Pondering

Yesterday I attended a safety and security session where a US Consulate law enforcement officer told my PC team that China was low on the "crime, terrorism, assault," lists. I had to think to myself, "do I know what this feels like?" No...I don't. I do not know what it feels like to live in a country where the likelihood of being the victim of a phone snatching or possibly getting hit by a car is more likely a fear to have than being shot in cold blood at a mall/movie theater/school, or turning on the news and seeing yet another mass shooting or slaying of an innocent...this is the first time. This strange place where I don't speak the language and new things accost me everyday at every turn is safer and gives me more comfort right now than my home. I can't be with my family right now to discuss and the horrific events going on in the US and to tell them to be careful. I can't hold my boyfriend's hand before he goes to work to serve and protect. I can't sit with my black friends and weep with them, and I'm sorry for my absence, but I'm glad I get to see what life is like when these tragedies are not our reality. I am happy I am removed and get to bring back a little slice of something different, for tomorrow is a new day. I will be waking up here, removed and unable to physically comfort those I love, but I'll be thinking about it. I'll be contemplating and even chatting with those people here who question me about violence and the scary nature of my home country. I'll try to sort through it and understand it myself. I'll try...I'll keep trying, because that's all I can do.

I am shocked at what is happening in my country right now. The blatant lack of respect for life, the fighting amongst ourselves. Here, in a homogeneous group, I'm learning the meaning of unity and I wonder why we can't celebrate our differences as well as our similarities. The most shocking thing about living in China is not the culture differences. It's the similarities. The obsession with technology and being plugged in. The clothing stores blaring loud music and showing bright fabrics in the windows. The amazing food and camaraderie that comes with sharing a meal. The love of friends and family. These things are universal. So why isn't violent crime? Why isn't this horrible feeling of fear and distrust that sits in my gut in the United States when I go out in public present  here in China? Where I hold my bags tightly next to my body to prevent thieves from stealing my belongings, but I tune out and enjoy the color of the sky or the curve of a flower because I'm not afraid that the person down the street has a gun and is simply going to start shooting...why even though I date a police officer, in the US my immediate reaction when a police officer is driving behind me or passing me on the street is one of fear and anxiety? Why? When here, people still feel like if they are lost, they should find a police officer to ask for directions? Why the divide? When faced with so many similarities, why are these differences what I'm feeling? 

I am at a loss right now. I can't read anymore of these articles. I can't emotionally take it. I'm so far away it barely seems real...but because I don't want it to be real. I want it to be fake, some complex rouse set up by the media to play on me as I'm halfway around the world and ineffective at steamrolling change. I'll be here tomorrow and the next day, pondering.

Frustrations - PST

It's been raining for days...it's gloomy on non-rainy days. Add in the streets flooding with murky, dirty water, the dismal sky, and the insane exhaustion that comes with the rain and our crazy work-load/studying and it's easy to forget how lucky we are here. My friends and I are cranky, frustrated, and ready for some tension release. Living with a host family is wonderful but incredibly challenging.

My days start at 6 am. I wake up, drink water, write my blog or talk to my family and friends on a messenger service, and go over anything that still needs to be addressed from the day before. In China, showers are taken at night and we merely wash our faces in the morning. By 7:30 am I'm out the door and on my way to my host family's store to grab a quick bite and then walk the six or so blocks to school. Our classes start at 8:30 am. They vary between TEFL, (teaching English as a foreign language) Chinese, and safety and security courses. Some days we have five hours of Chinese, some days five hours of TEFL, but we have an hour of lunch halfway through the day and we finish around 5:30 pm. 

There is always work to be done at night as well as time to be spent with our host families. This is the most exhausting part of the day for me. As tiring as learning Chinese in a seat all day can be, trying to communicate what I have to communicate for homework with my host family, how I'm doing, whether I like the rabbit/pork dishes they made for dinner (I am not a big meat eater and am only not vegetarian/vegan because it's nearly impossible here) and explaining that I can't stay up until midnight again "talking" (miming) when I have homework and other work to do....is exhausting to the point of collapsing. 

I know most trainees feel this way during pre-service training. It's both an intensive course necessary for success in-country as well as a weed-out system for those who can't hack it. It feels like being back in High School. I can't leave my host family's house on weekends without one of them accompanying me, my host mother won't let me purchase anything for myself in her presence, (I tried to buy a parasol/umbrella and she wouldn't allow it, saying she had one I could use...I'm not sure if this is financially motivated or if it would be a cultural affront, so I always comply...I will simply get my own when I head to site) and "Chinese time" where you tell them you are tired and need to go to bed at 8:30 pm and you finally crawl into bed four hours later is really a thing. Sometimes, I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open in class. Then I remember: it's only a little rain cloud, and rain makes the flowers grow.

