Dinner conversation

Last night at dinner Deaglan told us a story about a new kid in his class. The kid had the same name as another kid. I asked him if he meant that kid – thought maybe he was still referring to him in this way because he was a junior kindergartner while he himself was a senior kindergartner this year. 

 

"No." he explained. This new kid was not the one  I was referring to. This new kid had “brown all over himself.”

 

Shaune and I looked up from our plates.

 

We have never had any lengthy discussions about race in our house, mostly because the kids are young. But also because a conversation about race these days is made considerably more complicated by the fact that a noticeable number of the kids our kids' ages are of mixed ethnicity just like our boys.

 

One time before this, when we’d landed on a channel airing The Karate Kid movie (the new version with Will Smith’s son), during a fight scene between a group of Chinese boys and the Karate Kid, Deaglan jumped up and exclaimed very excitedly, “Mom, those are Shilo’s brothers!”

 

This was at the beginning of the year when we still hadn’t put names to faces of his new class mates. When he kept bringing Shilo (pronounced Shee-lo) up I’d thought maybe it was an Arabic name. 

 

“Oh, does Shilo look like those boys honey?” I asked.

 

“Yes! I think those might be his brothers. They even have the same hair!”

 

So when he described the new Nathan and clarified the difference between the old Nathan by telling us that he was "brown all over himself", Shaune and I were amused. The Nathan I was referring to, the son of a work colleague is of African-American descent. Although he is biracial.

 

“Is he brown all over himself like Mommy and Naveen?” Shaune asked.

“No, he’s dark brown with balding hair.”

 

I bit my cheek to stay very serious. "Like Daddy's hair?"

 

"Yes."

 

“What colour am I?” I asked, trying to get a better sense of Nathan’s background.

 

“You’re light brown.”

 

Delighted by the way he saw us, I probed further.  “What colour are you?”

 

“Yellow.”
 

 Yellow

 

 Light brown

 

 Biracial

 



  

Balding hair:)



Three mornings

One

This morning when Deaglan told me he was feeling sick and needed to stay home, I stopped ironing my shirt, crouched down to look him in the eye,  and said this,


“You’re not sick, you're going to school.”


When he insisted that his tummy hurt, I told him it would pass. After a little back and forth, he reluctantly climbed back downstairs. A few minutes later when I could hear him all chirpy and fine, I ran down to confront him. “See? You feel fine now don’t you?” As if caught red-handed, he admitted that yes he did feel better but his tummy really did hurt a few minutes before.


“Okay, well this is how it will work at school today,” I explained, “you’ll have a tummy ache for a few minutes and when you do you’ll have to tell yourself, I’m going to feel better soon – you might even have to take a break in the Quiet Cubby. And before you know it, you’ll feel better again. Okay?”


Sadly, this is what a winter filled with work-from-home days to tend to my sick kids has come to. 

Tough love. 
Triage. 
Psychological affirmations. You are not sick. You can go to school.


Two
Last Friday morning at the last minute before heading to work, I realized that I was leaving Shaune's folks without wipes for the entire day they'd be looking after the kids. I ran to Shopper's Drugmart despite Shaune's Mom's insistence that she'd be fine without them, could use a washcloth if need be. I grabbed an umbrella too since it was downpouring - I didn't want to leave my inlaws without one should they take the kids out.


In line, the cashier rang up the man in front of me. Made pleasant conversation about the weather. Asked him if he'd like a bag - most places around here charge for bags now in an effort to save on plastic.


When it was my turn, the cashier's tone changed. She didn't respond to my sing-song hi, bluntly asked me if I was buying two umbrellas. Confused I looked at the packaged one in my basket and the soaking wet one in my hand.


"Just one," I answered.


She took the baby wipes and umbrella, placed them in a bag and curtly told me my total. Without any further communication we finished the transaction. I hesitated at the door to hear the exchange with the next customer, resisted the urge to confront her for charging me for a bag without asking.  Again she was cheerful as she'd been with the man in front of me. She asked the young woman how her morning was going, if she'd like a bag for her purchases and made idle chit chat while waiting for the debit machine to approve the transaction.


I thought about the man that had been in front of me. Looked back at the young woman finishing up behind me. It was hard not to notice the only difference between them and me was the colour of my skin.


