Election Eve

I was weepy all day yesterday.  Everything put me on verge of tears and at times, I flat out just cried.  I'm not a crier (because I prefer to use humor to mask my sadness) so I wasn't quite sure what was causing this.  I suspect it had something to do with weeks of only getting 4.5-5.5 hours of sleep coupled with the other things? Maybe?

Earlier in the day I called a good friend of mine to check in on her.  Her mom passed a few weeks back.  With the nonstop campaigning I was doing and her always busy schedule, we hadn't had time to check in.  To learn in that conversation that her mother went in for surgery to address issues with her colon and she ended up with COVID-19 and pass from that was devastating.  The hospital said she must have been asymptomatic when she was admitted but the family knew better.  They all got tested and everyone came back negative.  Her mother hadn't gone anywhere for months.  How could this be.

My heart broke hearing my dear friends voice shake as she cried through the details was heartbreaking.  The helplessness of believing someone would come home then unexpectedly being told they are on life support with lungs filled with fluid.  The devastation of not being able to hold that person's hand and be at their side as they leave this world.  Her mom was the rock of their family and someone she truly loved and respected.  All I could do was cry with her.

After that moment, I could not get that weary and sad feeling out of my heart.  I just couldn't understand.  Started thinking about how COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted communities of color and how this POTUS has done nothing to protect the people of America.  Not only had he done nothing but he made the AAPI community an even bigger target with his hateful rhetoric calling COVID-19 the Wuhan, Chinese, and Kung flu.  He encouraged those harboring hate towards BIPOC people with these words leading to a increase in violence, crime, and hate towards the AAPI community.  I was angry at this human being for having no empathy, care, or decency towards anyone else but himself.

After the anger, I was still just left with sadness.  Knowing that no matter what happens in the election, my dear friend's mom will still no longer be with us.  Over 200,000 people who died from COVID-19 will still no longer be with us.  My head was hurting, my eyes were puffy, my body was achy, and my I felt like I was starting to come down with something.  I was only 5:30 and I was ready to call it a night.  I had signed up to join an AAPI for Biden phone bank but I was ready to skip out of it.

Something in me told me to just hop on for a few minutes.  Begrudgingly, I did.  I am so glad that I did.  Seeing all of my AAPI brothers and sisters on made warmed my heart.  Before anything substantially happened, I already started tearing up.  Then South Indian musician ZeshanB performed his original piece, Brown Power, and I just lost it.  It was soulful, modern, and classic all at once.  When he switched over into his native tongue, I my heart just knew what he was singing about without understanding one word.  I felt like he was singing to my soul.

Then I heard from Malik Pancholy (30 Rock, Finneas and Ferb and also worked in the Obama administration), Mouzam Makkah (Vampire Diaries), and Usman Ally (Veep) and every word they said gave me permission to let my heart sit in the pain and sorry it was feeling but it also encouraged my heart to keep fighting.  With one day left, there was still much we could do to get as many people out to vote as possible.  So I did.  I stayed on and called almost 100 people.  Truthfully, had Google Voice not locked me out (because supposedly, I had violate some policy with my mad phone banking skills), I would have made 100 calls.  

I cried three times during that zoom but it was the medicine I needed.  My headache went away and I felt like a new person.  Today, I haven't felt the need to cry, not even one time.  Today, I am hopeful and optimistic about what the future will bring because I have hope that our country will choose decency, compassion, and love over what the we've seen the last four years.  I hope the American people do not fail me and I am right.  We'll know if a new hours.  Fingers crossed.

BTW, I ended up crying one last time on the night of 11/2.  I joined a zoom to encourage my House colleagues in vulnerable districts to keep pressing on.  Instead of firing them up, I just made everyone sad.  Yeah, not one of my more inspirational moments.  

Mother's Day

Mother's Day?   I loved seeing all of the Facebook posts today of how people celebrated Mother's Day.  There seemed to be lots of gifts, food, family, and love; lots of love.  However, there is always something about days like today, days set aside to celebrate a person, that makes me take pause.  It's not just Mother's Day, it's Father's Day, Sweetest Day, Valentine's Day, and yes, even birthdays.

