When's It Her Turn?

My daughter is an amazing girl. She is a voracious reader, she has a higher emotional IQ than a lot of adults, she knows how to make me laugh, she loves adventure, she tries new things even if she's scared. She's got a great ear for languages; she's studying Mandarin in school, and she's getting high praise from her teacher for her ability to memorize songs in Chinese. In fact, last week her Chinese class performed two songs at a school assembly in honor of Chinese New Year.  I was so excited to watcher her perform because I saw how proud she was when she memorized the songs, ahead of most of her classmates.

I was also pumped that it was finally going to be her turn to "shine" for a few moments in front of her other classmates. See, there is this culture of achievement at her school that she hasn't figured out how to fit into yet. Most of her classmates either play an instrument, have a sport they're good at, love drama, star in cheerleading routines at school assemblies, or any combination of those. My daughter sees her classmates performing and asks me when it's her turn. It's that heartbreaking tension between wanting to be recognized but being too shy to put yourself out there. I know it well.

So last Friday I was so excited for her to be part of the Chinese New Year performance. Out she came with her class. I got my video camera ready. Then...a blaring music video was projected on a screen behind the kids and drowned out any chance of hearing their voices. And a group of four girls came out front dressed in cheongsam (Chinese traditional dress), dancing and singing into microphones. Camera shot of my daughter was blocked.

Now, I'm not the parent who insists on her kid getting the starring role. I'm not the parent who pushes my kid out front. But I was pretty disappointed that my kid didn't get her chance to be in front. The girls in front are the same girls in the cheerleading and dance performances. Surely they have plenty of opportunity to dance then. Why do they also get to be the main performers in the Chinese class event?! Why does every event have to be fronted by a stage show, anyway? Can't a class perform a song without having to idolize those in the class who want to dance?

I know I sound really judgmental. And I need to be very careful, because I have a lot of envy and resentment from my own school days. As I mentioned before, I always wanted to be the performer, but I was too shy to step up and try out for the parts. I asked my daughter how those girls were chosen. She said her teacher asked them to perform the dance. Now, my daughter was the only third grade girl not dancing in front. Part of me wonders if it's because she didn't look the part--perfect hair, bubbly personality, cute little dancing body.

Maybe that's unfair of me. You might be reading this thinking "Hey, I was the kid who performed. I was a dancer. I was the soloist. I resent the insinuation that I have no talent but won my way on stage by looks." You should resent that. That would be really petty of me. I am all for people getting to showcase their talent.

But here it's often misplaced. Like the other day when I was at the mall and there was an academic pop quiz event happening.  Every time I passed the floor there was another stage act going on. I kept thinking "When do these students get to actually do the quiz?" First someone had to sing "You Raise Me Up", then a boy group had to dance, then a couple did a pop duet, and on and on it went. Kids were missing school for this.

My daughter is having a hard enough time fitting in at school with ADHD. I wish she could be recognized for the things she is able to contribute. But she's not gifted at those "main event" talents that everyone sees and recognizes and thinks are cool.

After a third or fourth meeting with her teachers and counselors about this and other issues, I was gently told that maybe I need to back off and let my daughter find her own way. But I'm afraid she will be pushed aside and swallowed up in the shadow of the performers. But I did ask if she had wanted to be part of the Chinese dance, and she said no because the dances looked too complicated. And honestly, she felt proud of herself for being part of the performance at all. So I will bite my tongue and build her up, and do my best to give her opportunities to prove that she can shine like the best of 'em.

A couple days ago she went to a birthday party at a Laser Tag place. I was so nervous for her; I could just see her doing poorly at laser tag and feeling bad about herself, getting laughed at by the other little commando kids. But I didn't say anything. I described what laser tag is like, and she wanted to give it a try. I took her, dropped her off, and came back three hours later....and was greeted by her beaming face. She had a blast! She was so proud of her score, which was not last place but was certainly down towards the bottom.

I realized then that my eight-year-old daughter is my greatest teacher right now. The challenge for me is to appreciate what I can do and what I enjoy doing without comparing myself to others or measuring the applause I get (or not).

But then we have a morning like this one, where she is crying that she doesn't have any friends at school, that no one lets her play with them, and she doesn't want to go to school. What do I do with that?! I want nothing more than to help her fit in and have friends. But I don't want to her change who she is. Or do I? Is the whole reason she felt bad about herself this morning that I was hard on her for losing focus and not getting ready on time?

Teaching her not to care what others think of her needs to start with getting plenty of affirmation at home. Let this be my wake-up call.

So I apologize--I'm tired this morning, and hungry, dealing with technical difficulties, reeling from a tough morning, and dealing with issues from my childhood that I thought were dead and buried. But there's nothing like raising a child to make you face your past. So if this post turns you off in any way, take it with a grain of salt and show grace. I'm a work in progress. Thankfully, so is my daughter. Her future is not written yet. There may be a place on stage for her yet. And if not, she will light up the shadows. The eyes that matter will see her. As they do each of us.

Let's Talk About Sweat, Baby!

Among the many aspects of tropical life that I find incredibly hard to adjust to is this issue of sweat. Living in Chicago, I can safely say there were only two situations in which an observer would say I was sweaty: on the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan on a rare hot day, and in my Zumba class.

