Dove's Eye View

My Father the Arab Feminist

Just now on the radio (Fresh Air with Terry Gross) I heard a snippet of an American woman's story about her custody battle with her Arab ex-husband.

I'm certain that there is more to Deborah Kanafani's memoir than "I unveil the terrible way Arab men treat women" but boy, that's sure what I heard driving down the road. Maybe it's all true - for her.

But I wonder if my own story, about my feminist Arab father, would ever get a book deal or air time on NPR. It's not about scary Arab men oppressing their women and children, you see. There's no conflict, no villain, and it doesn't fit the story that sells books in America.

My father was a feminist before he came to America. He was strongly influenced by the new ideas roiling the Arab world in the nineteen-fifties: nationalism, yes, and socialism, and democracy, and the rights of women. He was determined to modernize his country, his people, and he believed that making women equal members of society was part of that. In his personal life, he tried to get his parents to keep his youngest sister in school. Later, he paid for his orphaned niece to go to a very good private school, giving her English skills which helped her support her family during the upheavals of the civil war.

When he went to America for graduate school and met my American mother, Dad found that some of his ideas were too forward for the USA in 1959. He didn't think women had to get married before having sex, for instance. My mother disagreed. Since he respected her - and all women - he didn't force his ideas upon her.

When they married, he encouraged her to start graduate school right away. She did, but decided she really wanted to have babies. So she had me, and very soon after began teaching part time. Fine with Dad. Mom always taught and did other work throughout my childhood. Then after my younger brother and I began school, she went back to grad school for her masters degree and then Ph.D.

This was the 1960s. Some of my readers don't know what America was like in the 1960s. It wasn't all hippies and Gloria Steinem. The college professors in my parents' circle (all men, with wives who mostly stayed at home and didn't work) were rather traditional fellows. My dad ruffled a lot of feathers among his colleagues, because he insisted on doing laundry, caring for us kids, and cooking meals. One of his friends got very offended when my dad bragged too much about washing his socks, and how he (Dad) washed his socks by hand and made them last a really long time. (My dad was eccentric about being thrifty) The friend told my dad that he was causing problems in the friend's marriage, because HIS wife was wondering why she had to do all the laundry?

When my mother got her Ph.D. my dad completely supported her in her career goals. We were always clear in our house that my parents made all decisions together, that they each earned money and contributed to the family finances, and that they were autonomous people who worked together in partnership as well.

Much later, in the 1990s, my mother got a teaching position at the American University of Beirut, and my dad retired from his job earlier than he had planned. He went to Beirut with her and basically kept house so she could do a very demanding job. He cooked and dealt with the daily details of life. His egalitarianism persisted - they were living in an apartment hotel, with daily maid service, but my father insisted on doing the dishes himself, before the maids could come in. He didn't want the maids cleaning after him.

As a young girl growing up, I was told that I should study and go to college and have a good career. In fact, when I did badly in algebra in 8th grade, my father got upset, because he said girls in Lebanon didn't have the same chances I did. He helped me with my homework, natch, but he also let me know that it was really important to him that I do well. He tried to be supportive of me, even when I careened about being a slacker American bohemian. Later in life, when I settled down and began putting together a more normal, grown-up career, my father encouraged me. He was so happy when I went to grad school (at age 42). He believed everybody deserves a second chance - and a third chance too.

Oh yes, and when my cousin N, a girl, wanted to come to America to study, even though she wasn't married or even engaged, my father welcomed her. N's father, my beloved, departed uncle Adib, was also enlightened, and sent N to us to get her college education. Most other fathers in our village would not do the same. The war in Lebanon had made it too dangerous for her to commute to Beirut to university, so he took the risk of sending her across the world. N became a successful computer engineer, and later married a great guy. Now her daughter is a recent college graduate with a terrific job in corporate America, climbing the ladder. This is normal now, but thirty years ago it was new, for Americans as well as Lebanese. We have to give credit to men like my Dad, who adapted with the times, and encouraged their wives and daughters to succeed.

There are more stories I could tell, but they're all positive, about what a mensch Dad was, how much women loved him, how he loved women, how he was a big hit in the lesbian community in North Carolina where they lived for years, how he loved and respected my mother. Oh yes, and how he told all the Lebanese male immigrants why they ought to help their wives with the housework, and support them in developing their own careers. It got through, to some of them, more or less.