Three
Lately when I get to work in the mornings I can't remember locking the house or the van. A few times last month I had to drive home after dropping Deaglan off at school to make sure I locked the front door. Last Thursday I had to turn around and battle the downtown traffic all the way back home to double check that I'd turned the oven off. I had.

This kid will not stay off the kitchen table. He often has to be coaxed down. When all else fails and I have to get firm, this is what I get. He's lucky he's beyond adorable still.

I fiddled around with the spacing on this post for a good 15 minutes. I couldn't get it quite right - I'm blaming Blogger.

Don't tolerate intolerance

At work a few weeks ago, Shaune was explaining a new feature on one of the cars he sells to a customer– the immobilizer theft-deterrent system - how it could prevent car theft.

“Oh you mean like if a big black guy with a gun were to try and carjack me?” the customer, a wealthy middle aged-man joked. Stunned, my husband rushed through his run down of the features and benefits of the vehicle, counting the seconds till he could get away from the man.

It’s the not the first time he’s been privy to people’s hateful comments.

After 9/11, when he was still in the restaurant business, customers often requested Non-Arabic cab drivers when they were too drunk to drive home. I’m not saying racism only comes out of Caucasian mouths – I hear terrible things said about the gay community by people of all colours on a regular basis.

I’m just grateful that my husband is appalled by these expressions of hatred. Because if you ask me, most of us are too tolerant of intolerance. I wonder how we’re ever going to teach our kids to stop bullying if we don’t stop it ourselves. Of course it’s easy for me to say -this revulsion of bigotry comes naturally to me; I’ve been a visible minority most of my life.

And that’s why I’m acutely aware of how rare and wonderful it is that Shaune is disgusted by society’s hatred of difference. It’s one of the things that tethers us together in this life.

That and his mad skills in the kitchen!

Profiling

"Citizenshep?"
I handed the customs officer my driver's license and health card.

"Canadian." He shuffled the two pieces of ID and then looked at me.

"Where're you goin Miss?"

"I'm going to a baby shower. Uh, my sister's baby shower." I said, unable to recall where the shower was, my mind a blank suddenly.

"Where's your sister live?"

"Well she lives in Harper Woods, but the shower isn't there. It's at her friend's house. I mean it's at her sister-in-law's." I sat up straight hoping this would stop my voice from shaking. "I have the directions in my purse."

"Where're you bohn Miss?" He sounded just like my brother-in-law, same Michigan accent.

"Uh, Bangladesh but I've been a Canadian citizen for over twenty years."

"Where's your proof of citizenshep ehat?"

I'd been crossing this border since I was a kid and couldn't remember the last time they'd asked for my citizenship card.

"I'm waiting for a new one in the mail. I lost mine." It sounded lame even to me.

"MmmHmm." he said and without pausing, pointed toward the building in front of me. "Okaay please pull through and paark up under that paavilion. Do nat git out of your caar. An ahficer will cahm to you."

Shit. This was the first time I'd needed to cross since it had happened.    

I pulled into the parking lot of the Customs and Immigration Building. I badly needed a cigarette but was too scared to light one up. Within a few minutes a stern-faced officer was standing next to my door, signalling me with two gloved fingers to step out the car.

I pulled my lips into a tight smile. "Hi," I said.

He nodded his head. "Please stay on this side of the yellow line ma'am."

I don't know why I hadn't considered the ramifications to security at the bridge. It was June 2002, not even a full year after 9/11, the day which had altered our world. A terrible, terrible day which ignited a new kind of fear, a new kind of racism.

"What's going on?" My nervousness was slowly heating into anger. "Are you searching my car?" No warning. Nothing.

"Yes I am Ma'am. Please stay behind the yellow line." His voice was rigid and unapologetic. He then popped my trunk and with a wand like stick began sifting through my belongings. Books, a towel, an extra dog leash, some half-empty water bottles and some loose papers.


I could hear my mother's voice in my head.
"You have to know which way to go at the bottom of the bridge. The wrong direction - pick the wrong line and you could be there for hours." I most certainly had gone the wrong direction.

It was not a good day to be a lone traveller with no documented proof of belonging. It definitely was not a good day to be a brown skinned Arabic-looking woman without proof of Canadian citizenship.

After two more searches of my car  this time by two different officers in army outfits, and two 15 minute interviews by these officers I was released. (I later learned these officers belonged to the National Guard).

Weary and shaken I drove to the baby shower, four hours late, and arrived just as the party was packing up.

This is my entry for the Red Writing Hood meme - detour.

