ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
Mothers on the Writing Life
Thursday, May 10
7:00 – 9:00pm

THE STRAND BOOKSTORE
828 Broadway, New York City

Join us for an evening of readings, discussion, book signings
… and a champagne toast for Mothers Day!

The Strand Bookstore has partnered with six talented authors for an honest look and discussion on motherhood, creativity and the writing process. Each author will read a short piece about the intersection between motherhood and writing, followed by a Q&A and open discussion.

A $10 gift card to The Strand or a book by one of the authors must be purchased for entry to this event.

FEATURING:
SHERI HOLMAN – Sheri Holman has written four award-winning and bestselling novels published by Grove/Atlantic, including The Dress Lodger, a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC Award; The Mammoth Cheese, named a Publisher’s Weekly and San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year and shortlisted for the UK’s Orange Prize, and most recently, Witches on the Road Tonight, a NYTBR Editor’s Choice, winner of the Independent Publisher’s Gold Medal for Literary Fiction, and named a Book of the Year by The Boston Globe, The Toronto Globe and Mail, and PopMatters. Sheri is a founding member of The Moth.

KAYLIE JONES – Kaylie Jones is the author of five novels, including A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, which was made into a Merchant-Ivory film, and the memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me. She teaches in the MFA program at SUNY Stony Brook – Southampton, and in the Wilkes University low-residency MFA program in professional writing.

REBECCA LAND SOODAK – Rebecca Land Soodak has contributed to Salon, Big Apple Parent, About Our Kids, and The Huffington Post. A former psychotherapist, Land Soodak is also a painter. She lives with her husband and four children in Manhattan and Litchfield, CT. Henny on the Couch (Grand Central Publishing, March 2012) is Rebecca’s debut novel.

JILLIAN LAUREN – Jillian Lauren is the author of the memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and the novel Pretty. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times, Los Angeles Magazine and Vanity Fair among others. She has performed at spoken word and storytelling events across the country and is co-host with comedian Melinda Hill of the new hit podcast Eat My Podcast.

MARTHA SOUTHGATE – Martha Southgate is the author of four novels. Her newest, The Taste of Salt, was published by Algonquin Books in September.


RACHEL ZUCKER – Rachel Zucker is the author of three books of poetry including Museum of Accidents which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She co-edited Women Poets on Mentorship, an anthology of essays by younger women poets and co-wrote (with Arielle Greenberg) Home/Birth: a poemic, a non-fiction book about birth, friendship and feminism. She lives in New York City with her husband and three sons. She teaches poetry at NYU and is a certified labor doula.

PRESS CONTACT: Jillian Sanders
212-364-1523
jillian.sanders@hbgusa.com

It is extremely difficult to understand the inner workings and mindset of a culture one was not raised in, especially if the two cultures contrast greatly. For example, if one were to take a random woman off the streets of New York City, and place her (exactly as she was before) in the crowded streets of Kabul under the Taliban regime, the poor woman would be in for a culture shock and intense physical suffering. Most likely this woman was not walking around New York in a burka. Not covering every inch of skin on her body would be grounds for all the men who see her in Kabul to attack her and beat her mercilessly. Regardless of whether or not they know her, or have even met her before. Hopefully every American man who is asked whether or not he views this beating as appropriate would say, “Of course not!” But Afghan men even today might view this behavior as normal and just. This is because the women of Afghanistan are treated as objects, and are prohibited from having the rights any human being deserves, which should be morally and ethically wrong in any culture.

Women’s rights have always been a touchy subject. Does separate but equal really qualify as equal? How does a society deem what is fair, sexist or chivalrous? In our culture a man holding the door open for a woman is customary, as is a man making the first move in any romantic situation (although as feminism goes in and out of popularity, the incidence of women taking the initiative fluctuates). But what about the more difficult questions, such as should women be allowed to vote? Even in the United States, which is viewed as a safe haven of equality and prosperity, women were denied the right to vote until 1920, only ninety-two years ago, while men have been able to since the country was formed. Even today there are societies that are decades, possibly even centuries, away from the advancements in women’s rights that the U.S. has made.

In Afghanistan, part of the problem is that the Taliban felt the need to repress women, and even though they are no longer in power the view of women by the general population has not changed much. In 1996, when the Taliban came into power in Kabul, sixteen decrees were broadcast over the radio, as well as a separate appeal aimed at Kabul’s women. This appeal stated, “A woman’s responsibility is to bring up and gather her family together and attend to food and clothes. If women need to leave the house, they must cover themselves up according to the law of Sharia. If women dress fashionably, wear ornamented, tight, seductive clothes to show off, they will be damned by the Islam Sharia and can never expect to go to heaven. They will be threatened, investigated, and severely punished by the religious police, as will the head of the family.” (The Bookseller of Kabul, page 83). This appeal shows that women were stripped of any right to self-expression through their choice of clothing; they had lost rights that they clearly had before, and were no longer allowed to be educated. Their sole purpose was to serve their husbands and male children.