That's it. That was my dad, the Arab feminist. The picture shows him on my 44th birthday, just after he received the diagnosis of the lung cancer which killed him two months later; he stands behind the tabbouli he insisted on making to celebrate my day.

Do you think Terry Gross will put me on Fresh Air with a story like that? Probably not. There's no story there, the editors would say. Just some guy doing the right thing by his women, a little ahead of his time. Plus he's an Arab. Who wants to know about feminist Arab men? Doesn't sell papers.

Congratulations Father Damianos

A childhood friend of mine from my father's village was recently ordained a priest. Pictures here: Mieh w Mieh - Lebanon - MiehwMieh.com.

Maroun Michel Saikaly lived across the street from my late uncle Adib; I spent a lot of time at uncle Adib's house in my summer visits, because he had so many kids about my age or a little older. Maroun and his brother George were always around, playing kickball in the street, hanging out on the veranda, teasing me for my nasal American English. I had a trick where I pulled reeds from the roadside and fashioned bubble makers out of dish soap and water, and I vaguely remember the neighborhood kids, including Maroun, standing around amazed as I blew bubbles across the veranda.

One of my childhood friends grew up to be a famous actress; several of my college friends have done quite well for themselves; my American cousin Karen is a successful violinist; but Father Damianos is the first priest I can claim as an old friend.

I need a few clerics in my corner...

Congratulations to Father Damianos, and may his calling bring him joy; may he be of service to his community always.

Mana'eesh

Mana'eesh
I made mana'eesh - za'atar focaccia - for my sister-in-law on Sunday. The za'atar was straight out of Mieh-Mieh, courtesy of uncle Simaan.

I used a cast iron skillet on the stove top - never again. Too much work, and I am not sure how to keep the surface from getting sooty without adding oil. Next time I'll bake these on cookie sheets in the oven.

The dough had a bit of whole wheat flour, and I used corn meal with white flour to flatten out the rounds. If I really wanted an authentic taste like my grandmother's mana'eesh, I would use a sourdough sponge dough, and I'd figure out a way to cook it on a wood fire. We do what we can with the materials at hand...

What makes us happy is not stuff but each other

My moral values exactly, from No Impact Man: What makes us happy is not stuff but each other.

In a nutshell, the degradation of our planetary home is caused by overconsumption of resources. We in the developed world consume so many resources--we feel we need so much stuff--in part because we are alienated from each other and need consolation prizes. If we build proper communities, not only will we help the planet by sharing resources and therefore using less, but we will be happier, because we will have each other, and we won't need to console ourselves with stuff.

One thing my Lebanese relatives all lament about coming to America is how lonely life is here. They have all succeeded very well and live in big houses, drive new cars, send their kids to top colleges, and live the American dream. But they all complain that life here is so isolated. People work too hard. The streets of our lovely suburbs are empty.

In 1975 my uncle Y came to visit the States for the first time. We were living in a ritzy neighborhood in a small Midwestern city then, with 1920s era gracious homes and some veritable mansions. Grass lawns, big cars, wide streets. My uncle said "where is everybody? If I had such beautiful grass outside my house, I would be sitting on it, saying hello to all the neighbors. I have been here a week and I have not seen a single human being except the ones who drive by in their cars!" How true, dear uncle, how true.

Today my husband and I live in an older urban neighborhood in California, with yards and sidewalks and a shopping district to which we can walk. Many children live in the neighborhood, but you almost never see them outside, and since my children go to a different school, they know only one child their age for blocks around. We don't send them outside to play as my generation did - America has become so fearful that children must be accompanied in public places at all times, until they are ten, eleven or even thirteen years old. So my kids live under house arrest. They can only see their friends at school or if we plan to meet them - which usually involves getting into the car.

We do our best to socialize in the neighborhood, and we have some nice friends nearby. But we don't have the village-like atmosphere I knew in Lebanon, and even had for a few brief years in a college town in Illinois, where friends, neighbors and relatives drop by to ask a question, borrow a cup of sugar, bring news, or just say hello.

