Scenes from Italy: The Entrepreneurs

The Metro teems with people and pickpockets, musicians and beggars.

Three boys under 12 step into our car, two are wearing accordions, the third, a bit younger, carries a maraca. They call out to the crowd and start playing. The only one with rhythm is the one shaking the maraca and his little booty.

They play one song, then sputter out, disagreeing over what to play next, subjecting us to their misfires and false starts before passing their paper cup through the car.

Hours later in the city, we’re sitting in a pizzeria, gazing out the window into the narrow street, and the two older boys reappear. No longer burdened with their accordions, they are footloose and fancy free, glancing down the street as they not-so-secretly check to see if all the bicycles in the rack next to the sidewalk are secured.

***

The tourists and street vendors both congregate at the Spanish steps, next to the house where the poet John Keats died of consumption. The streets around Piazza Espagna are lined with designer shops: Gucci, Valentino, Dior, Dolce & Gabana, MaxMara, Prada. There are $3000 coats and $500 jeans on display. On the sidewalks in this quarter, Africans sell designer knockoffs from tiny blankets while Indians on foot sell an endless variety of trinkets.

The roaming peddlers try to sell us toy bubble shooters, stretchy, squishy toys, whizzing magnets, beads, scarves, umbrellas, postcards. Most of the time they will take no for an answer and move on, but some can be aggressive in making their pitch, which is when my respect for their willingness to hustle a living tips toward annoyance and disgust.

When I’m on my own and not with E, they get in my face, trying to sell me the ugly plastic beads coiled on their arms, the Indian silver in their hands. When I refuse their offer, they don't give up and try to barter with me. I’m a fool with good manners, thinking saying “no thank you” will end this exchange. I look away, they persist, and I stop just short of giving one guy a shove. Nice Grrrl no more.

Elsewhere on the piazza, I see men making the rounds, handing out single red roses to women and then harassing them for payment while refusing to take the rose back. I vow that if they offer me a red rose, I will accept it with smile, and crush it under my heel while they watch. That will teach them not to mess with American women. Where I come from, No means NO.

***

Our last day in Rome, we are visiting the Pantheon. In the piazza, vendors have completely surrounded the fountain with their various wares spread out on blankets. Suddenly, I hear a buzz among the sellers and all heads turn toward a narrow alley feeding into the piazza. A police car is pulling up right onto the square and in the blink of an eye, all the vendors disappear as they grab the four corners of their “stores” and dash down an alley on the other side.

The police jump out of the car, motioning at them to return and when that gesture is ignored, they point and wag their fingers at them.

Busted? Not quite. Scattered? Yes.

***

In the Metro station, a man takes a position by the steps each morning and sets up his begging station. He is clean and well shaven. He walks with a single crutch. He sits on the concrete and rolls up his baggy pants to reveal his withered legs. When it’s warm enough, he rolls his pants up over his thighs to display the long white scar that runs from hip to knee.

He is there early in the morning and late at night and he begs and begs and begs some more. E-Grrrl drops a few coins into his cup. So does Mr. A. They have pity for him but my heart hardens day to day as I watch him work his gig.

I’m surprised how much his presence annoys me. In my Scrooge moments, I tell myself that if he can show up every day and sit in one place, he can get a job. Then I realize that he has a “job” and this is it. Why do I care how he earns his living? What business is it of mine? He makes no pretense about his begging. He isn’t stealing or harassing passersby. He's just asking for money.

Over time, I realize that what bothers me isn’t the begging but the display of his crippled legs and scars. He has set his affliction before us. He has chosen to let it define him, and to impress upon those he meets that he deserves to be compensated simply for being what he is.

I remember a picture of Jesus my mother kept on her dresser that showed him with his chest open and his heart punctured with thorns. The people walking past this beggar day after day have their own thorns in their hearts-- disappointment, despair, broken relationships, dead loved ones, lost opportunities, health problems, financial pressures and losses.

What if the beggar could see their scars, if the passersby revealed their thorns? Would he see his legs in a new light? Would he toss us a coin? Would he weep? Or would he do as we so often do, turn and look the other way?

***

Walking at night with a cone of roasted chestnuts in my hand, I’m approached by a little girl who speaks in Italian and motions toward my food.

I reach into the cone and put a chestnut, warm and plump, into her outstretched hand. She immediately puts out her other hand, speaking rapidly in Italian, her big brown eyes meeting mine, her curly hair bouncing. I press a second chestnut into her palm and watch her disappear into the crowd.