Why? Because the Taliban was composed of a group of uneducated, frightened men who were terrified that women could be more intelligent than they, or have any free spirit and free will. By repressing and degrading women they made themselves feel more powerful. Women were not viewed as human beings, but as objects. They were sold and married off for the highest sum and to the person who would elevate the families’ status the most, only to be cast aside when their husbands purchased a new and younger wife.

There is no logical reason for why rape should be accepted in a society. The worst part is that if a woman were to speak up or fight back under Taliban law, it would be considered her fault and she would bring shame on her family and be punished heavily, possibly beaten to death. This makes no sense because no one asks to be raped or assaulted. In the chapter “Temptations,” Rahimullah forces himself upon very young girls, because he can’t find any other way to satisfy his sexual urges. He says to his friend Mansur, “I take off the veil, the dress, the sandals, trousers. Having got there, it is too late for regret. It would be useless to scream because if anyone came to the rescue, the fault would lie with her, no matter what. The scandal would ruin her for life.” (Page 128). To an American reader, the scene is appalling. If this were to happen in America, Rahimullah would be thrown into jail, possibly for life, and the girl would receive therapeutic counseling for her dead soul.

In Afghanistan men get away with murder under the pretext of Sharia Law, and no one can do anything. Most men won’t speak up because they benefit in this situation — they get to be the head of the household, make all decisions, and have multiple wives, plus it doesn’t matter what sin they commit against a woman because a woman is property, and God will send them to heaven anyway. If a woman were to speak up she would be stoned to death, beaten, tortured, or raped until she no longer had the will to survive. Therefore very few Afghans say anything, or have the courage to take a stand against this unbelievable cruelty against women. People from other cultures can talk all they want but there is nothing they can do. Unfortunately, not enough people in the world seem to care enough to really make a difference.

Today the United States is involved in a war in Afghanistan that very few people support. It started out as retaliation against the Taliban for their involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. Before 9/11, most Americans could not have told you where Afghanistan is on a map. Unless what is happening in other countries directly affects us, we generally mind our own business. Even now, most Americans would say that we are over there undermining centuries of culture and attempting to spread American control where it doesn’t belong.

[I am thrilled with Eyrna's 9th grade English teacher at Stuyvesant. He allows her to think outside the box and use her creative abilities in her papers. It is so hard for students to appreciate classic literature, with all the other media available to them, and the speed at which entertainment is offered these days. Eyrna and I talk over her assignments. This gives her a chance to think through her feelings about the novels, short stories, and poems, to express her thoughts freely without feeling that there is a right or wrong answer. I am extremely grateful that her English teacher never implies that there is a right, or wrong interpretation.

Here is Eyrna's final paper for the unit on Poetry:]

To: Board of Directors
GLAD: Grumbling, Lonely, and Depressed Quarterly
(The Magazine for Complainers Who No Longer Have Friends)
From: E. Allan Poe
Re: National Award for Loneliest Poem of the Year

I apologize for having taken so long to reach a decision concerning the First, Second, and Third Prizes for GLAD’S yearly poetry awards for the Loneliest Poem of the Year. Unfortunately, I was locked up in a mental hospital after having completed a short story about a cat getting its eye poked out and its face mutilated by a lunatic. The three finalists are “Sky Diving,” by Nikki Giovanni; “The Guitar,” by Federico Garcia Lorca; and “Desert Places,” by Robert Frost.

Overall, I was disappointed in the lack of sadness in the poems submitted this year. Many of them were so optimistic they were practically glowing with self-confidence. I was up to my ears in morality and happy endings. It basically could have been a fairy tale competition, for all the lack of misery I was forced to endure. However, given the slim pickings, the prizes should be awarded in the following order:

Third Place for Loneliest Poem of the Year is awarded to Nikki Giovanni’s “Sky Diving.” Ms. Giovanni writes elegantly about the lonely journey towards her own death. In a stunning visual image, she states, “I hang on the edge/of this universe” (verses 1, 2). The poem’s formatting is very interesting in that she uses white spaces to depict absences and the coldness of empty space. She also describes in exquisite detail the pain of the experience: “I will spiral/through that Black hole/losing skin [space] limbs/internal organs/searing/my naked soul” (verses 14-18). However, the poet seems much too enthusiastic over her independence and her separation from earthly concerns: “singing off key/talking too loud/embracing myself” (verses 3-5). She also states, about her own death, that “It is not tragic” (verse 12), which undermines the very essence of this competition. Lonely as her journey may be, Nikki Giovanni is much too content in her own skin to win First Place for Loneliest Poem of the Year.