One thing I have learned in this illness is that I need to see people. I tell my friends to come and visit me or invite me out. Going to graduate school for two years was in part such a delight because I could go to campus and always run into a writing friend or a teacher with whom I could chat. I had to pay $20,000 a year tuition to have the experience of an agora, a public space where people meet to talk about ideas and art. (in fact, I used to gesture at our now ten-year-old Honda sedan and say - I don't want a new minivan or an SUV, I have graduate school instead).

Now I'm done with that but I still need to see people. So I have to plan it. My writing group meets every two weeks - that's "free" although we all spend money on food and wine to share.

We really don't need more shopping, more food, more cars, more stuff. We need to spend time together.

A private note - I love kitchenware, crockery, table linens and such, but I told myself several years ago that I own plenty of these things and really don't need to buy any more. I have enough platters and serving bowls around to host a party for fifty. My "every day" dishes don't match, but I have two sets of party dishes that do. For this recent birthday party I determined to use as little disposable ware as possible, so I put out almost all the metal cutlery I own, including the silver service for 12 my mother passed on to me. I also got out my collection of linen napkins (serviettes) inherited from my American grandmother. No paper napkins!

My glassware is quite motley - two different sets - but there's enough of it. No plastic disposable cups! So the tableware for the party won't win any prizes from design magazines, but does it matter? People enjoyed the food (homemade soup, store-bought frozen pizza, homemade hummous, bread and cheese, chips and dip, crudites for the dips). Most of all, people enjoyed just being together. At least a dozen guests hung around for two hours after the official "end" of the party.

I realized that we just need to have people come to our house more often - not only close friends and family, but random people, like the parents of our children's schoolmates, and anybody else we meet and like. It's not hard to make a little extra food and share it. It's not hard to get out a game and play it, or sit around talking over coffee or wine. That's it.

We need each other more than we need to buy stuff.

My Life, The Hollywood Edition

I just came back from a weekend in Los Angeles that reads completely out of character for me: movie stars, shopping, comedy shows, the beach.

The actress Camryn Manheim has been a friend of mine since we were in third grade and her father hired my father to teach engineering at a university in central Illinois. We lived down the street from each other for four idyllic years, until both our dads got jobs on opposite ends of the country. Our parents remained close friends and we kept our relationship going through college and afterwards in New York, when our lifestyles seemed to diverge. She went on to big successes in the theater and then in television and the movies, and while she has always been open and welcoming, I felt shy about invading her world. Now we have children the same age, and as we grow older our shared past means more than the differences in our life circumstances. After my first bout with chemo, Camryn invited us to visit her in L.A. - a memorable vacation. Picture below from April 2005, when my hair first started to grow back.

Last Monday Camryn invited me to Venice Beach for the weekend, so I flew down on Friday. The first thing she did was take me to an exclusive Hollywood restaurantfor a party sponsored by Coach bags. The point of the event was to create buzz for Coach, tied to the Golden Globe awards which had already been canceled. We went anyway.

Now let me tell you that the Dove carries a Victorinix messenger bag in black, with plenty of gear hooks on it: room for books, notebooks, pens, money, snacks and occasionally a cel phone. This bag is the preferred Bay Area software geek commuter gear and is a hand-me-down from my husband. When I want to be stylish I carry a two-year-old red leather pocketbook I bought in a discount store. Camryn gave me a black and red Kate Spade bag (she has more stuff than she needs - vendors give her things - and she shares with her friends) to carry to the party so I didn't feel like a big Bay Area computer dork. However I would never buy a Coach, Spade or Prada bag unless it were on sale at the consignment store for $20. I will spend good money on shoes because they are equipment for the feet, but I won't throw money at a handbag.

We ate great Italian food and sat around in the tent watching the hired papparazzi photograph Mandy Moore, Wilmer Valderrama, Debra Messing
and Milla Jovovich. Debora Messing, who was brilliant in the series Will and Grace, is a friend of Camryn's so I got to meet her - she's a lovely person.

The most interesting moment was in the parking lot, as we waited endlessly for our car to arrive; a gaggle of marauding papparazzi huddled at the edge of the driveway, and when Mandy Moore appeared they swooped down, darting around the Coach flacks and waiters to point their cameras in her face. She immediately turned and hid amongst her entourage, who escorted her to her car (a black Prius) while the photographers jostled and shoved. The photogs looked like either skate punks or L.A. gang members. The frenzy was both alarming and ridiculous - as the papparazzi swarmed poor Mandy, children across the street in a schoolyard played kickball. Surreal.

