tick-tock

I've been living the Howard Hughes life these past few months. Pure isolation. Just not worth getting out of the house and wasting time. It feels like I am waiting for something big to happen but time keeps on dragging. Each day I check the mail for a letter from the PTO with my registration information. But no mail in sight. So it's patent exam limbo land till whenever. Ugghh. Meanwhile, other things are going on that weighs on my heart and mind. My profession gives me a heavy heart and makes me wonder if it's even healthy for me. Compassion fatigue is the new classification for what many family lawyers go through. I just want to invent the next toothpick - floss, make a few million dollars and retire. Switch tracks. Clear the slate. I think that this will be the last case I'll have on my plate for a while. Right now, all I want to do is to go to quiet church and be anonymous with God. However, the blood sucking Lutheran churches in this town stress me out and they all have contact lists. Guess it'll just be the computer and more work and more waiting. Nothing worse than waiting. Why didn't I become a pharmacist?

The Past and Future

Summer is finally around us in Sheboygan and everyone is desperately accomplishing as much sun-filled activities as possible. This is Kaolin's first summer in which she can actually stretch her legs, run around and be a free soul. I'm so excited for her and am trying not to be too much of a hermit so that she can get her fill of sunny days. The winter here is too long and some years, too dark.

Two days ago, I had an epiphany. It was the most perfect day I'd experienced in a long long while. After pouring over my books for 6 gruelling hours, I went for a 2 mile jog. I felt so balanced. My mind, body and spirit were humming in harmonious connection that afternoon. Following the run, I decided to water the plants. And that lead me into a meditation...we live in a very nice simple place. Simple is a luxury so many people would pay anything for. I am living the Winslow Homer life. I don't know why I hadn't seen it before?

This morning I entered the restroom and was caught off-guard by a long forgotten familiar flowery scent. It was from a brand of body soap we hadn't purchased in a long time. I was instantly seized and transferred to another place, in the tiled bathroom of our old Dobbs Ferry apartment. It was my second year in law school, our best friend Nancy Casadone lived downstairs, autumn was long and brilliant, we'd walked to our favorite local diner on Sundays and spend lazy afternoons reading over coffee at the bookstore...we'd take monthly escapes to the city and meander for hours through the Metropolitan Museum. Those days seem like a golden haze that's so far away, like another carnation of myself in another dimension separated by a glass wall, by time. I miss the spicey scent of fall in New York. I miss those drives through the greenary of the Saw Mill parkway and exploring Connecticut's country side. Mostly, I lament the fact that I am growing old and that those memories are now lost to time, with no witness or souveniers. Only our memories.

Life, at a certain point, becomes measured by achievements and action rather than by ticking minutes. Two years can go by and if the goal is simply focused on just one matter, that goal being met, you are effectively on the right track. This November marks our fifth year in Sheboygan. What a whirlwind experience that's been slow in the making. These past five years ticked by with an eternity of seconds. Yet I don't know how I managed to squeeze everything in. Clay and I are now talking about the next phase in our lives. I wonder how it will unfold.

It's Friday and the last day of a gruelling 3 day training session. My mind is mash potato and my emotion is spaghetti. I sit with my computer to the corner of the conference room, relegated here by plug access. Not totally isolated since I'm sitting next to two other people. But these past 3 days has been a constant intellectual and emotional battle against myself, against the purpose of this course, and against the purpose for why these other lawyers are here as well. We are being trained in mediation. It's quickly occurring to me that divorce mediation is a business practice in counseling and lawyering by lawyers who aren't counselors and are forbidden to act as lawyers.

Going Solo

This week, I am starting my own law firm. I have my first potential client. And, the phone, fax, email, website, and malpractice insurance are close to materializing. Those close to me are excited for me. There are some in town who are a little confused as to what it means for a Kohler-wife to start up her own business in Sheboygan. Is it for the purpose of getting me out of my important and busy husband's way while occupying me part time...an expensive hobby? Is it another one of my crazy endeavors to find legitimacy in this crazy town? I don't know, but the awkward inarticulate questions and the glazed half interested looks confuse me sometimes.



I was originally planning on studying for the patent bar first and then launch my portable family law and patent law practice immediately after getting the exam out of the way. Seemed logical enough at the time. Then I get a call from a potential client this weekend, only a week after quitting. It makes sense to begin now afterall, since you have to prepared for success if it comes your way. I'll be ready to take on some pro bono work as well. This reminds me of the fortune cookie that B got during my going away lunch at the office. It said something to the effect of, "If you want to fish, first you must go home to build your net." B laughed and thought it was the worst fortune cookie grammar he's seen yet. I gave it some thought and felt that it was pretty much right. I have to quit my job, go home and build my own business if I really want to find success in my career. I should have collected everyone's fortune cookie that day. They were all eerily approprote.



