While walking with my 8-year-old son near our home in Manhattan, he spotted a purple swastika scrawled across a billboard advertisement. As I took in the complexities of the situation, my son uttered words that made my heart break…
Creative Commons: Evan Grant
Happy New Year!
I’ve got an interesting experiment for you to try with family and friends this week. It blew my mind and revealed something fascinating about how most of us think.
Are you ready?
It was a very risky idea, given how much he wanted Beats headphones ($200 headphones for a kid?) and a Wii. But this past week I gave my tween-age son his holiday present, choosing to surprise him with the gift of an experience over a thing.
Here’s what came out of his 5-day art class (and I’ve got the pictures to prove it!)…
The night I handed my 11-year-old a handmade card describing his holiday gift from me, he glanced at it quickly then looked back in the envelope as if to say, “That’s it? Is there cash in here at least?” But that was it — five days with a small class in an artist’s studio in SoHo, NYC.
He was dubious.
When the elevator opened right into the studio the next morning, five other students turned to look at us. There were two boys who appeared to be high school seniors (one of them sporting Beats), and a few adults who had the air of honest-to-goodness artists already. The teacher seemed like he might need a second cup of coffee as he casually pointed to a table where my son should sit.
As I left, I said a desperate prayer to the holiday gods, asking for this not to be a total disaster.
My son called me several times that day asking what I was doing with his younger brother, who is also on school vacation. “We’re sitting here doing absolutely NOTHING,” I replied, hoping not to make him jealous. “You’d be BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND!“
By the end of the first day, he brought home this:
Hand, Day 1
And this:
Copy of Picasso's portrait of Igor Stravinsky
Dear Friends,
In my box of holiday ornaments that comes out once a year, I keep a letter from my friend Leslie which she sent out this time two years ago. Leslie is an incredibly gifted writer, and if you haven’t discovered her blog, From the Heart, I couldn’t recommend it more. I hope her heart-felt seasonal remembrance gives you as much joy as it does me.
Warmest wishes,
Barbara
Having neither spectacular accomplishments nor grave misfortunes to report, and, to be honest, having exhausted the vein of humorous family anecdotes over the years, I will tell you instead that we are all well and fine, and hope that you are too.
Instead of Srajek family details, which are really much the same as any other family’s day-to-day lives, I offer this story about something that happened to us this time last year, at the start of a long Midwest winter.
In our local paper there used to be a kid’s feature called “Letters to the Editor,” where school kids responded to a question from the editor, and then some responses from each school got published. One week last December, Jacob’s answer to the question “What is the top item on your Christmas list this year?” turned up in the paper. He wrote that since he wanted to be a carpenter when he grew up, he had “always wanted” a carpenter’s plane.
If he didn’t get that, the number two thing on the list was “lots of nice building wood,” a response that makes him sound quainter and less electronically minded than he really is, but, well, he was probably writing what he knew had the best chance of getting published (they’re never too young to play to the crowd).
About a week after his response appeared in the paper, we received a letter in the mail from a woman we did not know. She apologized if we were not the parents of Jacob Srajek, said that she had looked us up in the phone book, and she hoped her writing was not an imposition to us. A clipping of Jacob’s letter was neatly taped to the corner of her own letter, which was printed on paper with a decorative floral border.
She wrote that she herself loved working with her hands, and that she admired Jacob’s knowledge that he wanted to become a carpenter, especially at such a young age. She said that she had lots of wood that was not of use to her in her own projects, and that “in the spirit of Christmas,” she would be happy to give it to Jacob, if we would like that.
She offered references for herself, one of whom was the former president of the University of Illinois, whose secretary she was for many years until he left to become governor (no, not that one), and she left to retire.
Her name was Marcella. When I called to thank her for her lovely offer, she invited us to her home to collect the wood. So on a gray December Sunday, all five of us went. Her house looked well-tended, and there was an RV parked in the driveway. She answered the door in a peach colored twinset with matching pearls and earrings, and what my mother would call sensible shoes. She had soft white hair and kind blue eyes.
Her home was pristine, with the marks of the vacuum cleaner visible in the carpet. There was a mirrored glass display case in the entry hall filled with tiny, fragile, sparkling objects that three boys could destroy just by breathing too hard next to it.