Second Place is awarded to Federico Garcia Lorca’s “The Guitar.” Unfortunately, the poem was sent to me in Spanish, in which I am hardly fluent, and I had to ask my Hispanic orderly in the mental institution to translate it for me. The poem is unquestionably lonely and full of despair, which fits our criteria; however, I could hardly make heads or tails of Lorca’s metaphors. “The glasses of dawn/are broken” (verses 3, 4) is open to many interpretations. Does the poet mean a man has dropped his reading glasses and now can no longer see the dawn? Or, perhaps, the partiers are done for the night and are reluctant to go home? Nevertheless, the visual and auditory imagery of shattering of glass definitely evoke a feeling of sadness and loneliness in the reader. Lorca equates the guitar’s weeping to “the first bird/dead upon the branch” (verses 23, 24). While I cannot say that I fully comprehend his simile, it is indeed a horribly depressing and lonely image, which relieved me, because depressing and lonely imagery was in short supply in many of the poems. My orderly read me the poem in the original Spanish, and I must say the word repetitions and the use of assonance in the “o” and “a” sounds, along with the alliteration of “l” and “ll,” were as melodious as a song.

Robert Frost wins First Prize for his poem “Desert Places.” At first I misread the title and thought the speaker in the poem was writing about places to get the best desserts, which had me terribly concerned. If Robert Frost recovered from his depression, where would his poetry go next? No concerns there, the poem is fabulously depressing and lonely. His careful repetition of the words “lonely” and “loneliness” (verses 8, 9, 10) emphasizes his terrible fear of being alone and filled with despair. The very first line of the poem, a visual image, indicates urgency and worry: “Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast” (verse 1), with the repetitions of the words falling and fast. The poet states that his loneliness “Will be more lonely ere it will be less” (verse 10), which captures the very theme of this competition. While Nikki Giovanni describes her own lonely flight through space without regret, Robert Frost describes his terror of an endless universe that holds no people.

As an expert on the subject of despair and loneliness, I can assuredly state that his closing verses, “I have it in me so much nearer home/To scare myself with my own desert places” (verses 15, 16) come closest to depicting the onset of misery and gloom, and the impending doom of depression.

Just because a group of people decides something is right does not mean it is. Entire societies have blindly conformed to murderous governments, like Hitler’s or Stalin’s, out of fear for their own lives or out of blind obedience. Some genuinely believed their actions were just, while others did not feel obligated to stick up for what they felt was right. Even in this country some people still believe slavery was justified; in fact, the government of Texas recently ruled to change their school textbooks to not include the word ‘slavery’.

Reginald Rose’s play Twelve Angry Men is an allegory of 1950’s America, before the escalation of the Civil Rights Movement, at the height of the McCarthy Era, when Americans were convinced the Soviet Union was going to take over the world. The entire country was in a panic over the Cold War, and anyone sympathetic to communism was considered an enemy of the state. People turned in their friends, colleagues, and even relatives to avoid losing their jobs or going to prison.

In the play, the jurors consist of twelve white males who are judging whether or not a 16-year-old boy from a minority group killed his father in cold blood. When the jurors first take a vote, eleven of the twelve jurors vote that he is guilty, because society has already thrown the boy in the garbage. It is unimportant to the jurors whether the boy lives or dies. Only Juror Number Eight is willing to stand up against the others. He does not want to condemn a boy to death without conferring about the case first, for he would be unable to live with it on his conscience if the boy was in fact innocent. He says:

“Look, this boy’s been kicked around all his life. You know – living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That’s not a very good head start. He’s had a pretty terrible sixteen years. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That’s all.” (Page 89)

By refusing to go along with the guilty verdict, Juror Number Eight subjects himself to the other jurors’ anger and verbal attacks. This setting is a small, controlled environment, but is an example of what happens every day when someone refuses to conform to society’s views. The other Jurors take Juror Number Eight’s lack of conformity personally, and get bent out of shape because many of them lack substantial evidence to prove their opinions, while eliminating all reasonable doubt. Juror Number Eight, on the other hand, stays calm and levelheaded, presenting the facts of the case with an unbiased perspective. He is able to point out many flaws in the Prosecution’s case, and inconsistencies in the various witnesses’ testimonies.

Slowly but surely, by appealing to the jurors’ own humanity, he manages to convince them one by one that there is a reasonable doubt the boy is innocent. Juror Number Three in particular is loath to admit there is a reasonable doubt the boy is not guilty. But even he eventually succumbs to conformity, because he is standing alone and all the other Jurors wish to acquit the boy. In the end, the jury exonerates the boy, showing that human beings can be persuaded to do the right thing.

Throughout history many leaders have abused their powers and led entire societies into horrible wars, or acts of genocide, but no one dared to speak up. The very few who did were punished severely, because they were contradicting popular belief. However, as Henry David Thoreau said in his magnificent essay, On Civil Disobedience, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

Most people will put their own needs first, concerned with their own and their immediate family’s survival. Though sometimes, when people thought the best road to take was to keep silent and just accept what was happening, it really was not the best option after all. One Holocaust survivor, Pastor Martin Niemöller, wrote in 1946:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Just as recently as the beginning of the Iraq War, the government stated that anyone opposed to the invasion of Iraq was “unpatriotic,” which scared many people into silence, despite the fact that they questioned the government’s reasoning on the necessity of the invasion.

