Rebecca Handler

o n e w o m a n p a r t y

Blog

In-flight

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I am wondering whether or not it’s appropriate to watch Magic Mike XXL while sitting next to your children on an airplane. I’m just asking for a friend.

We are on our way back to Perth, via Singapore, via Seoul. Flight time is approximately 6200 hours. In addition to eye masks and fuzzy socks, flight attendants will be distributing new eyeballs and kneecaps. My eight-year-old is reading Harry Potter while chewing what I think is an entire pack of gum. The older one is watching a reality show called Blue Zoo where teenagers seem to be teaching dolphins how to collect and dispose of plastic water bottles which, when you think about it, is kind of brilliant. Clean up your own oceans, you lazy dolphins!

My mind has turned to mush after a visit to San Francisco. I blame the lack of exercise, the burritos, and a certain late night with certain friends who like to drink bourbon, make up songs about kangaroos sacks, and give me rides on their electric bicycles.

Waiting to board, I asked my daughter what it was like to see her friends after a year abroad. She smiled with relief, “It was great. They’re exactly the same.”

The city’s the same too. I could go on about all the techies moving in and snapchatting all over our cable cars, but when it comes to my hometown, I’m a crazed woman in love.

I am not in love, however, with the passenger two rows back who apparently has no problem sleeping on planes. Did you know that snoring is one of the top causes of divorce? My husband told me that.

Growing up, my family occasionally took day trips across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin. We’d walk through a redwood forest, or see a community theater production of Annie Get Your Gun. Coming home, halfway through the rainbow tunnel, my mother would inevitably turn around and say to my brother and me, “Here it comes.” Then, as we exited the tunnel, Mom would sigh, “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”

That view – the bridge popping up through the fog and the city lights twinkling in the distance – is breathtaking. And fleeting. If you were say, sulking or goofing off with your brother, you’d miss it.

My meal choices are beef satay and fish curry. I pull some almonds out of my backpack.

“Girls, here it comes.” We drove through that tunnel just a few days ago, after visiting friends who recently got a puppy that likes to chew on shoes and pee under the dining table. (But who cares because he looks like a fuzzy profiterole.) I don’t know if my daughters noticed the view. They were poking each other. I thought of my mother and how she used to stare out the window and shake her head in disbelief. She was right. There is nothing more beautiful than seeing your home from a distance.

Crossing the Street in Hanoi

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A man holding a sign with my name greets us at the Hanoi airport and drives us to our hotel in the Old Quarter. As we approach the city, motor scooters appear gradually, like raindrops before a storm. A lady in a blue dress with a baby strapped to her back rounds the corner at full speed. Her Hello Kitty helmet has a cutout in the back to allow for a ponytail. Businessmen in suits and facemasks zip in and out of traffic, checking their phones and lighting cigarettes. A man with 50 plastic red chairs secured to his Suzuki slows down to avoid colliding with an old woman transporting an enormous basket of lychees.

The scooter monsoon rapidly descends on our van. Hondas, Yamahas, families of four with purses and school bags, old men carrying fishing rods and lumber. Everyone weaving in and out of cars, flying through intersections, passing storefronts selling shoes, candy, dried fish, luggage and tea leaves. I grab my daughter’s hand. “Are you seeing this?”

Hanoi is a city with more than seven million people and an estimated four million motorbikes. With the exception of a few major thoroughfares, there are neither traffic lights nor stop signs. Watching the traffic from an air-conditioned van is mesmerizing. Crossing the street as a pedestrian is an entirely different basket of lychees.

We pull up in front of the hotel – aptly named La Siesta – and our American friends run out to greet us. Some are much taller than when we last saw them. We hug and laugh and hug again. “Look at where we are!” we all exclaim in various ways. “This is crazy!”

We drop our bags, grab water bottles, and set off to meet Viet, a hired local who will take us on a culinary adventure. “How will we cross the street?” I ask my friend Jason, in the calmest voice I can muster. “Just stay right behind me,” he responds, with the confidence one acquires after spending 24 hours in Hanoi.

The streets are loud and smell like grilled onions, petrol and papaya. Jason yells over his shoulder, “Everyone grab a kid.” I reach for a hand and squeeze it tight. I say a prayer: I apologize for stepping out into traffic and killing this child. Please forgive me.

We step off the curb in twos, like square dancers in a mosh pit. Scooters are barreling towards us from all sides. I focus on the back of Jason’s head, and pull the child closer. Somehow, magically, we make it.

We find Viet and eat rice noodles with pork belly. An hour later, over pho and lotus flower tea, my friend Lindsy says, “I think of Hanoi traffic as an organism. When we enter it, we are part of it. And when we exit, we leave it behind.”

Over the next two days, we cross many streets together. My prayer changes slightly: I still don’t want to kill this child but I really want to try the banh mi. Please forgive me.

The Bottle

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I had a friend many years ago who was from France. We met in Singapore, where we’d visit each other in our air-conditioned apartments and watch our babies eat bananas. My friend wore seersucker dresses and plastic headbands, and was shy in that way non-native English speakers can be sometimes. I told her we should speak in French so I could practice. She’d laugh at me when I began every sentence with “I am going to,” and would interrupt me in English to say, “Now I am going to speak in English.”

One day, while watching our babies gnaw on wooden puzzle pieces, my friend shared some good news. Her younger sister was coming to visit. The sister was 14 and this would be her first time flying alone. My friend told me all the things they would do together in Singapore. “She wants to try spicy food,” she said, “and go on the Night Safari.” Then she paused, and asked quietly, “Can I tell you something?” Of course, I said. Tell me.

“My sister takes a bottle before bed.”

“Like a baby bottle?”

“Yes. My sister drinks a bottle before bed.”

