While walking one hot day on the Rogue Trail, several weeks back, feeling sorry for myself for all my supposed woes, I started thinking about obituaries and how inadequate they sometimes seem if they're a woman's. Yes, "she was a consummate birder" - big deal, everyone's thinking; in otherwords, she was a housewife, a nobody.
Whereas a man's obituary is often a long compendium of what he did, accomplished or published, etc., as though the measure of our life equates with our resumé - the lengthier, the better.
The only true measure is that we lived and loved and that we are (hopefully!) dearly missed by our family and friends. Nothing else matters in the end.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Few People Know or Care
Few people know or care that I'm half Syrian. When I was a child, growing up in the rural sticks of Canton, OH, my classmates seemed to care but in a pejorative way - calling me Eagle Beak (my brother was called brother of Eagle Beak), hunky, Olive Oyl. I looked different from them. I remember once in gym class locker room, a girl asked why I had a tan on my stomach. I told her it was from wearing my Mom's two piece bathing suit. This was true but I also paraded around in midriffs and shorts all summer, becoming the proverbial "brown as a berry".
My mother's family cared because that meant we were half-bloods and not real Syrians like they were. We got part of the good, dark Syrian looks but not the thick, long, black eyelashes of my cousins and most of all, not the legitimacy of being "true" Syrians.
Years after both my Mom and Dad had died, at a family get-together in Canton, another uncle, demented and ill by then, told me that his Mom asked my Mom "Where did you drag that in from?" when she met our father, a non-Syrian of German extraction. At that same get together, my Mom's sister expressed contempt for my Dad. I don't know why they heaped all that on me when I had traveled to visit the family - perhaps I reminded them too much of my father. Even though others at the get-together were very kind to me, I cried throughout the evening each time I remembered anew the cruel words about my father and by inference, me, and also when I thought about all the years that had passed without my visiting Canton and being a part of my Syrian family.
My daughter seems to identify completely with her Dad's side of the family - the Russian, Polish and Jewish background. That's probably because I've had little to do with the Syrian side all of her 32 years so she doesn't know them.
People where I live now don't know or care that I'm half Syrian. They are an international cast of characters themselves!!
Yet, at the library, I saw the DVD The Syrian Bride on display. My husband and I had seen the movie at a theatre in Santa Fe. I felt such a swelling of pride at seeing the word "Syrian" in the title. I took it out and watched the special features. The movie centers around the events leading up to the bride leaving the Golan Heights to marry a Syrian man. The conflict is that she must forever leave her family who are living in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. There is a lot of humor involved. Coincidentally, my family says our Syrian ancestors were from Mount Hermon near the Golan Heights.
Anyway, even though few people know or care that I'm half-Syrian, I'm very proud of my Syrian heritage!
My mother's family cared because that meant we were half-bloods and not real Syrians like they were. We got part of the good, dark Syrian looks but not the thick, long, black eyelashes of my cousins and most of all, not the legitimacy of being "true" Syrians.
Years after both my Mom and Dad had died, at a family get-together in Canton, another uncle, demented and ill by then, told me that his Mom asked my Mom "Where did you drag that in from?" when she met our father, a non-Syrian of German extraction. At that same get together, my Mom's sister expressed contempt for my Dad. I don't know why they heaped all that on me when I had traveled to visit the family - perhaps I reminded them too much of my father. Even though others at the get-together were very kind to me, I cried throughout the evening each time I remembered anew the cruel words about my father and by inference, me, and also when I thought about all the years that had passed without my visiting Canton and being a part of my Syrian family.
My daughter seems to identify completely with her Dad's side of the family - the Russian, Polish and Jewish background. That's probably because I've had little to do with the Syrian side all of her 32 years so she doesn't know them.
People where I live now don't know or care that I'm half Syrian. They are an international cast of characters themselves!!
Yet, at the library, I saw the DVD The Syrian Bride on display. My husband and I had seen the movie at a theatre in Santa Fe. I felt such a swelling of pride at seeing the word "Syrian" in the title. I took it out and watched the special features. The movie centers around the events leading up to the bride leaving the Golan Heights to marry a Syrian man. The conflict is that she must forever leave her family who are living in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. There is a lot of humor involved. Coincidentally, my family says our Syrian ancestors were from Mount Hermon near the Golan Heights.
Anyway, even though few people know or care that I'm half-Syrian, I'm very proud of my Syrian heritage!
Annual Beheading of NM Locusts on Route
This year, my modus operandi was to step on the little buggers (so they can't run away - ha, ha!) and saw them off at the base with my handy-dandy snaggle-toothed garden saw - what fun (not really)! Last year I pulled them out by the roots but that required wearing heavy gloves to protect against the thorns. It doesn't matter which method I use since they'll grow back profusely anyway but the beheading method is easier than yanking them out by the roots! ; D Don't worry - there are plenty more NM locusts in the woods - I merely chopped off the ones that had the temerity to rear their thorny heads in my pathway!
Went to senior center this morning for 10 am talk by Bandelier Ranger Tom Betts aobut his time at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I enjoyed the talk. I started wishing that I had become a national park ranger - the scenery is unparalleled! Tonight I told husband that we need to visit all the national parks in his retirement!
I checked the library for books on Wrangell-St. Elias but found none.
I am going to die from the heat in this house!
Went to senior center this morning for 10 am talk by Bandelier Ranger Tom Betts aobut his time at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I enjoyed the talk. I started wishing that I had become a national park ranger - the scenery is unparalleled! Tonight I told husband that we need to visit all the national parks in his retirement!
I checked the library for books on Wrangell-St. Elias but found none.
I am going to die from the heat in this house!
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