I wonder if she’ll get to taste the bounty or whether someone more powerful than her put is exploiting her cuteness for their own gain. I sigh and I hope she gets to pull the nutmeat out of the papery shells and sink her teeth into the starchy goodness.

I saw a boy on a Metro, no older than six, walking with a cheesy electronic keyboard that was set to play a tinny version of Silent Night automatically. He is carrying a cup like a street musician, even though he can't actually play any music.

It would almost be funny if his face weren't so sad, so pathetic. These children aren't ragamuffins. They're normally clean and well dressed, not skinny and neglected looking, but their parents, their community, their culture, teach begging as a way of life. It's hard to understand, even harder to watch.

I couldn't wait to get off at the next stop.

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com

November 29, 2006

St. Peter's Basilica

You can’t appreciate the grand scale of St. Peter’s until you’re heading up the steps,  dwarfed by its gigantic columns and the towering ceilings on the portico. The architecture puts you in your place--your sense of self is diminished by its vastness, your perspective opened. When you step inside St. Peter's, it's easy to briefly lose your bearings in the ambition of Michelangelo’s design and Bernini’s altar.

If the Sistine Chapel seemed spiritually static, St. Peter’s offers a dynamic sense of the sacred. The dome is aligned over the place where Peter was martyred and buried. Former popes rest in the grottoes below. There are chapels and shrines everywhere, and as always, the ceilings draw the eyes and the soul heavenward.

In a chapel on the right is the sculpture I've waited most of my life to see: Michelangelo’s Pieta. I will never forget experiencing  it for the first time. Mary’s face is seared in my memory as the face of Grief. Her expression holds all Sorrow, her arms the broken body of her only son. While her right hand supports him, her left hand is held palm up toward heaven in a gesture that conveys both strength and resignation. As promised by the angel in the gospel,  her heart has been pierced. You can see it, and you can feel it in your own chest. It's painful to gaze on the Pieta, but impossible to turn away.  Its power is palpable, its message eternal and timeless.

I can't believe Michelangelo was only 25 when he sculpted it. The Pieta makes me believe in divine inspiration.  How else could he know? How did he channel Grief and give it form and a face? How did he create something so achingly beautiful, so painfully poignant? How did he make the stone speak truth not just to the people of his time but to all people?  I wept when I saw it.

The week before we came to Rome, I had a string of e-mails and letters from friends, each detailing a personal crisis, each leaving a trail of sadness. I retreat behind a velvet curtain to a quiet corner of the Basilica set aside for prayer and meditate on all these situations, all these people. Each prayer leads to another, strung together by faith, hope, and love. I can’t seem to stop crying. Finally I quit trying. Why ration my tears for joy or for sorrow? If I can’t open my heart here, where can I open it?

E-Grrrl comes and sits besides me and holds my hand. She whispers, “Daddy says you’re probably thinking of Louise and your parents,” and I am.

This trip is haunted by the past. So many memories intersect in this time, place, and holiday. My Italian grandparents emigrated from a small village 25 miles outside of Rome, and my mind tries to see Italy through their eyes, to understand what they left behind to come to America. Though they’re long dead, I want them to know I’m here, that I know how much courage it took to leave all that was familiar behind and start fresh in a new country.

I’m haunted too by memories of my late sister Louise, who came to Rome when she was 24 and whose steps I’m sure I’m retracing.  I wonder what she thought of St. Peter's. I wonder if it made her cry.  Finally, I can’t run away from memories of Thanksgiving celebrations from the past and how much I miss my parents and Louise. What I would give to sit around a table with them one more time...

But my sense of loss is offset by a larger sense of my blessings—the opportunity to be here and live in Belgium, the breadth of my circle of friends and family, the miracle of my children, and the steady presence of the man who knows my secret sorrows.

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com

November 27, 2006

Visiting the Vatican

We waited in line for an hour to get into the Vatican Museum. Before I researched Rome, I always thought the Sistine Chapel was part of St. Peter’s. It is actually part of the Vatican. The Vatican Museum is a section of the Vatican itself open to visitors. Research the museum before going into it because it is JAMMED with tourists even in the off season. Unlike a conventional museum where each item is marked and labeled, here the art is part of the buildings, integrated into the design and thus not “displayed” museum-style with descriptions under each piece.

The Vatican is as ornate and luxurious as any palace we’ve visited in Europe. Every square inch of every surface is embellished. Frescos. Paintings. Mosaics. Tapestries. Sculptures. Inlaid marble floors and walls. There’s no end to the rooms and corridors and plaques and inscriptions glorifying past popes.