I'm not judging people who go all out for these days.  I just wonder about people who don't have moms, people who don't have kids to make them moms, those whose mom's were absent or not a part of their lives, those who don't have the privilege of time to spend with their moms/moms who don't have the time to spend with their children (working multiple jobs, incarcerated, living a way so they can send money home, etc...), those who don't have the disposable income to do something special.  I also think about why these types of days don't illicit the same feelings in me as it does the masses.

Today, I woke up bright and early.  Not because I wanted to but because there were things to do.  My kiddos from another mother came up from La Crosse with their dad.  They boys went to move Logan out of his dorm at the U of M.  The girls went to pick Taylor up from the farm.  She had been staying there to help her grandparents with the chores (feeding animals, cleaning the barn, and planting the garden).  We headed off to the store to get food. We made a few stops and got home just as the guys were finishing up.  The girls helped me prep food and we ate.  We ate a lot.  The guys stopped off at Whole Foods to get me a cheese cake to celebrate Mother's Day.  It was a sweet surprise because I had forgotten it was Mother's Day.  We ate the cheese cake without fanfare.  We spent a few hours together, I packed all the food home with my La Cross family (they don't get to eat the ethnic foods available to us here in St. Paul), and we hugged and said our good byes.  Like that, they were gone and everyone else went back to homework, chores, naps and work.

These types of celebration were always really important to my own mom.  It was always a big deal for us kids to make the day special for her.  She worked so hard everyday being the best mom she could so having one special day to show her how much we cared about her really mattered to her.  I'm not sure why that's not the same for me.  I have always been a believer that you should appreciate the people you love everyday.  You should do kind things for them everyday.  You should tell them how much you appreciate and love them everyday.  You should cook, give them gifts, and clean for them everyday.

Now that I am older, I wonder if my thinking was correct.  Maybe I should have created the routine around celebrating.  Maybe I should have made these days a bigger deal.  When you don't practice receiving, you don't give people the opportunity to give.  What if I haven't instilled the right values in my children and spouse?  What if they don't do the things they are suppose to everyday and now I just gave them an out for not having to even do it on the one day designated for it?  I don't know.  I guess only time will tell...so Mother's Day?

Identity change and what that has led us to

2019 was a big change year for our family.  It would be obvious to say that starting my first term in the State Legislature as a Freshman Representative was a life changing event but the truth is, there was one other change that made a greater impact on our family than this.  It was Ayden's decision to quit gymnastics.

Ayden started rec gymnastics when she was just 3 years old.  I remember in trial class, she was the only child that could hold her own weight on the rings.  She was also able to whip herself in circles on them.  After the trial, the teacher came out and said that they wanted her to start on teams but they worried she was too young.  Indeed she was so we all made the decision to enroll her into rec classes until she was old enough to become a USA gymnast.

Interestingly enough, Ayden did not like gymnastics.  She had anxiety separation so she hated leaving my side to attend class.  On a regular basis, she would cry through the entire class and more than once, she wet herself.  After months of this, I decided gymnastics was not the right fit for her and took Ayden out.  We tried Kuk Sool Won Korean Martial Arts, ballet, tap, Brownies, acting, art/drawing and modeling.  Ayden became a forms gold medal champion in martial arts, an amazing artist, and her acting/modeling career took off.  Ballet, tap, and Brownies...not so much.

We went over two years without having gymnastics come up once.  Despite how well she was doing in the other areas of interest, I couldn't help but notice how strong and flexible she was in martial arts.  We decided to give gymnastics another try.  When Ayden was 5, we enrolled her in Spirit gymnastics at Hamline University.  I didn't want to invest a lot of time and energy into it in case it didn't work out again.

This time, it stuck.  Right away, she was identified for teams and from there on out, we didn't look back.  The feedback we often got was that she was really physically gifted but she had concentration issues.  Ayden was more interested in playing with her friends than focusing on the skills.  I mean she's five, right?  Isn't that what all five year olds want (it turns out Olympians have the right balance of skill and concentration from a very early age...a post for another day)? After less than a year, we ran into some issues with what the coaches wanted for Ayden and what we wanted for her so we left Spirit and started at Midwest Gymnastics.

