Not My Story To Tell

I was on a run this week listening to the podcast Armchair Expert with guest Jamil Zaki. 

Zaki is a professor of psychology at Stanford, Director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, and author of The War For Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World. I was rounding mile three when I had to stop in my tracks to rewind. 

Zaki said:

Another tool in the empathy toolkit is storytelling. Whether it’s immersion in novels, or plays, acting is a really powerful sort of performance-enhancing drug for empathy it turns out. [...] You embody other lives, you enter other minds in various ways. So any engagement in a narrative art can be a really powerful road to empathy for ourselves and for others. And there’s these fascinating studies where [...] it’s like a clinical trial, except where instead of a drug you prescribe someone a novel or you prescribe them a film. It turns out there’s these little boosts in empathy especially when we engage with art whose protagonists are different from ourselves. So if a White-American reads a novel where a protagonist is Muslim-American, there Islamaphobia will decrease a little bit.  

This was fresh on my mind when we read the picture book Sulwe a few days later, written by Lupita Nyong'o and illustrated by Vashti Harrison. Sulwe is a beautiful young black girl, distressed about her dark skin. Her family has lighter shades of brown skin, but Sulwe’s is “the color of midnight.” After a loving, but ineffective, talk with her mother, Sulwe is visited in her dream by a star that tells her the story of two sisters, Day and Night, and their own revelations about the power of appreciating, loving and embracing the skin you’re in. 

I stewed over this incredible book for a while, trying to contrive some plight-of-the-redhead experience to share that relates to Sulwe’s story. 

But, I stopped, because Sulwe’s is not my story to tell. 

If I have learned nothing else from the past year, it’s that my job is to listen to and absorb the black experience I’m being told. And...to offer the same opportunity to my kids. 

They need to know sometimes the story isn’t ours. Sometimes, we just have to stop and listen.

#sulwe

#empathy

#jamilzaki

Chatting With Peter's Mom

 I’ve been over it the last few weeks. 

We’re almost a year into this Covid-arrangement that I never agreed to, and I’m over “silver-lining” things. 

We’ve done the puzzles and the playground. We’ve done the art projects and legos and the spontaneous adventures. I’ve bootstrapped as many days as I can and I am spent. 

It’s cold. It rained for 800 days. I’m probably vitamin D deficient. My endorphins from running in the freezing cold aren’t holding me over anymore.

So, now, we’re on to the watching-Mickey-Mouse-Clubhouse-cuddled-under-the-blankets phase. We’re on to the mommy-reading-her-phone-while-the-kids-eat-cookies-in-the-pantry phase. We’re on to the creating-errands-to-run-so-they’re-buckled-in-the-car phase.

I wish I felt as nonchalant about it as I’m letting on, but I’m feeling both uninspired and super guilty about it. I need to be grateful, I need to present, I need to put on some pants that actually have zippers and pockets.

This week Beckett and I read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. Peter, this iconic little boy that ventures into the beautiful snowy city in his red snowsuit. Peter, the first-ever black protagonist in a picture book, reminded me of something I needed this week. 

I NEED TO SIT AND CHAT WITH PETER’S MOM.

And, if I could, we would complain and laugh and compare notes about our wonderful, precious, hilarious, incorrigible children that just can’t seem help themselves:

• I wish mine could just entertain himself like that. Look at Peter making tracks. My kid would have been back inside five times already...

• Uh oh, he wants to snowball fight with those big kids. I can just see him thinking about it… You’re right, he’ll be fine.

• Should we go get eyes on them or do you think they’re okay? No? Cool.

• Oh my God, he brought a snowball in the house. No he did not.

So, I guess the antidote I need is some connection here. We’re not supposed to do this parenting thing in a bubble. 

But I can’t be the only one feeling stuck in mediocre parenting. 

I can’t be the only one feeling uninspired. 

I can’t be the only mom wondering if the kids will be alright if we just let them explore by themselves like Peter a little bit in the snow.

#thesnowyday

#ezrajackkeats

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

Let me just begin by saying Valentine’s Day is dumb. 

Fortunately, Nathan and I are in total agreement on this. We have only celebrated it once in twelve years, and that was only because my sister-in-law kindly offered us childcare so we could have our first date-night after Beckett was born. So, technically, we were just celebrating a night away from burp cloths and stinky diapers. And if I’m being honest, it looked a lot more like me anxiously checking my phone under the table than it did gazing at Nathan lovingly over filet mignon. 

I’m not saying you shouldn’t go out and enjoy each other’s company at a fancy restaurant if you can safely swing it.. Buy each other gifts, if that’s going to brighten your day. Eat some cherry-filled chocolates, or accidentally eat the gross maple-filled one when you misread the guide. We all need something to enjoy right now.

But, I’m not going to act like that’s celebrating love.  

Matt de la Peña seems to know that, too. 

In his picture book Love, illustrated by Loren Long, de la Peña creates a montage for our children of the ordinarily extraordinary way of love. He inspires an observant eye to see love in all those everyday things we do that bring us together. From playing in the sprinklers on hot days with your neighbors to waking up in your mom’s arms after a bad dream. From fishing with your grandpa to crowding around the man strumming his guitar in the subway. 

He describes love to our children in a way that teaches them that love is actually the millions of moments that people show us we’re not alone in life. 

So, I’ll celebrate love when I notice Nathan plugged in my Airpods that were out of battery because he knows I’ll want them later for my run. Or, when Beckett describes me as “snuggly” in an assignment for class. Or, when Oliver runs up and hugs my leg while I’m cooking dinner. I’ll celebrate love when I see my future niece’s ultrasound or Beckett has to immediately share his new Lego creation with his cousins. I’ll celebrate when a package arrives from my father-in-law full of books and science kits for the boys.

Thanks Matt de la Peña for showing our kids to look for love in those places, too.

 

#mattdelapeña

#valentinesday

Cookie Makers and Basketball Stars

Beckett is not super interested in sports. He doesn’t have any “going pro” dreams. Despite being an active and social kid, he’s not interested in joining any teams, at least for today.

He does, however, want to be a cookie maker when he grows up, which I am here for. A Youtube cookie maker, to be exact, because you know, if you’re not attempting to be a basic celebrity apparently it doesn’t count.

He watched a how-to-decorate-a-Grinch-cookie on Youtube before Christmas, and now that’s his dream. He dismissed his initial dream of becoming president, because you need to go to college first, and moving away from home is unappealing to him. We’ll check back on that later...

That was on my mind this week when we read Salt In His Shoes, written by Deloris and Roslyn M. Jordan and illustrated by the phenomenal Kadir Nelson. This book is about the young #23 himself, Michael Jordan, who is being bullied on the basketball court for being too short. He came home one day lamenting to his mom about losing the game because he was not tall enough to get past another player. He asked her how to grow taller.

She smirked, and then advised him to put salt in his shoes every night.

She said, “In order for this to work, the most important things you have to do are be patient and listen to what I tell you, and say your prayers every night.”

Deloris Jordan knew the secret that I forget at least fourteen times a day...that parenting is like 95% letting go of my agenda for their lives and like 5% reminding them to let go of their own agenda.

The books and music and legos and dye-free organic food and chemical-free cleaning products probably all matter. At the end of the day, though, I can’t make him grow taller or make him pay attention in class or make him brave enough to go to college.

Mrs. Jordan knew the other important secret, though. As much as it helps to feel like we’re doing something that benefits lives we have to give our own plans over to whomever or whatever our higher power may be. And, like Mrs. Jordan, teach them to do the same.

#morethanasinglestory
#kadirnelson
#saltinhisshoes