.

being bounced around from one desk to another, waiting many minutes on automated telephone lines, swiping in everywhere with my medical record number, like i would have been better off if i’d a bar code embedded into my wrist.

running through the doors for my first same-day doctor’s appointment with my own adult insurance, with my first doctor i’d ever seen that my parents hadn’t also been to or didn’t already personally know.

riding up and down the elevators to get to my appointment.

hearing babies’ screams through the walls of the faux-wood paneled elevator as i rode up.

sitting in a sad, tiny exam room, chatting on my phone to ease the lonely minutes, and then leaving my perplexed doctor with nothing to offer me because my mom and the kaiser on-call nurse had already done everything that could be done.

at every turn, little waves of realization that my parents have protected me from so much of the world for my entire life. and swimming in the gratitude, of course, but also fear. so much more i must know nothing of, so much more left to face eventually.

Filed under: family, mommy

you could call it courage

i hate cold calling people, and after that the thing i hate most is follow-up calls. i hate bugging people, calling them and saying: did you get in touch with that mom? do you think she’d talk to me? i hate texting people and asking: any word from that student about whether or not they’ll talk to me? i hate being the nag. but the options are few: if i do not call people i do not have a story. and if i do not have a story i do not have a job. the fear of coming back home empty handed, my pride, is what allows me to make phone call after phone call, to offer to show up at people’s doorsteps, to offer to drive people places just so i can talk to them.

i wish it came easier to me, but i respect authority, i hate to upset other people, i hate intruding. i hate asking people for access to parts of their lives like this. i think these are all qualities that, if i gave into them, would close off my future in reporting forever. it’s not my infinite curiosity or tenacity or commitment to justice and uncovering the truth that compels me to keep moving forward. if only! right now it is absolute terror that keeps me on the phones, that has me doing things that are totally out of character for me. i think about what kai tells me all the time, that everyone hates reporters. and if i’m doing my job right, people occasionally should not be able to stand me, and that is something to get used to.

===

i missed my uncle’s funeral this past weekend because i was in chicago for work. he was quite old, well into his 70s and frail long before they figured out he had lung cancer. he was married to my auntie betsy, an auntie who played a big role raising my sister and i–she ferried us to and from elementary school to chinese school, would sit in our living room and make phone calls for beauty supply companies while sharon and i napped before chinese school, and then she’d come into our bedroom and stand at the foot of our beds and flap the blankets up and down to wake us up, a truly cruel alarm clock. she was brash and gregarious, with a smoker’s growl of a voice and a bad hip that gave her a limp. uncle david was reserved but sweet. quiet, and he kept to himself, made few demands on those around him. in the end, he’d sit in the back couches with his oxygen tank and a cup of coffee on a stool nearby. i think the last few months were not very comfortable for him.

uncle david’s was not the first family funeral i’ve missed because of school or work–in inexplicably did not go to my uncle johnny’s funeral a few years ago because i thought i couldn’t get the time off from work. i have no idea what i was working on at the time–it’s own sign, but it was not that important. i should have been at my uncle’s funeral.

Filed under: family, reporting

it ends with wisdom

my mother and i are avoiding each other these days. we talk, but don’t have the energy or the will to really talk about the issues that bother us. my mother, my poor, amazing mother who grew up in an age and a strict family culture where parents were never, ever, ever challenged, sometimes doesn’t know how to verbalize her thoughts and feelings. it comes out in incoherent huffs and puffs. sometimes i want to tell her: come on mama, say it. say it. let’s talk about it all. but when we have to face each other every day, there’s only so much conflict a rational person, what i hope i am on a good day, should be willing to invite.

i am the strongest version of myself with her, though. i am part indignant teen with her, petulant and cranky and just as cruel as she can be when she starts stonewalling. but i am also a fierce defender of other people who i think won’t stand up to her. they don’t need my advocacy, i’ve never been asked to do it, but i have amazing courage to speak my mind to my mother, especially when i feel like she’s done someone else wrong. where does that come from?

what right have i to tell my mother of the ways i disapprove of her treatment of other people? everywhere else in my life, speaking up is seen as a virtue, as a mark of strength and honor. at home, this characteristic doesn’t get me very far.