My capacity to adapt is being tested. My ability to take a situation and learn and grow is being stretched. I'm taking in new language, culture, and teaching methods. This experience is making me stronger, better, and more resilient. These are the skills the Peace Corps picked me specifically for. The skills they felt were necessary for success here, and I have them. This is a honing process, a facilitated and manufactured procedure designed to force me to be ready for in-country obstacles. I came here for this challenge. I desired it. That's why I wake up and I write and I reflect and I just look out my window at the flooding streets and listen to the birds chirping outside my window. Really, when I get down to it, life here isn't all that different from home. I'm stressed, over fed, and enjoying the sound of birds chirping in the morning. It's just like Washington, DC!

Father's Day

I look out the window and I see lights everywhere. Neon signs and car horns honk constantly throughout the night. I finally have a few minutes (I woke up at 3:00 am after going to bed at 12:30 am) to sit and write a blog post with fully connected Internet. It was Father's Day yesterday. It still is in the US. Today is Monday for me though, because I am currently in my hotel room in China. I figure that I have some time to write this because I crossed the international date line (something my dad hasn't yet done, but will, because he and my mother will be coming to visit me here.) I wanted to post about my dad for a few reasons.

My dad, carrying me around on his back. Not much has changed...he still carries me when I falter.

The first reason I'm writing this is that my dad always instilled in me a sense of adventure. He helped me realize that there are two types of people in this world: those that do things they want to do and those who talk about things they want to do. When I was about 22 or 23-years-old, my dad and I had been talking about rock climbing for a few years. We both wanted to learn. We both thought it was a great idea. We hadn't DONE anything about it. So I signed us up for a class. We had a blast, the two of us learning how to set up rope systems, belay, and generally just enjoy the outdoors. My dad even let the tiny 5' tall girl with the skinny arms belay him because nobody else would. I stood by watching with sweat dripping down my face, realizing that he took a risk with his life just so that girl wouldn't feel left out or untrusted. It was that important to him that she feel a part of the group. He taught me that sometimes risks are worth taking to help someone else stay strong and feel confident. The teacher stayed close to her to catch him if he fell, but that girl held fast, never breaking her eyes off my dad. She knew he trusted her to keep him safe and she wasn't going to fail him! I learned a lot about love in that moment. I learned that love isn't something we say. It's something we do, even when it makes us a little uncomfortable.

My dad and I taking climbing classes

Of course, there is also the reason that my dad is always proud of me. Since birth, he's been telling me that I'm curious. The quintessential story from my mom after she gave birth to me that defines how my dad sees me goes like this: "Penny! (My mom's name) Guess what? I just went to the nursery and our baby is the only one propping herself up with her head up, and she's looking aaaaaaallllllllllllll around!" 

My dad holding me on my birthday.

Yes, I was born curious. Probably an inherited trait as I remember watching my dad read books on topics from engineering to medical science to car repair as a kid. My father read textbooks like most people read newspapers: diligently and quickly with their morning coffee (only my dad drinks tea.) There is a joke in my family. If you want to know where my dad has disappeared to in the grocery/book/convenient store, he's 90% most likely standing by the magazine rack, one foot crossed in front of the other, pulling on his mustache with his right fore and middle finger, reading some article in some science or cycling magazine. My dad is an information sponge. He is also killer at Jeopardy except that he never remembers to answer in the form of a question. This lust for learning is something he and my mother instilled in me as well, and even though my dad doesn't push me and has never made me do anything, telling me that my life is mine to live, I knew he was very proud of me when I finished college.  Now, as I embark on my journey into the Peace Corps, I know he is fascinated with my choice to do something so different and "cool." 

Yes, I did graduate...at 31!

My dad taught me to ride my bike, change a light fixture, tighten a loose water pipe, pull up flooring, read critically, think for myself, form a really bad pun but laugh hysterically at it, and to finish what home improvement projects I started, even if it's three years later. He's the most active and fun dude I've ever met, enjoying nature in a way that is unparalleled. He also enjoys bending nature to his will and can often be found in his backyard, cutting out paths and forming new sitting areas, completely and blissfully unaware that anything but trees and fresh air exist. He's had poison ivy about 72 times since I was a kid and always stops to point out the leaves and red hairs on the older vines. I know to NEVER burn them, because the smoke could cause an outbreak in my throat and lungs because he warned me about that.

Hiking with mom and dad.

