Primos

In the City of Brotherly Love

Haverford

I've been teaching a class called Quaker Social Witness at Haverford College outside of Philadelphia this semester. Every week I take the train up and walk through campus, decompressing from the rush of DC. The students are wonderful, and as you can see the campus is beautiful. There's also a pond with geese that always reminds me of Mary Oliver's poem Wild Geese, which I kept posted above my desk at work for years.

It's been a real gift.

Spring

My garden's first pea plants and daffodils on campus at Haverford. Spring is springing!

Gardens, Papa, y Cumpleanos!

New Year Reflections

It is not 2013.  It cannot possibly be 2013.  2013 is ages away, some far away year that I can't imagine when I'll be married, with kids, nearing middle age.  Crap, it is 2013.

Happy New Year!  Do you, like me, remember when the year 2000 seemed to be so far off still?  I remember thinking very clearly, sitting at my desk in Carroll High School:  In 2000, I'll be 26!  It is now 2013, the year I will turn 39, and I could swear I was sitting in that desk just last week.  Well, except that there have been a few things in between - college, my first time living in Washington, DC, a grad school and New York City, a career, marriage, a child, then another, and now more grad school plus kids plus marriage plus career all at once!  Does live seem to be getting fuller every year, or is that just me?

My mantra this year will be:  Today is all we really have.  How am I living my life today?

I've come to realize I spend a good deal of my time worrying about the future and not nearly enough time enjoying the present.  It's no way to live really.  Always planning the next hour, day, week, month, year, life - so that you miss what your four old is saying about his Legos that is really really REALLY important right now, or you don't enjoy the humor of your 22 month old cramming his stuffed doggy head-first into the training potty and slamming the lid on him, back paws desperately left hanging out in a plea for help.  So, I'm resolved, Spirit of the New Year, 2013 is the year of the now!

But before I jump into my constant state of living in the moment Zen nowness, some reflections from life in 2012:

1.  Paul Stares is right.  He's right about a lot of things.  He works at the Council on Foreign Relations leading their Conflict Prevention program and I respect so much of what he says and writes.  But the thing he was most right about was the email he sent me after I had Santi, a second boy.  He said that having two boys (as he does) would test every conflict prevention and resolution skill I had.  Boy was he right.  Pablo and Santi love each other dearly and this year also learned to fight!

2.  Living apart sucks.  But its somehow ok.  Alberto has been living and working in Mexico now for over 8 months.  It is not a situation I would recommend to any family, but somehow we've managed it and we're doing ok.  Love has no borders.

3.  I love school.  Going back to school has been great.  I love the time to think and talk and read and write that academia offers, without the pressure of do-do-do, that policy work demands.  Don't get me wrong, I'm doing way more that I should be, but feeling like reading and reflecting is part of what I'm suppose to be doing right now is really nice.

4.  I am totally addicted to coffee and should really give it up.  But I won't.

5.  Nothing is more important than family.  This is like a "yeah, duh, Bridget!" one, but you know, there are some years that you remember it better than others.  I love you, family.

6.  Single parents are my heroes.  I cannot believe how hard single parenting is, and how many people  - including my own parents - manage it with love and patience.

7.  If we don't do something about climate change we're all utterly screwed.  We may already be.  Really, people, can we not do better than this?

8.  I really don't like politics.  Policy, yes, but spare me the politics.  Here's my confession: I didn't watch a single minute of the presidential debates.

9.  Every year, month, week, day, hour, moment with your children is a remarkable, miraculous gift.

Ok, that's it for deep thoughts about the past and future.  Back to living in the moment.

Now, just where did I leave my coffee...

Choosing Peace

I just came from the voting booth.  It was a grueling two hour process because I had failed to update my address since the last elections, and because the polling station was understaffed and disorganized.  But, it was a peaceful change process in action, and for that I'm grateful and proud.

I'm studying war and peace these days and there are reams and reams of academic papers debating why people kill each other, how to end wars, whether we can ever rid our world of organized violence.  But there's still quite little written about why and how people choose peace.  Especially in the midst of violence.  I wish we understood that more.

Why for instance, does a young Congolese man named Henri, who was once a child soldier himself, decide to put down his guns and dedicate himself to building peace, risking his life to help others lay down their weapons and return to their communities?  How does he find the courage and clarity of mind to do it?  Or why does a Sri Lankan woman named Dishani give up a profitable career as a lawyer and risk everything to begin interfaith peace building programs in a society divided by religion?  How is she able to smile and encourage others with her honesty, passion, and humility, when she has witnessed so much suffering and human violence?

These are just two individuals among thousands, millions, across the world who choose peace each day.  (They are peace builders supported by Peace Direct, one of my favorite organizations, if you want to know more of their stories.)  They are leaders in their communities that others recognize and look up to.  But many many other people choose peace in smaller, less noticeable, but still such important ways.

Waiting in line outside my polling place a woman running for our local neighborhood council was working the line.  Her husband told me she worked really hard, without pay, to serve on the council.  I asked her why:  "Because I love my community."  Inside,  I listened to a young African-American woman talking to her grandmother on her cellphone:  "Have you voted yet, Grandma?  Well, what do I need to do to get you to turn that no into a yes?  Will you vote for Question Six (gay marriage in MD)?  People just want to get married.  So you'll vote this afternoon, you promise?"

What moves people to choose peace, serve their communities, encourage others to act for positive change?  Is it individual conscience?  Communal values?  Love?  Is it something we can study and understand, or something we must experience and feel?