I don't want to win the lottery

Yesterday we were on our way home from Costco when Shaune asked if he should drop me and the kids off at home before picking up his lottery tickets.

Why don't you just stop now and grab them at the grocery store? We need some soy sauce anyway. I suggested.

Fine he said, but I don't buy my tickets at the grocery store, you know that.

Right, I forgot.

He buys them at the Arabic variety store around the corner from us. The one that also sells Halal meat, fresh produce and a decent selection of spices. He loves this little store, feels like he's supporting the independent business sector. He reminded me of this - again. How he just loves the owner and would rather give his money to him over some "fat-cat" grocery store corporation.  He tells me (again) how the retailer would get a percentage of the winnings should he play a lucky enough ticket. Rhetorically, he asks me if I'd like to see the "fat-cat" stay on top when independent business owners struggle to stay competitive.

No, of course not, I mumble as if on cue. (He loves that term fat-cat)

I love this about my husband, his sense of loyalty, the ease with which he builds relationships with people regardless of class, ethnicity or faith. He's the only (white) person I've ever met who can spot racism a mile away and isn't afraid to speak up. I think he's a good father for two biracial boys to have. The right husband for a brown woman in a white society.

But he's downright superstitious when it comes to those lottery tickets. Plays the same numbers twice a week. Same store. Without fail.

Me? I could care less about the lottery. I like my life the way it is, thank you very much. I rejoice when I've found a bargain, earned a paycheck. Love knowing we can finally afford something. My heart races everytime I look at my kijiji* kitchen table.

I like going to work.

But you could work if we were rich, it would just be work you wanted to do, says Shaune. We could be philanthropists! You could write.

Here's the thing. I love finding a few minutes a day to squeeze in writing. Feel accomplished cleaning my modest little house. Guilt-free I put on my clearance-rack jeans and know that I'm giving my children what I can. I don't want my sons to be future Paris Hiltons, heirs to fortunes they didn't earn.

And the honest truth?

I'm not sure if I'm motivated enough to work if I didn't have to. I'm afraid of who I might become if money was no object.

You might be rolling your eyes. But I'm serious. Have you watched those people on TLC's The Lottery Changed My Life? In their gas-guzzling Hummers and Escalades. Very few of them give money to those who really need it.

I think I'll just stick to the life I was given, the one I'm earning. I like how Sheryl Crow put it in that song.

It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got.

*kijiji is Canada's version of a Craig's list

My brown skin

I'm aware of my skin colour almost every minute of every day. When I told a friend this recently she was genuinely surprised. She said that it was something she never thought about. When you are not a visible minority, it probably isn't on your mind.

Being brown is something I've had to grow into accepting.

When I was seven I left Bangladesh and quickly began the process of adapting to life in Canada - life in white Canada. Because my sister and I were adopted by a caucasian family, we lost our language, our customs, our religion - our ethnicity so that eventually the only trace of that other place you could see on us was our brown skin. Slowly we learned the new ways so we could function in our new family and society.

There was no one to teach us how to make a scrumptious daal or tuck in a gorgeous sari. No passages from the Koran were read to us, no Tagore ever quoted. Even our names were replaced by new more acceptable ones. I remember thinking years after it happened that the kids were simply wrong when they used to taunt us with Hey Paki you stink! We were clean and curry-free. We smelled the same as they did.

In my dating years I often had to do the asking out. Guys (the ones I wanted to go out with) simply were not all that interested in me because I looked like I was from a different culture. The complicated thing for me was that they looked like they were from my culture, the culture I had spent the past ten years acclimating to. I wasn't interested in dating Asian Hispanic or African men only because they weren't familiar to me.There were lots of years spent feeling envious of the attention my white friends received from boys. It's not that I was ostracized because of my skin tone - not at all. But it seemed to me that blondes really did have more fun, that a peaches and cream complexion came with it the freedom to never have to prove how smart and fun you were.

And it always made me wonder how I would treat my heritage, my background, and my skin colour with my kids. What could I offer them that they couldn't read in a book or online themselves? After all, it was how I learned about the country of my origin. I read about the war which forced my parents to carry two tiny babies (my sister and me) through rice fields, hiding by day and fleeing by night until the issue of territory was forcibly decided. I read about the ceremonies and practices, the language and art, the authors and poets and I even read the holiest book of that place in the quest to know what I might have known had I stayed.

