The Superpower Of Kamala's Positive Energy

Now that little eyes aren’t here reading over my shoulder, I want to share a Granddaughter #3 story that will join an essay I wrote about a similar special moment with #2 when she was around the same age. 

 This story started with #3 seeing Kamala Harris on television. She smiled immediately but the smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. With a somewhat troubled expression, she asked why I stuck Amy over the top of Kamala on my bumper. I explained that during that primary race--which, since she's seven years old, required an entire lesson about political parties, primaries, and generals--Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar were tied in first place for me. I was excited about the prospect of having either of them as the next president. There was one big thing that I liked better about each of them so I was having a hard time deciding who I was going to vote for in that election. I sent donations to both while I decided. 

Of course she asked, and I explained what it was for each. I told her why I had decided to go with Kamala - a story and a confession this time. I had left my daughters at home while I went to pick up a mixed-race teen from basketball practice. My experience had always been that the car was the best time to get kids to open up and I suspected he had been carrying some heavy thoughts for days. The alone-in-the-car trick worked. He opened up and went deeper than I anticipated. He said he was having a hard time figuring out who he was supposed to be. He already had a white mother and felt like I was a second white mother which seemed like a betrayal to his mother and to make it even worse, he felt white but he looked black like his father. And then he hit me with what sounded like regret that he looked black because no black man had ever been president so he didn't believe he could be anything he wanted to be. 

This was not a cross country drive and I am a big talker so I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make even a tiny dent in the conversation before we reached the house. My inept response was that he was beautiful and perfect just the way he was, and he sure as hell could be anything he wanted to be. And I found some awkward words about being grateful that his mother shared so much of him with me because if I had a son of my own I would want my son to be just like him. 

By the time we got to the house, I realized that my daughter might have had some of these same concerns. I'm white and her father is brown and we've never had a Hispanic president, either. I hated myself a little for never thinking of her as anything but my beautiful daughter, even years before when I had asked why her friend down the street always came to our house and never invited her to their house, and I got the disappointing response - a shrug and, "I don't know. Her mom said her dad doesn't like chicks so I can't come to their house." I was certain the word wasn't chicks so I was glad her little friend was on our front porch waiting when we got home every night and stayed until bedtime. 

But I didn't consider that my daughter had known what that meant. Or wondered if she heard things like that at school. What if she had feelings similar to the ones this young man was expressing to me. What if she thought there were things she couldn't do because she was brown? We all had a serious talk over dinner that night. 

So, the Kamala bumper sticker went on the car because my daughter and granddaughters needed to see a brown woman be president. Of course, I shortened that story quite a bit and made it seven-year-old appropriate. And explained that when Kamala dropped out of the race and I felt certain she had a chance at VP slot, I left her bumper sticker on my car and put Amy’s over the corner of it - still wanting to show my support for both. 

#3 liked my reason for choosing Kamala first, keeping her on, and supporting both. We talked a bit about how we liked saying her name. I picked up on that when she repeated it several times for no reason. I told her about Mamala. She loved that.

And I told her, once again, how much she (#3) has in common with little #2, who is 14 years older than #3. #2 walked around saying BarackObamaBarackObamaBarackObama the way other kids sing Baby Shark. She also wrote it up and down the sidewalk and in front of my neighbors’ doors. We didn’t need yard signs. 

#3 reminded me that she loves Barack Obama, too. I said of course you do, everyone does. (I didn't remind her that when she was a baby, she called me Obama instead of Gramma for about a year and we never figured out if she did that because she couldn't pronounce Gramma of if it was because she knew how much I loved him.) She asked why. I asked why do I love him or why does everyone love him? 

I explained both. I adore him because he’s the closest anyone had ever come to being just like my dad to me, and what makes that special is that just being their presence makes people feel better. They both exude (exuded, in Daddy’s case) palpable goodness. And I saw huge tears in her eyes. I expected her to say. “Your dad is dead,” but apparently she has outgrown reminding me and her mother that our dads are dead. 

When I asked about the tears, she said she was embarrassed to tell me and I said it might make me cry if I have to know she doesn’t feel comfortable telling me something. So, she told me - hearing me talk about Barack Obama makes her love him "that" much. She just “feels” it. The love comes off of me onto her.

