Five Generations Under One Roof

Air Travel 029
Air Travel 029 (Photo credit: Michael Kappel)

And lucky me, it happens to be my house where everyone is converging.

June 22nd is the start of summer. This year, by default we are hosting a mini-family reunion of sorts. What started as a my sister and her children,  quickly adds up to lots of people when you count the growing brood of children, attendant grandparent, aunt and uncle.

Even though I woke up at 6:30 a.m. working on five hours of intermittent sleep with a newborn, I’m the first to admit, there is something special of five generations of a family gathering together. Specially designed to drive you insane, you might say.

We are in day one and so far, so good. Mostly giggles as we picked up an aunt and uncle from the airport, the two of whom had made it on their own across the oceans. I had to assess how much we take for granted as people who have grown up with air travel when preparing the travel arrangements for two people in their 70s.

I was on my first transcontinental flight when I was five years old. My nieces were one and two years old. My eldest son was six weeks old.

Living on a peninsula means taking a flight is like hailing a cab.

Wherever your travels take you this summer, I hope they are filled with laughter, giggles, and perhaps the vantage point of a few generations.

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Bad Parent, Good Lesson

india men temple
Indian men intemple (Photo credit: FriskoDude)

It’s Father’s Day, one of what I call “Hallmark holidays”, or when the card, candy, and floral merchants rub their hands together in anticipation of the commerce to come. Or used to. Does anyone besides my aunt in India send cards anymore? In the case of fathers, perhaps it’s the razor and tie manufacturers.

And in the world of social media, changing one’s profile photo seems to suffice for any number of family friendly holidays.

Whether Facebook, Twitter, or the blogosphere, there are effusive, superlative compliments about the men in people’s lives from childhood who were paragons of virtue.

Maybe there are men out there that are that good. I didn’t have one in my life as a child or teenager.

What I realize in retrospect is that sometimes having a void in your life makes you stronger. You don’t have that shepherding influence so you develop your self-leadership much earlier. Of course, I spent my 20s wishing this weren’t so, that I had it easier as my friends in suburbia had.

Now in my 30s it’s worth it to know I married a man who will be a different sort of presence in the lives of my boys. And somehow, that’s enough.

Did you have a strong male role model in your life? Or are you being that light to someone now? Shine on.

 

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What's Your Favorite Gripe?

Sand from the latest Doha dust storm.
Sand from the latest Doha dust storm.

The weather in the world has been strange lately. Earthquakes in Iran, floods in Europe, and sandstorms in Qatar. Yes, sandstorms are strange even in the desert because they are a winter phenomena, not for summer time.

For many people, this is the chief compliant about Qatar: the weather. It’s pleasant enough eight months of the year but those four months from May – August are HOT. As in 40 degrees Celsius, 100+ degrees Fahrenheit hot. As in, you go outside and feel the flesh on your face shrink from the heat, flesh peeling hot.

As I used to say when I first moved here, Africa hot.

There is only one standard response this kind of heat evokes in people whether they are single, married, childless or parents. Driven inside by the oppressive heat, everyone comes to the same conclusion:

“There’s nothing to do here.”

Since the climate is so unlivable at the height of summer, no wonder most companies have a 25 day leave bank for employees. This number can rise as high as 45, depending on the institution. While American organizations still maintain the earn-as-you-leave-accural method, Qatar is one of the few places people can take the amount of leave they have accrued, say two or three weeks, and know their job will still be waiting for them. Thus the mass exodus every summer when families bundle away to grandparents, uncles, and aunts while singles hightail to exotic beaches while men from all over South Asian continue to wear blue overalls hanging from structures all over the country that continue being built.

It’s fashionable to complain about the weather without realizing that the very burden is the reason for the blessing.

What is your favorite complaint? Do you ever hear others settling into a familiar pattern of behavior?

 

 

 

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