Saturday, December 15, 2012

O Little Town of Sandy Hook



It’s probably too soon after the blood bath in my sweet little New England home town to be writing about it intelligently. This post won’t be pretty and it may not even make sense. But I have to get this out.

When I got accepted into grad school at Yale and my husband at the time got a job at General Foods, we were living in California. We consulted a map and realized we should live in Stamford if we wanted to live equidistant from our respective jobs. Once we got to Connecticut, however, we realized that there was no way we would be able to afford to live there. We moved the midpoint farther north until the apex of the triangle reached the edge of Fairfield County. Sandy Hook. What an odd name. I thought it was in New Jersey? We’d hear that a lot over the years.

We were able to afford a house there – near a freeway and somewhat eclectic as they say. It had a rugged wagon wheel chandelier in the cavernous living room, a back yard too steep to do anything with, and a row of hemlock trees (since chopped down) in front of the house – trees that made the livingroom even darker. But it was ours, it was near Lake Zoar, and we loved it. Both of our children were born during the seven years we lived there, in Danbury Hospital.

Coming from Los Angeles, we were charmed by living in New England. There actually were white wooden churches, blazingly beautiful leaves in the fall, maple syrup running in the late winter, and reminders and relics from the Revolutionary War. Sandy Hook was its own entity, but part of Newtown. In the center of Newtown's Main Street, there was a flag pole in the middle of the road. It was considered a traffic hazard, but nobody ever removed that pole. A church nearby had a weathervane that Revolutionary War soldiers had used as target practice. The rooster still had holes in it.

As our children grew, we took them apple picking and sledding. We baptized them both in the Newtown Methodist Church. I joined playgroups with them and took Erik to nursery school two days a week. They rode with me to school – an hour to New Haven each way – and had a wonderful day care provider. They had birthday parties at a local farm. They had an idyllic early childhood – as idyllic as it can be when your parents are stressed from overwork and from straining to be good parents and from letting their marriage suffer – and it was partly because the setting was so peaceful, so self-evidently healthy.

Now all of a sudden, everybody is talking about Sandy Hook. They’re talking about Newtown too (though many are spelling it “Newton”) and about those children.

Those children. My son was one of those children 21 years ago. I had one scary experience with Sandy Hook Elementary School. Erik’s first day there, my first day waiting for him at a bus stop, he didn’t get off the bus. I was a hysterical, sobbing wreck. I got in my car and drove much faster than I should have been allowed to do in such a peaceful, safe town, screeched to a halt in the school parking lot everyone has now seen on television or on Youtube, and ran into the school. There was my precious little boy, sitting on a chair in the hall. I can’t remember now if he had been crying or if he knew that I would come get him. I’m not sure I remember what actually happened, but I think he had gotten on the wrong bus. No matter – we were reunited, and he was safe.

Those children that were shot – did their parents throw themselves in their cars, their hearts in their throats, sobbing, driving too fast down those same roads? How could anyone survive panic like mine multiplied by thousands? Or what came after?

Why would someone come in and shoot them? Alright, he was mentally ill. Like all these shooters are. Who knew that he was? Who let him get his hands on weapons?

And why are there automatic and semi-automatic weapons for sale to the general public anyway? I hear all this talk about how if you make guns illegal, then only criminals will have them. But this is a red herring. It’s not the having of guns that is the problem. It’s the having of guns that can kill 20 small children in the space of minutes. What do we need such weapons for?

We need to ban assault and semi-assault weapons. There is no reason to have them. I can see having a hand gun. I sure feel like carrying one now, once I’m properly instructed on how to use, clean and store it. But come on. What are all these weapons catalogs for? What is this glorification of shooting things in video games and in movies? Why is American society so bloodthirsty?

The well-meaning posts about ‘if only people would love each other’ and ‘if only they let God back in the schools’ – sorry. These don’t address the issue of mental illness. It doesn’t matter how much love and how much God. Mental illness makes people do irrational things. And there are plenty of gun-toting Christians.

The US has to invest money in the treatment of mental illness and it has to ban weapons that aren’t going to be used for hunting or simple self defense. I think it would be in the NRA’s best interest to help make this happen. With freedom comes responsibility. If you’re going to be free to have weapons, then you’d better work to make sure that the weapons don’t get into the hands of the mentally ill.