There’s no denying the value of the art, the beauty of the spaces, the sheer volume of the collections, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. As a Christian, I found the display of wealth in the Pope’s headquarters and residence hard to swallow, a sad tribute to a Church that at times has seemed more in love with its power and status in the political arena than with its mission to share Christ’s message with the world. It seemed as if each pope tried to out do his successor with the art and decorations he commissioned.  It's easier to accept such lavishness when it's part of a church building, accessible to all, designed to edify the faithful and presumably offered to God in worship.

How big is the portion of the Vatican open as a museum? Even if you don’t stop and look at anything, it will take you 20-30 minutes to walk to the main attraction, the Sistine Chapel.

The Sistine Chapel itself is not nearly as big or grand as I imagined it would be. It is a long rectangular room decorated with magnificent frescos by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, and other greats of the Renaissance. It is dimly lit, and while the art is magnificent, it’s overwhelming in its scope and position. How long can you tilt your head back and look up at the ceiling? It's hard to get far enough way from the wall frescos to see them in context. Of course, the chapel, which was devoid of any furniture other than an altar table, was packed with people and no, you could not sit on the floor and look up. There was limited seating around the perimeter.

It was impossible to devote the time the frescoes deserved. We took them in in small doses and resigned ourselves to the reality that we missed as much as we saw.

Though visitors are expected to be silent in the chapel, there’s no sense of the sacred there. For me, it was like an art gallery devoted to a single theme, not like a place of worship. It was a feast for the eyes but it didn’t stir my soul, unlike many of the other churches we visited in Rome.

(Next: St. Peter's Basilica)

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com

November 26, 2006

Notes from Italy

The beauty of Rome is its mystery as well as its history. Here the foundation of Western Civilization laid by the Greeks was built upon layer by layer through the millennia. Rome offers astounding architecture, classical sculptures, Renaissance art, magnificent monuments, and religious and civic buildings that loom larger than life.

Turn a corner in the traffic-clogged city and catch your breath at the sight of the Colosseum. Step behind the door of an unassuming church and discover a sculpture by Michelangelo or Bernini or a painting by Raphael or Caravaggio. Follow the line of shops down a narrow alley and discover it ends in a broad piazza flanked by classical buildings and gigantic fountains. Rome is full of surprises—the unexpected junctures of old and new, Christian and Pagan, modern and traditional. Rome, the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of the Renaissance continues to impress and inspire.

A few observations linked less to the sights and more to the culture:

In the taxi from the airport:

Palm trees? Orange trees? Exotic pines? I had no idea I’d find these in Rome.

London and Paris are elegant gray ladies, Brussels' moody skies are off set by its rich red brick buildings and peaked tile roofs, but Italy is golden like the sun—sand-colored stucco, shades of mustard, egg-yolk yellows, creamy caramels, terracottas, soft apricot, and pale creams are punctuated by the occasional pink or coral building. The flat-topped roofs host lavish green gardens, rows of antennae, strings of laundry.

Why Italian women are skinny girls with great asses:

Stairs, stairs, and more stairs. Dozens of stairs to get in and out of the Metro, five flights of stairs (100 steps) to get to our apartment, stairs at the piazzas, stairs at the museums, stairs in the parks, stairs in the monuments, stairs to reach the ruins--and hills in between.

I never felt so old and useless as I did huffing and puffing up countless steps, my legs aching, my breath getting jagged, my feet tired and battered by cobblestones. I kept telling myself this was good for my butt in the long term even if it was killing me in the short term.

At St. Peter’s Basilica, you can reach the top of its famous dome by climbing 320 steps. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that my heart literally and figuratively denied me.

E and the kids went the distance and told me later it was quite a challenge. As they ascended the dome, the steps spiral tightly and lean and you have to hang onto a rope and pull yourself up. Hearing that made me glad I spent an hour in the souvenir shop below instead.

The “Oh My!” factor

Let’s just say Italians display affection in ways that indicate they’re not the least bit inhibited by the larger than life presence of the Catholic Church.

Sure, there’s romance and tenderness in some of the face stroking and soul searching glances, but there’s an awful lot of raw lust on parade.

To the guy mounting his girlfriend doggy style in Borghese park—put it on a leash, please. To the girl straddling her boyfriend on a park bench with her blouse and pants unbuttoned and her boyfriend’s hand IN THE FRONT OF HER PANTS--go to confession or get a room before I take photos and blog your indiscretions!