Ayden stayed at Midwest and trained for almost ten years there.  She went from being a level 4 USAG to level 9.  After a decade of training 5 days a week for 20 hours a week, Ayden officially called it quits in May of 2019.  Four years of injuries (3 fractured ribs, a fractured ankle, back issues, and a fractured tibia straight through and into her growth plate) her goal of being a Level 10 Junior Olympic gymnast and obtaining a Division I scholarship seem to be out of reach.

Though she was only 15 and just a Sophomore in high school, coming back from months of being out with a broken leg would not have been impossible but to achieve what she had set out for would have been improbable.  Maybe she could have been a Level 9 Westerns Champion and a Division III athlete but Ayden didn't want that.  After much thought and agonizing deliberation, she decided it was time to end that chapter of her life.

While all this was happening, I was busy spending days and nights at the State Capitol trying my best to do right by my constituents.  Ayden I would check in but she seemed to have it all together.  We talked through the pros and cons of continuing or quitting and I assured her that whatever she decided, I would support her completely.  Though I was speaking those words, a little part of me died inside.

You see, it was my dream to be an Olympic gymnast.  When I was in 7th grade, my gym teacher saw potential in me and brought a coach in to gym class for an assessment.  Though I wasn't "discovered" until this very late age, they thought there might still be hope for me.  A few years earlier, I watched Mary Lou Retton win the Gold medal for the United States.  After seeing that, I secretly wished it for myself.  Unfortunately, as a poor kid born into a refugee family, my parents did not have the means or resources to make this is happen for me.

I put all that aside because I understood I could not live vicariously through my child.  I patted myself on the back for being such a good and supportive mom.  What I didn't realize was this was a major mom failure moment.

A few months after Ayden's decision to stop doing gymnastics, we had a conversation about her exploring other sports.  I was frustrated that after all this time, she hadn't thought about what other interests she could direct her energy into.  She had been sitting around for months doing absolutely nothing.  So the next conversation we had, instead of asking her what she wanted to do, I asked her how she felt.  We were in the car on the way home from school.  She looked over at me and said, "I'm good."  I followed with, "How are you feeling about not doing gymnastics anymore?"  Her response, "Good".

I shared with Ayden that her quitting gymnastics had been really hard for me.  That for 10 years, I was known as the mom with this awesome gymnast that was going to go on to do amazing things.  I spent years driving her back and froth to practice, buying leotards and gear, traveling with her to out-of-state meets, and spending time with all of the other moms of high performing athletes.  With her fractured tibia, we...I mean she...had missed a whole season of competition.  I had no videos or pictures of gravity defying skills to post on Facebook.  My identity had been so wrapped up in her being a gymnast that I wasn't sure who I was without her being in this sport.  I shared my struggle with people's questions of how gymnastics was going.  Then I said to her, "...and I'm just the mom.  If I'm having this hard of time with my identity, I can't imagine what you must be going through right now."

Because I had my eye on the road, I didn't turn over to look at my kiddo until I finished my monologue.  As I looked over, my tiny love's face was streaming tears.  She proclaimed that she wasn't crying to which I responded, it's okay to cry. You are mourning.  Your whole identity has been defined by gymnastics.  It's okay to be sad about what you've lost and afraid of not knowing who you are.  She jokingly blurted out, "This is why you need to be around more.  That's exactly I how I feel but I haven't been able to process this without out.  You know dad is no use in this area!"  Her biggest disappointment was that she left on a injury.  She hadn't built her skills back up, she hadn't tumbled in over 5 months, and her state ranking dropped to the bottom.

We made our way home and we embraced each other.  We hugged for what seemed like an eternity.  My last words to her was that it's okay to grieve but we can't stay in the sadness.  Having to quit could be your demise or a blessing in disguise.  With 20 hours a week freed up, there was a world of opportunity in front of her.  She just had to believe this was the case.

You would think after my amazing mom moment that she would have found strength in it and immediately channeled all of her energy into the next thing.  Boy was I wrong.  It would take months after that before she would start trying new things.