Here in the Philippines, I am sweaty 90% of the time. Sweaty when I sit in traffic in my big, black car; sweaty when I sleep; sweaty when I water the plants in the front yard; sweaty when I sit in an outdoor café. And for some reason, my sweat stinks here. Maybe I was in denial back when I only got sweaty for good reason. Here, it just feels gross--especially because I don't feel like I'm earning the amount of sweat pouring forth.

One of the natural outcomes is that my clothes are getting ruined. My scarves are turning yellow underneath, for one thing. (If only I were brave enough to go bald all the time...still not there yet.) And my clothes go in the hamper after only a half-day's use. Since my helper washes my clothes by hand in really hard water, they are literally coming apart at the seams.  Wearing out before my eyes.

The Filipinos have a way of preventing this. Actually, I think what I'm going to describe has more to do with the social inappropriateness of sweat than saving their clothes--but I've decided to adopt this particular custom purely for the financial benefit. See, they wear towels under their shirts to absorb the sweat! Ingenious idea. I first saw it among children--some boys selling food on the street had rags sticking out the back of their shirts up at the neckline. At first I thought it was to protect their skin from the sun. But then I saw people in the mall with the same thing. I once saw a guy fixing his wife's collar on the back of her shirt. "Aw, sweet", I thought. Then he stuck his hand further down her shirt, and I confess I started staring at that point. "What?" Turns out he was fixing the towel under her shirt.

So last week the air conditioner went out in our car, and I found myself a sopping wet mess everywhere I went. Black leather seats, not good in heat. Yesterday I decided to go ahead and try it: stick a towel down my shirt and get over it. Here's what I came up with:

 

Before you laugh too hard....no, go ahead and laugh. It is hilarious. I was trying to use a bath towel. I had to choose between it sticking out the bottom of my shirt like a tail, or this. Not quite the Filipino way, but through trial and error I'm learning what size, color, thickness and position are just right.

Here's the good thing: once you've seen some of the tings people do around here to keep sun and sweat off their skin, you don't really feel all that foolish stepping out like this. Oh, and here's another good thing: my shirt is hanging up in the closet, still fragrant and ready for another day's use!

Now, I will take my towel, walk down to the corner to get some street food, and pat myself on the back for attempting in some small way the resourcefulness Filipinos are famous for.

In a Word

I live in a country where everyone speaks English, but no one understands me.

It's almost like a false sense of security. I think I will be able to communicate my needs, and I almost can, but then things don't turn out quite the way I want them to. For example: I go to the store and ask for mosquito repellent spray, and I show my arm and say "for the skin". I am shown to the aisle that contains household insecticides. And forget trying to obtain information about the ingredients in a dish on the menu at a restaurant. "Gluten intolerance" does not translate.

Don't get me wrong--I know I am the foreigner here. If I want to avoid misunderstandings, I need to learn the language. And I'm trying. It's actually a pretty difficult language to learn. And really, I'm learning two languages at once. I'm trying to learn Cebuano, but I also need to learn how to speak and interpret the English of the Philippines. It's a fun challenge for a linguist!

One thing that has been especially hard is explaining my hair loss to people here. There are words that just don't come across in an intelligible way, like "autoimmune" or "alopecia". To be fair, a large number of Americans in the US don't know these words, either. But I feel a strong need to explain that I'm healthy and explain what happened, and I can't always do that. So I'm faced with some stigmas that I don't want to carry around with me. It's humbling to come to a place of acceptance in that.

The other day I went to get a massage. My therapist didn't say anything about my head until halfway through the session, when it was time to actually rub it.

"No hair", she said.

I lightly joked, "Yeah, it's easier for you this way!"

After a minute of silence, I decided to go ahead and try to explain. "I lost my hair when I had a baby. My hair all fell out."

"Oh, you have a baby?"

"Yes, two."

She was silent for a minute. Then, "Ma'am, why did you cut all your hair?"

Ok. I tucked this away in my mental lexicon: "hair loss" and "fall out" don't seem to connote involuntary action here. I tried again: "No, I didn't cut it. It fell out. It's a disorder called alopecia."

"Oh." Another minute of silence. "Ma'am, you have a disease?"

I cringed. For some reason, the word disease makes me think of boils on the skin and muscles wasting away. I think of being untouchable, unclean. The word disorder sounds so much more...internal. Unseen. Less scary. Sigh. "Yes, I have a disease."

"What is your disease, ma'am?"

"It's called alopecia."

"Oh." Silence. "But it's okay, ma'am."

Yes, it's okay. That phrase is probably the one I hear most around here. That's the Filipino motto. It's okay. And it really is! I definitely get a lot of stares here, but I also get a lot of "Oh, guapa". Guapa means beautiful. My housekeeper, who doesn't speak much English, always tells me "Ma'am, guapa" when I'm taking my scarf off at home or drawing on my eyebrows.

A beautiful thing I'm noticing is that the stares I get are not stares of disbelief or judgment. People here just stare at each other as a matter of course. Maybe it's because this culture is more communal, so people are really more interested in each other. Maybe it's because there's nothing else to do when you are sitting on the back of a Jeepney. Whatever the reason, I'm learning that I don't need to feel uncomfortable with the stares. Stares of curiosity turn into stares of compassion, which turn into stares of friendship.

It's still frustrating when I can't communicate exactly what I want. But Filipino warmth and the ability to laugh at potentially embarrassing situations makes communication a fun challenge. That's how I want see it from this moment on.