I felt distracted and concerned by all three boys in her neat and orderly home–the muddy shoes and clutzy extremities–but she was hospitality itself, asking the boys questions about school and their interests. She told us that we were “raising fine sons.”
“And what kinds of things do you make?” I asked her, recalling that in her letter she had mentioned working with her hands. I pictured something crafty and maybe a little old-lady fussy—birdhouses or wreathes. “Well,” she said, looking thoughtful, “the last thing I built was a carport for my sister, but I haven’t done much lately since Mother was so ill.”
There were sympathy cards on her mantle piece, and leaflets from a memorial service on the kitchen table with a picture of an elderly woman on them. She said that she had been caring for her mother for several years before her recent passing, and that it was a deep loss.
She said she wasn’t sure what she was going to do now, but that she was thinking about applying for Habitat for Humanity, “if they’d have me, if I’m not too old.” Then she slapped her knees and laughed. “I’m really happiest when I’m out in the garage with my 16-bit drill! I had a garage sale this summer and I had more fun building the display tables than I did selling anything!”
Later, after we’d loaded all the wood, which was carefully boxed up and tied into bundles, into the van, we stood in the driveway next to her RV saying goodbye. It was early evening and there was a light rain. The street lights were on and the driveway was wet.
We talked about cleaning out the gutters one more time before it snowed, and I felt like we should offer to do it for her. She told us that sometimes she just put her dog and cat in the RV and they’d drive out to visit friends in Arizona, just got on the road and went. She was going to spend Christmas with her sister in Peoria, and then she’d see what she’d do.
“Thank you,” we said. “This was so kind of you.” “No,” she said, “thank you for coming.” Then she said, “I never read those letters in the paper from the kids. This one just caught my eye. Isn’t that funny?” We hugged goodbye, awkwardly, and more than one of us had tears in their eyes, and then, just like in a made-for-TV-movie, Martin said, “This feels like the real spirit of Christmas.”
When we got home, Martin and Jacob unloaded all of the wood, and they found a small gift bag at the bottom of one of the boxes. It said, “To Jacob from Marcella,” and inside was a carpenter’s plane.
One thing I’m curious about is how Jacob will remember this when he gets older. Of course it didn’t seem quite as miraculous to him as it did to us, this unexpected act of kindness from a stranger at the start of what turned out to be one of the longest winters we’ve ever had out here.
My friend Barbara says that kindness is really only truly possible from strangers; between people well-known to each other, it’s love.
Some of the poignancy of that act of kindness came from knowing that we’d probably not see her again, even though Jacob would write her a thank you note, and I’d email her some pictures of the things he built with her wood, and she’d reply telling me that she could picture him in his own woodshop one day, “sun beaming through the dusty windowpanes revealing zillions of tiny sawdust particles in the air; hand-worked wood furniture of rare beauty in various stages of completion, demonstrating the craftman’s talented touch.”
She also wrote, “Little did I know how much enjoyment would come from a simple gesture,” and I thought, “Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”
We told that story a lot this year, and people just smiled and shook their heads. A favorite poet of mine, Naomi Shihab Nye says that to know kindness you first have to know sorrow, because after sorrow, and who doesn’t have enough of that, you know that kindness is all there is, that:
it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
This is what I wish for everyone, for all of us during these holy days, that in the crowds of our lives, we feel that kindness, the spirit of Christmas, love, is with us.
This wish goes out to you with our love and gratitude for your presence in our lives, despite the distance and busyness that creates regrettable absences.
I think it’s the perfect gift for the holidays. But how will my son react when he finds out where I’ll be sending him for the next five days?
It happens every year around December 10th. I’ll be standing at the stove cooking dinner, or simply waiting at the bus shelter when I suddenly get a little choked up. Or a lot choked up, depending on the year.
This Saturday will be one of those days — International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the first global expression of the rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. It was on that day in 1948, with Eleanor Roosevelt front and center, that the United Nations officially adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In a world of grave abuses and daily bloodshed, it’s so easy to dismiss the day as one more marginally important commemoration for the overly-idealistic.
But this weekend, I plan to pause in the midst of the pre-holiday frenzy to remember the amazing human rights defenders I’ve been so fortunate to work with over the years. I’d like to share a little about a few of them personally. But please know that there are many other equally-deserving activists I will gladly bend your ear about any time.