Can’t wipe the smile off my face:

I met the Free Hugs people at Trevi Fountain and shocked my reserved and vaguely suspicious family by partaking in not just one, not just two, but three free hugs from complete strangers.

It was wonderful. The best. And one day, you may see me at the Grand Place in Brussels advancing the Free Hugs movement.

Italian pizza:

I order a vegetarian pizza and I’m surprised it includes neither sauce nor cheese. Instead a soft, yeasty crust is smothered in zucchini, sweet red peppers, eggplant, and mushrooms that have been sautéed in olive oil. The slightly salty crust was cooked over open flames and had a smoky flavor. Perfection.

Best view:

I enjoyed touring the Colosseum far more than I expected to, but it was the Palatine that blew me away. The site of palatial Roman ruins among cypress, pine, and olive trees, it crowns a prominent, historic hill overlooking the city.

As we climbed the hill and moved among the ruins, the late afternoon sun broke through the cloud cover, bathing the view in golden light that contrasted against the deep purple gray of the skies. It was breathtaking. Unforgettable.

With the modern and ancient city highlighted below, I thought of Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness by showing him a vision of the kingdoms of the world. I imagine the vision he conjured looked like the view from The Palatine.

Well shut my mouth:

Walking through a vast park in the city, I stumble across a small monument to George Washington and the Italians that helped him win the American Revolution. Excuse me--the Italians that helped him win the American Revolution? Clearly I missed something in American History. 

The monument was erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who apparently have a chapter in Rome. I wonder if there's such a thing as the Italian Daughters of the American Revolution?

The Watchtower knows no limits:

Wherever I go in the world, the Jehovah Witnesses find me. On a remote area off the coast of North Carolina. In Brussels. In Paris. And yes, even in Rome. In London, the Scientologists attempted to explain Dianetics to me.

On the TV:

No CNN, no Weather Channel. Old Westerns, Power Rangers episodes, endless ads (dubbed in Italian) for Tony Little’s “Gazelle” trainer and for Baby Chou Chou, and news casts that involve buxom women in low-cut shirts reading excerpts from the newspaper in their hands. I nearly died when the cameras would zoom in on the newspaper so the “reporter” could point to a photo associated with the story or some text marked with a yellow highlighter on the page. Why research your own stories when you can read someone else's?

My daughter, the tourist attraction:

Whenever we travel in major cities, E-Grrrl draws the attention of Asian tourists. She is very fair with platinum blonde hair and light blue eyes, and inevitably the dark-haired, dark-eyed tourists from Asia ask to take her picture or they motion for her to pose with some landmark. In Italy, where most of the natives are brown-eyed brunettes, she really stood out in the crowds.

(More on Rome to follow...stay tuned)

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com

November 25, 2006

Au revoir

A perfect fall day.  Temps are in the mid-50s, the sky is spotless blue, and there is still enough foliage on the trees to tint the landscape red and gold.

The kids are out of school and we went kicking down the leaf-covered sidewalks to buy ice cream cones and celebrate good report cards.  I stopped in a bookstore and picked up a pocket map of Rome as well as a lavishly illustrated guide book.

Tomorrow we fly out of Zanventem to Italy. We're renting an apartment in the center of Rome. I'm packing long sleeve t-shirts and jeans for the mild temps we expect during our visit, as well as my favorite leather jacket and my first ever cashmere sweater--because we all know weather.com lies. Since I wore out my favorite black boots tramping all over Europe,  I have a new pair of Eastland oxfords to pad my feet on this trip. I'm bringing the laptop and hope to post during the trip if I can find an Internet connection.  If not, delve into the archives. The By Topic archive lets you fine tune your search for something interesting.

To all my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the turkey and a slice of apple pie for me and remember, always make your cranberry sauce from scratch, don't put giblets in the gravy, add garlic to the mashed potatoes, and don't let marshmallows touch those sweet potatoes.

Virtually yours,

V-Grrrl

The legacy of Thanksgiving 1981

It’s been 25 years.

Twenty-five years since I stood up in the small church I attended in Fredericksburg and told the members of the congregation I needed a ride to New Jersey for Thanksgiving.

My sister Louise was dying of cancer, but I don’t think I told them that. I was 19 years old, in my second year of college, and I wasn’t ready to speak that truth out loud. Still, what my mind couldn’t say, my heart knew.

When my mother told me my sister wasn’t up for the trip to Virginia for Thanksgiving, I vowed to find a way to be with her instead. And thus even though I was the shy type, I stood and placed my need in front of everyone in the church. After the service, two or three people offered to help me.

