We have friends from Ann Arbor who moved to KC the same time we did. They decided to live in Missouri and send their kids to a private school because the Kansas side of the line doesn't have much diversity. (When we were here interviewing for Alan's job I saw the field day of the school next to ours and my first impression was--"Man! That is one white looking school.") However, my week has been full of resounding evidence of diversity within this "white bread" looking place I live. I've had bonding experiences with women from wildly different walks of life. Here they are:
Barbara* is living in the house she grew up in, which she bought from her mom's estate a year and a half ago. She is a tall woman in her early 50's, with short platinum hair and lots of eyeliner who will say things like they are and is impatient with people who don't. She grew up in a Catholic home where she never saw her parents argue, but occasionally would see smoke coming from the closet where her mom was crying, burning a candle and praying. An uncle gave her brother an 8 inch long baby alligator for a birthday present. (That didn't last long...) She assumed her life would have a fairy tale ending, but soon after she joined the LDS church her husband was imprisoned for rape. She divorced him and raised their four children alone. Barbara's dog Bella got into rat poison, and I helped her take Bella to the vet as she was bleeding to death internally. We bonded as she lost her Lahsa Apso, and then we went out for ice cream together.
Mimi* lives in a townhouse just south of me while her house (in my neighborhood) is being gutted and remodeled. She is a tiny Jewish mama with snapping brown eyes, light freckles and dark brown curly hair that she blows straight almost every day. Mimi grew up mostly on the east coast. She met her husband (a cardiologist named Alan) when they were in school in Boston. He trained in NYC and Chicago, and they moved here for a job with her one year old daughter about the time I was moving to Texas with my one year old daughters. On Wednesday night she was over here letting her daughters play with mine when we decided to get New York-style pizza together because neither of us had a husband coming home any time soon.
Claire* looks like a china doll with her long black hair and ivory skin, and has lived three amazingly different lives as an adult. She was the trophy wife of a worldy, astronomically wealthy and unfaithful businessman who still sometimes eats dinner with her current family. As a young single mom, she was the love interest of an abusive Syrian imam who took her (veiled of course) to the middle east on trips where she met some frighteningly jihadist characters. Now she's married to an engineer in our ward and is a Mormon (finally happy) mom who just gave birth to a beautiful little girl with Down syndrome last month. We had lunch and a great conversation together yesterday.
Amy* is a darling blonde from Oregon who has two preschoolers with severe food allergies to dairy and beef products (oh, and soy). She also is almost halfway through a troubled pregnancy (she's been on bed rest for the last two months because of bleeding) and a quarter of the way through supporting her husband as he attends medical school. She has a great attitude, a tiny rented house, no money, and WAY too much stuff she has bought at garage sales. I met her because I helped her vacuum and do laundry this morning as she rushed to the doctor to determine the cause of some fresh bleeding.
White, maybe, but plain vanilla? No way.
Oh, and Wyatt does have one black girl in his school class. She has braids all over her cute little head and is named--- Nicole.
*not her real name
Barbara* is living in the house she grew up in, which she bought from her mom's estate a year and a half ago. She is a tall woman in her early 50's, with short platinum hair and lots of eyeliner who will say things like they are and is impatient with people who don't. She grew up in a Catholic home where she never saw her parents argue, but occasionally would see smoke coming from the closet where her mom was crying, burning a candle and praying. An uncle gave her brother an 8 inch long baby alligator for a birthday present. (That didn't last long...) She assumed her life would have a fairy tale ending, but soon after she joined the LDS church her husband was imprisoned for rape. She divorced him and raised their four children alone. Barbara's dog Bella got into rat poison, and I helped her take Bella to the vet as she was bleeding to death internally. We bonded as she lost her Lahsa Apso, and then we went out for ice cream together.
Mimi* lives in a townhouse just south of me while her house (in my neighborhood) is being gutted and remodeled. She is a tiny Jewish mama with snapping brown eyes, light freckles and dark brown curly hair that she blows straight almost every day. Mimi grew up mostly on the east coast. She met her husband (a cardiologist named Alan) when they were in school in Boston. He trained in NYC and Chicago, and they moved here for a job with her one year old daughter about the time I was moving to Texas with my one year old daughters. On Wednesday night she was over here letting her daughters play with mine when we decided to get New York-style pizza together because neither of us had a husband coming home any time soon.
Claire* looks like a china doll with her long black hair and ivory skin, and has lived three amazingly different lives as an adult. She was the trophy wife of a worldy, astronomically wealthy and unfaithful businessman who still sometimes eats dinner with her current family. As a young single mom, she was the love interest of an abusive Syrian imam who took her (veiled of course) to the middle east on trips where she met some frighteningly jihadist characters. Now she's married to an engineer in our ward and is a Mormon (finally happy) mom who just gave birth to a beautiful little girl with Down syndrome last month. We had lunch and a great conversation together yesterday.
Amy* is a darling blonde from Oregon who has two preschoolers with severe food allergies to dairy and beef products (oh, and soy). She also is almost halfway through a troubled pregnancy (she's been on bed rest for the last two months because of bleeding) and a quarter of the way through supporting her husband as he attends medical school. She has a great attitude, a tiny rented house, no money, and WAY too much stuff she has bought at garage sales. I met her because I helped her vacuum and do laundry this morning as she rushed to the doctor to determine the cause of some fresh bleeding.
White, maybe, but plain vanilla? No way.
Oh, and Wyatt does have one black girl in his school class. She has braids all over her cute little head and is named--- Nicole.
*not her real name
It sounds like you live in a very interesting neighborhood. You have really gotten to know some neat people in a short period of time.
ReplyDeleteLove ya,
M'Li
You're an amazing writer, Heather. I love women's stories. You should put a book together and get published.
ReplyDeleteHeather,
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog. I do it more often than you know. This piece/journal entry is beautiful. I should write this way about my neighbors. If I thought carefully I might be more sensitive to the diversity here in Lindon, Utah.
We, on the other hand, have lots of visual diversity in our neighborhood (my elementary kids each one of about 5 white kids in their classes--the school is only 25% white). I am struggling to help my kids see that on the inside we are more alike than different. I had hoped living in this neighborhood would make my kids MORE accepting, and I think it may have done the opposite. They don't think the other kids are much like them...and get impatient with the difference.
ReplyDelete