—

i started following emily gould’s tumblr, and have been reading some of her interviews, and she and another memoirist interviewed each other about their diary habits as kids, and emily gould mentioned that she stopped writing religiously in her diary when she had her first boyfriend, and she later thought it was because she finally had someone to tell all her secrets to.

i never could keep a diary as a kid. i never knew who i was writing to. the “Dear Diary…” openers always felt so forced, though i tried those, because that’s the way people kept journals in movies and books. i had an imaginary friend as a kid–her name was daisy, we didn’t see each other much beyond the occasional chat–but even i knew at that age that addressing my entries to a concept (not even a person!) that didn’t exist was stupid. and if i was not writing to the imagined ever-faithful but totally silent listener, would i be writing to myself? that too was a preposterous thought. why would i write to myself? i talked with myself all day long inside my head. i did love collecting notebooks, still do. but i always wanted to know someone was there, that the words would be heard. these days, i still don’t really know (though i have a tiny hint) of who i write for, at work or on any of the other places where i put stuff.

even this tiny corner. i have a vague sense who reads this. i think i wanted this space to be a place to store personal, nicely crafted pieces of writing. pshhh. it’s definitely not that, but i can’t figure out what shape it’s taking now.

and now i am on twitter, which i guess i shd leave for discussing another time, because it really is an odd apparatus. twitter, for example, has me typing should as “shd.” it also has me writing down and sharing snippets of conversation and sarcastic reactions to the news i’d usually keep to myself. i used to tweet about food cravings and cobbled together meals, but then i changed my twitter name from meebobebo to my real name, an acknowledgement that i am trying to make it as a professional writer and i need to start attaching my name to things, or something like that. and then the food cravings tweets, and tweets about ice cream flavors stopped all together. not that they were so personal–as open as i can be, i usually regret every personal detail i put up online about half an hour after i’ve posted it. i think in this age of the internet and of personal branding, i am supposed to be crafting some persona there. i think. i still haven’t figured out the rules of that game.

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“we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” -kurt vonnegut, mother night, who i know was not referring to twitter. but whose words i think of often when i am out in the internet jungle.

Filed under: family, the internet

a sewing workshop, my home

i’m not sure why this is so hard to write, or why the story sometimes feels like it doesn’t need to be told, or why i’ve given up this piece that i’ve been trying to write right now a good 7 or 8 times before. maybe i should start there, then.

i’ve opened this wordpress page many times this week, and each time been drawn away by exhaustion, something in my google reader, a new young holt unlimited song, the national conversations i’m supposed to track for my job. everything else seems more urgent than writing this, even though when i’m not able to write, i feel all of this burning a hole through my brain. the weight of experiences begging to be documented.

what makes a story hard to tell? when there’s some truth hidden inside it that we don’t want to face? when we’ve told versions of it so many times to so many acquaintances, that we can’t tell where to start when it’s time to tell it for real? when the story is bigger than we are?

i grew up in a sewing workshop, a sewing circle that operates steadily from january to july. it’s june now, which means the workshop is open 7 days a week, round the clock, and i basically live there when i’m not at work. i sew in an apartment building with many of my aunties and cousins. it is home, even though i’ve often resisted that truth.

i’ve been back three years now, and the first year, after four years away, was rough. i had plenty of ideas about where i wanted to spend my time, about what my priorities were. i chafed against the idea that my time was not my own, partially because the sewing workshop is run by my mother, who’s notoriously tough. a boss who works as many hours as you will (and longer), who has high standards and no problems telling you to re-do your work so it meets them.

becoming comfortable with my many hours in the sewing room was a process of coming to terms with who i was as an adult next to my mom, who’s still very much my mother. but it happened. i gave in, not unwillingly. i get it now, and make the choice regularly to give up a lot of other things so that i can be with my family. it’s tough to explain to people. i make my own choices about my time, and also am not completely in control. i want to put in all the time i can for my family, but it’s also a very demanding life. my family is much more than just a collection of people who happen to be related.