Aminatou and I after her hunger strike
Aminatou Haidar, known as the Sahrawi Gandhi, is the leader of the nonviolent struggle to free the people of Western Sahara from Morocco’s 36-year occupation.
This is a tough battle to wage: while the Moroccan government pours millions of dollars into lobbying and sophisticated pr to maintain control over the resource-rich land, the Sahrawi mainly live in refugee camps and impoverished desert towns patrolled by Moroccan military. A UN-administered referendum, promised in 1988, has never been held to decide the issue, and peaceful Sahrawi activists like Aminatou herself have been imprisoned and brutally beaten.
I first met Aminatou in 2009 when she came to the U.S. to receive the prestigious Civil Courage Prize. In between our meetings and briefings on the state of Western Sahara, we discovered we have so many things in common that Aminatou started calling me “sister.”
On her way home from her time here, she was deported by Morocco to the Canary Islands and nearly died on a hunger strike. After 32 days, vomiting blood and suffering aggravated complications resulting from her time in Moroccan prisons, a victorious Aminatou was flown on a small medical transport plane to her awaiting family.
In her holiday letter, she summed up her approach to human rights and the importance of collective action in these situations:
“No boundaries can stop the flood of noble and beautiful human feelings coming from all countries, crossing continents. Oh how powerful were those moments with all their strong symbolism, how warm they were, like the warmth of the affection of motherhood and fondness of the homeland, moments that express the most beautiful meanings life can have.”
Anna Politkovskaya, 1958-2006
Anna Politkovskaya was a fearless Russian journalist whose dispatches from the brutal war in Chechnya famously led to death threats and poisoning.
When I met Anna in 2005, she told me casually over our bowls of steaming Chinese noodles in midtown Manhattan: “They will probably kill me one day; I know that. But I owe it to so many people who trusted me with their stories to make sure that I tell what’s happening. I won’t be stopped by threats.“
This story has a tragic ending. Anna Politkovskaya was shot to death in the elevator of her Moscow apartment on October 7, 2006, in what many call a politically motivated attempt to further squelch freedom of the press in Russia.
The former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev called her killing “a savage crime.” “It is a blow to the entire democratic, independent press,” he told the Interfax news agency. “It is a grave crime against the country, against all of us.”
Rafael with my kids
Rafael Marques de Morais is an Angolan journalist and human human rights activist whose reports on the diamond industry and government corruption have earned him international acclaim.
He’s got serious chutzpa — recently Rafael filed a criminal complaint in Angola against two diamond mining companies and their directors, who include a number of top military officers and others with substantial economic and political influence. He alleges that all of them have committed “crimes against humanity.”
Rafael also happens to be an amazingly warm person, with a wide smile and a deep and easy laugh. My kids especially appreciate his fancy soccer footwork and specialty dish made with sweet plantains.
Min Ko Naing
Min Ko Naing is Burma’s most prominent student leader. As he has spent most of the past 22 years in prison, I have not met him face-to-face, though I ardently dream of doing so someday. “Min Ko Naing” is actually his nom de guerre. It means “conqueror of kings.”
Min Ko Naing’s letters, poems and statements influenced students and the people of Burma to challenge the country’s dictators. The 1988 movement, led by activist students, toppled the so-called socialist regime of Gen Ne Win.
There are rumors that he and hundreds of other political prisoners may be released in the coming weeks. Others aren’t as optimistic. Of his struggle, he has so humbly said: “I’ll never die. Physically, I might be dead, but many more Min Ko Naings would be appear to take my place.”
However you acknowledge International Human Rights Day — whether by writing a letter, making a holiday donation to a human rights organization, or simply having a moment of reflection — I hope you too are inspired by the best of humanity reflected in these brave individuals.
How can we instill in our children an appreciation for what they already have — especially when the people around them seem to have just about everything? Here’s our family’s holiday tip…
This fall, my two children moved from a warm and caring New York City public school where a large percentage of the students live at or near the poverty level to a progressive private school comprised of many families in (or close to) that much-scrutinized 1%, to use the Occupy Wall Street parlance.
What has the change meant for the kids on a day to day level?