I am proud to report that five months after Ayden quit, she has found new endeavors that she loves.  She's diving for the club Minnesota Diving Academy which practices at the University of Minnesota.  She also picked up Cheerleading and is doing competitive cheer at Northern Elite Allstars in Bloomington.  She quickly progressed in both and was put on the elite teams even though she had no experience in either of them.  Last but definitely not least, she was casted in the show Neighbors at the History Theater where she is even getting paid to perform.  Ayden now finally also has the time to continue honing in her art skills.

I asked Ayden the other day if she missed gymnastics and she said yes.  I followed with, would you like to go back? Ayden responded, "I love gymnastics.  I didn't stop because I stopped loving it but it was the right decision. I like not being in pain every day.  I like not having my joints hurt.  I did't realize that I was living with constant pain until I stopped doing it. And to be honest, I love Cheer and I like diving more and more.  I don't regret quitting."

And with those words, I accepted that though I no longer had an elite gymnast, I had a beautiful child that learned how to move on from loss.  A child who understood that no one was going to live in her tiny little body or care for it after it was used and broken but her so she made a life changing decision and found the light at the end of the tunnel.  She was the ultimate champion, gold medal or not.

Halloween inspired drawing

Other digital art Ayden created

Ayden almost landed on her teammate who rolled out just in time

First competition.  The team will clean up the routine before competing in St. Louis in a few weeks.

One and a half front dive

Inward Flip

I believe in signs...

“I believe in signs....what we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect & attention to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take. When we are on the right path, we follow the signs, and if we occasionally stumble, the Divine comes to our aid, preventing us from making mistakes.”― Paulo Coelho

I went nearly my whole life without ever seeing an eagle up close.  Oddly enough, in the recent weeks, I have seen two Eagles.  I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's rewind back to a few years earlier.

The day we laid my maternal grandfather, Colonel Jonah Xu/ Nhia Xou Yang, to rest, it was a wet and gloomy day.  I remember an eagle was circling overhead and someone made a comment in passing that the eagle was grandpa.  No one thought about it again.  Then, on the day we laid to rest my great grandfather, my grandfather Yang's step father, it was noted that an eagle also circled overhead.

Once, maybe it's coincidence.  Twice? I have always been a big believer that people's energy/spirit lives on and is always with and around us.  That they will manifest themselves in physical ways to let us know they are with us and watching over us.  I believe the eagle was my grandfather's spirit.  Since those times, I haven't seen or thought about eagles again until these past two weeks.

On Thursday, October 10, I was dreading driving all the way up to Duluth for an event.  I was suppose to speak about my bill to eliminate child marriages but I didn't really understand the context I was speaking about it in.  I had a hard time finding the location because of construction and I was super tired from getting very little sleep.  All of which did not make for a pleasant day.

When I arrived, I learned that I would be speaking on a panel.  One of the panelist was Mike Peeblera, Director of the short Evie.  A story about forced child marriage.  This was Evie's debut screening.  Director Peeblera and the other panelists were amazing and the audience was engaged throughout the session.  They had genuine interest in my bill and the political will for this type of change.  I spent a bit of time afterwards speaking with the Director and completed a short interview for PBS.

I left that space feeling like this work matters.  I had to drive long distance and I was tired but the trip was worth it. On my home, driving down I35E, an enormous eagle flew down right in front of my car and carried away prey.  I couldn't help but feel like it was my grandfather validating that my work matters and that no time or energy is wasted on important work.

Then on Friday, October 25, I traveled down to Rochester to present with Lisa Archer, Director of the the birth center at United Hospital, on advocacy at the Minnesota Breastfeeding Coalition conference. Again, being a new legislator and having a new Legislative Aide, we did not know to ask all the questions needed in order to decide if I even have the right credentials to speak.  I mean I breastfeed two kiddos but I wasn't sure I was the right person to be sharing with professionals of this topic on how to do advocate for issues they deal with everyday.  I was dreading attending because I didn't want to let anyone down.

On my drive to Rochester, as I was traveling on Highway 52, another giant eagle swooped down right in front of my vehicle to scoop up prey off the side of the road.

I made my way to the conference and like Duluth, this event surprised me.  The feedback from conference goers was that the presentation was the perfect mix of stories that really resonated with them and factual knowledge that they could use to advocate for others.  One person stated that in all the years she had been coming, this was the first time she had ever heard women of color present and share their stories.  The presentation was so touching she had to fight back tears.  I gave her a big hug.

