I've refrained so far from writing about unemployment, inhibited by the idea that a potential employer could happen across my blog and somehow decide to use it against me. But 'unemployment' is becoming an ever loudening noise inside my head to the point that, some days, it precludes all other sound or thought.
Put simply, it sucks.
I'm not saying it doesn't have its benefits - I have just eaten lunch outside on the patio afterall and I didn't get up until 9.30am. But it does something to time, to days, where it sucks all the life out of them. I can't plan ahead to use all this time that I have because maybe, maybe, I'll get a job and then wont have the time to spare. So it sits, useless, passing me by. On days where I haven't planned anything - where I'm not volunteering or babysitting and there are no new jobs to apply to - the day passes in a haze. I do everything slowly and the smallest task requires the hugest amount of effort. My heart beats into my mouth every time the phone rings or an email pings; beats with hope that it'll be a job offer or interview invite. I miss the fatigue felt at the end of a work-day, miss even the occasional lingering clock-watching days; I miss the joy of leaving the office and reclaiming Time. I know all those reading this with full time jobs will be rolling their eyes in disbelief - the employed version of me, stuck in some parallel universe, certainly is - but it's the truth.
I want to be purposeful again. Volunteering helps but it's not the same. Writing helps but it's not yet been given the stamp of published approval, meaning it could just all be one long exercise in disappointment. I also really, really want to walk into Ted Baker and buy something entirely unnecessary but beautiful and to feel self-justified by the knowledge that I've worked hard for it, have endured multiple Monday mornings for it, have earned it. But, then again, I'm married now so maybe that guilt-free clothes purchase thing is a thing of the past... I need to get a job to find out.
A challenge
I have recently started volunteering as a 1-1 English tutor. I signed up for it, thinking it'd be a bit like my beloved Time Together, where I could befriend a new arrival and we could muddle through the confusement of this crazy country together while I helped a little with English along the way.
It's nothing like that.
For a start, my tutee has been here longer than I have. Thirty years longer to be exact. So if anything he is more American than I may ever be (please note that it's not a particular goal of mine, in fact remaining English against all odds is more of the goal). And he can speak English - yes he has an accent, but so do I. But, after thirty years of living here, he's decided he now has the time and the motivation to learn to read and write in English, and that's where I come in.
If I were to choose two 'things' that define me in this world, beyond family and friends and Jeremy, I would say I am a reader and a writer. A reader first, because I've been doing it obsessively, compulsively, since I first learnt to, er, read. And my writing comes from reading - it's through reading that I've developed a habit of narrating my life as I live it. In my head, I should add, although it'd be pretty hilarious if I started doing it aloud, and often in the style of the book I'm reading at the time. In this way I think I was a writer long before I started committing words to the page. I use language, absolutely, to interpret my world and to interpret myself. Without words, actual words, with their roots and derivations, their specificity of spelling and fluidity of pronunciation, I would be lost.
But when faced with teaching someone, teaching an adult, how to read and write I panicked. I started to see my world of words, my language, so differently. With its rules that I never give a second thought to, that are so slippery and wriggly - almost impossible to pin down, entirely impossible (for me) to explain. To get anywhere I have to narrow my vision, to look at one small pocket of the language and explain only that, to ignore for the moment the exceptions to the rule - they will, I assume, come later. Knowing all the time that he should put no trust in this language, yet, because it will move and unbalance him the moment he thinks he has mastered a part of it. I'd never realised before this how inexact spoken English is, how vague and easy to misinterpret when it is not accompanied by the knowledge of its written form.
Sometimes it feels impossible. It is too vast. It needs to be learned intuitively, with the instinct and trust of a child - who casually accepts irregularities and soaks them up into their very being so that they become fact and truth and normal. But then I think how great a gift it is to learn to read, to learn that there are words that can describe frighteningly accurately who we are. Words we do not use in the every day but that exist as counterweights to our everydayness. Reassuring in their precision, their beauty.
So we plod on. My biggest fear is that I am doing a terrible job. I am a reader and a writer, but not a teacher, and I know that I will learn as much from this relationship as he will - probably even about my language (certainly the UK curriculum setters did my generation a disservice when they decided grammar lessons were inessential) but definitely about how to teach. If nothing else so far I have learned a deeper respect and wonder for this language of mine.