I’m ashamed I don’t remember the name of the family that turned out to be the answer to my prayers, but I have never forgotten their kindness. They packed me and my suitcase into their overcrowded car for the trip north, wedged in the back with their two children. They were warm and welcoming but blessed me by not asking too many questions.

My sister Louise lived in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and her husband agreed to meet me at Paramus Mall and drive me back to their house. It was dark when I got to the mall, and in the days before cell phones, I had to find a pay phone to use to call him. It was late, and I was nervous.

When Jim showed up, he loaded my bag into the car and tried to brief me on Louise’s condition but nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for what I saw when I got to the house.

My sister looked like she’d stepped out of a concentration camp, her skin gray, her face skeletal and misshapen, her head covered with tufts of fine hair that she usually hid under a wig. She was on the final leg of a horrific journey.

About three years earlier, doctors had discovered a large, malignant tumor nesting in her sinuses, threatening to encroach on her eyes and brain. They’d operated on it by accessing her sinuses through the roof of her mouth. In that initial surgery, she not only lost most of the tumor, she also lost an eye, half her top teeth, and part of her palate.

My dark-haired, dark-eyed sister, the one who looked a lot like Marlo Thomas, wore an eye patch and a dental prosthetic afterwards. Because of nerve damage to her face, she worried about drooling, but even with one eye and a slightly crooked smile, she was still beautiful--and fun-loving enough to dress as a pirate on Halloween.

But when I saw her in the fall of 1981, every last shred of her beauty and health was gone. She was in the process of going deaf, the vision in her remaining eye was very blurry, and the eye itself didn’t sit right in the socket. Her forehead was lumpy, and I could almost smell the decay the cancer was causing. She could still walk and get around a bit, but she could never get or stay comfortable for long. At that point I think the cancer was moving into her spine.

I was devastated by her condition and unprepared for what would be the longest long weekend of my life. I didn’t know what to do or what to say or how to celebrate Thanksgiving with my dying sister. I only knew I had to be there, though I felt I wasn’t much use.

I was too young to know the rituals of the sick, too shell-shocked to rise to the occasion. Mercifully the years have erased most of the memories, though the ones that remain haunt me.

I remember collapsing in tears in a stairwell and sobbing because Louise was in a lot of pain and had begged me to get Jim, and I couldn’t find him.

Unbeknownst to me, her house had a finished basement and Jim had an office tucked down in a remote corner of it. When I didn’t find him in the main living areas, I assumed he was gone, and I went to pieces in the face of her agony and my helplessness. I didn’t know what to do; I was afraid to go upstairs and tell her he was gone. When he popped up a short while later and told me he’d been in his office in the basement, I felt foolish but relieved.

The Saturday night after Thanksgiving, I remember sitting with Louise in her den watching the movie Miracle on 34^th Street. The blue glow of the TV screen illuminated her face, and when I glanced over at her in the dark, I saw a single tear making its way down her cheek from her eye.

Was she crying for herself, for her husband, for me? How could we carry on with the knowledge that despite endless prayers, there wasn’t going to be any miracle in Ridgewood, New Jersey, that holiday season?

I left on Sunday, quietly shutting the door behind me. Standing outside her Dutch colonial house with the stone sidewalks and wood shutters and ivy climbing the chimney, I thought of all the pain and horror hiding behind those charming walls, and I was secretly relieved I could step outside of it.

Sitting in the back of the taxi that would take me to meet my ride home to Virginia, I pondered how the meter could put a price on time and distance.

That was the last time I saw her.

I rode back to school in silence, cradling my anguish, wondering how I could possibly set foot back on campus and spend time with people whose greatest concern was getting through finals and finding a date for New Year’s Eve. I thought about E and our upcoming wedding and wondered how I could embrace all the good things in my life while she lost everything.

As with most life-changing experiences, the legacy is in the questions, not the answers. I carry them with me like a smooth stone in my pocket, worrying them with my fingers: Do I appreciate what I have? Am I grateful for each day in the world? Am I compassionate in the face of suffering? Am I truly thankful for the gift of health?

Are you?

November 16, 2006

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com.

The Sleepover Manifesto

When I posted last Thursday about 9-year-old E-Grrrl spending the night at a friend’s house, I mentioned that this outing was an exception to our “no sleepover” rule. A number of people commented on the rule, and Mignon asked about its origins.

Here are the reasons we’ve always had a “no sleepover” rule.