Twelve Angry Men is an allegorical play with a happy ending. Juror Number Eight wins, and justice is served. Americans can once again feel good about themselves and their system of justice. This is one occasion when we learn that taking a stand is the right thing to do, and can effect change.

Letter from Joseph Stalin to George Orwell

September 1949

Dear Comrade Orwell,

First, I would like to congratulate you on the impressive success of your novel, 1984. I obtained a copy of the book from one of my secret agents, who informed me that it is supremely popular in Europe right now. The young man managed to translate it into Russian for me, before I, unfortunately, had to have him executed. You see, the ideas in this book were too strong and corruptive to have them floating about in his young head. It will be necessary to eliminate anyone who currently resides in the Soviet Union who has been exposed to the book. I cannot risk a bold competitor using the ideas in this novel to overthrow me.
I must say, I love your invention, “Newspeak.” I have tried something like that in Soviet Russia but Russian is a much more beautiful and complex language than English. The three slogans you chose for the Party that decorate the face of the Ministry of Truth, however, I thought were wonderful and I am planning on stealing them and placing them all over the Soviet Union. “War is Peace” (page 4) will go far in helping my propaganda ministers in convincing the people that peace can only be achieved through the ruthless crushing of our enemies, and the deliberate and quiet infiltration of the West; and through hardship the proletarians suffer as our country works tirelessly to become a great industrial nation.
“Freedom Is Slavery” also pleased me greatly, for most of humanity is too stupid to rule itself. Only in blind allegiance to me, their Fearless Leader, can people be “free” to be entirely stupid. Which goes hand in hand with the concept of “Ignorance is Strength!”
I had Trotsky, that traitorous scum, erased from all photographs (as well as anyone else who offended my sensibilities), but it never occurred to me to show anti-Trotsky films. The way you described the People’s Enemy, Goldstein, was simply brilliant (Page 13). A few moments of good, solid Hating! That is what the people need. I have tried something like that in my show trials (it was much easier than you would assume, getting those idiots to confess to crimes they could not possibly have committed!); but I never considered using an actor to impersonate Trotsky committing violent crimes against society. “The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers’ boots formed the background to Goldstein’s bleating voice.” (page 13) Absolutely brilliant!
It had also never occurred to me to use video to terrify people, besides the obvious propaganda films, so that it becomes impossible for them to start a rebellion against me. I always went the way of phone-taps because it is untraceable, and much harder to start an uprising if people cannot speak to each other without the fear that their conversation is being heard and recorded. A closed circuit TV that has the ability to film the area in front of it while showing pro-Stalinist commercials and videos would be revolutionary. I must credit you with the idea, because without your “telescreens” it would have been hard to imagine. Although I must say, I would not allow anyone to turn them off, even if they were members of the “inner party” of the Soviet Union. I feel that is a flaw in your plotline. No sensible ruler of a country would risk having the people closest to him starting revolutions or attempting to take over his government, so allowing them the tiniest bit of freedom would be a cause for suspicion. If the person were truly a member of the inner party, what could he possibly have to hide? They should have no reason to turn off the telescreens, and if they did I would immediately have them sent away (in my case to Siberia to die in the work camps).
I do imagine devices resembling your telescreens would be more effective than wire-tapping. I plan on recruiting the best minds, like Albert Einstein, to come work for me in the near future. That will make manufacturing these telescreens much easier.
Unfortunately I have also yet to perfect the NKVD’s ability to infiltrate people’s minds and penetrate their deepest thoughts and secrets. My ultimate goal is to have a brainwashing center, similar to that of the Ministry of Love and Room 101. The cage containing the rats — Winston’s worst fear (Page 285) is something I will have to adapt to my peoples’ needs, because, come to think of it, Russians have grown so used to rats that they barely fear them at all. Nevertheless, when I have control and insight in to their minds, I will be able to present them with their greatest fear, until they break like twigs. I have tried psychics as a means of reading people’s minds, though this did not turn out to be effective. Psychics, I’m sorry to say, have no credibility as weapons of mass destruction either, though we were hoping to make strides in that area. They are much more effective as charlatans, or as workers in my Siberian camps. There were a few that seemed to have some sort of talent, but some of the things they said were too exact, so I sent them to Siberia too. I couldn’t have them reading my thoughts now, could I?
Lastly, I have an offer to make you. I’m sure you would be honored to come to work for me, as anyone would, and I have decided to offer you a job. If you come to the Soviet Union you could help me enforce and improve on the ideas that came to me because of your novel. I would make you Supreme Vice-President of Foreign and Internal Affairs, pertaining to your uncanny ability to understand the need to control the Soviet people and restrict their freedom. If you would kindly meet me in front of the Lubyanka building (it is a large yellow building, very hard to miss, on Dzerzhinksy Square) we could discuss your future in Russia. I have appointed various NKVD agents to post themselves around your home, in order to properly escort you to Russia. They will bring you to the Lubyanka, so there is no need to fret about directions.

