a w a k e : t o : d r e a m

People have asked me what the name of the site means, and since it is meaningful to me, I don’t mind sharing it (I am not the mystery woman that Finslippy is). It is not:

- a new-agey type of mantra
- a fantasy novel
- a new concept for meditation

In reality, awaketodream was sort of the last, easiest to remember option for blog names that I could think of when I moved my blog over from it’s previous incarnation, the coaster, hosted on blogger. (excuse me while I cough snidely in derision.) My first blog after I removed my blogger training wheels way back in July of 2003 was sleeplessinsurrey.net. At the time I lived in an adorable ikea-themed basement apartment and was fighting off an impending illness the likes of which would change my life completely.

Good time to start a blog.

Sleepless in surrey came about because I lived in surrey, a very large city south of Vancouver, BC, and I felt safe enough

I just love the new(ish) “webclip” feature in gmail which adds a link to the top of the inbox featuring a headline from a recently updated website for news, entertainment, blogging, etc. I’m sure it’s just another fee-per-click advertising ploy, but I’ve read some really interesting articles I would never have seen otherwise through this feature.

Case in point: When Terrorists Go Mainstream, by Monica Duffy Toft, published in the Boston Globe and reprinted in the International Herald Tribune.
This is a really interesting article (somewhat) free from the usual rhetoric around patriotic buzzwords, dealing with the surprise Americans seem to be feeling that Hamas swept the recent democratic elections in Palestine. The real point of the article is bringing to light the fallacy that most Americans believe - that as far as “rogue nations” go, democracy = peace.

Ahhh, from the halls of academic research, where you may be highly educated, but it doesn’t make you smart:

Measuring the direct impact of war on health is difficult. Pre-war baseline data is scarce, collecting reliable information during a war is often dangerous, or even impossible, and official statistics come from a deficient health information system. Within these constraints, we will present the available information, which strongly suggests a negative impact on children’s health.

Cliff J, Noormahomed AR. The impact of war on children’s health in Mozambique. Social Science and Medicine, 36(7) 1993.
italics mine.
Since when did we not know that war is bad for kids?

The ending of Alias is so unsatisfying. There is no real catharsis, no clearly understood growth, and only a fraction of moving on. Perhaps this is more reflective of real life, but in the world of children’s literature, where nearly every story has a message, and every book is an opportunity to teach something, it seems so pointless to inflict so much pain upon reader and child character alike without a genuine conclusion.

In the end, the parents have a horrible fight, calling each other names, throwing blame around, both recognizing only their own hurt. The children watch in horror from the stairs, and then take cover in a room together like soldiers in a trench. Realizing what they’ve done in front of their children, both Daniel and Miranda collapse, emotional and defeated. Daniel finally takes some of Miranda’s criticism to heart and goes home to scrub his flat, getting emotional and weepy over the socks he finds sprinkled throughout:

“Every now and again, he came upon an odd sock, and slipped it gratefully into his pocket. The straying socks of children of divorce, he thought, were very possibly the twentieth-century equivalent of all those olive brances of biblical times.” (p. 184)

…Finally, the children get stubborn, drag Miranda over to Daniel’s house and set up a discussion time while their parents are still humiliated by their nuclear fight. Concessions are made on both sides and the book ends with tentative acts of friendship.

This book has one or two moments of realistic introspection, such as Daniel’s “sock moment,” however they feel somewhat contrived found next to the ridiculousness of the rest of the novel. I just have no idea what this author was thinking with this book. It isn’t funny, nor does it accomplish a decent “issue” discussion. It seems to stand alone as a great example of parental irresponsibility and ugliness and childhood trauma.

In what may be the only true connection present in this storyline, I finally see what the author might be trying to say with this book. At one point near the end, Lydia shows up on her father’s doorstep after the horrible fight between Daniel and Miranda “on principle,” because it was Tuesday Teatime, and that was her father’s day to have them over. They start to argue and Lydia makes the point that if there is nothing really left of the marriage, then the only purpose they have at all is to do what is right for the kids - they are the only ones left to salvage, and the fighting isn’t helping anything. This reminds me so much of the conversation the kids and Daniel had about why he couldn’t simply “act” his way through the marriage in order for things to work. It’s not worth it to salvage a marriage, for Daniel to act simply to make it work… they need to start looking to what is best for the children so that they can get away from how hurt they (Daniel and Miranda) are. It seems like a simple message (and one I could probably have guessed) but again, it’s a shame that more time was given in this novel to gruesome pantomimes from Daniel about nefarious ways to maim his ex-wife.

Alias Madame Doubtfire, for all of its sad, childish, parental nuclear fighting, seems more suited to our “reality” reading list. As the story goes along and the reader is exposed to more of the family situation, Madame Doubtfire’s appearance in Miranda’s household, and the subplots of “life drawing” and Miranda’s unintended storytelling about the marriage, it reminds me more and more of Melinda’s perspective of the dysfuntional adults in her life in Laurie Halse Andersen’s Speak. As much as confused observation of adult behaviour is a theme in young teen fiction and beyond, I feel as if this is a strong similarity between Alias and Speak, and based on this and the strong issues of divorce, fighting and family violence that are dealt with in this story puts this book more solidly in the Realism genre than humour.

