Thursday, June 19, 2014

I am missing you...

WARNING CONTAINS me, love, bad punctuation, truth and lies, and musings.

I am in a little writing writing group and we get prompts, I'm posting my responses here. This week's prompt is "I am missing you." It is stream of consciousness, but also short. If you skip this post, I'll understand as it is probably a little ham handed. It is also strongly influenced by the fact I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower the other day. A lotta friendship/love/healing intensity there. 

I am missing you, that innocent certainty of youth that knew love was enough. Love can be all things, shape all things, bend all things, believe all things. Do. All things.

And then you grow up and you meet obstacles that cannot be moved by your love. Wanting someone who does not want you, despite your love. Being unable to help someone in or through or over something, despite your great love for them. You feel helpless. You feel worthless. Because if you, just you and your love, were great enough, good enough, pure enough, certainly you would be able to do all the things that love is meant to do, to fix, to feel, to fight.

And then you get older still and you see, hopefully you feel, that your love, little and feeble or great and fiery, is not meant to solve the problems of the world. Or mend the hearts of all who know you. Nor dispel the griefs or fears of those whom you love. It is meant to sustain you. Just you. The love inside you is there to fill you and flow through you and fall out of you and surround you. To make you whole. To keep you together. In your fullness, your enough-ness, and only when you've looked inside and seen it can be that magic you thought the thought of love alone could be.

With a full heart. With a complete heart. You can help others be all things. You can help those you love shape and bend and believe all things. Your love plus the love of someone else, or perhaps, even better, lots of someone elses, is awesome in its power.

But it does not mean you will always win. It does not mean that in your fullness you can make others full. You will still suffer grief when you cannot add the love inside you to someone else's love for themselves. Because you can't. Or even if you could, it would mean less inside you, then you're both incomplete and that gets you no where.

It means you can shine. Shine your love at people. Smiles. Hugs. Words of support. Your laughter. Your light in the darkness. A pinprick into a night that can guide and give, warm and wonder. That's your gift as a lover.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Trying to Make Friends in the Land of Nod

As I hope you've garnered from my blog title, I'm American. I like to think I'm not actually that loud, but sometimes I can be and sometimes I think people see me that way regardless of what I might do. We Americans do not have the best reputation abroad. We're not as loud as Aussies, but no one is really. People seem ready to forgive Aussies though, outside of sports fanatics, and less willing to perhaps give Americans room to be ourselves. I'm totally generalizing. Yes, yes I am.

It's funny though, I am often told by Brits that other Brits don't like Americans. Told that I can probably expect to be judged and perhaps treated unfairly at times. Yet, as far as I can tell, this hasn't happened. That may be because I am, as a friend of my husband one said, "Anglo-friendly." I can toss out some slang and I often call things by their proper name like lift, garage, loo, or brolly (spelling? seriously, I have no idea how to spell these words. I wrote "swimming cozy" on twitter and made a lot of people laugh). I think it might also be because it is impossible to tell if I am having a hard time making friends here because it is just hard to do or because I am American. Let's be honest, it's probably both. It's almost always both.

Making friends after college/uni is hard. A statement that many a journalist has made bemoaning the lack of the places and opportunities to make new friends when one is working full time and/or has children. Bollocks to that I say (see, anglo-friendly). And surely you could say that one can make plenty of friends at work and also make friends with other parents, particularly other at-home-moms like myself, when one has kids. While I think a lot of people believe these are separate worlds of friends, I feel that is down to people's choices. Before moving the UK, I had a pretty balanced group of close friends. There were long time friends, workplace acquired friends, friends without kids, friends with kids, and at-home-mom friends. Several of these really good friends I made in my late twenties and early thirties. Take that you nay saying thirty-something journos who say it can't be done!!

And then I moved to the UK and I have two or three friends. Nice friends. But not uber close friends (yet?). I am having a hard time meeting people. I asked my husband before we moved about how long he thought I'd have to chat to someone new before I could ask them for coffee. What's the Brit waiting time to avoid being "pushy"? He said he didn't know. Another friend said that I shouldn't worry because people I would want to be friends with would not be put off by my seeming or actual pushiness. Sigh. British people can be put off by almost anything though. (I am no less anglo-friendly!)