For years I felt disconnected - looking a certain way but sounding and acting another. Even though there are thousands and most likely millions of immigrants who are forced to get Canadianized, most still have ties to their cultures through family and friends. What would I give to my children of where I'd come from, who I was?

The answer came to me after I lost Matthew. I thought about his life, how difficult it was for him as a gay teen, how after coming out he felt the need to move to Toronto to be around people of the same culture. I remember some of the things people said - even people in our own family - some of the terrible hurtful things. And I always felt the pain of it as if it was being said to me. I realized that I always felt the hurt when others were being condemned for their race, creed, colour, size or orientation. I became conscious of the fact that I could not tolerate intolerance! And this was what I must give to my boys.

An intolerance of intolerance.

Stumped

Last night as we were walking to the car from the daycare, Deaglan pointed to a truck in the Daycare’s driveway and said Look Mommy, a truck. And when I asked him what colour the truck was he replied correctly that it was red.

As I was buckling him in, he pointed to one of the student teachers and said Look Mommy it’s Sarah. And I said, Oh yeah, there’s Sarah.

Then he stumped me.

What colour is Sarah Mommy? He asked.

I know that he didn’t really mean it the way it sounded. I know that he was mimicking the question I had asked him earlier but I truly did not know how to answer him. In fact I didn’t want to answer him. It made me feel really uncomfortable just thinking about putting a label on her.

I wondered, not for the first time since having a child, whether this too was nature, nurture or a bit of both.

I tried to recall if there was a definitive moment in my life where I remember noticing someone’s skin colour. I wrote a bit about it here but really my life has been so different than Deaglan’s will surely be.

What colour do you think Sarah is? I asked.

Blue. He said.

I left it at that.

Consciousness

Complaining about how tired I am these days doesn't have the same impact,even on me. It's nearly impossible to feel sorry for myself at the end of a workday because I have to make Deaglan dinner and then still do the bedtime routine. I 'm not even all that tempted to whine to somebody about how many times an hour I have to drag myself into the bathroom because the uterus has already started to put pressure on my bladder.

I've tried to stay conscious and remember what's going on in the world. I've been reminding myself regularly throughout the day that people are suffering, really, really suffering.

Why is it so easy for us to forget? Sometimes I wonder what it would really take for a person to change. You would think that having lived in one of the poorest countries in the world for the first seven years of a life, really knowing hunger, and having felt the shame of begging on the streets, that I wouldn't get too comfortable in this life - so easy and so abundant. But I do get comfortable and forget often.

I donated I reason with myself. What else can I do? That's the question that stumps me.

Since I gave birth to Deaglan I've wondered what I could offer his soul. I know that we take very good care of him. And culturally I can't give him much as far as my birth place. I was raised in a caucasian Canadian family. Lately the answer has been floating through me. I need to give him awareness. Consciousness. This place we live - this isn't the whole world. There is a great lack in a large part of the world. Maybe if I teach him to be aware, maybe something will change.

My thoughts and prayers are with you Haiti. I'm sorry this is happening to you. I'm sorry you are suffering so much.

Bureau(ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!)cracy

I saw a dead bird on the sidewalk this morning. Possibly it was a mourning warbler. It was smallish, olive green and beautiful, peacefully on it's side without a visible scratch in sight, as if tired, it lay down on the pavement for a quiet rest.

I walked on down the street and quickly forgot about this sweet creature upon entering the Ministry of Health building. At only 9:30 am it was already filled to capacity with people young and old lined up, first to explain to the receptionist the reason for their visit and then to get handed a number and told to sit down in the enormous waiting room until it was called. My heart sank.

I would have kept my own last name if I'd known of the hours and hours of bureaucratic garbage I had to wade through to change it to my married name.

First there was the Ministry of Transportation and trying to change my driver's license. I wrote about it here. It was such a harrowing experience that I practically gave up. I half decided it would be okay to be known as my maiden self by the federal government and my married self by the provincial government. But then the American government forced me to get up off of my apathetic behind because now I would need a passport to go and check out the deals at Target. And I was pretty sure the passport people would insist that I decide who I was before issuing me one.