It's nothing like that.
For a start, my tutee has been here longer than I have. Thirty years longer to be exact. So if anything he is more American than I may ever be (please note that it's not a particular goal of mine, in fact remaining English against all odds is more of the goal). And he can speak English - yes he has an accent, but so do I. But, after thirty years of living here, he's decided he now has the time and the motivation to learn to read and write in English, and that's where I come in.
If I were to choose two 'things' that define me in this world, beyond family and friends and Jeremy, I would say I am a reader and a writer. A reader first, because I've been doing it obsessively, compulsively, since I first learnt to, er, read. And my writing comes from reading - it's through reading that I've developed a habit of narrating my life as I live it. In my head, I should add, although it'd be pretty hilarious if I started doing it aloud, and often in the style of the book I'm reading at the time. In this way I think I was a writer long before I started committing words to the page. I use language, absolutely, to interpret my world and to interpret myself. Without words, actual words, with their roots and derivations, their specificity of spelling and fluidity of pronunciation, I would be lost.
But when faced with teaching someone, teaching an adult, how to read and write I panicked. I started to see my world of words, my language, so differently. With its rules that I never give a second thought to, that are so slippery and wriggly - almost impossible to pin down, entirely impossible (for me) to explain. To get anywhere I have to narrow my vision, to look at one small pocket of the language and explain only that, to ignore for the moment the exceptions to the rule - they will, I assume, come later. Knowing all the time that he should put no trust in this language, yet, because it will move and unbalance him the moment he thinks he has mastered a part of it. I'd never realised before this how inexact spoken English is, how vague and easy to misinterpret when it is not accompanied by the knowledge of its written form.
Sometimes it feels impossible. It is too vast. It needs to be learned intuitively, with the instinct and trust of a child - who casually accepts irregularities and soaks them up into their very being so that they become fact and truth and normal. But then I think how great a gift it is to learn to read, to learn that there are words that can describe frighteningly accurately who we are. Words we do not use in the every day but that exist as counterweights to our everydayness. Reassuring in their precision, their beauty.
So we plod on. My biggest fear is that I am doing a terrible job. I am a reader and a writer, but not a teacher, and I know that I will learn as much from this relationship as he will - probably even about my language (certainly the UK curriculum setters did my generation a disservice when they decided grammar lessons were inessential) but definitely about how to teach. If nothing else so far I have learned a deeper respect and wonder for this language of mine.
Everyone is having babies...
Everyone is having babies. I don't think that's even much of an exaggeration. I now have skype dates with 'people' who still count their age in months and whose length is measured rather than their height.
It'd be fair to say that it's freaking me out a little bit.
I can feel a strengthening tug inside me towards motherhood. Granted it may just be a longing to claim a definition that is something other than 'unemployed' (how many people get pregnant as an easier option to job hunting??), but I think it's more than that. Even Jeremy is less horrified by the whole idea than he used to be (he used to equate having children to death, so it'll take a while). But the bit that's properly freaking me out is the fact that I'm here, not there. Having children in this country feels like a root too far - one which would be harder to pull up than the others. And, for reasons related to yesterday's post, along with the fact that my mommy and I are really close, I could never imagine having children when living more than like three miles away from my mother. (OK, thirty - ninety, no J I'm not suggesting we move to Dibley). Yet here I am, feeling that tug, living in America, and I'll be 28 this year.
Like I said, Jeremy's only now starting to revise his thinking that you decide to have children once you've resigned yourself to your life being over, so I imagine there's a ways to go yet before we actually are faced with these decisions, but it scares me. There's the matter of maternity leave (so much better in England, but you have to be living there for a while before in order to be eligible) and the fact that deciding to start 'trying' doesn't mean a baby will appear nine months later. Which all seems to mean if 'we' (read 'I') want to be in England when we have kids then shouldn't we start thinking about it like yesterday?
There aren't any answers to any of these questions I know, because life just isn't that plannable; but when, aged twelveish, I mapped out my ideal life (married by 24, children by 25... I KNOW!) I never thought that moving continents would be something I'd have to worry about. (Nor did I have nightmares about my children being unable to say Worcestershire sauce.)
Ah well.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to shower and change in time for a skype date with a two month old.