That night, Camryn invited her close friends for an intimate card game with Chinese takeout food. One of the card players is a comic actress who I recognized from Saturday Night Live - she was hilarious, of course, but the whole gang kept me in stitches. I have not laughed so hard and so long since graduate school. All my aches and fatigue from chemo seemed to dissolve, and I stayed up until midnight.

The next morning I walked alone to the beach, where I saw Angelica Huston walking her dogs. She looked me in the eye and smiled. I was staggered. Is that really Angelica Huston? And why is she smiling at me? I think she was acknowledging my chemo turban... rumor has it that she, too is a breast cancer survivor. She's also handsome and classy.

Saturday night Camryn told me we had tickets to see her friend do some standup comedy. I envisioned a supper club with beat-up black walls and patrons stumbling over my knees. The comedienne was Kathy Griffin, and the venue was the Kodak Theater, where they hold the Oscar ceremony. We had fourth row, center orchestra seats. The place was sold out - 3,000 people - and unimaginably grand. A 6'9" drag queen in full length glitter approached Camryn and we all made friends - I hope she sends me the photos soon. So many regular people come up to Camryn as she goes about her life, telling her how much they love and respect her. The Kodak theater show was hilarious - I screamed with laughter at Kathy Griffin - and really enjoyed seeing the fans mob Camryn. We went backstage and milled about looking at people who looked at us to see if we were "somebodies." But the best part was carousing with Camryn at dinner and during the show, enjoying her friends and laughing.

I stayed up too late every night. I sat on the third floor balcony and admired the canals, palm trees and Santa Monica mountains. I walked around Venice and sat on the beach. I ate lunch at Mao's Kitchen "Chinese country-style cooking with red memories." I rode behind Camryn on her little moped to Venice's main shopping street. Try to imagine me riding behind Camryn Manheim on a sage green Indian motorcycle, wearing a helmet over the clever spiral knit skullcap my sister-in-law made for me. At midnight Sunday I tried on Camryn's wigs from her L-Word gig and we ordered a white/silver version for me online. (She sent me home with a loaner, short and blonde, that I must return in case she goes back on the L-Word.) I told her about the video installation traveling the world with my father talking about impermanence, so we looked at a Youtube video excerpt and wept to hear my dad reminding us of our transience on this planet.

(watch to the end to see my father)

Camryn said as I packed up yesterday morning "You just don't seem sick." Laughter and good friends cure all ills. As long as I don't listen to my doctor, I don't think I am sick. In fact, I feel very, very well.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Yesterday three of my friends from graduate school, who are also members of my writing group, stopped by with food for us. Thank you Carolina, Julia and Sara. Will L. also brought a lasagna just after I was diagnosed. One of my grad school friends also brought cascaria for the bath, and some semper virens plants (sp?) to cleanse the air in my room and encourage regeneration.

Wednesday my friend Deborah C. watched my kids for eight hours while I went for a CT scan and an oncology appointment. She also listens to me cry on the phone. Deborah has taken the kids several times.

Shelley H. got up at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to drive me to that appointment, over the bridge to SF, and sat around for three hours while they messed with me. Shelley is another who takes my weepy cals.

Lisa R. drove me to my second liver biopsy and held my hand. She has been such a love, and is going to give me a broadsheet from the Mutanabbi Street reading series.

Chris and Karl across the street babysit our kids one night with about an hour's notice. They have cared for our children before.

Um-Yusuf, whose son goes to school with my six-year-old, takes our kids at least once a week after school, entertains them at home with her brood, feeds them enormous Yemeni chicken and rice dinners, and didn't even mind the night we forgot to pick them up. (Don't ask.)

Francesca drove my younger son to school the day my older son had a seizure and had to be shipped to the hospital with my husband, while I went off to my first oncology appointment post-diagnosis. Have we had enough drama around here? I have, thank you.

Naomi S. gave hugs and encouragement and a lovely present to honor my graduation and encourage me for my impending tests. She then organized a fabulous baby shower for our mutual friend Julie, and picked up all the slack I could not carry. Her own father struggles with late stage lung cancer, and I don't know how she can focus on others so kindly.