Whatever it is, I'm feeling blessed to be encountering so many people choosing peace, in my local neighborhood and around the world.

First Day of School

Pablo and I had our first day of school this week.  Very exciting.  Though I think Pablo may be adjusting better than me at this point.  He's a mapache (raccoon) this year, though his best friend is in with the ardillas (squirrels).  Parenting your kids through those small moments of sadness and disappointment is remarkably painful.

Tonight I went to my first class in the PhD program at George Mason University's School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution.  It was a good class - good prof, good group of students, good discussion.  But it was definitely, well, school.  Students sitting around discussing theories and debating what different people have written about.  In this case the topic is peace and war, or conflict transformation if you want to use the jargon of "the field."

It was enjoyable enough, and I'm sure I'll like the class and learn from it.  What was odd was the sensation of having time to just sit and think and discuss ideas with other people.  Quite a different experience from parenting two small children or working in the policy world - both of which seem to run at much higher levels of both speed and chaos.

Even more odd was also reading the obituary of Roger Fisher, a founder of the field I'm studying and someone whose books are read by graduate students of conflict resolution all over the world, who just Saturday died of "complications of dementia" at age 90.

Studying peace and conflict resolution while my country is at war.  Dying of dementia after a lifetime of teaching others.  The world is an odd place.  Or maybe its just school.

Curso de Verano, Mexican Style

Pablo finished up his summer camp (curso de verano) here in Mexico this past week.  I went to the closing events for parents - a teatro musical and the closing ceremony, or clausura in Spanish.  It was, well, perhaps what I should have expected.

Now, to get a full image of the ceremonies, first remove all preconceived notions of children's theater and casual summer camp fun.  Replace that with elaborately choreographed (though not actually practiced much) dancing to remixed traditional Mexican children's songs, put to "punchies punchies"dance music, with speakers blaring at top volume and the teachers encouraging lots of sexy shaky shaky moves from the sidelines.  Using this basic, mind-numbing format, all the different age groups presented different camp activities (basketball, baking, swimming, camping, gymnastics) in the basketball stadium, with the teachers doing their own rap/country/sexy dance routine at the end.  It was, to say the least, a bit more than the line all the kids up and give them a ribbon kind of end of camp ceremony I was expecting.

I'm not really sure how much Pablo got out of the whole thing, though he seemed to have some fun.  At one point, I realized that all the little kids in his group, who were in the stands during most of the ceremony, had been given small sticks of some kind by the teachers.  They were of course just whacking each other with the sticks, which seemed to be perfectly acceptable to the teachers, who were chatting to each other, texting, or watching the whacking with zero reaction.  Meanwhile, down below scantily clad 6 year olds were bellydancing to blaring Arabic dance music (danza arabe being one of the other camp activities).

The little sticks turned out to be glowsticks and for the grand finale the lights all went out and some drummers began pounding to the already head aching dance music as they led all the kids down onto the gym floor for a final frenzy of glowstick dancing.  My four year old's first rave you might call it.

I quickly went down to collect Pablo and make sure he was not traumatized or suffering a busted eardrum, as I thought I might be.  He was fine of course, and totally unphased by it all.  "Wait, Mama, I want to give you a piece of confetti,"as he went to collect a small piece of pink paper for me from the colorful fray all over the floor.  (He does this with small leaves and rocks at home.)

So, we'll just rack it up to cultural diversity and call it a learning experience.  At least Pablo is getting exposed to a wide range of different experiences at a young age.  Did I mention that his summer camp in DC consisted of water play and circle time at a local Unitarian church?

Escape to Huasca

We escaped the chaos of Mexico City last weekend and headed north to Huasca de Ocampo, one of the old mining towns that is being revived for tourism as one of Mexico's Pueblos Magicos.  As far as I can tell that means the government names a town a pueblo magico, invests a bit of money in some tourist signs and some key attractions, and then lets the free market of tourism have its way.  So, in addition to a well-maintained old hacienda, some pretty natural rock and water formations, a nicely kept old centro of town, and a number of ecoturistico parks (which of course included plenty of beer and tequila stands), the local townspeople were putting up all sorts of their own tourism endeavors everywhere you looked.  No overall plan or program for sustainable development seemed to be in place, and I couldn't help but wonder what this beautiful land and small mountain town will be like in a few years.

Still, it was a magical trip in many ways, and gave us some much needed family time.  Some moments to remember...

• Stopping for nieve (Mexican ice cream) on the side of the highway, both ways
• Micheladas, Huasca-size (imagine a 64 oz. beer with chili and lime)
• Exploring the old hacienda together
• Pablo bonding with a tiny kitten we found there
• Santiago dancing and flirting at the hacienda restaurant
• Pablo shooting his bow and arrow everywhere we went
• Pushing Pablo on the tire swing over a sun-streaked lake at the campground
• Singing Itsy Bitsy Spider a million times to Santi in the car
• Pablo's first driving lesson
• Two guys riding their horses, with 64 oz Micheladas in hand
• Searching somewhat frantically for a free hotel room with the boys napping in the backseat
• A light afternoon rain moving across the tree-covered hills and lakes
• Children's hands waving happily out of the back of a pig truck on the highway
• Pastes...mmmm....and then more pastes (imagine an English pastie, stuffed with Mexican mole, pineapple, or arroz con leche)
• Santiago keeping us all awake and laughing till midnight in the hotel room
• El Zembo's quiet charm and beauty in the morning (before the picnicking masses arrived)
• Rope swings! 
• Trolling around the pond on a lancha (or bar-co, as Santi says)

And here are lots more pictures to tell more of the story.