It'd be fair to say that it's freaking me out a little bit.
I can feel a strengthening tug inside me towards motherhood. Granted it may just be a longing to claim a definition that is something other than 'unemployed' (how many people get pregnant as an easier option to job hunting??), but I think it's more than that. Even Jeremy is less horrified by the whole idea than he used to be (he used to equate having children to death, so it'll take a while). But the bit that's properly freaking me out is the fact that I'm here, not there. Having children in this country feels like a root too far - one which would be harder to pull up than the others. And, for reasons related to yesterday's post, along with the fact that my mommy and I are really close, I could never imagine having children when living more than like three miles away from my mother. (OK, thirty - ninety, no J I'm not suggesting we move to Dibley). Yet here I am, feeling that tug, living in America, and I'll be 28 this year.
Like I said, Jeremy's only now starting to revise his thinking that you decide to have children once you've resigned yourself to your life being over, so I imagine there's a ways to go yet before we actually are faced with these decisions, but it scares me. There's the matter of maternity leave (so much better in England, but you have to be living there for a while before in order to be eligible) and the fact that deciding to start 'trying' doesn't mean a baby will appear nine months later. Which all seems to mean if 'we' (read 'I') want to be in England when we have kids then shouldn't we start thinking about it like yesterday?
There aren't any answers to any of these questions I know, because life just isn't that plannable; but when, aged twelveish, I mapped out my ideal life (married by 24, children by 25... I KNOW!) I never thought that moving continents would be something I'd have to worry about. (Nor did I have nightmares about my children being unable to say Worcestershire sauce.)
Ah well.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to shower and change in time for a skype date with a two month old.
In remembrance
Today is my brother's birthday. As far as the majority of the world is concerned, I don't have a brother, but I actually have two, or had two, depending how you look at it. I have two brothers who died while still babies. One, Samuel, before I was born and the other, Joseph, when I was two and a half. They died from what may or may not be an unidentified genetic disorder of which the girls in my family may or may not be carriers, if there's anything to be a carrier of (there have been various tests, each one being less conclusive than the one before). Today is Joseph's birthday. He would be 25.
I often imagine who they would have been - who they are, in that parallel world where they didn't die. A mechanic perhaps, or an artist. Maybe they'd be quiet and more serious like me or quick and deliberate like my sister. I've never pinned down an imagined character for either of them - they are nebulous in my mind, full of possibilities. The only thing I'm sure of is my love for them - we would love and like each other, I'm certain of that. They would drive me crazy and we would love each other fiercely. Because that is how our family is.
I think the loss of them has brought us all closer, bound us more tightly, for we know that it is possible to lose and what it feels like, so we love more intentionally and deliberately because of it. We do not talk about them often, but their loss is a presence in our family - one that we wouldn't be without, given we don't have them - and we remember their birthdays as a way of saying outwardly that we have not forgotten. We do not need to say it inwardly. Today is Joseph's birthday. He would be 25.
I often imagine who they would have been - who they are, in that parallel world where they didn't die. A mechanic perhaps, or an artist. Maybe they'd be quiet and more serious like me or quick and deliberate like my sister. I've never pinned down an imagined character for either of them - they are nebulous in my mind, full of possibilities. The only thing I'm sure of is my love for them - we would love and like each other, I'm certain of that. They would drive me crazy and we would love each other fiercely. Because that is how our family is.
I think the loss of them has brought us all closer, bound us more tightly, for we know that it is possible to lose and what it feels like, so we love more intentionally and deliberately because of it. We do not talk about them often, but their loss is a presence in our family - one that we wouldn't be without, given we don't have them - and we remember their birthdays as a way of saying outwardly that we have not forgotten. We do not need to say it inwardly. Today is Joseph's birthday. He would be 25.
writing
Writing is like painting a still life. There is what it should look like and there is what I am capable of painting. I know how it should look, how the colours should blend. I can see the outline of shadows and the glare of light. I can see it but recreating it, pinning it down and forcing it to paper is quite another thing.
The added difficulty is of course that I can't actually see it, only imagine it. The story that I have envisaged poses a question and it is my task to answer it, working through problems of words and character, slowly drawing out its true form which has been there all along waiting for me to wake up and realise it. It nags and it tugs and it never fully stops hassling until it's perfect, and of course it's never perfect.