Wow! I told her that proves what I was saying about him. The profound positive energy that I felt the first time I was in a room with him will live in me forever, and I am able to share that with her, and with other people. She blinked more tears off and nodded. Like she really got it. 

She thought for a few seconds before she asked, “Can you really do that? Share the energy? And he can, too?” I assured her that she does the same. She’s the kindest person I know and she spreads that good energy everywhere she goes. It’s her superpower that she didn’t even know she had. 

“And love?” she asked. “We can spread love into the world?” Yep. I promised we can. And we can receive it if we spend our time with the right people. 

And that is exactly what Kamala Harris is doing right now. She is spreading positive energy. We're laughing and dancing and exhaling. Oh, how we are exhaling. Years of stored up good energy that we were afraid wouldn't have anywhere to land. Now, everyone is ready to inhale that good energy and blow it back out into the world.

I made a special point to tell her that because I am old and don’t work or go to school, I have the luxury of seeing only people I want to see now. And because I am especially susceptible to the energy around me, I carefully choose to only spend my time with people who have good hearts and want the best for everyone. She doesn’t have that luxury yet so she needs to work on putting out her positive energy and not taking in energy from people who want to hurt others. The sweet girl held her hand in front of her face and showed me that she can breathe back in her own positive energy if she's around bad people.

We spent some time inhaling deeply and exhaling loving energy that we both admitted we were receiving from the other without any effort. It was like Qigong on the couch.

The kids need Kamala Harris to be our next President (that's not a trumpish error - I believe she will absolutely win that capital P. And the world will be a better place because of her.

Children and Politics

Each of my grandchildren has developed a special 'gramma thing' - something they think they alone share with me. Politics is the link with my grandson, who will turn nine in July. We delivered him to his first protest in a stroller (but did let him out to stand on the base of a statue with his little "Let Every Vote Count" poster for the TV cameras) and he has been my partner-in-protest and campaign buddy since.

By the time the 2004 campaign rolled around, he thought he knew just about everything, and talked some big issues when we were out. It got a bit complicated when he had memorized Kucinich's entire platform, and then had to switch to Kerry even though his heart was with Edwards (not a first, second, or third choice for any of us, and we hadn't taken him to see Edwards - so he did some independent thinking based only on what he had seen on C-span.)

While standing on a busy street corner during rush hour one day, he dropped his Kerry sign to his side and asked, "Gramma, why do you hate George Bush so much?" I think at that point he was tired and wanted to make sure this work really necessary.

I sighed, hating Bush even more because he had given me reason to hate him enough that it was obvious to my grandchild that I hated someone. Too much hate for me. I did something that made me sick at my stomach.

"I don't hate him, I just hate what he has done to my country and my world," I lied.

"What do you hate most?" He asked.

"I hate the way he spends our money. I hate that he spends it on war instead of education and health care." That sounded age appropriate.

Noah thought for a minute before he asked the next question. "If John Kerry wins, will he spend more on school?"

I nodded. Noah found renewed strength, jumped to the curb, waved his sign, and shouted, "Vote for Kerry.” A lady came up and asked why he supported Kerry. Noah's response was, "Because if he wins we might get a new playground at school."

We had a small disagreement last year when he wanted to play with the toy soldiers I had on my window ledges (holding 'Bring Me Home' signs) and I told him they were not toys and no, he could not play with them.

Yesterday, he told me his friends finally stopped liking Bush when they found out he lied about the war. I was excited to hear that eight-year-olds are talking about politics, but the next line let me know that some were still spreading false information. "But, we had to start that war because they had those weapons. Right, Gramma?"

And the hatred grew. I knew this child wanted me to assure him that we are the good guys, and I couldn't do that. I asked him if it would be 'right' for me to knock him off the couch because I thought maybe he wanted to hurt me some day. He laughed - not the response I wanted.