Respectfully Yours,

Josef Stalin

I hate the way people look at me like I’m some sort of eye-candy, existing simply for their own pleasure. The worst was when I spent a summer in Mexico. Spain was almost as bad. Even in New York, they have no issue with whistling or making comments. I hate it. I don’t even understand why I get looks. I don’t find myself remotely attractive.

I kept this in mind as I swiped my student MetroCard as fast as possible to get through the subway turnstile. I hated the subway, the number of times I’d already gotten lost and scared out of my wits was too many to count, and I was still in my first month at a new school.

“Miss, come over here please.” My head snapped to the left, where two police officers were beckoning me over. The one calling to me was short, balding, blond, and close to forty. His partner was younger, tall and thin and Hispanic.

“Let me see your MetroCard, please,” the older one said. I gave him a questioning look, but removed my MetroCard form my wallet nonetheless.

“This is a student MetroCard.” It felt like an accusation, not a question.

“Sure.” I hoped my short, terse answer was enough of a hint. I couldn’t start yelling at a cop, “Stop checking me out, you old ugly fat pervert, just leave me alone.” I am incredibly sick of dealing with this, isn’t there enough going on?

“Are you a student?” His tone was laced with skepticism.

I don’t need your skepticism, and why the hell are you talking to me like I did something wrong? And my eyes are up here, idiot. I nodded at the policeman.

“What school do you go to?”

“Stuyvesant.”

“I need to see your ID.”

“Here.” I had to use all my self-control not to shove my ID in his face. He took a couple moments studying it, before handing it back to me.

“Oh. It is you,” he said.

I wanted to shout at him. Of course, you moron, it’s me. Who else would it be? I’m a freaking thirteen-year-old girl, for god’s sake. Because I’m a person with self-control, I decided that verbally attacking the police officer and his partner would not be the best thing to do. I would probably end up in a whole lot of trouble. So instead, I gave him a questioning look.

“It’s because you don’t look like you’re in high school,” the police officer’s partner said, his eyes roaming where they shouldn’t since he was, after all, a police officer.

I nodded, I mumbled a good-bye, grabbed my MetroCard, and walked toward the train. The Four or Five is usually relatively empty when I get on, seeing as this is one of the first stops in downtown Manhattan.

I got a seat in the corner of the train, one of the two person seats, as far away from everyone else as I could possibly get. I took out my book, Unbearable Lightness, by Portia de Rossi, Ellen DeGeneres’ eating disordered girlfriend, and started reading.

Two minutes later a man came and sat next to me. I have this problem with being close to strangers. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I attempt to shy away, but when there is no room I start getting frustrated and panicking. This is how I felt just then. I had no room to breathe. I attempted to re-focus on my book.

“Is that a Christian book?” he asked. Why do people talk to me?

“No.” I attempted a smile, and turned back to my book.

“Oh I was just thinking because of the title of the book, you know, it sounds Christian.”

I forced an awkward laugh. “Yeah.”

“Actually, there is this really good Christian book you should read, it’s called God’s Smuggler.” It took a lot of self-control to not stare at his prominent chin. This must be how people feel about my breasts.

“Thank you very much for the suggestion, but I’m not religious.”

“Oh, well you should read it anyway, or come to my church. Just to look around. It’s a great place. You don’t have to believe in God to come, just walk through and listen. It’s really great, there are granola bars and drinks handed out.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I don’t believe in organized religion. I think many religions take advantage of people and their weaknesses, and their need to believe in something. In my opinion people just invented God and Religion to make them feel better about themselves. People strive to understand the unknown and inventing religious pieces of work and saying God wrote it, gives them a purpose for their lives.”

He looks at me with curiosity. “But God is here for you. If you have faith He can help you so much.”

“If there is a God I highly doubt that he would waste his time helping me. He should be focusing on the millions of people around the world dying of starvation, or trying to stop wars that He started. The number of wars throughout history that have been fought over religion in the name of God is ridiculous. Do you really think that God would be up there in Heaven going, ‘Yeah, Hitler, you go, way to annihilate the Jews!’ What’s really ridiculous is how similar these religions are, they all stem from the same source, one of the oldest religions known to man is—“

“Christianity, right?”

“No, actually, lots of Sumerian legends were adopted by other civilizations throughout time. For example, the story of Noah’s Ark is found in The Epic of Gilgamesh. People read them and then some feel they should start their own religions, using the stories they have read but altering them slightly. For example, the Old Testament is largely the Torah. Then people have the nerve to say their religion is better than others!”

