Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Funny, but just after writing my last post about working harder to be content with what we have I started reading a new book by Grace Lin called Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. It is a truly wonderful read about a young girl who goes on a quest to find the Man of the Moon so she can ask him how she can change the fortune of her poor family. Along the way she meets a variety of animals and people who help her along her way. The book is filled with many smaller folk stories that help to advance the story. I'm going to share one of my favorites here as it seems to speak so well to my earlier post.

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The Story That Ma Told


Once there was a woman who had a kind husband and a beautiful daughter. A great mountain shadowed their home, making the land that they lived on poor and their house small. But there was always enough to eat, and the water always flowed in hot months, while a fire always burned during the cold ones. Yet the woman was not content.

The woman begrudged the barren mountain and the meager land and swallowed her plain rice with bitterness. She frowned at the humble cotton of their clothes and sighed in resentment at the tight rooms of the house.

Day after day, the woman grumbled. When she heard stories of treasures of gold and jade, she was filled with envy. "Why do we have nothing?" she sulked in frustration. "We have no treasures, no fortune. Why are we so poor?"

Her husband and daughter worked harder every day, hoping to bring wealth to their house. But the unfeeling land did not cooperate, and the house remained cramped, the clothes stayed modest, and there was always only just enough rice for the three of them. The woman also remained unhappy; her displeasure grew like weeds - uncontrollable and tangling.

The woman was so caught up in her dissatisfaction, she did not realize that she was planting seeds of discontent in her daughter as well. Until then, her daughter had been pleased with their life, but now she began to feel troubled. The rice that filled their bowls began to taste bland, the clothes she had liked for their colors now felt rough, and the house that she had run freely around in had become stifling.

Finally, unable to bear the growing frustration, the daughter stole away in the middle of the night - vowing not to return until she could bring a fortune back to her family.

And it was only then that the woman saw the stupidity of her behavior. For without her daughter, the house became too large and empty, and she was not hungry for the extra rice. As the days passed in loneliness, fear, and worry, the woman cursed herself for her selfishness and foolishness. How lucky she had been! She was at last able to see that her daughter's laughter and love could not be improved by having the finest clothes or jewels; that joy had been in her home like a gift waiting to be opened. The woman wept tears for which there was no comfort. For all the time that she had been longing for treasures, she had already had the one most precious.

Now wiser, the woman could do nothing but go to her husband, beg forgiveness for her actions, and hope to someday do the same with her daughter. She did not know if she would receive compassion from either, but she vowed she would wait for it. If necessary she would wait like the mountain that shadowed them.

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I would highly recommend this book to those of you building a summer reading list. Here is a trailer...

Naive Parenting 101

Tricia and I were so idealistic when first becoming parents. We had a strong vision for the types of parents we wanted to be, the relationships we wanted to build with our kids, the types of people we wanted them to grow to be. We (or at least I) thought everything could be carefully planned and executed. Cut-and-dry. Like plugging in a formula.

We prepared for parenthood. We cut back on things like TV and sports and cleaned up our diets. We read parenting books and closely watched other parents that we respected and admired. We looked into daycare possibilities only to decide after being exposed to a number of chain smokers and blaring television sets that one of us should just go ahead and stay at home.

Once Harper was born we started hoarding milk and soon after learned to make our baby food, free of dyes and additives. We rocked and sang and talked and read and hovered. Actually we did a lot of hovering. We were going to prove our worth as parents by spending every waking moment at Harper's side. This would be a decision that would come back to haunt us later (as she struggled to learn to play alone) but parenting is like that - you learn from your own mistakes. You just hope none of them are so big that you, or your child, can't recover.

When our first Christmas as a family rolled around we set a rule for our families: No more than one or two toys. "Buy books or CDs or add a little extra to her college savings," we pleaded, "But don't fill Harper's room, and life, with tons of toys." We didn't feel she needed a life of plenty, but a life of enough. This wasn't necessarily well-received by everyone. No one said anything, at least not verbally, but their body language spoke volumes. People like to buy gifts. I think it's, in part, because they feel kids need them to be happy. We sensed some people may have felt we were depriving our little girl. "The more you spend, the more you have... the happier you will be" is definitely a part of our culture. All of us who have the means live by this motto, if only at varying degrees.