It turns out that her mother just never stopped giving her sister a bottle of warm milk. And now she was 14, and still had a bottle every night. No, she did not have any disabilities. No, she was not still nursing. No, she did not tell anyone about this. Not a soul.

My friend hadn’t lived with her sister for many years, and was wondering whether or not the bottle would also be coming to Singapore.

I was thrilled with this piece of news. It seemed so strange, so wonderfully foreign. I couldn’t wait to meet this girl, and felt both guilty and gleeful that I was privy to her secret.

I met the sister at a barbecue. She was beautiful and slightly awkward – your average teenager. I kept glancing over at my friend, trying to catch her eye, hoping for a clue.

“What ever happened with the bottle?” I finally had a chance to ask, after the sister had returned to France. “Oh yes,” my friend said casually, “She brought one but didn’t use it. At least I don’t think she used it. I saw it in her suitcase.”

I remembered this story today, as I walked to pick up my daughters from school. My friend’s sister must be in her mid-twenties by now. I’m guessing the bottle finally faded away, as do so many elements of childhood.

Hardship

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Ghaith is a Syrian refugee who fled to Sweden, by way of Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Austria, and Germany. He left his wife and mother to try and build a life for them that won’t involve car bombs and streets littered with body parts. He walked for miles, hid in train bathrooms and pickup trucks, and helped care for a pregnant woman and her toddler on a tiny boat that barely made it to shore. He cried when he finally reunited with his brother he hadn’t seen in three years.

I read Ghaith’s story in The New Yorker, from the comfort of my bed that was shipped from San Francisco to Perth by a company that wants to help ease my transition to a new country.

I recently chaperoned a field trip to the Freshwater Bay Museum, which, despite its name, is neither an aquarium nor a museum. It is an activity center where children can experience the lives of Australian settlers in the 1860’s. Twenty-four children in polyester blue school uniforms scrubbed tea towels on washboards, made scones out of crushed wheat, and were assigned new names like Emma Atkinson and Benjamin Sutton.

The children were asked to line up single file and take a seat in a classroom that was decked out with wooden pews and slate boards. “Girls up front, boys in back.” Pip, our tour guide who, up until this point, had been patient and kind with the children, tied on a white apron and announced she was now Mrs. Herbert.

Mrs. Herbert checked fingernails for dirt and slapped desks with her ruler. “Are you being naughty, Sarah Gallop? Do you want me to whack you?” “No.” “No, what?” “No, Mrs. Herbert.”

The children were given a spelling test. Pip asked for a volunteer to pretend to have failed. My daughter’s friend Daisy raised her hand high. Mrs. Herbert said, “Charlotte Yates, you have done very poorly on this test. Come here this instant.” Mrs. Herbert reached behind her desk and pulled out a tall cap with the word “Dunce” on it. For the remainder of the class, Daisy faced the wall, giggling with delight.

“Let’s play Olden Days!” Simone yells out to Daisy, as they run to our house after school, zipping past kookaburras and jacaranda trees. “I’ll be the student and you be the mean teacher,” Daisy commands, tossing her backpack on the floor and pulling off her sneakers. For hours, the girls speak very sternly, pretend to whack each other with rulers, and write the alphabet over and over. I knock on the bedroom door and ask if they want a snack. They tell me they’re not allowed to eat. “We might get whacked!” they shriek.

I’d bet my life these girls will never spend a week on a tiny boat with scared strangers, vomiting into ziplock bags and tossing them overboard. But I’ve never had to bet my life.

Oy to the World

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When my younger daughter was six, she informed me, between mouthfuls of frozen peas, “There’s no such thing as Santa. It’s the parents.” I leaned over the table, looked her straight in the eye and said, “You are correct. Now please don’t tell anyone.”

And just like that, the ancient Jewish ritual known as Don’t Ruin Christmas was passed down to the next generation.

I admire Santa’s pro-nice, anti-naughty platform. But Santa will never squeeze himself down our chimney. I can explain this to my children in one of two ways– either a) he doesn’t exist or b) anti-Semitism.

Being Jewish this time of year is like being in a rowboat at night, looking up at the stars and feeling content, when suddenly a cruise ship passes by, with its twinkling lights and booming music. The same rowboat that felt comfortable a minute ago, suddenly feels small and insignificant.

This is not a sob story. I love Hanukah, and I love celebrating Christmas with my in-laws (via Skype, sniff). I just don’t want to do it every minute of every day in the month of December and, oh hey while we’re at it, also November.

Here in Australia, Christmas is full on. As my friend Anthony puts it, “It’s all about barbies, beer and the beach, what’s not to like?” Excellent point, mate. But in Oz, there is no Thanksgiving to serve as bouncer. The holiday has been in full swing pretty much since the beginning of November. And not just in coffee shops and department stores.

My daughter’s public school classroom features a theme each term around which activities and lessons are planned. So far this year, the themes have been Marine Life, Planets and Space, and Dinosaurs. This term? Christmas. My daughter will be making ornaments, learning carols, and drawing pictures of a bearded man in a red suit who she knows either a) doesn’t exist or b) anti-Semitism. I asked a Muslim mother how she handles things at the school and she sighed in that way you might if you found yourself in a rap battle with Jay-Z.

Another classroom recently launched “Santa Countdown” or, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, “Countdown to The Day Everything is Closed and You Forget Why But Then You Remember.”

Religions are like diets. There are many to choose from, and not choosing one is also a healthy option. Some households might be vegetarian, or paleo, or everything in moderation, and it’s all fine with me as long as you’re not ripping up my front lawn to grow your special beans.

Some people like to say that Christmas is not a religious holiday. But those people usually celebrate Christmas. Celebrating Christmas in a classroom alienates children who do not celebrate this holiday in their homes. I repeat. I repeat the sounding joy.