I was reading an excerpt from the book Malaika by Van Heerling. One line stuck with me and it read,"Life is slower here..in a take-a-deep-breath-and-live kind of way." The main character later defends his feelings as not being un-American. That's a funny sentiment and true for so many of us. Being American has become synonymous with a driven, don't get off the treadmill way of life.
One of my yesterdays (I like to think of time past in the collective sense, that way some memories don't seem so distant to me-coping mechanism 101) my father in law, nono, was living with us after being left alone by his wife of many years to cancer. He was a trouper as he tried to keep living his life. At the time my children, Michael and Marielle were around five and three years old. Every day there was a hustle to get to mommy and me swimming at the YMCA and then afterschool kindergarten for Michael. We rushed out of the house each day with the same routine. Nono would be in the kitchen waiting while I rushed to get us out of the house getting past one child's crying over wanting to wear different shoes, while the other had a sudden need to go to the bathroom while we were walking out of the door. I kept my head down and took one challenge at a time, and all the while, Nono whistled.
Oh how sweet you are probably thinking. It wasn't. I could handle the screaming, I could handle the dog barking, I could handle the chaos, but it was the whistling that threw me over the edge. One day I managed to calmly ask him not to whistle when we were trying to get out of the house. Any other time, it would be fine. He looked at me and said, "You know what is wrong with this new generation?" I said, "No, but can you tell me when we get in the car?" He laughed and after we buckled the kids into their car seats, I turned to him and said, "Go on..."
"The problem is everybody is nervous. You wake up late with too many things to do. You rush here, rush there, but you never stop to enjoy life."
He was right. This was a man who came to this country at the age of forty to give his wife and two daughters a better life. (Eighteen months later they also got my husband Nick.) Nono went from a posh government job in the old country to living the American dream: a laborer riding a bike to each of his three jobs while going to night school at Red Bank Regional High School to learn English. My father in law had lived both lives and was here to tell me that I had to make the two come together.
The old adage that it takes a village to raise a child should be It takes a village to help families flourish and that is what I discovered from my many talks with nono. He was the baby of twelve and the five closest in age to him were all girls. As he described it, they each treated him as if he were their own. As they grew and had their own families they remained close. Through his biased eyes he spoke about his sisters sharing the responsibilities of daily life and enjoying the tasks they did together. Their husbands I suppose came together to do whatever men do. Honestly, he didn't talk much about his brothers from that time because several had already come to America to make a better life for their families.
But did they? Yeah, they did. Nono would talk about the social problems in southern Italy. I learned about the mezzogiorno not being allowed to migrate to northern Italy where the better paying jobs were found. Families in southern Italy had few hopes for their children in towns with one main road and street light, and few professional opportunities. In the new country their children thrived, but at what cost?
Is it ani-American to want to feel you are a part of life? Do other countries have to remind their citizens to stop and smell the roses? I was reading a tweet from the Borowitz Report making fun of people emerging from their homes after Hurricane Irene only to walk outside and talk on their cell phones.
I would love to feel what Van Heerling wrote about in his novel Malaika experiencing life on the Serengeti. I would love to get on my bike with a backpack and go cross country with my family for a year. What a rich experience that would be. But I am forty five years old with a mortgage and two kids in high school. My big adventures are riding my bike to the Manasquan Reservoir and taking pictures to remind me that I'm still part of this world. I document my life and hope for a time when I'll be able to truly live it.
It may be a European concept for average people to go backpacking across the continent meeting others along the way and sharing experiences. It may only be for the privileged or utterly fearless to step away from their lives and go to Africa. But why can't that be the American dream instead of saving up for the new i-something. Maybe we just have to redefine our dream.