Fortunately, in an earlier conversation, Noah told me Shaq is the biggest man on earth. I had something to use. "Okay," I said. "What if Shaq thinks Tatum (Noah's four-year-old sister) might want to pick up a stick the next time she goes outside, and that she might hit him with that stick someday. Is it okay for him to knock her down now to make sure she can never get that stick?”

He shook his head.

"Shaq is about the size of the U.S., and Tatum is the size of Iraq," I reminded him. "We thought Iraq wanted to have big weapons like the ones we have.”

“They do have weapons,” he said. “They are shooting back at us.”

“The weapons they had when we invaded them were like sticks."

"Well, I would protect my baby sister," he decided.

"No," I said. "You can't, because you are Syria."

"Who is Syria?"

"A country that is just a little bit stronger than Iraq," I told him. "Iraq's big brother."

"Then Dad would protect Tate."

"Your dad is Iran, and Shaq won't allow him to have anything bigger than a stick. Shaq has a baseball bat."

He grinned. "You got me, Gramma."

I haven't heard from his parents yet. I hoped he would retell this conversation to them before talking to his friends.

Sometimes I Cry Because I Am So So Happy

In what appears to be a growing journalism trend where the writer bypasses research and poses a question instead of delivering information, I read a particle a few days ago in which the aught-er asked his readers to explain why people cry when they laugh. I returned the aught-er’s effort by asking more questions. Do you also wonder why people cry when peeling onions, facing the sun, yawning, or battling foreign objects in the eye area?

I consider myself somewhat an expert on tears. My credentials, for those who might question this determination, are as follows:

^ My maternal grandfather and uncle cried every time they laughed.

^ A paternal uncle cried at weddings and after his second highball every Christmas Eve.

^ I cried for three straight days once and think, even if that is not a record, it deserves special recognition.

^ Several highly-specialized ophthalmologists have examined, prodded, x-rayed and MRI’d my eyes and concluded that they are sufficiently dry to warrant permanent plugs in all four tear ducts and a lifetime of bankrupting prescriptions.

^ I can almost recite Iyanla Vanzant’s poem, Yesterday, I Cried and I have read the entire book more than once.

^ I enjoy the benefits of crying so much that I schedule cries if too much time passes between spontaneous one.

^ My granddaughter respects my crying wisdom enough to turn to me for advice. *

Before stressing myself with the gruesome task of typing tears in my search engine box and consulting the fact monster, I flung myself on the proverbial limb, resolved that the body produces tears without emotional involvement (as in the onion, sun, yawn, and foreign object examples), and brazenly put laughter-associated tears in that same category. Even though laughter is a response to an emotion, I believe my laughing tears are more reflexive than physic.

After doing basic research, I am not sure all experts agree with me. However, even without the benefit of chemical protein testing, I am sticking with my belief for now since I am not the only one to question the wikipedia report. I am a hearty laugher, and think the pressure-in-the-head-causing-an-overflow-of-basal-tears explanation works much better than the I’m-moved-to-tears rationalization for my laughter-induced tears. Besides, a real cry requires a coordinated effort of emotions, cells, and glands, and I am quite sure I am not focused enough to carrying that out while I am enjoying myself.

* Bonus grandchild story

My four-year-old granddaughter surprised me when she left her toys to come sit beside me on the couch and watch the television special about Oprah’s Leadership Academy For Girls. She listened intently to the applicant interviews and watched the docudrama profiles of their histories. When the selected students were shown their new school and home, and a few expressed excitement over having showers, Tatum stopped breathing and looked up at me.

“Gramma, do you ever cry because you are just so so happy?” she finally asked.

I blinked away my tears and assured her that I often cry when I am so so happy.

She smiled, said she does too, and released her own little river of tears.

Double bonus definitions:

basal tear – protective (lubricate)
reflex tear – response (onions, foreign objects)
physic tears (weeping or crying) – different chemicals in these tears

Beware: Dog Eating Shark Attacks In Kentucky

This child is not distraught because it is 39 degrees outside and she has no clothes. Nor is she concerned about the red marker stains on her face, the bruise on her scrawny leg, or the fact that her grandmother pulled her bangs back with an ugly clip and then got out the camera.

