Freedom of Religion?

I think there was a clue in The Daily Show tonight of the reason Jon Stewart is leaving and it was the word "relentless."
The Relentless Hate Machine Which Churns Fear and Divisiveness. My words for Fox "news", Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and their ilk.  Jon spoke of the unending use of the word "liberal" as some sort of catch-all for all that's not Christian and American exceptionalism, and he used the word "relentless."
And that's what I think his job is, relentless.  It must be an exhausting task to be the voice that brings light to all that is hypocritical and wrong in this country, no matter how well one does it.  No wonder he needs a break from it.

Which brings me back to the Midwest.  The kettle of paranoia and suspicion has been churned in what was once considered a fairly liberal state, Iowa.  I will put the responsibility squarely on Fox "news" and its "relentless" propaganda machine.  I see it on televisions in restaurants and homes with alarming regularity.  I wonder if people hear what they are being fed.  This churning, churning, churning of a faux outrage with an agenda fueled by the Koch brothers,  the far right, and the monied interest that has no interest in these people except to see how far they can exploit them.

In my last Midwest Diary entry, I spoke of the prayer thanking God said before each meal in the little school that I am working at.  This preschool/daycare has no affiliation to organized religion.  And this is my question.  Why?  Why do they do this?

I have already distinguished myself as some kind of free-thinker and a curious outsider.  I have had baffling and frustrating conversations about the freedom of choice, climate change, and worker's rights.

So this is the conversation I cannot have.  Why is there an assumption here that everyone is Christian and that everyone does and should believe in God?   I am learning that there are things here that I should only observe, and keep my thoughts (for now) to myself.

Thank You For Our Food

"Give me FIVE!  Give me TEN!  Put your hands together!

God is great. God is good. Thank you for our food.  Amen."

That is how meals are started at my little preschool and daycare center.  Food is provided by the Iowa Food Bank.  This food is not all that nutritionally sound, but it is something.  Children are served Cocoa Puffs and skim milk for breakfast.  A lunch may be white hamburger buns, a chicken type sloppy joe meat, and canned carrots.  Dinner is approximately the same.  Snacks at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm would be jelly sandwiches, or Jiffy peanut butter sandwiches, Ritz crackers, or granola bars depending on the day.  Snacks come with a juice box.  

Even though from my viewpoint, these foods are not very healthy, I do not see overweight kids. 

What I do see is that after about 25, people begin a decline of acquiring an unhealthy body type.  Clear Lake is somewhat of the exception as it has a populace with a bit more affluence and lake activities in the summer lend towards a healthier lifestyle overall.  

I am beginning to wonder if my school has "sick building syndrome."  Of course in the winter, doors and windows are never opened and some days I feel  as if I am swimming in a petrie dish of Legionnaires disease, what with the relentlessly sick kids and toxic chemicals teachers are required to clean with.  Yes.  Teacher's are required to do the heavy janitorial work here. This is all part of what I see as the abuse of workers in an "at will" state.  There is a very caustic floor cleaner that we expose ourselves and the children to daily. We also spray bleach all around while their delicate eyes and little noses are mere feet away.  All this could easily be handled by a professional janitor who understands his exposure, takes the precautionary steps to insure his and others safety.  I do not believe this would be a huge drain on the budget here.  30 hours/week would certainly cover it and the toys could then be sanitized on occasion too.

People are cowed into some sort of silence and desperation here.  People are resigned.  Not everyone, but it has been a long time since I have ever had a job that made me unhappy.  Stressed, yes.  Bringing home the problems and challenges of work in my head? Yes.  But this place makes me happy. 

Unless I get really invested in the place though, I will not worry too heavily about challenging "their norm."  

Today some kids were smashing their granola packs.  I basically said, "Hey, if you don't want them, give them back to me.  There are other kids who are hungry and would want them."  After a derisive snort from one of the boys, I gave them a variation of the, "There are kids starving in Africa, you know." speech.  One boy picked up on that and began to  tell me how his class had raised money for Haiti.  Another child talked about his church raising money to buy some goats for impoverished people so that they would have a source of milk.  It was gratifying. Even though a number of these kids live in what I consider poverty, I still wonder, at times, what poverty looks like. There are still refrigerators, TVs, clothes and shoes, cell phones and toys in all these situations.   We talked about being fortunate in our country in comparison to other parts of the world.

I guess that's all I can ask for right now.  That I can foster a larger view of the world for these kids.  This small town, in the center of the United States isn't all that there is.

I Only Miss My Mom When I'm Sick

This is a blog entry about my move, combined with some of what I wrote months ago.  All of it applies to right now.  I am sitting in the middle of the night, feeling adrift.  B. is right next to me.  We're listening to Wire.  I told him to shut it.  I only want to listen to Wire and write.  He totally understands.

"Interrupting my train of thought, lines of longitude and latitude. Define and refine my altitude."

Working with kids, I thought I had developed the immune system of a cement dump truck.  I thought, back in Silicon Valley, in my branded concierge tutoring situation and my private preschools, some with valet parking, that I was somehow immune to ever getting sick much.  At the sign of a sniffle, moms and nannies would come swooping in and whisk their child to the doctor.  Why did it never occur to me... I thought I was immune to a lot of things in this world, but I am learning otherwise.  

I have been coughing insanely. I took on a job at this local preschool and care center to meet kids and be involved in the community.  I decided that I do not want the emotional investment that many of my private jobs had become.  This situation allows me to be fun and creative but I am not bringing any of it home with me.  What I have brought home with me is tonsylitis, laryngitis, strep throat, and a case of bronchitis that partially derailed my last trip to Manchester.  This cough has kept with me since November.  It now wakes me out of a sound sleep and I am alarmed enough that I will have this looked into in a couple days.  I am a healthy person. I feel I am healthy, but there is an unease to this that is becoming disconcerting.   I eat right (mostly) (hey chocolate!) and I go to the gym.   I love to bike and I am one of the few teachers who actually plays and runs around with the kids.