When I was about three or four my dad found a snapping turtle outside our house in Connecticut and he showed it to me in my sun bleached orange sand pail from the sandbox. I wanted to touch it, but he slowly and carefully explained that it was dangerous and then told me about how many pounds of pressure their jaws come down on little fingers. He explained the science behind that too, and I looked at him like, 'you know I'm only three, right?' He didn't care. Even at three, the science was the most important part. Learning why something was dangerous or the way it worked, that was the fascinating part. He wanted to share that with me. He also wanted to share that with my brother once he came along. Sometimes Devin and I would sit in the back seat of our car, eyes glazed over, as my dad would explain some form of quantum mechanics or why the sky appears blue, not realizing it at the time, but our dad is the absolute nerdiest/coolest man on the planet. I think of him as a human encyclopedia who is going to be able to explain any theorem you may be able to throw at him, and if he can't, he will be able to soon. If you stump him, he will spend hours, days, and sometimes weeks researching and reading about something until he can fully explain it to you and to an expert on the subject. That's my dad. The researcher.

Check out that style!

Of course, my dad was in the Army and he always took care of his family. I attribute my dad finishing school to my mom, but my penchant for dating military men with decent jobs comes from him. He shakes every service member's hand as we walk through the airport and thanks them for their service. He also worked incredibly hard to keep us not just afloat, but to succeed in his career. I attribute his military experience, his education, and his love of his dependents to this, and I look for similar qualities in the men I date. My dad loves my mom more than anybody has ever loved another human being. Everybody can see that. He embraces her quirkiness, her weirdness, and her complete intelligent and sometimes frustrating nature. He fell in love with her and he adores her. He made a commitment and has stayed true to that. He is the reason I know what real love looks like. I want someone to love me like that. I want someone to provide for my kids like that. I want a man that can stand up to the stand up guy my dad is.

My parents at Luray Caverns after our family vacation last year.

My dad also encouraged me to do anything I wanted. I really don't think he sees me as a girl. He sees me as an incredibly complex person that happens to be a female. He loves that I've cultivated multiple aspects to my personality and have never shied away from things that aren't gender specific or gender neutral. When my grandfather once asked me why I didn't just get married and have kids because being a writer was a "tough job with a lot of competition," my dad looked at him and said, "don't you DARE tell my daughter what she can't do! Somebody has to! It may as well be her!" I had never seen my dad talk like that to my grandpa. Usually he was deeply respectful, but in that moment, my dad taught me something: nobody, not even your dad, can tell you what is right for you. It's your job to be it and to own it.

My Grandpa Joe, me, my dad, my brother, and our dog Beau

Of course, culture and the arts are deeply important in my father's family and he encourages that love I have for all forms of art. He dutifully came to the opera with me on my birthday and researched it beforehand so he could tell us the storyline, my mom enraptured by the music, my dad pointing and saying, "and that's the beginning of the downfall of the time period..." smiling and then pointing out the beauty of the sets. Watching them together is watching a swirling dance of science and reason and art and faith, a perfect blend of human interaction where they complement each other and their knowledge. My parents are best friends and they walk through life together.

Before the opera for my birthday a few years ago with my parents and my friend Ian.

My dad also taught me the love I have of reading, which in turn led me to being a writer. He acted out books for my brother and me, bringing Tolkein books and Dr. Seuss books alike alive for us with his voice and his animated facial expressions, teaching us early that reading is fun.

My dad reading to my cousin Tim and me as kids.

My dad comes from a pretty intelligent and somewhat stoic family. He was probably the most sensitive of them and got to form opinions on life that transend the normal within their ranks. It gave him the ability to marry a Jew and learn enough Hebrew to get through Passover and be accepted by his wife's community without converting. He wears a yarmulke with grace and follows along in spoken Hebrew like a pro.

My friend Sam and my parents at Passover dinner at my house

He also taught me that it's okay to enjoy the small things in life like a beer with your family and friends or just a pretty sunset. To sit around a fire pit after a good day with a box of vegan crackers and sip on an IPA. He has taken me on walks in the woods and on the beach and told me that happiness doesn't come from being the best at anything (although you should still try.)

At a bar with my dad and my uncle in Houston...it was a Guiness kind of evening.

At a wine festival with my friend Kat.

Essentially, my dad is my rock. He's the logical part of me, but also the half mellowed out half anxious side too. He's the part that picks out brush strokes when looking at a painting before and after admitting the beauty of the whole picture. He's the person who inspires me to learn more about topics than anyone would ever want to know and say, "did you know that...." at parties. He's my rock, my confidant, and my safe space to land. He's the truth teller without hurting your feelings and the one who will always turn around and go back if you forgot something. He is the tree trunk that holds up my family's tree house. He's our ground wire. He's the dad who always chased us that extra two minutes playing gizzard (tag) even when mom wanted to leave, and the guy you can always count on to help you with any task you throw out there. My dad taught me the value of being a good person without having to tell anybody about it, which is really why I'm writing this, so everybody knows. Because my dad is the best person.

I love you dad.