The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Sylvia:

I sent my mother a photo of my piece of the wall along with my above comment with my memories.

She wrote back that I should clarify that although they didn't really take a stand, the US did not actively support the building of the wall.

Another perspective issue: it didn't occur to me that it needed stating.

I wish I had something culturally appropriate to drink but it will have to be Spanish red wine. Still, a toast.

My mother is German, my father is from the US, he was stationed in Mannheim during Vietnam where he met my mother. The marriage didn't last long. My mother stayed in California but I spent a fair amount of my childhood with my grandparents in Germany.

I grew up with stories of the Wall: my grandmother would tell me about how horrific it was, would ask me to imagine how I would feel if I woke up one morning and found Mannheim split in half, unable to see my uncle and cousins because they were on the other side of a terrific wall of concrete.

I remember being 12 in Southern California, and trying to explain to my best friend's dad that my country was split in half, broken. That the US forces were not peace-keeping, they were occupying. He seemed genuinely confused that I could see things that way. I was frustrated and upset that grown-ups didn't seem to understand - didn't seem to care! - that there were children who couldn't see their cousins because someone built a wall.

In 1989 I turned 21 and moved back to Germany. Towards the end of the year, I planned a two-week holiday with my step-sister, we were going to travel around Southern Europe by train. The night before we left, the wall came tumbling down. I was in tears. I wanted to reorganise our trip, go to Berlin instead, but I realised that most of the nation would have the same idea and so we decided to continue on with our planned trip. It was my step-sister's first trip outside of the Orange Curtain, as she called California's Orange County, and I was worried about spoiling her once-in-a-lifetime trip to see Europe.

I regret that decision now.

When I got back, I found my friends complaining about the East Germans, about the influx, about the money. I was stunned to realise that they didn't see everything about this reconciliation as wondrous, that they, in fact, did not consider it a family reunion at all. The wall had been built long before they were born and that was just the way that it was. Not all of them, mind you, but enough that it dominated conversation when we went out to the clubs.

The attitude of "why do we need to support them" frightened and upset me. The generation gap of living with my grandparents had coloured much of my view of the second World War but this was the first time I was seriously confronted with it.

So the wall coming down was a time of awakening for me, both politically and in terms of understanding/accepting how my background influenced my perspective. 20 years ago? I'm sure it can't be as much as that!

And now, my glass is empty.

I made this, with a layer of ground/minced beef (fried with bacon and garlic and seasoned well) between the onion and the potato.

It was very good but everyone immediately exclaimed "Wow, you made Cottage Pie* Pizza"! This is probably not helped by the fact that I make my Cottage Pie with cheesy mash.

Still, it made for a lovely meal. Another win from Making Light. ;)


*Like Shepherd's Pie but with beef instead of lamb

So I've decided that I need to introduce my family to chili hot dogs (I think the casserole would probably be too much of a jump) but you can't get Hormel's here. Nor Dennison. Nor anything else like that unless I drive out to Malaga.

I don't really know how to justify it but a trip to the city to buy canned chili imported from America just seems decadent beyond words.

So I decided I would just make some. I popped over to google and wrote "chili for" and hey! "chili for hotdogs" popped up immediately!

I don't know, it made me happy.

Forwarding this to my 15-year-old with his favourite brownie recipe. Will let you know how he gets on :)

ou can see the same phenomenon without even leaving California. Ask people in San Luis Opisbo what they think about people from Los Angeles and Orange County, or people in Yreka what they think about people from the SF Bay Area and Sacramento.

I was trying to think who would get picked on if you asked people from Los Angeles and Orange County.

Bakersfield?

I've not commented because I don't feel that I'm in a place to really put things into any better perspective (like Abi, my firm beliefs have softened the more countries I have lived in).

But having caught up on the thread, I then shifted to a light-hearted list of German links and landed on this:

Capitalism. Fascism. Socialism. Anarchy. Hedonism... - Moronail.net - Ars gratia hilaris.

jmkml @ 13 wrote:
I am actually far more disturbed by the marketing of sparkly bikini wax kits to 14 year old girls than I am by the idea that some women, for cultural or religious reasons, would rather not expose their bodies at the swimming pool...

Absolutely.

I had my eyes opened when a Muslim acquaintance spoke to me about how much time Western women spend getting dressed up to leave the house (nice clothes, pantyhose, high heels, make-up) with a focus on looking sexy/appealing for men.

She pointed out that this seemed a LOT more oppressive than the cover-up clothes that she was wearing out and the stated general purpose (acceptance as a woman in society) seemed the same.

I'm sure she put it more coherently than I am, though.

LDR @ 228 The nice thing about neglect is that it leaves you free to think your own thoughts.

I wonder if there is a higher percentage of childhood neglect if you poll creative types. It wouldn't surprise me. Actually, I find the thought strangely pleasing.

Lee @ 233 I think my relief started when I decided that it wasn't my secret to keep. I think your comment in @246 is spot on : trivialisation by strangers is devastating. By the perpetrators? I don't even want to think about the effects.

(I'm writing this to a rather generic "you" here as it's a subject that winds me up and I don't want to run the risk of attacking someone on the thread)

The whole cultural concept of "you really should get closure" by "sorting it out before the family members die" just feels like more pressure to me to conform to what someone else thinks is the correct response to abuse.

Which for many of us happens to tie in with the abuser's response: it wasn't that bad, it wasn't that big a deal, you drove me to it, it's not like I broke your arm or anything, you make such a fuss, just let bygones by bygones.

I will not.

I will not lie. I will not hide it under the carpet. And I will not pretend it doesn't matter.

I have nothing to gain by some reconciliation at the eleventh hour. I have no interest in hearing some sort of apology (what? "I was just drunk?" "I didn't know it hurt?" "I didn't know it was wrong?") which I would not believe in any event.