There is some weak, inappropriate and mean-spirited humor in this book, but it is buried by the much larger issues and problems being dealt with. The humor in this book might as well be a weak attempt to distract from what’s really happening, both in the plot itself and in the writing.

For the most part, reading Madame Doubtfire involves a grimace, one eye shut tight and a lip bitten slightly to prevent outbursts of protest. I have read this far in the book holding it far from myself, half in disbelief at what I was reading. But there have been one or two moments of lucidity among the bitter outbursts and tears of alarm. I’m really fascinated with the discussion that Daniel and his older children have about Madame Doubtfire just before Daniel wrote his letter of resignation. The older children felt that it was getting to awkward, too hard to spend time with their real father while he was being Doubtfire and too difficult to relax lest the secret get out. Their talk with their father about acting seemed to be the absolute heart of what the whole book was about, and I found myself wishing that this discussion was developed more, and that the questions it raised actually investigated and addressed.

I think almost every child who experiences a divorce wonders why the parent who leaves couldn’t have stayed longer, worked harder or pretended a bit to make it work, and this question what Daniel and his kids in Madame Doubtfire wrestle with in a rare moment of reality. I can completely understand that question, especially in the light of the acting that Daniel is doing as Madame Doubtfire already - it’s hard to understand why he couldn’t accomplish the job in his own skin.

I’m so sad for this family. Just this one exchange made the children seem more three-dimensional as characters, desperately wanting their father to be able to make it work with their mom. I think it shows how immature Daniel is as a parent that instead of understanding what it is that they were really wanting (i.e. understanding of why a marriage can’t be held together by determination, affirmation that he’s still willing to go to whatever lengths to keep their childhood together. I wonder why it is that Daniel can’t see it - I suppose that he is still blinded by his bitterness, but when his kids lay it all out so plainly it just makes me shake my head. I can’t help thinking that if this were indeed reality that parents like these would have caught on long ago. It simply contributes to the unbelieveability of the novel.

The plot of Alias Madame Doubtfire is simple - family split up, kids are sad, parents hate each other, dad disguises as nanny, much tension ensues. However, it is the children’s characters who add real substance to the book. They are so easy to relate to, and so pitiful at the same time. It really makes me wonder how this novel is classified as humour especially considering the subject matter. It just doesn’t seem very funny.

Lydia, as the oldest child, takes on the typical “divorced child” role as the spokesperson, shepherd and chief defender of her younger siblings. Christopher is the middle child, stuck between adolescent maturity and childhood innocence - his reaction to the tensions in his world is a mixture of both. But Natalie - Natty - is the one who really breaks my heart. She’s barely school aged and all she can do is cry and hide from all of the anger.

It is Natty I most relate to. There was a time in my family’s life when my parents were less than comfortable with each other. I was 6 or 7ish, the youngest of four children, and mystified by all of the yelling that was happening. The mahogany desk became my sanctuary. This period in our lives didn’t last long, but at the same time, I was discovering how many of my school friends had divorced - or divorcing - parents, and for years afterward, every raised voice, slammed door, or grumbling look gave me the same anxious feeling. Now that I’m older I realize that though things were tough, my parents were committed to figuring out their differences, and that much of the tension was due to financial pressures - my childhood fears seem almost funny to me now. The thing is, reading this book makes me realize that if I, as the youngest child of a strong family could have such a reaction to a tense time in life, then what of the youngest child of a familial WWIII?

When I was a child, I hated loud noises. I would run from the vacuum cleaner or the sound of someone yelling. When the vacuum cleaner was running or mom and dad were fighting, I would sit in the kneehole under my favourite mahogany desk with my hands over my ears.

Reading Alias Madame Doubtfire, I find myself looking for that mahogany desk and its welcoming darkness. I think I read through the first section, around three chapters, holding my breath and cringing. I can’t believe this book was ever made. Just about from the beginning of the first chapter, the whole story involves a bitter father with a sense of humor coping with his three kids on his nights for custody, all the while saying horrible things about her and miming various methods of homicide.

This book is painful. I don’t really know if I want to finish it. I keep expecting there to be signs of a change of heart, but it’s nowhere in sight. It’s such a horrible cycle and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be so graphic about such a relationship as this one in a book. On the other hand, I’m sure it’s nice for kids who are really facing this situation at home to look into a situation they relate to and see some humor. Unfortunately, I find the humor quite gallows and mostly too weak and not appropriate enough to overcome the painful circumstances. I can only feel so sorry for those kids! Maybe it’s my background betraying me - I’m not sure I could fathom being shuttled from one parent to another, having to choose between two bitter people and deal with their distance and lack of reason.

Even though I already know what the storyline is from having seen the movie as a kid, I’m still shocked at the sheer mean-spirited nature of the adults in this book and their careless attitude about what it does to the kids. This is not a book I would either read to children, nor want to teach with it. This book is the unsanitized, less-funny version of the movie, so far.