Over the years I feel we've all but given in to this mindset. As we get ready to move to a new house in the coming weeks I look around at all we have accumulated (all of us)  in the past ten or fifteen years and it's too much. I wanted so badly for our kids to grow up with a sense of what it is to want for something. Certainly not food, water, or shelter but at least a new this or improved that. I didn't want everything to be at their fingertips or for them to ever feel entitled to anything. Instead, I see that when they are in "need" of something more often than not it is produced rather quickly - and in a shiny new package. This is wrong.

I was reminded of all this yesterday as I sat and listened to a presentation from a teacher who had just finished a three-year teaching stint in Vietnam (see Vietnam Days). She lived there with her husband and two small girls. Near the end of her presentation she showed a photograph of them leaving their apartment. Although she didn't make mention of it, I noticed that their belongings fit into four of five suitcases and a few backpacks. All of it. And yet they all looked awfully happy and fulfilled. From a global perspective they had plenty. From our perspective they maybe had enough.

Ours is a world of multiple belongings that serve the same purpose: computers, i-pads, and wi/fi phones, gaming systems for home play and gaming systems that are portable, collections of guitars that offer not only different sounds but different styles, colors, and finishes, or chairs specialized for the porch, the campfire, and the beach. I'm not saying that any of these these are necessarily wrong or that I don't enjoy some of them. I do.

But I wonder where we draw the line. I wonder when enough becomes plenty and when plenty becomes too much. I wonder when "I want" becomes "I need" and when "I need" becomes "I'm entitled to." I wonder how "I'm entitled to..." shapes our policies and changes how we see and react to the needs of our own community and the world.

There are many times when I think I was naive to ever believe we could create a small vacuum in which  accumulating stuff wasn't so important. How could I possibly expect it from anyone else when I continually fall into the same traps myself? I don't, for a second, think that it is necessary, or even noble, to live a life void of  the things you want. But I do think there's a line that needs to be drawn, somewhere. There should be a point at which we feel content with what we have.

Perhaps we need to find that point for ourselves before we can even begin to think about teaching it to our kids.

Needful Things

A few months ago, when we were just beginning to look into building a home, Tricia and I contacted a builder to see about coming in to ask some questions. Our goal was to see how much it would cost to build a house that would provide shelter for four adults, four children, and one very large dog. The salesman asked us to create a list, before coming in, of the things we needed as well as the things we wanted in a house.

This was hard.

"What does he mean by 'what we need?'" I asked afterward.

"I don't know," Tricia answered.

So we did what we usually do when we're unsure or uneasy about a task - we put it off. Days and days went by. A few times I sat down at the computer and tried to start brainstorming things but to no avail. I didn't know how to get started. I grew up in a series of small two-bedroom apartments and houses. Our living space was fairly tight compared to what most  Americans have come to expect but we still had a kitchen, bathroom, living room, laundry, and bedrooms - the real "needs" of a house. Should we list more than this as something we absolutely had to have? A garage? Playroom? An open floor plan?

The fact was that we certainly didn't need these things to survive...but we did need them to make going through the process of building a new home worthwhile. This was a chance to get a few things right that we failed to think of four-and-a-half years ago when moving into the suburbs of Northeast Columbia. We wanted less dead space. And rather than a sun room we wanted a screened porch that would allow us to eat outside without having to wage war with an endless army of flies.

There were things we really liked about the house we have now that we wanted in a new home as well. Hardwood floors, open spaces, natural light, a big kitchen with plenty of counter space, and a decent sized front porch. These things were, of course, all "wants." There wasn't a legitimate "need" to be found anywhere on the list. But within the context of what we were trying to do they felt a bit like needs.

I really think our concept, as Americans, of needs versus wants is quite skewed. As skewed as our sense of entitlement to many things. Most likely, the two are closely related. I've always thought of myself as a minimalist. I like to joke that if I lived alone I'd probably have bare walls with lots of empty spaces. I  imagine one comfortable chair with a collection of folding lawn furniture surrounding it. Just in case I had company.