So there I was at the Ministry of Health, number 42 in hand, feeling kind of optimistic because things were moving along nicely. Then it dawned on me. I would have to change the name on my Canadian citizenship card too. I walked back to the office dreading the thought of what this could entail. And about 16 clicks, three toll free calls and 26 minutes on hold later, I was finally clear. I would need two citizenship photos (different from passport photos), certified copies of legal name change documents which meant I would have to find and pay a notary public or a member of parliament, or a commissioner of oaths to photocopy and sign the legal documents I already owned (they told me they wouldn't accept the originals), plus include a non-refundable $75.00 fee.

If this isn't reason enough to stay married to Shaune, I don't know what is.

Practical magic

Did I ever tell you about my threader? Her name is Suk (pronounced Sook) and she runs a “for women only” spa. My dentist Pam told me about her one day last year as she was checking over the work the hygienist had just finished in my mouth. I’ve told myself that she was just making casual conversation and not giving me much needed advice. But it turns out, it was one of the most useful conversations I’ve ever been a part of.

Anyway, I love Suk. She’s around my age, from India, has two of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen, is recently divorced and is the best eyebrow shaper I have ever had.

Her tiny little shop doesn’t have air conditioning or a comfortable waiting area. Often when I enter the shop, there are several people standing around awkwardly because the four black anomalous chairs are taken. She has posters of some of India’s most famous beauties – Aishwarya Rai, Rani Mukherjee - on her wall, offers beauty products I had never known existed – did you know that turmeric is really good for your skin? and you can get things like a henna tattoo or an ayurvedic facial.

Her clientele are a wonderful exotic mixture of East Indian, Middle Eastern and Canadian women ranging from the ages of 12 (hey us dark skinned women didn’t luck out in the facial hair department and the onset of puberty only made this more obvious – you should see my prom picture if you want to get clear on what a unibrow looks like) to 70. Just today an ancient tiny Indian woman shuffled in with her granddaughter leading her by the elbow to have her chin threaded.

And threading is Suk’s specialty. This is a really healthy, green and inexpensive alternative to waxing. The speed and accuracy with which she removes the hair has me worshipping Suk as if she was the second coming reincarnate. I told her a while ago that if she ever thought about moving out of this city, I would easily pack up my family and home and follow where she was going. And I know that I’m not the only one that feels this way. Last month she went to visit some of her family in India and you have never seen so many uncomfortable looking brown women walking around town being mistaken for Magnum P.I. We simply will not go to anyone else now that we’ve found her.

One of the difficulties Suk faces as the result of being in such high demand is that all of her clientele will only accept her services. She has hired a second person in the past but people will absolutely not trust their eyebrows, upper lips or chins to anyone else.

We have a wedding to go to tomorrow – actually all three of us are a part of the wedding party. (I’ll post some pictures of Deaglan as the ring bearer next week.) And so I called several weeks ago and couldn’t get an appointment till this morning. There were 15 people ahead of me all waiting patiently to have Suk work her magic.

It’s funny how such a small thing like your eyebrows being a bit unruly can make you feel so unattractive and incomplete. I usually walk out of that salon with my head held high and my back just a little straighter.

Oh and the best part? It costs me just $12.60 to have my eyebrows and upper lip done!

An oasis of freedom and justice

A friend of mine went to a family function a few weeks ago where her mother-in-law in describing someone else said to my friend..."well she's like you, she doesn't cook or clean either."

When she told me this story we both rolled our eyes and laughed because this was her mother-in-law's way of saying..."my precious son does everything around the house you lazy good-for-nothing."

But it made me think about how things have changed and also about how there will always be a generation or a group of people who will resist those changes.

Because if you think about it, no one even bats an eye lash when they hear that the woman of the house does all the cooking and the cleaning. It's as it should be they all think. But often when I tell people that Shaune does most of the cooking in our house they are truly impressed and can't believe my fortune to have found such a rare man. This always makes me wonder - how far has the woman's movement really come???

And this lead me to consider all of the other developments we've seen in the last few years. While we can certainly look at them and say - yes the world has really come a long way - it's just as easy to say - what the hell took so long?!!

Take Obama for instance. Even though I'm not an American, I can sincerely say that we have seen a new day and one that I am thrilled that Deaglan has been witness to. But not because I am so grateful that a black person was given the job but because it's about time a person was elected based on his abilities regardless of skin colour. I feel relieved that Deaglan's generation might not have to continue to evaluate a person's worth based on the colour of their skin but the content of their character.

And I also mulled over the legalization of gay marriage in Canada, the fourth country (after The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain) in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. Although July 20, 2005 is the official date that parliament passed the Civil Marriage Act, many parts of Canada (almost 90 %) had already legalized gay marriage since 1999.