Julie is great with child but she still talks to me on the phone whenever I need her; she also had been going out with us for fun dinners, but she's too pregnant and I'm too tired now. One day she won't be pregnant and she will have a babysitter, and I will feel good, and we'll all double-date again. Or we'll bring our offspring for a noisy supper at some Italian restaurant.

An unknown internet passerby sent me a cd of his band, which I loved, and must find the address so I can thank him.

My other internet buddies and commenters send messages of encouragement and love. I am blessed with friends.

Family division:

My mother has been driving me to appointments and babysitting the children.

My brother takes the children on Saturdays and lets them cavort with his 13 year old son.

My mother-in-law dropped everything and got on the bus for the city that morning when my son and husband went to Children's Hospital and I went to a momentous oncology appointment.

My aunts, uncles and cousins have been calling, emailing, sending cards. I am so very grateful for all of you.

I believe my father is somewhere resembling heaven, pulling for me to survive.

Most importantly, my husband, David, who pitches in everywhere and every time I cannot cope. Childcare, cooking, health emergencies, doctor visits, shopping, homework, after school care, and holding me when I weep - David is there. Thank you, darling.

Yes, I get by with a little help from my friends.

If I left you out, forgive me, and feel free to email me so I can update. I am writing this off the top of my head (and I ought to go to sleep now).

Up All Night: US Out of Iraq!

So my children were riding in the back seat of the car this afternoon as I listened to the news on the radio. Senator Patty Murray said "We're going to stay up all night and end this war in Iraq!"

"Stay up all night?" said my six-year-old son. "I want to stay up all night. How are we going to stop the war in Iraq? Can I stay up all night, mommy?"

Later as I sat in the front garden enjoying the cool of the evening, he came outside with a broom handle tucked into his belt, wearing a plastic medieval style knight's helmet, carrying the long blue "noodle" float we bought for him to use at the pool. He held the blade of his toy sword in his other hand - the handle broke off months ago.

"I'm going to Iraq," he said. "Marhaba." (somebody on TV had taught him to say hello in Arabic.) "I'm going to use my sword to knock the guns out of their hands. Then I'm going to hide the guns. They can use words to solve their problems." I commended him for this plan.

"Do you want to see George Bush go to jail?" he continued. I admitted that I do, indeed think our President has committed crimes and I hope he gets in trouble for them one day. Hasn't happened yet.

"So you have to learn Arabic if you go to Iraq," my son said. We discussed who we know who speaks Arabic, and I told him in Arabic that he should learn to speak.

My sweet little warrior. I didn't want to tell him that the knight regalia would be politically insensitive, with all its echoes of the Crusades. He is a very fine talker and negotiator already at the age of six.

I sure hope that by the time he graduates from whatever professional degree I hope he pursues, that the US will indeed have left Iraq. Don't know if this is in the cards.

Youssef N. Bou-Saba

From the left: Souad Saikaly; Youssef Bou-Saba; my grandfather Georges, and my father Elias in Mieh-Mieh in the late 1950s.

Mu'allem Youssef, my father's first cousin, patriarch of our family and the man who urged my father to go to college, died on Tuesday in Mieh-Mieh at the age of eighty-six: Abu Saba pictures - Al Mashriq. I knew Mu'allem Youssef and his wife Souad as Uncle and Aunt, because the relationship with them was closer than that of cousins. He was more like my father's brother.

He lived a long life and was beloved by his children and extended family. Now everyone in the picture is in the hereafter.

My condolences to my dear cousins across the world in their loss.

He is the fifth member of my family to die in the last eight months - all of natural causes. To God we belong and to God we will all return...

Barton Bentley Cregger

My first cousin, son of my mother's sister, died in Virginia Tuesday, March 27 at the age of forty-nine after a massive stroke. Besides being a devoted son to his recently widowed mother, and a loving husband, Barton B. Cregger was a dynamic professor and dean, someone who kept the gears turning for a huge organization. Update: his obituary in his hometown paper, the Roanoke (Virginia) Times.

We are bereft. May he rest in peace.