The reality, however, is that I have two bikes (mountain and road), a scooter (foot, not motor), and roller blades. One could argue they all serve the same purpose. I also have three guitars (acoustic, classical, and electric). They definitely serve the same purpose. Even my backpacking stuff, which would lead you to think is the ultimate in minimalism, is growing to be quite specialized and expansive. The combination of pack, tent, and gear take up probably half of my closet space with other outdoor paraphernalia stuffed under beds and in corners around the house. I'm definitely not a pack rat (I still wear the same three or four pair of pants and five shirts to school every week and keep very few things for sentimental reasons) but in a global sense I have a lot.

The kids do too. I see this when they struggle to figure out where to keep their toys, stuffed animals, and other things. I know they have probably half of what most middle class kids have but still I cringe every Christmas when I think about where all these new pieces of plastic are going to go.

A few days ago my growing sense of "We have too much stuff!!!" came to a head. I was trying to find my shoes in the front closet and found that over the past few weeks and months it had become littered with what seemed like a million pairs of kid shoes. I marched out to the garage where we keep an "overflow" bucket of shoes and drug it back in. Slightly larger than a recycle bin, I dumped the overflow bucket out and began pairing up the shoes and laying them out in the art room floor. I carefully lined up all little girl shoes in one row and little boy shoes in another. I placed all the boots at one end, grouped the tennis and sports shoes in the middle, and put sandals and flip flops at the other end. When I finished with the bucket I returned to the front closet and began emptying it to add to the rows.

"What are you doing?" Muluken asked as he made his way down the stairs.

"We're playing shoe store," I answered. "Everyone gets a shopping bag and shops for only the shoes they really want and need."

"Oh." He headed back to the closet to help.

Pretty soon the rest of the kids came down with Tricia.

"Oh my," Tricia said when she saw that the front room had turned into what appeared to be a shoe stockroom.

"Not my flip flops!" Harper shouted, knowing the game of shoe store only too well. She went running across the room to protect her most prized possession in the whole wide world. "You're not getting rid of my flip flops!"

"I'm not getting rid of anything," I assured her. "You are."

Soon I started pulling out all of my shoes and making a row just for me. Embarrassingly, it stretched almost across the entire room as well. As I finished up my row I noticed that Tricia was beginning to pull out her shoes also. Now, I'm not stupid. I was not about to suggest that Tricia size up her shoe collection against the rest of ours. I was certain this would be seen as an attempt to guilt her into going without a shoe for every occasion. One of the reasons we hardly ever get upset with one another is because we work to avoid pushing each others' buttons. At least most of them.

"Where's the camera," I asked. "I want to take pictures of all these shoes."

"You're going to put this on your blog, aren't you?" Tricia asked, looking as though maybe I was about to push one of those buttons.

"Heck yeah!" I gloated.

I crawled down onto my belly trying to get all those shoes in one shot but it was impossible. I grabbed a piece of paper and had the kids help me tally up everything.

"Now before you write anything," Tricia warned, "I want you to know that I've only bought three pairs of shoes since we moved here."

"Okay," I said. "How many girls shoes are there Harper?"

"Forty-two."

"My gosh!" I exclaimed. "That's a lot. Definitely more than two little girls need!"

"And also," Tricia continued, "I had some of those in a bag in my closet to donate. I do not have nearly as many shoes as most..."

"Tricia, I didn't say a word," I interrupted. "I haven't said anything at all about your shoes; yet,  I feel like I'm on the defensive."

"We have fifteen dad!" shouted Muluken.

"Huh, that's a lot less than forty-two. Perhaps the female fascination with shoes is a learned behavior," I suggested. Because I'm that dumb.

Tricia finished putting her shoes out and said, "Look, I don't have that many more shoes than YOU do!"

She was right. I counted my shoes and saw that I had twelve pair. She had twenty.

"And some of mine were bagged for Goodwill so we probably had about the same amount!" she boasted.