These kids come to school sick.  There is nowhere else for them to go.  Parents work two jobs. The policy is that kids do not have to leave unless their temperature hits 102 degrees.  Iowa is an "at will" state.  People are hired at their own risk.  If they miss work one too many times (which often means twice) for the health of their own child, they will just be fired from their job with no recourse.  I have sat with children who are lying glassy eyed and coughing on mats wondering what the hell is wrong with our country.

I do not like these feelings.  I do not like what wells up when one does not feel well.  I do not particularly like nostalgia.  Melancholy borders the land of depression.  All these things I avoid and I wonder how people look at pictures of dead family members and stay happy.  So why the hell am I in this house?  Why did I choose to move into my grandparent's house that is so full of memories? Benevolent ghosts, happy to see me, but I am not sure I am happy.

This is the middle of the night speaking.  This is all the darkness that we, each and everyone of us have to endure.  I know that.  I know that if I tell my truths out here, I am not alone.

My mom did the whole great thing of making a place with blankets and pillows on the couch for me. I would watch cartoons in the morning, then gameshows like Monte Hall's Let's Make A Deal. TV got boring after that until cartoons kicked in again at 3:00. She would bring me soup, poached eggs on toast, or juice, maybe cereal. If I could not stop coughing, she would give me a tiny cordial of creme de menthe. It was strong but did the job.

Even though I gleaned at a young age that her first choice was not to be a mom, she did it well. She was the first woman to graduate as an electrical engineer from NMSU, she worked with Clyde Tomboe, the scientist who discovered Pluto, she worked on missiles at White Sands Proving Grounds where she and my father decided they would no longer work on weapons of destruction and moved to Palo Alto, CA. 

She chose safety. She took an easier path and I don't blame her. She struggled uphill against the norm since she was a kid and it must have been exhausting. I don't blame her anymore for choosing the other road.

I miss her now. I want one of her poached eggs on toast.

What Are People Worth?

This blog is a tool for me to sort out how I feel about my move from Silicon Valley to our Great American Midwest.  I also will be writing about the people I meet, my impressions of the culture and economy, and my dismay that although, intellectually I realized I grew up my entire life in a bubble, I am now where opportunity and job growth are not a given.  It has all given me a lot to think about.

I saw an interesting thread on Facebook recently that talked about raising the minimum wage and specifically referencing fast food chains.
Some of the comments were, "Working at McDonald's wasn't meant to be a career." and "You only get minimum wage? Get a better skill set."

I was at the Mason City branch of my preschool/care center.  I had a roomful of 2 1/2 to 3 year olds and I came in from noon to 5pm.  On a Saturday, this is no specialty art class, or music enrichment, or social play club like I would be doing in Palo Alto, Ca.  Some of these kids had been there hours earlier than me and we will call it what it is, daycare for working parents.

A mom came in with some sort of uniform to pick up her kids and at first glance I thought she was a lab technician, only to realize the uniform was for a fast-food outlet.  The thought that went through my head was, "omg. How can she raise kids on that salary?"

Job economy in Silicon Valley is separated along racial lines.  Typical of my upbringing, the unsaid thought process was, "No self-respecting white person would work at McDonald's." and a whole slew of other jobs that seemed beneath everyone there.  But here, the jobs and opportunities of Silicon Valley don't exist.  Here, there is no Hispanic population looking to better their lives by taking the lesser jobs.  Here, people live their entire lives working in restaurants and stores, doing things like yard work and house cleaning as their "career."

It is a whole different mind set.  There is a small amount of tech jobs here.  There is no movie and television industry.  I am beginning to realize that these jobs, these American jobs, should support these people here who are working so hard.

Home, not Home

Some of this was written in the last two weeks of January, during my stay in Los Angeles.  

Home is not a place
of a telephone number
or a hall closet
or where we have slumbered.

Home is not four walls
or a kitchen basin
or long silk curtains
or the yard we have played in.

Home is just really
the place that you know,
a stirring desire,
that familiar glow.


"You can never go home again."

Who said that?
Why is it such a broad statement we hear so often?

I went home.  I didn't go to the Bay Area, but I went to California and I am home.
I just didn't know that until now.  I take everything for granted.  People, places, food, work, all of it, I take it all for granted.  I am fortunate in my mind set that I feel things will always be o.k.

The slow creep of "What have I done?" began to invade my consciousness, but I know things will turn out right.  Even so, battling all the emotions I felt caused me to lose my driver's license, two bank cards, and two credit cards on Venice Beach.  I was unable to get a hold of the airlines due to the storm about to hit the East Coast and so extended my trip and bought a new ticket ...only then to lose my passport and another credit card that had been Fed Ex'd to me.  With stressed filled phone calls, I did learn that even without any I.D. they may let you on the plane if you have your print-out and are white.  You just have to get there at least 2 hours early.  (I made up the "white" part.)

I had such a great time, that I expect a crash in mood, which happened upon returning to the Midwest.  In the car there was not enough oxygen and my lungs became constricted cavities of anxiety.  It's not too bad.  The sun is rising.  It is a bleak, white blue-grey of empty space.  The light helps and we are blasting Killing Joke.

Home will not be leaving.  It is always here.  I am o.k. to go back to the Midwest.  I am o.k. knowing my that my stomach will often turn to anxious knots while driving through those winter landscapes with their stark beauty that baffles me so.

I know that I can face the challenges of this new life because home is still in California.  It is not going away because I live somewhere else.  And it will not be cold forever.  And I do not have to stay forever.  I trust my abilities to make it work however this new chapter plays out.