So, the story continues with this next chapter in my life. The most surprising part of it is how comfortable I feel so far moving quickly in my own direction and building my own solo practice. It actually feels very natural. And the unknown with regards to what I may encounter with my own inexperience doesn't scare me so much anymore. I've realized from the last two years of practice that I can handle nearly anything that comes my way and my own gutt has served me well as a true guidepost.

Fifteen minutes before court and my stomach is erupting with butterflies. I've prepared so thoroughly for this case for the past six months that I'm surprised how nervous I feel right now. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that today is the finale to a long drawn out matter. Under the butterflies is a pillow of calm. I've done my best.

A note to my daughter. One day, you will be ten years old and for the first time you will be big enough to feel your own individuality. Your highly evolved human brain will begin to mature with nascent cynicism and the sun that use to follow me will now be casting shadows. A restless atmosphere will overcome you on occassion. On those such days, you may want to sit alone and sit and stare out the window. I hope on those such occassions you ponder the world stretched out far before you but not forget that we remain connected. As you stretch your arms out, you may need to do so to push me away. For the connection of our souls may become burdensome to your confused heart. If you are my daughter, I know you will have to run away to learn the meaning of life. As myself, you will never stop asking. I don't want to spoil the fun by giving you the answers. We are together pieces on a chain, an ancestry of strong willed women. Each link measuring out the strength of our evolution. It is only natural for you to leave your origin in order to find your own reconnection point. I will be there with my hands stretched out when you come full circle.

It's February 14, 2010. Valentines Day and Chinese New Year happens to fall on the same day this year. To celebrate, I'm making a special - decievingly complicated provincial brined chicken with a ginger and scallion slaw. It's both traditional and our favorite since our first taste of unadulerated Chinese food in New York City.

New Year in Sheboygan is such a non-event. There is only a spritz (not even a sprinkle) of Chinese and Vietnamese people in this town. We know that the other exists through our connection at the Hmong Union Asian Supermarket. The Union market is the glue that bonds all eastern Asians within a 50 mile radius of here. It's a mystery to the store owner and I where these rare Chinese people reside though. They've only been sighted in the back kitchens of the Chinese buffet and to-go restaurants and a couple of the Thai restaurants restaurants around town. We suspect they live further north towards Manitowoc and Greenbay. On a day like today, I miss the buzz of people in the market shopping for prized flowers, fruits, vegetables and meats for the big feasting and celebration at home. I use to complain about the chaos found in Asian communities. Now, I feel lonely without its homely familiarity.

Kaolin celebrates her 17th month birthday today. The plan originally was to go all out with the traditional fare but the week got in the way. With two trials less than 6 weeks away, I felt a bit obligated to head to the office for a few hours this morning. But ofcourse, I didn't have my cell phone so I couldn't call my boss to figure out the new passcode to the office door and after the third try, was totally locked out of the key pad entirely. Maybe Grandma was telling me that I should really be enjoying this important spiritual day of my ancestor's with my new family. So backwards I went on my trail to the supermarket for plump chicken, spices and a bottle of Cakebread wine for honey. Inspiration got the best of me so I ran to the Union market and found a package of red envelope and a plate of sugar cured coconut candy to go along with the rare kamkuates that was on sale at Walmart.

I couldn't help but get teary eyed on my ride back and forth between stores. The more authentic ingredients I was able to obtain, the more old forgotten pieces of New Year and my childhood was resurrected. The day's homesickness started with an episode of Anthony Bourdaine's travel through Los Angeles' Thai town. For the first time in my life, I missed being surrounded and lost in a sea of Asian Americans. For better or for worst, I want to relate with my ethnic peers again. Times have changed and we have become our own people in the United States. I am now a mother, a professional and a part Asian - part American woman. The period of identity crisis from a decade ago is come and gone and today, we look at each other with a sense of knowing and with less likelihood of judgment. We are grown up now and I want to share the better part of the coming experiences with my familiar, those who can laugh at the inside jokes.

I know only 3 sets of Chinese people in Sheboygan. A distant Kohler colleague of Clay's in the marketing department, a Kohler engineer and his wife-kids-mother who live down the street, and the Thai-Chinese woman who runs the Thai Cafe. I discovered for the first time that she is in fact 100% Chinese except that she grew up in Thailand. Her husband is American and she also has lost touch with New Year celebration primarily because she has no other family nearby to celebrate the tradition with. To cheer each other up, we wished each other happy New Year in our familiar language and for a second, was standing on the footsteps of our mother's and grandmother's kitchen door way, smelling boiled brined chicken and hearing the clangs of women working for hours over pots of gastronomical delights.

So Gung Hai Fat Choi and San Lien Fai Loc from Sheboygan.