April 02, 2003
Apple Pie
When the war broke out, I briefly wondered if I would stop being seen as a somewhat absent-minded housewife and become a 'symbol'. Wouldn't have surprised me, it's happened before.
America makes some big move and suddenly I am no longer seen as a mother who knows the best brand of baby wipes around, but a walking encyclopedia of all things American, able to explain ( and expected to debate ) in simple language every nuance of American politics as well as pass on the recipe for McDonald's special sauce.
I don't know who I really thought might look at me differently this time, for now I live in a village with only about 1400 inhabitants and a large percentage of those are artists and oddballs. That is why we chose to move here : I would blend in better, and I have. I'm the American, you know, the one who lives in Brouwer's old house.
Perhaps I thought that the Turkish mothers who line up with me outside of Meg's school, waiting for Miss Nora to signal us to come in, would look at me askance : she's one of them, you know. She's that American. I know that during the first days of the war, as I stood there with them, I felt vaguely ashamed.
But of course, they didn't even notice me.
In fact, the only stilted moment occurred the next Friday, when our oldest friends- going back over 20 years- came over to play cards with us. I was watching a program about the manipulation of the US media coverage of the war when they rang the bell and we all watched the last minutes of the show together. A natural progression of events would have been for us to discuss the war, our opinions, but no one brought the war up. Minutes passed, and finally, Han brought it up and I joined him.
Then the conversation flowed, in that natural way which it should have once the program ended. But they were waiting, to see what I would say, what I thought.
The evening then deteriorated into the usual atmosphere of our card evenings together, boozy and smokey, a full hand of trumps being announced as the arrival of the missing 'weapons of mass destruction'.
A typical card evening, with our oldest friends.
We were visiting friends before the war began, and I ended up involved in a big debate with a neighbor of theirs who went into a long rant about "The American". I tried to explain that he was overgeneralizing, but he was having none of it. He may have been egging me on for the fun of it, or he may just have been an asshole. (My daughter's now dating his son, so we'll find out eventually I guess.)
What bothers me more is that today, my daughter's history teacher came into class and announced how proud she was not to be American, "because Americans say a group of other people are bad" and, I dunno, bomb them or something. An Austrian history teacher of all people.
Posted by: Mig at April 2, 2003 05:48 PM