He kept nodding as if he was seriously listening to me, but I wasn’t so sure, because he still had that weird, happy smile on his face. “Yes, but that is no reason not to believe in God,” he said.

“Well, personally I have never experienced anything to make me believe there is a God. If you get me one hundred people from all different religions that have all seen God and they describe him the same way, I will believe you. But I have never seen any proof of there being a God, and people can’t seem to agree on what God is, so I don’t think he exists.”

“But you also don’t have any proof that He doesn’t exist.”

“Yes, but in my opinion that’s like you saying, ‘I am a millionaire,’ and me saying, ‘Do you have a million dollars?’ And you responding,‘Well I do not have any proof that I am a millionaire, but I could be a millionaire if I just believe.’ In this case I don’t think the thought process of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ works, it’s more like ‘false until proven true.’”

“I see where you are coming from, but I know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for God—”

“THIS IS FORTY SECOND STREET GRAND CENTRAL STATION. THE NEXT STOP IS FIFTY NINTH STREET,” the monotone digital voice blasted through the train.

“I’m really sorry, but this is my stop, I have to go. It was very nice meeting you. I hope you achieve all you want in life, good-bye,” I said, smiling, grabbing my bag and heading toward the door while trying not to hit people in the crowded train.

“Good-bye, maybe I’ll see you in the future. I’ll pray for you.”

I barely heard him respond as the doors closed behind me, and the train got ready to speed down the tracks. I stopped and watched the train disappear into the darkness.

As I came up out of the subway station I passed a parked police car. The one in the passenger seat had his hand hanging out the window and pointed me out to his partner. He said, “No, that ain’t no Catholic schoolgirl outfit.”

No kidding, dude, do I look like a Catholic schoolgirl to you?

MY GUEST WRITER TODAY IS, ONCE AGAIN, MY DAUGHTER EYRNA, WITH HER ESSAY ON THE SUBJECT “What Writing Means to You”

Family Sail Day Aboard the USN Destroyer Antietam

I grew up surrounded by writers. Not rich writers, but struggling, makes-five-thousand-a-year writers. There were a few wealthy ones, and some good stories, like the time I was at Peter Matthiessen’s house and his wife Maria showed me the perfect miniature replica of The Beagle that Kurt Vonnegut brought over to give to Peter, because Kurt was getting old and deep down he knew that once he was gone, his wife would never let Peter have it. These stories are priceless to some, but not to me. If I could I would sell them for a million dollars; that way I could finally have the lavish lifestyle I deserve.
My mother grew up in a fancy house in Paris with her rich and famous father, James Jones (who was also a writer). The only class my mother excelled in was English. She was not one for the fancy lifestyle, however, and when she grew up, she decided to live the life of a struggling writer, who spends her time helping other struggling writers, out of the goodness of her heart. Not for money. This is one of my biggest grievances, seeing as she married my father who is also a writer. My home is small and money can be tight, especially when the economy fails. When I was younger my mother told me, “You can be whatever you want. Except for an actress. Or a singer. And definitely not a writer.” Of course, at the time I found this just the funniest thing, but my mother was only slightly joking.
To me writing is just the symbol of how my parents decided to “follow their dreams” and I ended up without the newest gadget or gismo, therefore making me less popular with my peers. I know exactly what I want to be when I get older, and it is not a writer. I want to be a Surface Warfare Officer in the Navy. It may not bring in that much more money than being a writer would, but at least I will have my financial situation figured out completely. Also, I don’t think adults care as much about material items as kids do, and since I am not planning on having children any time soon, that does not bother me.
I must say that in my opinion I am not a fantastic writer, like my mother or grandfather; I must not have inherited the writer-gene. I am an awful poet, which is one of my many character flaws. I am not terrible at writing memoir essays, though I generally don’t enjoy it because the only topics I can write about while still being original tend to be depressing and make me burst into tears. I do like writing essays if I am interested in the subject I must write about, especially if it’s a book I really enjoyed. Or when I have to argue my point through a paper, which is enthralling and easy because I enjoy being right.
One of the main problems I have with my writing is that people tend to take my words at face value. I write like I am speaking to the reader (unless it is a specific essay, which calls for an invisible narrator) and I am a very sarcastic person. The problem is that I am unable to stress certain words, or be certain that the person reading my writing will read the words the way they sound in my head.

Kevin in San Pedro, Belize, July 1993

This was the first vacation we took together. I wanted to scuba dive in Belize. Kevin had never gone scuba diving before. In San Pedro, it took him three days to pass the PADI course. His first open water dive as a certified diver was The Great Hole, a famous dive site thousands of feet underwater, where you weave between ancient stalactites at 135 feet of depth — the maximum allowed by the PADI rules. I took this photo of Kevin in the evening, the day before our Great Hole dive. He wasn’t even worried. The nest morning, just before we fell backwards off the dive boat, my stomach was doing flips, heart pounding inside my chest. But Kevin was completely calm. During the dive, Kevin kept sinking below the 135 ft limit, perhaps a little giddy from the nitrogen levels, which divers call “rapture of the deep”; I reached over and pumped air onto his BC to level him out.