First, here at Chez V, we believe in the value of sleep for good health. In this regard, we’re in the minority since Americans are renowned for depriving themselves and their kids of rest in order to cram more TV, activities, games, social engagements, and work into each day.

E and I shoot for the recommended 7-8 hours a night for ourselves and 10 hours a night for the kiddos. We wouldn’t deprive the kids of food, why deprive them of sleep? Since very few parents share this value with us, we don’t normally allow the kids to do sleepovers.

Second, there is the safety issue, which is the hardest one to explain to kids and navigate as an adult. I worked with youth in my 20s and 30s and had to attend mandatory training on preventing and recognizing sexual abuse and molestation. I also worked as a reporter for a few years and learned more than I wanted to know about pedophilia and sexual abuse.

Kids are seldom abused by strangers but by people they know and trust: friends of the family, babysitters, neighbors, family members, teachers, coaches, ministers, youth workers, etc. It’s relatively easy to teach your child to beware of strangers. It's  much harder to teach them to respect authority figures while letting them know it's OK  to set boundaries with adults and challenge anyone who makes them uncomfortable or hurts them.

You don’t want to fill their heads with distrust for the very people that love and care for them in a variety of settings, but you also have to let them know subtly that “good” adults can do bad things and no one, absolutely no one, is allowed to hurt them or teach them to keep “secrets.” A lot of molestation is tied to overnight stays and the access it gives people to children, so we’re cautious about any kind of sleepover.

There are other sticky issues related to playdates or sleepovers at the homes of people you don’t know very well. What’s playing on the TV? Are people smoking in the house? Do the parents get along or do they bicker and fight constantly? Who has access to the kids? Is anyone monitoring what they’re doing on the Internet? Does the dad have porn magazines in the bathroom or sex tapes in the family room? Is anyone drinking or using drugs? (Go ahead and laugh, but unless you’ve spent time in someone else’s home, you really don’t know what they consider OK and what the environment is like. Sometimes I've been surprised by the lifestyles of white-bread suburban folks.)

While we know we can’t (and shouldn't) shelter our kids from every questionable influence, we do try to make sure they’re mature enough to handle what they might encounter away from home. For example, my kids are very easily freaked out by things they see on TV. Stories reported on CNN will make my daughter teary and sleepless; my son hates the action movies other boys his age love. He’s probably the only 11-year-old in his circle who hasn’t seen a Star Wars movie or anything from Lord of the Rings. He doesn’t even like to watch Scooby Doo! It can be really hard to “escape” the TV in other people's homes, and I’m still working on teaching my kids how to politely deal with situations where they're expected to watch something they don't feel comfortable with.

Of course, at this point you’re thinking I’m completely neurotic and overprotective, and maybe I am. There are a lot of people I’d feel comfortable having my children spend the night with, but we don’t allow it because it’s far easier to just have a “no sleepover” policy than to justify your decision-making process with your kids on a case-by-case basis. Who wants to hear, “Why can’t I spend the night at Susie’s house—she’s my friend, just like Molly, and you let me spend the night at Molly’s house!” Of course, you have your reasons, but it’s not always easy or appropriate to share them with the kids.

Finally, I’m a firm believer that spending half a day together is more than enough time for both the parents and the kids. I’m not comfortable always having other people’s kids in my house, and we try to preserve some family time. I’m not one of those “the-more-the-merrier” types--I need my space.

So there you go—the great sleepover manifesto.

How do the rest of you handle sleepovers?

November 14, 2006

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com

Should Saddam hang?

The Dalai Lama has asked that the life of Saddam Hussein be spared.

Quoted in an AFP news story posted on Yahoo, he says:

“The death penalty is said to fulfill a preventive function, yet it is clearly a form of revenge," the Nobel peace laureate told reporters.
"However horrible an act a person may have committed, everyone has the potential to improve and correct himself," he said.
"I hope that in the case of Saddam Hussein, as with all others, that human life will be respected and spared."

This gave me pause because somewhere along the line I became a person who believes that some people will not change, that evil begets evil, and the best way to end the cycle of snowballing acts of violence, deception, and immorality is to end the life of the perpetrator.

But wait, isn’t this what terrorists believe?

Isn’t this what the U.S. government believes?

Isn’t this the rationale that’s used to justify torture and killings the world over?

As a young news reporter, I covered the local police beat and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. I saw crime scene photos of blood splattered walls, graphic images of people who had been murdered in their homes, and read pages and pages and pages of documents detailing heinous crimes.