My reaction to giving people in committed same-sex relationships the same benefits commonly associated with committed heterosexual relationships is - it's about f*#@ing time! Maybe it's because I have been a visible minority all my life, or maybe it's because I'm a woman, or maybe it's because I've had to sit helplessly by and watch gay friends and family get treated like less-than-second class citizens because we live in a society that has little to no tolerance for anyone that even remotely deviates from the narrowly defined view of what's 'normal'. Or maybe my reaction is based on a combination of all of it.

All I know is that these changes certainly make my job of raising a child a bit easier. I mean really, how were we supposed to tell our brown-skinned children to dream about being the kings and queens of the world when they had no kings and queens to follow? And how were we to teach our children to be proud of who God created them to be if our world and our society didn't support them in their individual splendours as full citizens? And how could we tell our girls that they were just as capable as boys in whatever they pursued if we were also busy telling them that anything to do with family and home was also solely their job??

Cheese sandwich

I found out through Facebook that one of my grade school principals died. I'm not sure exactly when he passed but I heard that his wife died within six months of his death. Mr. Gibson was a nice man.

My most vivid memory of him was the year I was seven and attended school for the first time. We were adopted the June prior and spent the entire summer learning English. My parents (the people who adopted me) wanted to place my sister and I into our age appropriate grades even though we had never been to school. My mother, who was a grade school teacher herself, had conveniently forgotten to mention to the school that this would be our debut into the education system. So she spent June, July, and August prepping us in a way that didn't betray her oversight.

Besides a mulatto boy we were the only brown kids, my sister and I, going to that school. It was 1978. Culture shock could not aptly describe what we faced in those first several months in Canada.

Every morning we boarded the school bus, lunch boxes in tow. By our stop the bus was already half full of rowdy kids, laughing and boisterous, deaf to the bus drivers shouts to "SIT DOWN!" We attracted some curious stares with our wary immigrant dispositions, me, shy and always in my sister's fearless shadow.

It didn't dawn on me that the chanting was aimed at us. On the way to and from school it was the same boys in the back of the bus whose rhythmic shouts finally caught my full attention.

"Paki!" "Paki!" "Paki!" "Paki!"

In truth it was the wad of paper that hit me on the back of the head one day which clued me to the fact they might be shouting this at me. I had never heard the word before.

"Paki!" "Paki!" "Paki!" "Paki!" Every morning and every afternoon.

Soon, the same boys would greet us this way on the school yard.

"Hey Paki, you stink!"

My sister and I discussed this and concluded that it most certainly was not a good thing to be called Paki.

She had made fast friends with a wonderful girl who lived down the street from us. Kathleen was beautiful and fun and very kind. But she was also very knowledgeable especially in our eyes. She told us that we needed to yell back at these boys. She even told us what to yell.

"You can't do nothing when they throw things at you either. Throw something back!"

Her words were empowering.

The next day we boarded the bus, anxious but equipped with a proper defense. The boys in the back of the bus began their chant as soon as we came into their sight.

"Paki!" "Paki!" "Paki!" "Paki!"

"Shutup you Honkey!" we both said shakily but loud enough for them to hear.

The boys started to laugh hearing our feeble attempts to retaliate. They began wadding up paper and throwing them at us. Not backing down, my sister opened her lunch box, unwrapped her sandwich and hurled it at them. She missed the boys and hit the back window of the bus instead. The boys were giddy with this reaction and grabbed the sandwich and whipped it back. It hit me square in the face. Cheese and Miracle whip.

I bit my lip to keep from crying. My sister shoved me into a seat and grabbed the sandwich and threw it back. It became somewhat of a food fight with kids throwing all sorts of things. In the background the bus driver could be heard shouting and threatening.

"SIT DOWN! YOU'RE ALL GOING TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE WHEN YOU GET TO SCHOOL!!"

And this is when I had my first meeting with Mr. Gibson. Our conversation went something like this.

"So I heard that there was a foodfight on the bus today. Can you tell me what happened Kim?"

"The boys were calling us names and throwing things at us." I croaked shaking with fear that I had really gotten myself into big trouble if the principal was talking to me.

"What names were they calling you?" he asked gently.

"Every day they say Paki! Paki! Paki! Then they say 'You stink Paki!'"