We’d known each other six months and it was this vacation that made us realize we were getting serious. He was willing to learn to dive for me. Was he thinking ahead to future vacations? What I see in his youthful face here is a kind of fearless questioning: are you the one? I think you’re the one. I can also see the pain of loss in his eyes. He’d lost his father much too young, just as I had — but more recently, his grandfather, an immigrant from Denmark who became a union leader.

Eighteen years later, here he is on the beach in Stone Harbor, NJ. The next day we were going upstate to see our only daughter Eyrna at sleep-away camp. I wonder what he’s thinking here. Is he wondering did we pack all the right things to take to our daughter?

Kevin in Stone Harbor, NJ, July 2011

Gone is his look of youthful ease. He hadn’t been sleeping well the last few nights. Neither had I. We hadn’t heard from Eyrna except for a ten-minute phone call once a week. Is he worrying about how she’s doing? Perhaps he’s thinking, as I often do, that in the 18 years we’ve been together, the stakes just keep rising, and we have more and more to lose.

Part of our Second Dan promotion test is to write an essay on What Earning A Second Dan Means to Me. Here is my essay.

There were a few things my Taekwondo instructor Mr. Bill Canegata told me before he died. One, was, “You’re a thinker. Thinking is what you do. So think. Stop beating yourself up for not being able to stop your mind. That is your talent.” Two, was, “Don’t quit martial arts, no matter what happens.” He was plugged into something I still hardly understand, as if he could clearly see the future — he knew my ego and big mouth would get me into trouble, which they did. I got into a battle of wills with my instructor who’d replaced Mr. Bill, forgetting for a moment that Mr. Sevilla is not only much stronger than I am, but also that he is my instructor. Walking home from the school in a blind rage, I decided to quit, but then I remembered what Mr. Bill had said and I changed my mind. Quitting was a perfect example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Next day, I went back an apologized to Mr. Sevilla for losing my temper.

Working out doesn’t get easier as I get older. I turned 50 this year. One of the most important things I learned in preparing for this Second Dan test was that I had to stop beating myself up for not being able to compete physically against students who are half my age. Or for not being as flexible or in shape as Anna, my partner, whom I love and admire and who has been on this journey with me from the start. Anna had a moment herself where she wanted to back out of taking the Second Dan test. She was having trouble with the form, one of the only areas I wasn’t struggling. I talked her out of it and we worked on the form together for months and months, until we had it down tight.

My first impulse when I look at the video and photos of myself during the test is to only see what is not perfect, what is not right. I should have done better, I think. I forget, of course, that we were already 90 minutes into a grueling endurance workout by the time we got to the form. Notice the gentleman guiding us and judging our performance — Mr. Eric Anthamatten — a Fifth Dan Black Belt in Taekwondo, a brilliant mixed martial artist as well, and a PhD student in Philosophy. He teaches Philosophy in the prisons. If you look carefully you can see the five red stripes on his belt.

If you ever saw him practicing forms, you would think he can fly. I am barely able to get off the ground in my tornado kick. But, hey, at least I am able to do a tornado kick!

I was looking on line for a tailor or martial arts equipment store that could embroider two gold stripes for Anna and me onto the ends of our belts. Right now we have two strips of masking tape. Many of the internet forums stated that it was ridiculous to have stripes on one’s belt — if you need to prove you have a Second, Third, or Fourth Degree, then you probably don’t deserve it. Real experts can tell from watching you. Well, I’m 50, and I’ll never look like I deserve a Second Degree Belt. But I physically worked harder for this honor than I ever have on anything in my life. Those strips mean something profound and everlasting to me. They are a symbol of the fact that Anna and I didn’t let Mr. Bill down; they are a symbol that Mr. Luis Sevilla and Mr. Eric Anthamatten thought we deserved to be promoted.

When they get angry at us in class, they yell, “Pull yourselves together! You look like a bunch of 40 year olds!”

“Thank you, Sir!” we shout back.

The fear of failure, of being laughed at, of being a fool for having the hubris to even consider attempting this — all these feelings I had to wrestle with right up to the moment I started the test. Then, a strange calm overtook me. I prayed constantly, and I didn’t look at the clock once. (Mr. Sevilla, naturally, shouted things like, “Only two hours and forty three minutes left!”) But here’s what getting through this test gave me: the courage to face other fears, like my fear of heights. Two days after the test, I rode almost all the roller coasters at Six Flags, terrified the whole time.

My daughter Eyrna received her Second Degree Belt a year before I did. Well, she’s 13, and not plagued with bouts of paralyzing bronchitis (from 20 years of smoking) and aching bones and joints. Next summer, she and I are going to China for a month to study Kung Fu with the Shaolin monks. How many kids can say their moms did that with them?