When the pardon and parole board would meet at the state’s maximum security prison, I spent two full days immersed not only in the crimes that landed people in prison to start with, but also the crimes and offenses they committed once they arrived there. During the hearings and some other events at the prison, I sat next to murderers, sex offenders, and notorious criminals as well as drug addicts and pushers, drunk drivers, burglars and robbers, and wrong-time-wrong-place offenders.

I heard a woman who had doused her four children with kerosene and set them on fire explain to the parole board chairman that she’d “been under a lot of stress at the time.” I heard the testimony of someone who had stabbed a woman in a Safeway parking lot because of a disagreement over who was entitled to a particular parking place. I covered a re-trial that resulted in the release of a man who had been in prison for years and years. I saw his relief and the family of the victim’s grief wash over their faces in equal measure. This wasn’t a TV show or a drama, these were real people and real lives, damaged and ruined. Beyond repair?

At one point in my brief journalism career, I was summoned to the prison and asked to meet with an inmate who was holding a woman nurse hostage in the prison infirmary. The male inmate wanted to talk to a reporter from my paper, and the warden and prison psychologist hoped that if I met with him, I might be able to negotiate the nurse’s release. I never thought of saying no even though I was ill-equipped for the job.

I went face to face with the guy, talking to him through a wide crack in the door he’d propped open. Part of the shock of the experience was recognizing that this person, who was not that much taller than me and wiry in build, had locked down an entire prison for more than a day by threatening one person with a small, sharpened piece of metal.

She was cowering on the floor with a tear- and mascara-stained face while I listened to her captor ramble on about his crimes and how he didn’t deserve to be in prison. It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying and ask questions. My brain froze, and to this day, I struggle to remember what he said--something about a bartender in Florida who could provide him with an alibi. Though I've forgotten his words and even his name, I can still see his face. He had red hair and brown eyes, just like me.

The moment I turned my back on him and walked away, heading down a corridor, he hung himself.

The SWAT team that was covering my ass while I talked to him stormed the infirmary, cut him and down, and saved his life.

They could have turned their heads when they entered that room. They could have focused on getting the woman out and paused for just a moment longer before cutting him down, letting him die in the process.

But they didn’t.

They saved him from himself and put him on a gurney. The hallway filled first with the horrible gurgling sound of his strangled breaths and then with the unearthly sound of his wails. He survived, and at his hearing on the hostage-taking incident, he tried to attack a news photographer.

Working as a reporter, I realized some people live only to create discord, pain, and violence in every setting they find themselves in, and in my mind, I found a lot of justification for the death penalty, and yet the desire to preserve human life in all its permutations is overwhelming.

Had I been alone in that room with that man when he hung himself, would I have let him die? Despite my intellectual support of the death penalty, would I have volunteered to cover an execution at the prison? Would I have been able to flip the switch, empty the syringe, or release the trap door on someone sentenced to death? I know I wouldn’t have been able to do any of those things, then or now.

Despite the nightmares that haunted me for years after I quit work as a reporter, despite my feelings that some people don’t deserve to breathe good air and see the dawn of another day, my instinct is to preserve life, even life I abhor.

Still, I flinched when the Dalai Lama made a plea for Saddam’s life. As a Christian, I know Jesus offers redemption to all people in all times and circumstances, but there are moments I don’t want to consider the implications of that truth. It can be easy to dismiss as well-intentioned and idealistic the pacifists and people of many faiths who eschew violence in all forms, yet I understand the thought process that acknowledges the danger of the path we set our feet on when we see killing as an unpleasant means to a noble end.

Do I want to see Saddam hang for the atrocities he committed? Would that pave the way for a fresh beginning for the millions who suffered at his hand? Would that deter his supporters from trying to carry on his legacy? Is an imperturbable, matter-of-fact, zero tolerance policy that delivers consequences for actions effective? Is it just?

Or would I prefer to see Saddam’s life spared and a message delivered on the power of non-violence in the peace-making process?

Do I believe either policy makes the world a better place or have I given up hope on shifting the balance between good and evil in the world? Such a loss of hope may be the most dangerous thing of all.

This morning I have no answers. Just questions to follow me through this day and the days to come.

November 13, 2007

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com.

Cutting and pasting my way to Christmas...

A little more than a month ago, I came up with the idea of making a wall calendar for my mother-in-law for Christmas. She lives with E’s sister in Florida and suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson’s disease, and an Alzheimer’s-like illness. E has made a few trips to see her since we’ve been here, but the children and I haven’t seen her in almost two years, a reality that weighs heavily on our hearts.