With both incidents, I was traveling at 70 miles per hour and yet the eagles came right across my path.  I saw them with great clarity.  I can't help but believe that it was my grandfather validating for me that I need to keep doing this work.  That it's hard but I gain as much doing it as I make an impact on others.

Because I believe in signs, I believe my grandfather is still with me and guiding me in my work and on my journey.

Our Roots

This post is dated January 3, 2016 however, I'm just posting it today, November 5, 2017 (It's been sitting in draft status all this time).  I have written so little in such a long time.  Moment after moment, lesson after lesson just fly by.  Though this is from a year and a half ago, I don't want to lose the lesson.  A lesson that seems timely considering Hmong New Year is just around the corner.

January 3, 2016
Today was a first for TeamHer.  We dressed up in Hmong clothing (well, we each wore an article that had Hmong embroidery on it) for New Year at church.  After the festivities, I taught Ayden how to re-pleat her Hmong skirt for safe storage until the next New Year.  Although I have done this very rarely in my youth, going through this process brought back a flood of memories and emotions.

I have fond and vivid memories of the time I spent with my grandma Vang.  My recollection is that we shared many moments gardening and doing needle work, but I am sure we probably only did it a few times.  Despite my distorted memory, what remains is that I learned how to ua paaj ntaub (Hmong embroidery) from her.  It was this process of learning that connected me to not only my grandmother but also my Hmong identity.

Needle work was not a "craft" back in Laos.  It was a necessity.  You had to know how to make thread from plants, weave the thread into cloth, dye the materials, and embroider using cross stitching.  This skill was vital for two reasons.  First and foremost, this was the only way to get clothes (if you had money you could buy clothing but most Hmong were farmers and could not afford this luxury). Second, it was a way to be industrious and make money.  When women were not cooking, tending to the children, or in the fields, they were making clothing.  Women often had one set of clothes which they wore to the New Year celebration and another which they wore everyday (less fancy version of their New Year’s outfit but similar in look).

Kong and I often talk about how quickly a family's history gets lost.  In just two generations, the struggles of our parents are just stories.  Our girls hear the words however, the intense emotions connected to those words are gone.  I have so little to show my girls about where they come from, their history, and who they are.  As we continue to achieve economic success, they identify more with being middle class Americans and grow further and further away from their cultural roots.

I understand that cultures evolve, change, and adapt so I am not surprised at what I am seeing however, there is a little part of me that is sad.  In just another generation, my grandfather Yang's legacy as a Colonel in the Secret War, my mother-in-law's story as a 14-year-old nurse caring for injured soldiers, my father-in-law’s role in US Aid, my parent's role in World Vision, and all those who lost their lives in the evacuation will only be stories.  Stories missing bits and pieces which could never paint the truth about loss, pain, suffering, love, and hope.

As Ayden and I sat quietly working on our skirts, I could not help but miss my grandma Vang.  I thought about how we take the moments we have with those we love for granted and our inability to recognize the impact of those moments on our identity.  I hope one day, when Ayden sees a perfectly bundled and re-pleated Hmong skirt, that she thinks about the day we shared and the hours spent quietly working.  I don't know what this moment impressed upon her, but my wish is that she finds a little piece of herself and her identity.

Threading the needle

Stitching each pleat back together using just a needle and thread

Pulling the thread through the pleat

A Wonderful Surprise

The Girls:  Jacklyn, Poungcha, Taylor, Lauryn, Ayden and Julia

Sometimes, when I think about how much I love children, I am overwhelmed with sadness.  Late at night, when the house is quiet, my heart fills with an indescribable feeling of longing for a household of kids.  I know that I have two biological children and that some people have none.  And it's not that I do not see how blessed I am, I really do.  Yet, that doesn't lessen the sorrow that I feel.  However, today, I had an 'a ha' moment.  Not the kind of moment where your consciousness finally aligns with what you have been told about something powerful.  This 'a ha' moment filled my soul in a way I have never felt before.

This past week, Kong and I accumulated a troop of teenage and preteen girls.  We had been staying up too late, eating too much, and playing way too hard.  After a long day of running other family members to doctors appointments, taking kids to activities, and fulfilling community obligations, we finally came home to the most beautiful and heartwarming surprise.  A birthday party our girls threw for Kong.