It sounds like a cliche to say that martial arts have changed my life. I’m sorry, but martial arts have changed my life. I don’t for a second think I could get out of, say, a knife attack or a violent rape, but I think I would not give in easily. I think my only chance would be the element of surprise. Hopefully I would be able to hurt the bastard enough to make him think twice before he did it to someone else.

Kevin and I, good parents that we are, went on the 8th grade class trip to Six Flags amusement park. There is a girl in the class who hates my daughter. HATES her. This girl told Eyrna she’d stab her in the jugular with a knife if she could get away with it. I don’t know what makes children this angry in life, but I doubt Eyrna is the only cause of this girl’s anger. It doesn’t matter — my child is suffering at school. Since February, every day has been hell. She doesn’t want to go to school in the morning. She can’t sleep at night. Her closest friend opted out of this class trip to Six Flags, so Eyrna was pretty much on her own. We decided that we didn’t want her confronted by this situation in a theme park, with so few parents watching. So we decided to make ourselves available to join the small group of parent chaperones.

The kids had a half-day of school so they only had 3 hours in the park. We let Eyrna go off on her own, but I was anxious. After about an hour, she called me. I could hear the misery in her voice. Her one friend on the trip, P., did not like rollercoasters and P. kept getting phone calls from Eyrna’s enemy, urging P. to leave Eyrna and join her group. P. was about to leave Eyrna on her own. Eyrna had not gone on any roller coasters, though she wanted to. We’d bought her a FlashPass so she wouldn’t have to wait in the long lines, and now one of us would have to go with her. Kevin and I are both afraid of heights. But, hey, I passed my Second Degree Black Belt test last Saturday, I could do this. And Kevin is the kind of man who would suffer the rack for his child.

The first ride she wanted to go on, naturally, was the brand new Green Lantern. Just looking at the neon-green tracks soaring into large loops up into the white-hot sky made me want to barf. With the 2-person FlashPass, Eyrna and I were at the front of the line in less than five minutes. As we were standing behind the metal barriers waiting to board, a dark-haired boy standing next to us started up a conversation. He’d been waiting in the regular line for almost an hour. He was alone. His sister didn’t like rollercoasters. They were from Colorado, visiting his aunt. Would we mind if he joined us on the ride? Each row had four slots, where you were strapped in vertically, like a person about to get launched into outer space. Join us, I said, we’d be delighted. Eyrna blushed, slightly embarrassed. The ride practically gave me a coronary. Flipped upside down, side to side, loops, drops, everything you can imagine they would do to an astronaut in training. As we staggered off, I pulled out the FlashPass; I’m not stupid, I know what counts in an amusement park.

“Oh, wow, you guys got a FlashPass, you are so lucky!” the boy said. He had a handsome, open face, a charming smile. I could tell Eyrna thought so, too.

“Hey,” I said to the boy, “how about the two of you ride the next one without me? I don’t love these rides, I have to tell you.”

“Mom!” Eyrna said, laughing, “We don’t know him and he doesn’t know us!”

“What do you need to know? My name is S., I’m from Colorado Springs, I’m sixteen, I’m in ROTC, I have a sister. I’m going to join the Navy.”

“I’m going to join the Navy too,” Eyrna said. “I’m going to do NROTC in college.” He wanted to know what she intended to do in the Navy and she gave him some long, complicated explanation about Tomahawk missile defense. I stepped a little away, giving them room.

“Have you been on Nitro yet?” he asked her.

No, she had not. She looked at me. “Go,” I said, “Daddy and I will wait for you at the exit.”

Off they went, running, with the FlashPass in Eyrna’s hand. At the exit to The Green Lantern, Kevin was waiting, holding my bag and my bottled water. He wondered where Eyrna was off to in such a hurry. I told him we’d met a boy from Colorado on the ride and he was going to go with her on the next one — the dread Nitro.

“Thank God,” Kevin muttered. “I’d pay him to go with her so I wouldn’t have to.”

We followed at a distance and waited for them at the Nitro exit. With the FlashPass, they were out in less than ten minutes. A group of boys from her class passed by. “Eyrna! Hey, Eyrna! Who’s your friend?”

“A friend,” she replied lightly.

Their last ride before he had to go meet his aunt and sister was El Toro, an old-fashioned roller-coaster on a high wooden scaffolding that soared into the sky. Kevin and I waited down below and listened to the passengers scream on their plummeting descent.

When Eyrna and S appeared a few minutes later, her face was bright red and she was smiling.

The boy shook our hands and thanked us. He gave Eyrna a hug.

As the boy ran off to meet his family in the parking lot, Eyrna whispered to me, “Thank you, Mommy. This was one of the best days of my life.”

Sometimes we can’t help them, but sometimes we can.