Heartfelt condolences to Aunt Susan, who has suffered terrible losses this year. We love you so much and our prayers are with you. And deepest sympathies and condolences to Norma, Bart's beloved wife and love of his life, who has also suffered much in this past year.

To my other readers and friends - Barton Cregger is not the blogger from Sacramento who is also my (second) cousin, Randy Bayne. Randy did take beautiful photos of Aunt Susan, Barton's mother, at our family reunion; sadly Barton couldn't make that trip because he had a big conference at home in Virginia that weekend.

My Faulkner Connection

My mother's family in Georgia has a literary connection to William Faulkner. One of my first cousins just asked me about it, on the same day I began a class titled "In the house of Faulkner." In class we will read books that influenced Faulkner (i.e. the Bible, Moby Dick, Euripides), his own books, and books he influenced (Garcia Marquez, Cormac McCarthy). For the record I shall set down here my connection to a crucial room in the house of Faulkner, his library.

My great-great-grandfather 's first cousin, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (II) practiced law in Oxford, Mississippi in the mid-19th century; he owned a plantation, later served in Congress, went on to be US ambassador to Russia and finally a US Supreme Court Justice. John F. Kennedy wrote about LQC in his book Profiles In Courage, but I have been given to understand that his account is not all that accurate.

LQC was a colorful character, as were all the Lamars. From the Supreme Court site:

"Lamar's personality was a mixture of contrasting elements. Over the years observers described him variously as dreamy, gloomy, warm, generous, detached, aloof. One woman spoke of the "witchery of his presence." At times he could be gregarious and friendly; at other times he would be distant, scarcely recognizing those whom he encountered. He had a marked oratorical ability; he could hold a crowd spellbound. He was what we in the late twentieth century would probably call charismatic."

LQC's uncle, Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar of Texas, possessed similar qualities; the family lore is that the Lamars were mad geniuses. LQC's aunt, Amelia Lamar, was my 3x great-grandmother, making LQC my first cousin four times removed. LQC's father, LQC Lamar the first, was a judge in Georgia who committed suicide - more grist for the "mad genius" theory.

The Lamars were the sort of white Americans who built this country: they exterminated Indians, bought and sold slaves, and grew rich from it. They were not Snopeses and they were not brutal, crude buccaneers; they were intelligent, aristocratic, and refined. That doesn't make me any prouder of their crimes.

LQC taught mathematics at the University of Mississippi, showing another characteristic family trait, the confluence of math and verbal skills. The Lamars were all known for their gift of gab and poetic inclinations. Math aptitude doesn't always go with these but in my family you see the two together quite often (but my Lebanese father had the same combination, and he had no blood connection to the Lamars!)

LQC had a law office in Oxford which he left when he moved on to Washington. His library of books passed on to one of the lawyers who took over the practice, James Stone. James' son, Phil Stone, also practiced law in Oxford out of that same office. It is with Phil Stone that my Faulkner connection begins.

William Faulkner was a poor, struggling college dropout in Oxford in the 1910s and 20s when Phil Stone befriended him. Stone, a Yale graduate, encouraged Faulkner's writing, and let him use the family library, lending him books. "Through his early acquaintances, Faulkner gained access to the libraries of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar and Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Oxford's first writer." (Longstreet was Lamar's father-in-law)

Orhan Pamuk, in his Nobel address, talks of the importance of a library to a budding writer. His father's library shaped Pamuk's reading and his literary identity. For Pamuk, a writer is one who "reads to his heart’s content, who, by listening only to the voice of his own conscience, disputes others’ words, and who, by entering into conversation with his books, develops his own thoughts and his own world."

In the Faulkner class, led by Micheline Marcom, we will be entering into conversation with the books Faulkner read, books which influenced his voice and his myths. Miss Marcom's method asks us to write creative responses to the books we read, making us join the ongoing conversation that began with the first book and will continue as long as people read and write.

I am pleased that books Faulkner held in his hands in some dust-mote laden room in Oxford came to him from my complicated cousin. Faulkner was born after Lamar died, and did not know him (although he might have known some of his descendants). The connection to me is not through blood or social ties (which as a democrat, lower case d, should matter little to me -- but you know how Southerners are about our relatives). The connection is through books - the love of books, the passion for books, the infatuation with words and verse and stories.