One of the most obvious things is that they have come face-to-face with the stark reality of America’s income inequality. For them, this is most apparent in the size of their friends’ homes. While many of their old playmates live in cramped apartments in government subsidized housing, a sizable number of their new friends live in cavernous lofts and single-family townhouses. As is human nature for children and adults alike, my kids are prone to comparing what our family has to what they perceive is bigger and better.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lecturing them about the detriment of “keeping up with the Joneses” and the false trappings of materialism, but that tends to fall on deaf ears. I also point out endless examples of good people really struggling, including the families who experienced massive loss during our recent storms here in the Northeast.
They grasp this, having seen a lot of this damage with their own eyes. They even volunteered setting up cots at a local shelter during tropical storm Irene. But nothing helped to cement an appreciation for what we have better than a simple holiday coin collection box from a nearby branch of Habitat for Humanity.
What puts this box right up there with the ubiquitous Trick or Treat for UNICEF is that children are asked to literally count the things they have to appreciate right in their own homes. A recent weekend evening found the kids excitedly tearing around the apartment, dropping coins into the box in response to questions such as:
- For each room in your home, deposit 10 cents. Talk about what it would be like to live in a one room house.
- For each electrical outlet in your house, deposit 3 cents. (We have 31, not counting the outlets hidden behind bookcases and sofas. Who knew?)
- If you have a pantry to store extra food, be thankful and deposit 25 cents. Many families live day to day for meals.
And the question that got my youngest reaching deeper into his own allowance money:
- What more would you sacrifice to give others a more abundant life?
You can see the full 30-day giving calendar here: Holiday Giving Calendar (We cheated by doing it all at once.)
The Habitat for Humanity in Paterson, NJ will use the cash collected this season for new, affordable homes. What’s more, we can feel good that the houses will be energy efficient and economical for families to maintain in the long-term.
Has this project cured my children of the tendency to want more and more? No, of course not. But the act of pausing to look at the everyday conveniences we take for granted made for a unique introspective exercise in appreciation. Best of all, it linked this new understanding with actual holiday giving.
And for these things, this parent is enormously grateful.
Click on image to hear Studs Terkel talk about what has been lost in modern life and where he saw hope for our future
Ah, Black Friday. The most ironic holiday of the year!
Shopping list in hand, sharp elbows at the ready — this is the day we beat back our fellow man in the quest for that perfect holiday gift for our loved ones. Coming at the heels of Thanksgiving, it’s hard to imagine a faster way to snuff out the warm glow of friendship and family that the season symbolizes for so many.
A few years ago I was part of an amazing team at StoryCorps, one of the largest oral history projects in the world, as we launched the National Day of Listening, an alternative (or additional!) activity for Black Friday.
We encouraged everyone who would listen to start a new tradition by interviewing someone they loved about their lives that day. An elderly relative. A returned service man or woman. A teacher or the person who sells you your morning coffee. At its heart was the most meaningful gift we could give another person – telling them that their life matters and that we care.
There are some great tips and potential interview questions available for free. Questions like:
- Who has been the kindest to you in your life?
- What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?
- What is your earliest memory?
If you can’t find the time or muster up the energy for the project (we’re only talking about a few minutes here), at least watch these beautiful animations from actual StoryCorps interviews. They’re my holiday gift to you, sans all the pushing and shoving!
Happy National Day of Listening to you all!
Even more inspiring stories can be found at…http://storycorps.org/animation/
Naked on the Bowery, copyright Art Observed
I realize this title might sound a bit provocative, like the outcome of a game of Truth or Dare gone terribly awry.
But this month I participated in museum-sanctioned nakedness and submerged myself in a one-of-a-kind exhibit dubbed the Giant Psycho Tank — a sensory deprivation pool of heavily salinated, skin temperature water.
If you’ve spent any time in NYC in the past few weeks, it’s hard to miss the ads announcing this exhibit by artist Carsten Höller at the New Museum. Since its opening, visitors have been flocking to the Bowery to try out some of the experiential installations for themselves.
See video at the bottom of the post to learn how the New Museum installed the slide!
I didn’t intend to stand in line for the Psycho pool, but I had just gotten seriously banged up on another one of Höller’s pieces, a 100-foot metal tube slide which drops visitors down an Alice in Wonderland-like shoot at high speed into a room full of life-size neon crocodiles and hippos and rapidly flashing lights (not recommended for those who have visually induced seizures or a whole host of other conditions, the Museum warns).