It puts me on edge. In the way I used to be when I was at university - there is always something I should be doing, always a puzzle to unravel. I can never fully relax or forget, like a forgotten name on the tip of my tongue, my mind is rolling it and prodding it, trying to solve the problem.
I love it and I hate it and I'm not remotely convinced I'm capable of writing another book, even though I know it's there, waiting patiently for me to write it.
It should also be noted that my first book is far from finished, I'm just waiting for a kindly editor to come along and tell me what to do.
The added difficulty is of course that I can't actually see it, only imagine it. The story that I have envisaged poses a question and it is my task to answer it, working through problems of words and character, slowly drawing out its true form which has been there all along waiting for me to wake up and realise it. It nags and it tugs and it never fully stops hassling until it's perfect, and of course it's never perfect.
It puts me on edge. In the way I used to be when I was at university - there is always something I should be doing, always a puzzle to unravel. I can never fully relax or forget, like a forgotten name on the tip of my tongue, my mind is rolling it and prodding it, trying to solve the problem.
I love it and I hate it and I'm not remotely convinced I'm capable of writing another book, even though I know it's there, waiting patiently for me to write it.
It should also be noted that my first book is far from finished, I'm just waiting for a kindly editor to come along and tell me what to do.
Too much information
We are once again, tentatively and nervously, putting in an offer on a house. Our realtor suggested that before we did so, we checked out crime stats and sex offenders in the area. Not that sex offenders can't move, but just to check there wasn't one next door, because, y'know, that might hurt resale value. So along we trundled to the sex offenders register and I don't think I'll ever be quite the same again.
Because I had no idea that the sex offenders register here not only tells me the name of any level 3 (the highest level) sex offenders local to any area I search , but also their address, list of crimes and provides me a photograph.
Am I alone in failing to see how this helps anyone?
It doesn't help me - unless I'm prepared to live my life in fear and to memorise photos and addresses, and even then that doesn't insulate me from possible attacks, because there's such a thing as first-time offender or un-prosecuted offender or not-having-eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head.
Perhaps parents would feel it helps them - perhaps they'd like to tell their children who to avoid, or would like to not buy houses on streets close to pedophiles. I mean, no parent is going to intentionally buy a house next door to a pedophile, so maybe in some way it helps parents. But doesn't that also generate a false sense of security (for all the reasons that I wouldn't be safe even if I committed the sex offenders registry to memory)? And why, if it's just about where to live, can it not just be a dot on a map rather than a face with a name?
But what shocks me the most about the whole thing is the complete lack of trust in any system of law that it displays. What it says is that a) these people are not (and will never be) rehabilitated and b) that there is no such thing as suitable punishment. It also says that the institutions that should be safeguarding children - the ones who should be doing background checks before hiring staff - are not to be trusted.
How can anyone ever re-enter society and move on and not re-offend if that society is watching them, ostracising them, waiting for them to re-offend? I know that sex offenders do re-offend, I know that allowing them to reintegrate into society isn't a sure-fire way by any means to stop re-offending, but it seems to me that creating a sub-class of people, publicising addresses and photographs is a sure-fire way to generate bitterness and hatred and to encourage re-offending.
In the UK, as I understand it, the sex offenders register is accessible by certain institutions and police do keep track of where sex offenders move to. This also, of course, shows a lack of faith in rehabilitation, but it's probably a realistic lack of faith, and we do need to protect our children.
There is a voluntary organization called 'Circles of Support and Accountability' that operates in the UK, Canada and some parts of the US whereby 3 - 4 trained volunteers form a "Circle of Support and Accountability" around an ex-offender, with the aim of preventing re-offending. A study of the scheme in California showed that participants in the scheme had 83% less sexual re-offending than the matched comparison group. Obviously there are factors such as that the ex-offenders who choose to take part do not want to re-offend, but that can not account for the entire difference in re-offending rates.
I've never written a blog post like this before, and I probably won't again, but I was so shocked by the discovery of this register with its names and addresses and photographs that I wanted to share it with you. I know one thing - I only looked at two of the names, out of curiosity that it was possible more than anything, but I don't feel safer. I feel less safe, and nothing has actually changed in my area beyond this knowledge. I have to say I think America's got it wrong on this one.
