Party Politics

As I write there are three elephants dancing on my head. Actually it's three little girls but if you have ever possessed one you'll understand what I mean.

There are squeals, shrieks and occasionally tears slipping down the stairs from the bedroom where they play.

Today we have a guest; my eldest daughter's best friend. She has come over after school today because of politics: party politics.

If you have kids, and those kids have birthday parties, you have likely been involved in party politics. Who gets invited to the party, who didn't, who forgot about it and who couldn't go due to a prior parental engagement.

My daughter had a birthday party last week, unfortunately her best friend was not there. I didn't think much about her absence as I had already asked if she was coming and my daughter said she didn't know for certain but thought she would not be able to come.

The day following the party I got a message on Facebook from the friend's mother asking me if the friend had been invited to the party. (Some background info: at the end of the school year last year both girls seemed to have had different and somewhat unfriendly accounts of their relationship.) I assured the mom that her daughter had indeed been invited, the whole class had been invited, but the invitations were not in envelopes and were sent to school without names affixed. I didn't want to spend my time addressing envelopes to each child in the class. Live and learn.

So now the best friend is over for a play date and all is right with the world. This however was not the first instance of party politics that I have inadvertently been a party to.

Several years ago I affronted a family member by not inviting a young relative to a birthday party. I hadn't really thought much about the guest list. Birthday parties in the summer are rather hurried affairs as it is my busiest time of year. But due to the offense taken I felt forced to invite the child to the party. It was an oversight that he had not been invited. But now I was aggravated. I was put in a position where I had to invite him to smooth things over in the family. I got over it. He was a great help at the party and we all had a good time but I still feel a prick of discontent over the incident.

And so it goes. I haven't any other cases of party politics in my own mothering career thus far but I remember reading lately that a friend of mine was torn because her son's birthday party turned out to be on the same day as another child in his class. What kids would go to what party?

Children's birthday parties turn out to be a lesson in diplomacy as well as planning. It's one of the things they never tell you about parenthood.

Where were you?

I was in my bedroom, in Bangkok, on the phone to America. How about you? I know you know what I am talking about. It's all anybody has been talking about in this hemisphere for the past week: Where were you on 9/11?

It's been hard to escape the coverage of the 10th anniversary of this momentous event. At the time people said, “Everything will change, nothing will be the same.” In some respects that is true and in others it is blatantly obvious that for those of us living in the West things have not changed much other than removing our shoes at the airport and carrying an up-to-date passport when traveling between Canada and the United States.

There have been changes but just not the ones we typically think about. 9/11 has changed lives- ask people in Afghanistan and Iraq how it has changed their lives- surely they have been inconvenienced by more than just long lines at the airport.

When I first started to think about the question: How did 9/11 affect me personally?-I thought, “Not much.” I was living half a world away and did not experience the trauma of watching the towers collapse repeatedly on television news casts as many people in North America did. Note: another good reason not to own a TV. I may not have shared in the collective trauma, I knew no one who died in the attack either directly or indirectly, but the repercussions of the heightened fear of terrorism did affect me.

Ten years ago I was working in a DNA research lab at Mahidol medical school on the Ton Buri side of the Chao Praya River in Bangkok. I was at the lab learning how to run DNA sequences for a research project I had proposed to the authors of a book on Thai prehistoric archaeology. I had gone to the authors with a proposal to study the mitochodrial DNA of early skeltal remains and compare them with modern Thais to once and for all put an end to the discussion about the origin of the Thai people. Thais are an amalgalm of many peoples that have moved through the landscape over the centuries but I believed that they would be able to trace their genes back to the earliest known settlers through this mtDNA project.

At that point in my research, on that fateful day in September, I was just about to go to a research lab in Jakarta where I would learn how to do mtDNA extraction. It was the only lab in South East Asia at the time that was doing mtDNA extraction and they had agreed with my Mahidol backers to teach me the methodology to bring back to Thailand.

After 9/11 I was leery of going to a predominately Muslim state known to be a fostering ground for some terrorist groups. I stayed home, safe in Bangkok and redirected my studies to less dangerous field work destinations in the North East and Northern provinces of Thailand.

Staying in Bangkok meant I met the man who would become the father of my children and led to involvement in a writers group which brought about my career as a freelance journalist. So all in all- 9/11 changed my life. I wonder how many of us can look back on that event 10 years ago and describe such a line of decision making that affected our current state of being so dramatically.

There is so much more that could be said about this anniversary but I am emotionally overwhelmed by the full on coverage of it. I don't want to listen to 911 calls from the towers. I don't want to hear air traffic control. I don't want to prick my ears with the heart wrenching voicemail messages left by loved ones who leapt to their deaths from the towers. It was overwhelming 10 years ago and half a world away and is no less traumatic 10 years later.

My only hope is that the wars are at an end and fledgling democracies in the Middle East have developed roots and leaves by the time the 20th anniversary of 9/11 roles around.

38 and counting

When I was born they counted my days on this earth succinctly because they feared I would have too few. Now, I am counting my time here by years and I never forget the work, medical expertise and luck that got me this far.

This year I spent my birthday working at a job I never would have dreamed I would possess, going out for supper with my children who I never believed would fulfill their ovarian encased potential, and visiting with my father, a relationship that I never thought could be this strong.

Summer is a busy time for me and the end of summer never more so. But I did find time to think..a little.

Mostly what I thought about was how I had all the things I really wished for in life. My children, my family and a job or two that might be considered a career. I also have my passion, which sometimes is stymied by work, fatigue and plain old writers block but nonetheless exists as a definable thing which I can sit down and do on any given day.

To know your passion is a unique gift. Some people don't have one. There is no overarching desire to do just one thing and enjoy the process.

I have friends, mothers mostly, who I look at and wonder where will their fulfillment come from when their chicks have flown the coop. I know people who may fill their golden years with TV reruns of great old shows they loved watching when they were in the prime of their lives. What does one do in life, as a empty-nester or a retiree if you don't have a passion?

Many people pursue passions that I can not understand. Today I read about a lady who has a collection of over 800 salt and pepper shakers. I am sure it qualifies as a passion but it's one that doesn't translate in my reality.

My passion is of course writing. There never seems to be enough time to write and when time shows up, as it has today, there seems to be no inspiration.

My free time has suddenly vanished and I must return to work but at least I have another year- just me and my passion. The gift of time to pursue one's passion is among the most valuable.