but these days, a side benefit to sewing 30 hours a week is that i’m also a fairly decent seamstress. passable pleats, gathered sleeves, shirt collars, zippers of all kinds, i can do them. and i’m not bad with just a needle and thread; my grand aunties have taught me a lot.

this weekend i made two leotards, one a two-toned one-sleeved thing that looks straight out of an american apparel catalog (that my cousins and i’ll be wearing underneath handmade silk dresses this summer), another with sequined arms for my cousin, who will play a star. i helped make a padded muscle shirt for my uncle, who will play a centaur this summer. he is sagittarius, of course. one auntie cut the fabric for a dress for my cousin who will be libra. another auntie sewed individual seed beads and sequins onto straps that will be attached to our dancing dresses next to another team of cousins who sewed ruffled blossoms that will be sewn onto the shoulders of our dresses. and someone else hammered studs into the sleeves of a shirt that will be worn by celestial guards.

we talk, we laugh, we sew, very often late into the night.

the sewing room is a converted two-room apartment, where beginner sewers sit in an annex–a storage room crammed with one sewing table, one ironing board, and one serger. some of my teenage cousins were in that side room, giggling their way through the night, and veteran sewers who’ve been around long enough know that when it gets that late, you’d better save your energy for your work instead of for your conversation. my mom also hates chatting, it distracts her from her rapid thinking and problem solving. but even she couldn’t resist marveling at how giggly the girls were; they’d been at it for hours. my mom asked our side of the room: “is any work happening over there? are they working their hands too?” my auntie margie, chuckling to herself, said: “they’re not working their hands, they’re working their mouths.”

more laughter, but also many sighs. the rhythm of work in the workshop is punctuated by yawns and slow stretches and quick gasps when fingers are pricked by sharp needles. the work is hard on the eyes and hands, many of my aunties wear two glasses at a time so they can see their work close up and among the crew, back and neck problems abound. yesterday, sometime after midnight my young cousin asked no one in particular: “when does this sweatshop close?” and without anyone raising their heads from their sewing machines and cutting tables, a chorus of voices said in unison: “never.” and then everyone burst into laughter again, both from the truth and the absurdity of it.

it is home. it is security, it also makes a lot of sense to me.

my family cooks together, cooks for each other–i often go to the building straight from work and always know that i can knock on someone’s door and there will be hot food for me. my family babysits each others’ kids, drives each other to doctor’s appointments and karate lessons. my auntie, her own two children all grown, tutors her 14-year-old nephew in history. her husband tutors my cousin in geometry and chemistry. people reach out their arms to carry each other. there are also many things that are never discussed, but getting help to make it through the day to day is not something people question, ever.

so i’m teaching my 7-year-old cousin to read. we make paper airplanes together; he reads the directions to me and we fold and fly the airplanes together. but his reading skills are behind for his grade level, and he speeds through words, confusing “each” with “edges,” cycling through lots of guesses for what “crease” could be, instead of trying to really read the letters in front of him. he, like me, has many mothers and fathers. there are many people who step in to look out for him, shuttle him to and from school and home, make sure he’s getting what he needs to be grow up healthy.

this weekend my brother also taught him how to play crazy 8′s, which also meant he had to teach him the four suits. he had a lot of trouble telling diamonds apart from triangles, but he eventually got it. next, i want to teach him how to play speed. life lessons, you know?

why would i ever want to leave this?

there are moments when i get glimpses of the future and of a life beyond the one in front of me right now. it’s enticing. i see that there’s room yet for pleasure and good conversation and new adventures, maybe even those that are accompanied by a lot of heartbreak and hard times. i know there’s a life beyond this sewing workshop, and it’s a life that asks to be attended to. but it feels like if i stay with my family i can hold all of that struggle at bay. it feels like my family could keep me safe forever, if i just stay close to the sewing room.

Filed under: family, figuring it out, home, sewing, paper airplanes, sewing