True, I had been told to keep my arms together until I landed on the mat two floors below, but a primal survival instinct caused me to put out my hands at the bottom to stop myself from crashing to the floor. Call me crazy. My right hand instantly swelled, which I was told by one of the security guards “has been happening a lot around here,” adding, “You’re just lucky it wasn’t your head.”
I nursed my throbbing hand as I stood in line for the tank, hoping the water would provide some form of relief. I had to suspend some judgement about the young unkempt looking man waiting patiently ahead of me and thanked my lucky stars that the NY Department of Health had ordered that the exhibit must now only accommodate one museum visitor at a time instead of the six-at-a-time naked strangers it was intended for.
Once inside, I cautiously sat down on bent knees, thinking maybe I wouldn’t submerge myself. Eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I slid down into the water and floated effortlessly with my arms outstretched. I remembered a question someone once asked me as a child about what heaven might be like. I imagined a clean, light room with warm water, not unlike this. I felt calm and free, and I really didn’t want to get out.
Giant Psycho Tank, 1999 Photograph: Attilio Maranzano
For every person who loves the tank, there’s someone who is utterly disappointed. When he came out of the tank, the man in front of me complained that the water was too cold and the tub was too shallow. I should have guessed that my kids, who had come along begrudgingly that morning, thought the slide took museum-going to a worthy and exciting new level. Vive la différence!
As we walked home, caked up salt flaking off my body, I thought about some of the themes of the show: safety, doubt, childhood vs. adulthood, and what constitutes art itself. Maybe you don’t need to throw yourself into this kind of psychedelic experience to understand that our impressions of art are formed not only on the physical level (how naive of me to think of art as something primarily experienced through the eyes!) but also on the foundation of all the deep-seated experiences, impressions and beliefs from our past. And by bringing an amusement park-like quality to a museum, Höller calls into question our “regular” experiences in the outside world: couldn’t they be considered art too?
This week, I’ll try going though everyday life experiencing movement, interaction, people and things as works of art. Just a little experiment to take things Beyond Siri’s Grasp! Hope you have a wonderful week.
Experience is showing at the New Museum until January 15. More information here.
Take a look at how the Museum literally cut into the structure of the building to install the slide:
Bright and early this morning, my 8-year-old son and I walked over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn for our annual NYC Marathon ritual.
This fall rite involves hot chocolate for him and a cappuccino for me as we stake our positions in a patch of sunlight near the 11th mile marker.
If we time it right, we get to watch all of the top runners go by. But we’re really there for the excitement of the elite wheelchair race.
In the early hours the sidewalks are pretty deserted, so we’re among the few at that stretch to cheer them on. We try to learn a bit about them in advance: Krige Schabort was a soldier in the South African army when a bomb explosion took his legs. Two years later, he began to race wheelchairs. Tatyana McFadden was born with spina bifida and left at a Russian orphanage as a baby. She was adopted by an American family who introduced her to sports.
You don’t have to have a child with you to be reminded of the lessons on Marathon Day. The importance of showing up for other people – especially when it’s early and cold and no one else is there. How all of the racers – not only those in wheelchairs – have some personal challenge to overcome, making them heroes of their own journeys.
When our hands were numb from clapping and our throats were scratchy from all our boisterous encouragement, we walked back over the bridge towards home.
Watching the finish results on-line, we were left with few more ideas to ponder together, not the least of which can be the ick factor of marketing (bullet #3) …
- The favored wheelchair racer, Kurt Fearnley of Australia, snapped the steering mechanism on his chair and came in second to Masazumi Soejima of Japan. “In the end that’s racing. Some days it goes your way and other days it goes the other way.”
- Geoffrey Mutai, the male winner and course record setter: “I try at the last minute to push it a little more. We all worked together – and then it was time to push it. For me, I was trying to run my own race.”
- Meb Keflezighi, the sixth-place overall winner: “I felt strong going into it, training at high altitudes in my SKECHERS GOrun racing shoes, which definitely made a positive impact on my running. I’ve been a heel strike runner my entire life, but SKECHERS’ mid-foot strike technology has helped me adjust my stride to be more efficient.”
Signing off now to put on our own somewhat ratty sneakers & to enjoy this beautiful NY afternoon!
Barbara
Ps – I should mention that my son took all of these pictures — except the one of himself!