Because I had no idea that the sex offenders register here not only tells me the name of any level 3 (the highest level) sex offenders local to any area I search , but also their address, list of crimes and provides me a photograph.
Am I alone in failing to see how this helps anyone?
It doesn't help me - unless I'm prepared to live my life in fear and to memorise photos and addresses, and even then that doesn't insulate me from possible attacks, because there's such a thing as first-time offender or un-prosecuted offender or not-having-eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head.
Perhaps parents would feel it helps them - perhaps they'd like to tell their children who to avoid, or would like to not buy houses on streets close to pedophiles. I mean, no parent is going to intentionally buy a house next door to a pedophile, so maybe in some way it helps parents. But doesn't that also generate a false sense of security (for all the reasons that I wouldn't be safe even if I committed the sex offenders registry to memory)? And why, if it's just about where to live, can it not just be a dot on a map rather than a face with a name?
But what shocks me the most about the whole thing is the complete lack of trust in any system of law that it displays. What it says is that a) these people are not (and will never be) rehabilitated and b) that there is no such thing as suitable punishment. It also says that the institutions that should be safeguarding children - the ones who should be doing background checks before hiring staff - are not to be trusted.
How can anyone ever re-enter society and move on and not re-offend if that society is watching them, ostracising them, waiting for them to re-offend? I know that sex offenders do re-offend, I know that allowing them to reintegrate into society isn't a sure-fire way by any means to stop re-offending, but it seems to me that creating a sub-class of people, publicising addresses and photographs is a sure-fire way to generate bitterness and hatred and to encourage re-offending.
In the UK, as I understand it, the sex offenders register is accessible by certain institutions and police do keep track of where sex offenders move to. This also, of course, shows a lack of faith in rehabilitation, but it's probably a realistic lack of faith, and we do need to protect our children.
There is a voluntary organization called 'Circles of Support and Accountability' that operates in the UK, Canada and some parts of the US whereby 3 - 4 trained volunteers form a "Circle of Support and Accountability" around an ex-offender, with the aim of preventing re-offending. A study of the scheme in California showed that participants in the scheme had 83% less sexual re-offending than the matched comparison group. Obviously there are factors such as that the ex-offenders who choose to take part do not want to re-offend, but that can not account for the entire difference in re-offending rates.
I've never written a blog post like this before, and I probably won't again, but I was so shocked by the discovery of this register with its names and addresses and photographs that I wanted to share it with you. I know one thing - I only looked at two of the names, out of curiosity that it was possible more than anything, but I don't feel safer. I feel less safe, and nothing has actually changed in my area beyond this knowledge. I have to say I think America's got it wrong on this one.
that buzz of homesickness
This week, homesickness returned. It's never fully and completely gone, but since those first few home-sick months it has retreated to a low buzz in the background, entirely manageable and mostly ignorable. Until it comes back. And when it does come back, it hits me in the chest and knocks the air out of me, leaving me feeling incomplete and lost in this foreign life of mine. Longing for familiar voices, food, friends.
So I mope around the house, with Jeremy reminding me that it's all entirely hormonal (it's been 'that' time of the month afterall). 'That doesn't matter'. I say. 'I still feel crap'. 'But it's got to help to know it's not real, it's not forever', is his point. It's a valid point.
But real or hormone fueled, I hate this feeling. It makes me feel insubstantial, awkward, unwilling to be in a group of people that are not MY people, because although I do have some people here, I do not have a gaggle of them.
The homesickness has retreated again, back to its normal level of buzz. But I am left a little startled by how quickly it swept in, scared by the realisation that it is never far away - always at striking distance.
But then I suppose I knew that already.
So I mope around the house, with Jeremy reminding me that it's all entirely hormonal (it's been 'that' time of the month afterall). 'That doesn't matter'. I say. 'I still feel crap'. 'But it's got to help to know it's not real, it's not forever', is his point. It's a valid point.
But real or hormone fueled, I hate this feeling. It makes me feel insubstantial, awkward, unwilling to be in a group of people that are not MY people, because although I do have some people here, I do not have a gaggle of them.
The homesickness has retreated again, back to its normal level of buzz. But I am left a little startled by how quickly it swept in, scared by the realisation that it is never far away - always at striking distance.
But then I suppose I knew that already.
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