"And so tell me what happened today. What did you say to them? It's okay, you won't get in trouble. You just tell me the truth, okay?"

"I said 'Shutup you Honkey!'"

I could tell from his reaction to this that he already knew what we had called those boys. I couldn't be a hundred per cent sure but I think that he was also trying to keep from laughing.

"Kim, can you please tell me what that means, that word you called those boys?"

"I don't know." I started to cry.

"It's okay, you're not in trouble." He came around the desk and put one arm around my shoulder. "I'm going to talk to those boys. They won't be calling you names anymore."

And sure enough the name calling stopped after that.

Mr. Gibson moved on after that year. I ended up going to highschool with his kids. I learned then that he was married to a Chinese woman and his two kids Mai Ling and Mark were biracial. I was sad to hear of his death this year.

Some cold hard truths

I have a lot of belly fat. It’s where I always gain my weight. I’d never had a flat stomach in my life, even when I was a little girl. But after gaining 60 pounds with Deaglan it’s not a very pretty sight. I’ve always been curvy, never worn a bikini proudly, always have a hard time finding a top and bottom set that would even fit my proportions. I’m an apple not a pear.

A few years ago a confused woman at work consistently had me mixed up with another brown girl. Only this other brown girl was a pear not an apple. So when the confused woman would see me at the gym, working out (we have a convenient workout centre right in the building where I work outfitted with the latest equipment and classes and costs ten bucks a month to use) she would grab me by the shoulder and say: You look so great – you’ve lost so much weight! I didn’t embarrass her but I knew that she meant my butt looked smaller. The brown girl she had me mixed up with has a large bottom, I have a bigger mid section but almost never gain weight in my rear. So this unfortunate visually challenged woman thought that my workouts were paying off because my butt looked smaller. This went on for some time and I won’t even go into the “all brown people look alike” discussion but I’m sure you were thinking the same.

A few years ago I used to really focus on my abdominals and let them stand in the way of how I saw myself. I’ve always hated my figure. Especially here in North America, it’s harder to feel physically acceptable when the idea of beautiful has been tall and thin for so long. Technically I’m the opposite of that. Short (just over 5’2” – for a while I was telling everybody that I was 5’3” but it’s just not true so I stopped) and on the verge of chubby (132lbs – boy the honesty is pouring out of me now!). I think I might have been a big hit during Marilyn Munroe’s day save the skin colour.

But something surprising came along with Motherhood. Acceptance. I still want to be a healthy weight and look good in clothes but I could care less if I have flat abs or can fit into a size four. The thought of working to fit into a bikini sounds exhausting. I have no problem wearing a ponytail for 12 days straight and unless I’m at work prefer flat shoes or runners to heels any day of the week.

I have to say motherhood aside, a part of this definitely has to do with feeling happy about my life and a part of this has to do with the fact I lucked out in the husband department. He almost always finds me attractive (even on those days I wish he wouldn’t – you exhausted moms know what I’m talking about here!).

Last summer, wearing any sort of a water-activity garment was out of the question but I really have to consider my options this year since we have one of those wading pools which will be so much fun for Deaglan if not for his mom.

I saw this bathing suit at a local department store and have seriously considered trying it on.

Taking a stand

What other people think or believe is none of my business. It took me a long time to realize that just because a person's opinion on a hot topic differs than mine doesn't mean that I need to cut them out of my life. Usually though, the people in our lives share our sensibilities toward most things.

Something has been bugging me for the last few days. I've received two disturbing emails from someone fairly close to me. I was a part of a group send. I feel that the emails are racist in nature. I replied to the sender and told them that I wasn't interested in receiving these types of emails.

The thing that is bothering me is that a few years ago I would have had a stronger reaction. I might have written a strongly worded email or called this person to let them know exactly how much I opposed the messages or even just stopped speaking to them. I know that those types of reactions are pointless and even futile. But did I react enough? I don't feel at peace with something but I don't know what.

Something worth seeing

Inter-racial

Deaglan has a diverse ethnicity. I am a first generation Bangladeshi. Actually, Bangladesh became a country the year I was born. It used to be East Pakistan. Shaune was born in Sarnia, Ontario. His parents were also born here but a couple of generations back there is Irish and English heritage.

I wonder what his experience will be as a mixed race person. I hope that the world will be kind to him. I hope he never experiences any limitations based on what he looks like. I hope he never puts limitations on others based on what they look like.