Being stuck overnight with an evil gramma who refuses to get the Chutes and Ladders game from the car until morning did not elicit half as much sorrow. She even managed to smile (actually beam a few times) when the demanding gramma forced her to help carry in groceries and cook dinner.

A dire situation much worse than anything the average four-year-old child will ever experience is responsible for this sadness. First, the gramma lost her memory. Despite multiple reminders, she was unable to remember anything about a previously unknown cousin who showed up at Chucky Cheese with a new puppy for this grandchild on her birthday. The cousin’s name meant nothing to this senile grandmother and the perfectly replicated yipping of the puppy did nothing to jog her memory.

The hand-to-the-head distress came when the gramma swore that no one bothered to tell her when a shark snuck into the little girl’s room and ate the puppy. This gramma is waiting for morning to make an appointment with a good therapist to find out what happened to her memory.

He Doesn't Even Know Where I Live

Dazed preoccupation, glowing skin, picture in hand to remind her he wasn't a dream, giggles and visible jitters - she showed all the classic signs of a girl who had lost her heart and mind to a first love. Her eyes shot sparks when anyone else mentioned him, and her voice took on that wispy, can't-jinx-a-good-thing throaty tone when she spoke his name, every other breath.

I didn't have the heart to correct her pronunciation of his name.

The fifty-something-year difference in their ages fazed her even less than his wife and the three states that separated them. Love knew no obstacles.

Her siblings had their special interests, the same as she did. The oldest charged through the door and up the stairs with the same request each time. "Gramma, do you have candy?" The baby still flung her arms open for a hug.

Lover girl Fiona scooted right past me, eyes aglow, and lifted her sweetie's book off the end table. All five pounds and nine hundred fifty-seven pages of it. Usually, by the time she finagled and balanced her load, and lugged it across the room, the baby was through with me and I sat, prepared on the couch.




With a grunt, she hoisted the tome on my lap, ecstatic over the cover. "Gramma, can we read Bill Clintock?"

Fortunately, at barely-three-years-old, looking at the pictures was enough reading to satisfy this child. She still hasn't figured out that choosing My Life as a bedtime story might delay bedtime a couple of weeks.

She clasped her tiny hands, closed her eyes, and waited for me to open to the pictures, every time, with the anxiety most children save for Santa.

"That's Bill Clintock's mother, holding him when he was a baby. There's his first dad." She dutifully pointed at faces, rushing through preliminaries before grabbing her chest and returning her idol's huge smile on the bottom of the third page of pictures. Young, not-so-young, formal, informal, playing the trumpet in sunglasses, in a crowd, from behind – she found him in every picture and got more excited with each one. Aren't first loves special?

Gramma called dibs the night before Bill 'Clintock' Clinton's television interview and had Lover Girl sleep over, not that anyone slept much with all the excitement in the air. Fiona was up and pacing long before the early morning interview, chanting, "I'm so excitick. I'm so excitick to see Bill Clintock."

The excitick was contagious. I wrung my hands with her, thinking it was the longest ten minutes I'd known in a while.

The anticipated face finally came on the screen. Fiona grabbed her chest and screamed, like he was Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, or Spongebob. She ran to the televison and watched in silence, until he said the magic words.

"Gramma." She gasped, and turned with tears of adoration in her big eyes. "He said 'children'. He likes children!" I believe her life was complete. That was all she needed to be happy forever, or at least until her brother had something she wanted.

The obsession lasted over a good year. Not bad for a first love. My friends said his name, just to watch her grab her chest and light up the room with her smile. She lugged that book around until she looked like a body-builder. The pictures in my book showed signs of attrition.

Then, almost instantly, she stopped asking about him. Maybe she realized she had the name wrong, and was embarrassed. She might have heard rumors, or learned married men were off limits. I missed her crush.

"Don't you love Bill any more?" I asked, immediately wishing I hadn't when her shattered heart poured through her eyes.

In a broken voice, she explained. "He can't be my boyfriend when he doesn't even know where I live."

Writing Can Be Fun

To the t-ball champ/skateboard enthusiast, my sedentary existence held less appeal than bathing or clipping his nails. "Don't you get tired of writing?" he asked. "That's all you ever want to do?"