I find myself doing something I've never, ever done be before when living abroad. Something I have in fact done the opposite of when living in other countries. I am looking for other Americans. *hangs head in shame* I mean, I stalked a woman in the grocery store and then into the parking lot and faked a grocery cart steering problem just to talk to her because I thought she sounded American. And she was! And she was nice. Joyously, she offered her number and said we should have coffee within a few minutes of talking. But then she never answered my texts. Ever. Of course, I gave up after two attempts because I can take a hint.* I tried not to feel rejected. I tried not to feel like I was dating again and "like, why hasn't he called!??!?!!?" *wrist to forehead*

All of this leads me to a path that I have traversed before with not so stellar results. Finding other at-home-mom friends. I am not good at this. In fact, I'm worse at this than I was at dating (old friends reading this are questioning how that's possible, but I swear it is true). Because I am not a very good SAHM. I don't like it. There's no revealing in the beauty of infant-hood in my house. I am not crafty. I am not that great at housewifery. My home is livable, it functions and we are all wearing relatively clean clothes; but I'm not good at it the way a lot of SAHM are good at it and love to be that provider. I'm not a great planner, producer, arranger, shopper, bargainer, baker, or candlestick maker. I'm good at watching TV, buying groceries and not using them, impulse purchases of silly t-shirts, losing sunglasses and getting frustrated with my kids.

Why must I go this route? At the moment, it is almost the only path open to me. I am working on fixing that, but it is proving hard to get into a routine while house hunting and trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up, which all fall in between laundry, cooking, cleaning, asset management, and avoiding nuclear destruction. My oldest starts what the British call reception (state sponsored preschool) in September. I have been told, nay promised, that I will meet all these other parents and we will be friends. Damn it, we will! Because our kids will be friends too. Instant friendship, just add school uniform and crushed jammy dodgers.

What scares me is that this "reason" for friendship is exactly why I am supposed to have all these other at-home-mom friends. Which I don't. Now, I do actually like being a parent and I am excited for my kid to go to school (not just to be rid of him, in fact, I'm sure I'll miss him), so perhaps this time, this forced companionship might work. Maaaayyyybbbbee. Fingers crossed.

*I recently looked at my phone's recent calls and it turns out I've been butt dialing this lady a lot lately. I never deleted her contact (until now) and I guess it just happened one day and my butt thought, "Hey, let's just keep calling her since she doesn't like us anyway!" I'm pretty sure she never put my number in her phone. But if she did, I imagine the label has been rewritten to say "that stupid American."

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Dear Librarians, don't tell children there's no such thing as monsters.

Dear librarians, I know this isn't most of you. But if you know anyone who works with children that does this, sit them down, give them a cup of tea and a fairy cake and tell them they have to stop right now.

I took my toddler to a library today and found myself listening to a young librarian reading stories to about half dozen children huddle expectantly at her feet. She made several egregious errors in her reading, not the least of which was calling a cheetah a leopard, but one thing she did really made want to give her a good shake about the shoulders.

She said there was no such thing as monsters. She also said you can't reach the stars in the sky. She proclaimed one's inability to be friends with an eagle. In other words, she said don't believe these books I'm reading you; these stories are silly. Don't imagine they might be true. Don't reach your arms up to the sky and hope that something might raise you up into the clouds. Because these, these are just words and pictures without meaning.

How dare you! Don't ever do that again! There are words. Juicy, dreamy, stuff of stars words and they just so happen to be paired with gorgeous, whimsical, absolutely to be believed pictures crafted to feed the knowledge all children are born with - anything I can imagine can be real. I am bear whose best friends are a bird and a frog! I am a bunny building a rocket ship to the stars! I am a panda whose sneezes can blow over whole towns!

I am certain that this woman in no way meant to crush the imaginations of children. What she was doing, mostly, was asking questions to the children with no thought to what they might think the answer could be. She decided the answers to all her questions before she even spoke them aloud. A pouting bird claimed to be collecting stones rather than riding in a boat with his bear friend because he was jealous of his new frog friend. The reader declared, "Is it fun to collect rocks? No, no it isn't. I'd much rather ride in a boat, wouldn't you? Of course you would." Sorry lady, but I'd rather pick up stones any day. Boats are scary. I didn't get to say that and no listening child was able to express otherwise either because she never waited more than a half a second for an answer.