An honest question: do people also believe that rape victims to talk to the perpetrators, make peace with them, talk it out, forgive? If your child was murdered, is it accepted as a part of the healing process to speak to murderer and forgive? What if there was never any legal justice as a result...

It just seems like sociopaths who are parents get some special status that I am not sure is deserved.

I am sure that there are specific instances in which discussing the matter with abusers can help with closure - there is great value to receiving the acknowledgement that something really was wrong.

But I don't believe that it is necessarily a good thing or a necessary part of a process.

I have moved on. I have decided that I don't wish to discuss the abuse with the perpetrator. The fact that his life may be drawing to an end doesn't change that.

I hope it's obvious but :

I have never considered before that it is because I don't know how to teach them.

By them I meant social interactions, not my son's friends. I never was very good at back references.

Although I liked the image of the controlling mother trying to explain that her boy didn't have friends because the friends just wouldn't listen

Memories

I've written about this in various different ways, coated with fiction and poetry and rants. Usually anonymously or at least locked. Lately I've felt that I don't want to delve into the memories, I don't want to analyze my feelings nor write down the detail. I like to hope that this means I am moving on. It's about time.

I'm not sure I'd call it apathy but it's a start.

Hatred

That doesn't mean I feel I have to justify my feelings.

I will not detail abuse in order to get a general consensus of "running away was the right thing to do" or that I am justified X amount of resentment for Y years.

Secrecy

I remember him drunk, waving a loaded 357 around, laughing. "There's no one you can tell," he said, laughing. "No one you can call. You don't dare."

And I knew he was right.

Facebook

I had lost all but nominal contact with that side of my family. Email exchanges tended to touch on sore subjects ("Have you phoned your father lately? Why don't you come visit?") but Facebook allows for a more superficial interaction, rather than direct dialog. I'm now in conversation with a few members of my family who I thought I had lost. It's nice. I also recommend this as a way of making a fragile bridge.

Forgiveness

I cut off all contact for a while. Then I phoned him when his wife died, the first time we'd spoken in a decade. We haven't spoken since.

I read the mail he sends me (FW: The People of Walmart New and Improved) and I try to respond when I can think of something to say. I send a mail to say Happy Birthday, most years. Will I ever see him again? I don't know. I wonder if I'll end up regretting it but I'm making no plans.

He's learned to spell my name correctly because I now bounce all variations.

Social Interactions

My teenage son struggles with friends his own age. I have never considered before that it is because I don't know how to teach them. It feels frighteningly true.

Abi, have you seen this?

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/410-manifest-density-three-dutch-megacities/

@15 and @18 said what I wanted to say, but better.

The clarification that what happened was clearly, utterly wrong was what I took away from the apology and it made me very happy.

Tangentially related: Vampire endorsement turns Brontë into bestseller | Books | guardian.co.uk

Reinforcing the need to judge a book from its cover.

I loved the review at the end:

"I was really disappointed when reading this book, it's made to believe to be one of the greatest love stories ever told and I found only five pages out of the whole book about there love and the rest filled with bitterness and pain and other peoples stories"

Linkmeister @ 14

I didn't but I do now! Hysterical.

Bruce @ 10

But surely Micah @ 9 answer equally equally deals with your statment: there are many factors at work. Is there actually any real link between lack of health insurance and zealotry? It would be lovely if health care resulted in a massive reduction of the religious right but well, I'm not holding my breath on that.

I am watching with some dismay the amount of increased police powers and "nannying" in the UK where personal rights are diminishing. I would be upset if someone argued that this was a direct result of the National Health Service and that people no longer knew how to take care of themselves.

Charlie @ 45

Hi! I'm the Sylvia who you, er, dealt with at Demon. Annoying American woman. Small world. :)

I can see your logic, I'm just not convinced it holds true.

There are not very many full-time novelists (that is, surviving from fiction alone) in the UK, despite the fact that health care is available. I don't know if anyone has done a contrast but I'm loathe to assume that percentage-wise more novels (and especially better novels) are coming out of countries with health care.

Full disclosure: I'm tired of being battered with "OF COURSE this is the way the world works" arguments from the right wing (and admittedly, possibly a bit tired of yanks being portrayed as less culturally aware) and so I'm leery of the cause and effect in this case because it feels to me like we might be doing the same thing.

I've seen the following in writer's groups: a writer quits the day job to produce full time and spends weeks/months staring out the window, eventually given up. There's too much time free and not enough pressure to get things done. Go back to the job, and now that there's only an hour a day to write in, production hits overdrive. Now clearly that's not going to be much of a risk with a contractor who is used to being a self-starter. But presuming I'm right and it's a common phenomena, isn't it then equally "QED" that taking away the 40-hour-a-week job can produce a novelist who is not producing as much?

I'll say again: I'm totally in favour of an NHS-style solution in the US and I have not until recently had private insurance in the UK because it simply was not necessary.

But it just feels like the initial quote from the Guardian is not something we've actually seen evidence for and it is reminiscent to me of the type of arguments (Unions ruin free trade! Immigrants will end up taking all the jobs!) which could be defended as a very possible outcome without their being any direct evidence that it is happening.

I'm an expat living abroad and LOVING the medical options open to me and I do think the U.S. system is badly badly broken.

But...

Can we actually say that there is less art, less innovation, less creativity coming from the U.S. compared to other Western European countries?

That just strikes a false note.

It doesn't have flashing pictures nor spiralling letters in Outlook. My father won't forward it.

Today's Real Life Comics made me think of Teresa. It didn't seem worth dredging up one of the previous fan-fic posts for but I thought you might like it.

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