"Don't you get tired of playing?" I shot back. "That's all you ever want to do."

"But Gramma, playing's fun. Writing's like school." He looked at the clipboard on my lap, scowled at the binder on the table beside me, and then sighed as though he had seen an IV pole and respirator attached to me.

I held but school's fun under my breath. He did well in Kindergarten, made good grades, and was already reading chapter books. Still, I wouldn't force Noah to do something as uncool as consider the possibility that school might be fun.

Miraculously, a few suffer-able quiet activities came to mind. "I enjoy writing the same way you like to play video games or watch movies."

His eyes, reflecting only band-aid level pity now, rested on my sheet of college-ruled filler paper.

"How can you write books on that paper?"

Good question and one I had never considered he might ask. He wouldn't know how my words ended up in those books on the shelf, so I explained. "I write a chapter on paper first, then type it into the computer, print the pages, and put them in this binder. I keep doing that until I have enough chapters to make a book."

"How many?"

"As many as I want." I knew this wasn't going to be easy when he pulled his top lip between his teeth and rolled his eyes upward. "I write until I get to the end of the story."

He opened the binder, karate chopped the margins on the top page, and nodded. "Then you just cut these and stick them inside books?"

"I don't. Someone else does that part."

"Who? How do they get your pages?"

I saw where this was headed. Rather than answer fifty questions about the editor, the publisher, who would draw the pictures, and how would they get in stores, only to circle back to don't you get tired of writing again, I thought I'd let him answer his own question.

"How would you like it if one day you could make everyone do what you wanted them to do? What if you could make me ride the skateboard, or make your dad wear a dress?"
He laughed. "Hey, that would be funny."

"That's why I think writing is fun. When I write a story, I get to create all the people, name them anything I want, and make them do whatever I want them to do. I'm just a grown-up with a bunch of imaginary friends that I keep in books."

The teeth tugged on the lip a few more times while he thought it over. "I wanna do it."

I found him a notebook, gave him a pen, and turned him loose to create his own little world where he could control everyone. He didn't make me ride the skateboard or put his dad in a dress, but he did find out writing is fun.

Roly-poly Slobber

My granddaughters, ages three and four, spot and pluck insects and worms from the grass with the precision of a starving-bird. My neighbor with the Venus Flytrap encourages them. I usually do my best to look away since I'm not a fan of slimy, crawly creatures.

Today, the girls built their insect castle of stones, sticks, dirt, and grass a few feet from my chair. I couldn't help but get involved.

Fiona stared at her opened palm. Tatum leaned closer to see what her older sister found so interesting.

"Is that my roly-poly's head?" Tatum asked with a hint of sadness.

Fiona squinted, her nose almost touching her hand. "Where?"

"Right there." Tatum pointed to a smudge near her sister's wrist. "By the green chalk."

Fiona twisted her hand to view the speck from different angles. She studied thoroughly before making her announcement. "No, silly. It's a baby caterpillar. Or an ant." She moved Tatum back a step and blew the grass cover off the castle. "There's your roly-poly. I think you stepped on it."

Tatum scooped up the bug. "I'm sorry," she said, hugging him to her chest.

Fiona placed her baby caterpillar or ant on a leaf bed and pulled Tatum's arm down to examine the wounded roly-poly. "I think she's dead," she pronounced. "You should release her so her mom can find her."

It was Tatum's turn to squint. "She's not dead." She studied her palm. "Look. She's slobbering."

Fiona amended her diagnosis. "She's going to die if you don't get her some food."

They admitted the roly-poly to a private room in the castle-turned-
hospital, went inside, and returned with food. Together, they crumbled a soda cracker in what was left of the hospital after they each stepped on it, and left the infirmed to eat while they followed a million-legged, hairy, crawly thing making his escape down the walk.

I looked up from my book a short time later and noticed the cracker crumbs also making their get-away, in a slow convoy across the lawn. The girls spent the next twenty minutes watching ants haul crumbs home to the hill. Meanwhile, Gramma traded out the slobbering roly-poly for a fresh one.

In special circumstances, I can manage a roly-poly or a lightening bug, even if they're drooling.