The girls started their day with a trip to the Mall of America (MOA).  After being kicked out of the mall for not being chaperoned by an adult (Jackie is 18 but apparently that was not sufficient for mall security), the girls decided to take the lightrail train home instead of calling to bother us for a ride (even though neither of us would have been able to accommodate).  Once home, they hatched a plan for a surprise birthday party for their dad/uncle.  By themselves, they got to the store, bought a cake, ice cream, a card, sparklers, and decorations for the house and then took public transportation home.  They then decorated the house and waited patiently for us to come home from our last event, of which we were late.  When their dad/uncle walked into the house, they jumped up from behind the center island, turned on the lights, and yelled surprise, Happy Birthday!

Indeed he was surprised.  The girls had paid for everything out of their own pockets, they carried a cake on the bus and they did all of this without anyone asking them to.  What touched me most was the beautiful cake and card which read, "From your 6 kids".  The cake also had an image representing us and each one of them.  My heart nearly burst.

 

 

Today, I learned two important lessons.  One, I need to worry less.  I eventually came to understand that my big girl paid for much of the transportation for her cousins and most of the party expenses by herself.  I often question if I have taught my kids the "right" things and whether I have modeled generosity, compassion, thoughtfulness, or understanding for my kids especially because I too am still working on these traits and sometimes model the opposite.  As I have stumbled through motherhood, I might have done better than I give myself credit for.

Two, I realize that while I may have only birthed two kids, I have so many more children than that.  I am a mother to all of these amazing young cousins, nieces, and nephews.  Hearing the girls retell their adventures of the day (which included their struggle with the lightrail ticket machine, the confectionery lady's look when they asked to have 6 kids drawn on the cake, the crusty check out lady at Target, and the strange looks from passengers on the train and bus coming home) and listening to each person's story as we reminisced about the past (Julia and Lauryn's separation anxiety when they were babies, Poungcha and Kongmongs extreme dislike of each other when they were young and how this has transformed into them being really "tight" in the words of Poungcha; how Jackie, because of proximity, was my first baby which I often stole from her parents to babysit), my heart was filled with contentment.

I am continually reminded of how God works and how his plan is often different than the plans I have for myself.  I am truly blessed and lucky beyond belief to have these beautiful souls in my life. Thank you girls.

Complete with streamers and all.

Truly a surprise.  Great job girls.

How they ended the evening.  Kong asleep and the girls being themselves.

Anna May Wong Who?

Rocking it Anna May Wong style

I'm not sure how many people feel the same way I do but I dreaded spirit week when I was growing up.  Every daily theme (except miss match day) was a struggle.  I'm sure this had something to do with the fact that I was poor.  I barely had enough clothes to rotate for the week let alone have extra stuff lying around to put together for spirit week.

Anyway, now that my kids no longer attend Montessori, we are presented with all of the "normal" school stuff that kids experience.  This week, the dreaded (for me, not my kiddo) spirit week.  Monday was pajama day (something I never understood because when you are poor, your regular clothes are your pajamas), Tuesday was Hollywood day, and today is miss match day.

Hollywood day posed a unique challenge for us.  Many kids had plans to come to school dressed as characters from movies.  As we prepared on Monday night, Ayden said to me, "Mom, what am I supposed to dress like?  No one in Hollywood or no characters that kids know look like me.  If I dress up, no one will make the connection.  That is unless I go as Mulan.  I don’t have a lot of options.”  (End sentence with a heavy sigh because she has first world problems).  Digging back into my archive of cool Asian things, I remembered a post by 18Million on Anna May Wong.  I showed Ayden some pictures and we read Anna May's bio.  She was sold.  We put together an ensemble that we hoped looked 1920ish. 

After school on Tuesday, I asked Ayden about her day.  She said no one knew who Anna May Wong was but it didn't matter to her.  She had a great day being someone who did something unheard of in a time when people who looked like her were not included or accepted and when the idea of beauty did not include Asian women.  Ayden had a wonderful day being a woman who was ahead of the times.  She wore Anna May Wong loudly and proudly.