In education, we call this "wait time." It is a pretty valuable tool that you have to learn to use in teaching (it works well in parenting too). It's simple.* You ask a question and you wait. And you wait. And wait. And wait. Until someone offers an answer. Even if it is "wrong", you listen and you respond positively as much as you can. You validate contributions to the conversation. It is actually easier with younger children than anyone else because they almost always have something to say. But you have to listen and think about what you've said, what they've said, and even what's generally going on in the world. What the reader ought to have asked about the story is, "Why is bird collecting rocks?" or "Do you think that is what bird really wants to do?" or "How do you think bird feels?" And then waited for answers. The best reply to very small children is "Let's keep reading and see!" Easy. No need to discuss that they think bird really wants to fly away and eat worms or that bird is quite happy to collect stones or that mommy said that daddy's head is full of rocks. Just listen and let them share that amazing gift of belief in all things that children have in their hearts. When you do, it is always entertaining and sometimes inspirational. What gift did everyone in that room today miss out on because someone wouldn't give them a few breaths to say something?

So, let's review what we've learned friends. Do not crush the imaginations of small children. Do not ask questions you already assume you have the correct answer to (this applies to all of us really, doesn't it?;) Learn to wait for answers and listen to replies. In summary - be nice, wait and listen.

*I know it isn't simple. It is really hard and takes years to develop as a skill in teaching and in being a good listener in general. But let's pretend it is easy and all try to do it, ok?!

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

How does anyone find a house here? OR Did the English coin the term moron?

I'd like to preface this post by saying I've bought two houses myself, helped several friends buy houses, and I have a couple of American friends who are real estate agents. I have even looked at buying property in other countries; countries where communism is or was the official form of government. They still had better estate agents.

Funnily, my agent friends in the US say that all real estate agents are stupid (their word choice). But I really want them to come and visit here because I think I can say without hesitation that the "estate agents" in the United Kingdom are seemingly the people in the country least motivated to sell a house, help anyone buy a house, or give any fucks about the whole real estate market. The level of service is appalling. Lord help you if you are a British person trying to sell a home because these people are not your friends.

How have I reached this conclusion? Well, here are but a few examples of baffling things.

I have emailed an estate agent after a viewing stating that I was quite interested in the property but had a few questions. The house had been on the market awhile. It is still on the market. And here's why - no one ever wrote me back. No one called me. No one tried to call or email me in any way despite the fact that my husband and I were outspoken in our appreciation of the house. We in fact said, "This is the best place we have seen." No calls. No emails. No sale.

There is an estate agent who I've met twice now who never knows my name, even though he has made the viewings appointments with me, twice. He probably has it written down on a piece of paper in his hand but perhaps he is not motivated enough to read. He also never follows up after a viewing. Never asks during the viewing if I have questions or if I am interested. The most recent house I saw that this agent was meant to be representing had not been well cleaned or even dusted before the viewing. That of course might be down to the property owners but there were literally cobwebs across the top of a door jam, hanging down. Oh and the house was listed for over six hundred thousand pounds. Yeah. Bring your own duster mate.

An agent told me I would not "disregret" making even a quite low offer on a house he was representing. Dis. Regret. DIS. What?!

I have emailed about numerous properties and had no answers or answers that were about other properties or been told a house was sold when it was not. I have seen a sold sign outside of a house I was coming to view and therein told an offer had been accepted three days ago but they were still showing it just in case. Which is probably down to me looking in an area of England that is insanely competitive (see expensive but dirty house above), but still. Three days ago? So, the day I made the appointment to see it.

Every agency I email immediately puts me on a list-serve and starts sending me house listings. That would be ok with me if the listings were related to my search. I think some places do it based on price while other on size of home while still others simply send you things if you appear to be a human who has email. I have received notices about properties in other counties (that's like getting notices about places in another state for my American readers). I have been told about a great, brand new place 45 miles away. Also for two bedroom apartments having expressly said I am looking for three bedrooms houses.

It is comical. But it is also just insane. There are nothing but reports of inflated house prices. Reports on how hard it is to get a mortgage. Reports on housing shortages and government schemes to get people to buy houses. Competition abounds. It is a sellers market except that it is a buyers market because no one can afford these places. It seems there is zero competition here between agencies. There are no buyer's agents as far as I can tell. You're just at the mercy of people who appear to have no clue what running a business means. I suppose houses do just sell themselves to a degree. But good gracious these folks are just clueless.*

I will continue to to search; praying that should I find a house I want, someone might possess the mental facility to sell it to me.

*note this is the clean version of what I think of all of this fucked up, sociopathic cockery.