Making a wall calendar featuring photos of our family seemed the perfect way to help her stay connected to us as well as the months and the seasons. Since moving to Belgium, I’ve embraced paper crafts and amassed a large collection of tools, paper, cardstock, and art supplies. I loved the idea of putting my budding scrapbooking and stamping skills to good use in a new format.

Originally, I planned to use some family snapshots taken during the year as well as studio photographs and school pictures for each page. Happily, our recent photo shoot with Di provided far superior materials to work with.

Yesterday morning E loaded the photo cartridge and paper into the printer and we began printing off photos to use in the calendar layouts. As each photo dried, I looked for just the right colors of cardstock and the best patterned papers to work into the layouts. I considered which stamped images could be used to enhance the pages, and began experimenting with different designs.

I worked all afternoon, took a break for dinner, and then worked another hour or two in the evening. I finished seven pages. Only seven pages, and let me tell you, I’m not a scrapbooker who likes a lot of embellishments. I favor simple designs. Still, making final choices on colors, cutting and positioning the paper, and stamping the images takes time. I haven’t even begun work on decorating the actual calendar pages yet. I had no idea it would take so long, but at the same time, I’m really pleased with the results.

In the years before she became ill, my mother-in-law gave me many handmade gifts. The very first time I joined the family for Christmas (before E and I were married), she crocheted me a hat, scarf, and purse. During our marriage, she crocheted an enormous afghan for our bed as well as lace doilies and runners for my antique chests. She cross-stitched numerous samplers for my walls and once hand-embroidered a tablecloth and matching napkins. She made throw pillows for our bed and a window seat cushion and curtains for the baby nursery. When my son was born, she knit him mittens, booties, and a little cap for his fuzzy blond head.

Last night as my back ached from standing and leaning over a table all day, I remembered all those gifts and all the work she put into every stitch. I don’t have her talent or patience for needlecrafts, but I hope she feels the love going into each page of this calendar and that it makes her smile all year long.

Are any of you making Christmas gifts?

November 12, 2006

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com.

The wobbly bits

Friday night at our house generally means leftovers, and this applies to my blog as well.  I present to you the wobbly bits--thoughts that haven't gelled into anything resembling a full blown post.

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I had my hair cut today--my first haircut since I let a military barber have a go at it in August.  I find that playing Russian Roulette with my choice of stylists seldom results in a truly bad hair cut, but it does result in some heinous blow outs. Despite using the three key styling words,  "curly," "natural,"  and "shaggy," the French-speaking stylists always feel compelled to blow my hair straight back off my face and load it down with styling products to keep every bit in place. In the end, I look like a cross between Larry King and Jimmy Swaggart and hang my head in shame.  I need to find out how the phrase "scrunch it" translates into French so I can avoid the tele-evangelist look next time.

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One of the challenges of living overseas is that businesses here have odd hours. I needed to have reprints made of some photographs. I show up at the photography shop, and it's closed. I check the hours and discover it is always closed on Thursdays. Oh, of course, closed on Thursdays. I should have seen that coming.

After all,  the place where I get my hair cut is always closed on Tuesdays and is sometimes closed on Mondays and the stylists take an hour lunch break when they're hungry, which may or may not be at lunch time. The pharmacist I use closes for about two hours in the early afternoon, and I always seem to be pulling on the door during that window in his day. Sometimes stores are closed for no reason at all. Nothing like taking the bus somewhere and discovering the store I planned to visit isn't open despite hours posted to the contrary. No explanation given.

This weekend is Armistice Day here in Belgium--which means everything will be closed on Saturday. On Sunday everything is closed as well because Belgians don't work on Sundays. Period. Quite a number of the smaller shops will be closed on Monday as well, because hey, they're ALWAYS closed on Mondays to compensate for being open half a day on Saturdays.  While holiday weekends in the U.S. are generally exploited by retailers with extended hours and tons of sales, Belgians actually shut everything down and  relax. How un-American! ; )

***

Finally,  this is the time of year where various international delegations here in Brussels host receptions and parties to promote their countries and their cultures. The other night E went to a party hosted by the Norwegians and Danes and he was served reindeer. No, it wasn't garnished with silver bells. He assures me it does NOT taste like Christmas. Don't tell PETA, Santa, or the kids that Rudolph makes a good kebab. I'm afraid we're going to get coal in our stockings this year.

Sigh.

Happy Weekend!

November 10, 2006

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.