Sure, there are people who collect semi-automatic and automatic weapons because they are interested in them and not because they plan to kill a lot of people. Why can’t we just sell those and not sell ammunition?

In any event, there has to be a dialog about weapons in the US – preferably one that stops calling names on both sides and works to solve problems cooperatively. But that hasn’t been a strength of ours. I suspect that in a week or so, people will have forgotten Sandy Hook again. There will be hugging of beloved children, and there will be prayers of thanksgiving that family members are safe. But somewhere there is another ticking time bomb, making purchases, making a list and checking it twice.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

In the Night Kitchen





Maurice Sendak’s book “In the Night Kitchen” was one of our read-aloud favorites when my children were small. We delighted in the idea of falling into a big bowl of cake batter, of flying a bread plane, and of crowing like a rooster at dawn when the cake was finished. Its message, as I remember it now, is that all kinds of odd things happen during the night, strange and good, before ‘normal’ morning comes again.

There’s something like that here in Finland at the darkest point of the year. It feels like it’s almost always night. There are a few hours of daylight, but it’s subdued and the light is diffuse. (The few times I’ve seen the sun, it’s felt like a holiday or like dawn; it’s been so close to the horizon and all light, no heat.) And there are strange and good things happening in the winter, some of which I’ll talk about here.

But unlike Mickey, I can’t run around Joensuu in the altogether. I now understand more of the reasons behind the huge variety of winter clothing items. I know why people wear mittens rather than gloves and I’ve grown less hostile towards turtlenecks. I realize that knitting is not just something to keep your hands busy while you listen to someone. I understand that scarves are essential, not decorative, and I get why there are so many kinds of boots. Dressing is serious business when the thermometer can reach as low as 35 below. Frostbite is a real concern, not something that only afflicts mountain climbers. I’ve been biking along feeling my thumbs go numb and my thighs sting under three layers of clothing. You have to plan out what to wear so that you not only have the right kind of warm material, but so you also trap air (which provides more warmth) and make sure you don’t sweat so much that you chill. It’s a new process to me, one that takes a lot of time, and one that has made me very crabby on more than one occasion, especially when there’s a social function on the radar that will require getting into and out of these clothes more than once because said function is not in my building at school.

Winter ninja

But I’m over whining about clothing. I’m grateful for every piece I have, whether I brought it over from Oregon, acquired it at a second-hand store, or splurged on the advice of Finnish friends. I don’t even mind that these items spill out all over the place near my front door and take considerable time to get into and out of, because they help me feel more confident about venturing out when it’s really cold. I’ve made a few wardrobe adjustments that make life easier (a fleece-lined cap with ear flaps, wool-silk thermals and a puffy coat), and I’ve decided to store my bike until it’s not as cold and the snow isn’t as deep.

Rather than whine about clothing, let me tell you a little bit about the good things from the “Night Kitchen”. A new network of friends is slowly taking shape, and I keep meeting new people. I can’t possibly replace my friends at home, but I am no longer lonely here. Today, for example, I met a friend at the weaving studio in town and through her met a few more people. We had coffee and shared a shamefully rich chocolate truffle, and I am now scheming about making rag rugs for my summer cabin. My cell phone rings more often now with calls from two particularly close friends and the occasional text message from others. I see that I haven’t scared away my students – several of my classes next term are already nearly full. I’m looking at the pictures of Finnish Facebook friends and seeing all kinds of winter delights – long-distance ice skating on lakes, ice fishing, “spark” riding. Now that I know how to dress, it might actually be fun to be active outdoors rather than coo at the pretty snow from behind triple-glazed windows.

My bus stop

And during the Christmas season, people here create loveliness out of the dark. Shops have luminaria or simple fat candles planted in the snow outside their doors. Light garlands stretch across the streets downtown. The shop windows are bright and inviting. And yesterday I went to a Christmas market. I met   Santa Claus (joulupukki), saw ponies visiting with children dressed like the Michelin man, and envied adults carrying steaming beverages in their mittened hands. It wasn’t terribly crowded, but the wooden stands and the hand-made items for sale made me feel like I had dropped into the 1700s. 

Christmas market, 3 p.m.

I know I’ll crow the first time the sun is still up when I come home from work and rejoice when I can put all the winter gear away, but for now, I’m content to live, and maybe even thrive, in this wintry night kitchen.