Between the four of us we had eighty-nine pairs of shoes. That's a lot. One could argue that shoes have become a need of our everyday lives. But not eighty-nine pairs. This was ridiculous. From the smallest member of our family to the largest, we all had more than we needed.

"Okay, everyone pull out the shoes they definitely don't want anymore - either because they're too small, too torn up, or you never wear them," I directed. The girls started carrying armloads over to the wall by the stairs. The boys, perhaps too excited by the task, tried to unload just about every pair of shoes they had.

I looked down my row at my twelve sets of shoes. One pair of beat up lawn mowing shoes. Hiking boots. Tennis shoes. "Dress" shoes. Sandals. Crocs for camping. Cycling shoes with a plastic cleat on the bottom. Water shoes. It seemed I had one pair of shoes for just about any activity you could ever want pursue. I pulled out an old pair of hiking boots, an extra pair of sandals, and another pair of shoes I didn't even remember having. I had reduced my shoe count by 25% yet still had nine pair. I wanted to get rid of more but kept convincing myself that I really did NEED all those shoes for one reason or another.

In the end we wound up getting donating about 37 pairs of shoes. Tricia was right. She really didn't have that many shoes. Certainly not as many as just about every woman in her family, and mine.

My mom sat on the outskirts of this little show watching quietly. Muluken asked her at one point if she was going to bring down her shoes.

"OH NO," she was quick to respond. "I'm not putting my shoes into rows!" I suspected she was watching to see if I was going to do or say something stupid. Somehow I hadn't.

After we bagged the old shoes up and put all the keepers neatly away into the closet and bucket my mom disappeared. About half an hour later she reemerged.

"Alright, you guys inspired me to go through my own shoes," she said. "I found a number of shoes I don't need anymore. I put them in a bag and set them by the door with your bags."

"How many did you have?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you," she laughed. "More than twenty!"

We still have far more than we need. But in the end we were able to lighten our loads just a bit and free up some room around the house.  Maybe even enough for a fourth guitar!

Swimming with Sharks

There are certain things in life that very few people, if any, ever seem to enjoy. Visiting the dentist. Receiving mail from the IRS. Seeing the doctor reach for a latex glove.These experiences are so universally terrible that they often become the subject of sarcastic statements such as: "Oh I'd love to spend our final week of vacation this year visiting your Aunt Edna May. I imagine it'll be about as much fun as a root canal!"

However, there's a certain camaraderie that comes from shared misery. Who doesn't like to playfully gripe with friends, or even strangers, about lengthy traffic jams or aggravating phone solicitations? If nothing else, these experiences pull us together as they provide a common foe.

I had the opportunity last night to enjoy one such experience. A visit to the car dealership. The lease on our van will soon expire and we were contacted by Dodgeland of Columbia to bring it in so that they could inspect it. I suspected they would want to check the mileage, look for excessive scratches or dents, and check to make certain the engine was running smoothly. While I can't say that this was necessarily how I wanted to spend the Friday night of what had been a long and exhausting week, the dealership didn't offer weekend appointments so I had little choice.

I can't say that it was the visit to the dealership, though, that had me bummed out. While I would have loved to have a relaxing night at home, I kind of enjoyed the prospect of meeting with the salesman to figure out whether we should purchase our leased van outright or look into buying a new one. Ugh, what kind of person enjoys doing business with a car salesman? Me, evidently.

It wasn't always this way. Our first few car purchases were from a Saturn dealership in St. Louis. Saturn offered a "no haggle" policy and had some of the friendliest salesmen you could ever imagine - each costumed in matching pairs of casual khakis and a polo shirt. When each of our "college" cars gave out (mine an old sputtering Pontiac hatchback and Tricia's a Ford Escort) we made an appointment with the very same salesman - Gary Tamme. We appreciated the opportunity to find a car without having to worry about being taken advantage of - or at least being taken any more advantage of than every other customer.

A few years passed and Harper was born. Not long afterward I quit my teaching gig to stay home and play Mr. Mom, also babysitting a friend's baby to help make ends meet. Then came Ainsley. Just a few months later we started the process of bringing Ty home and it quickly became obvious that our two little Saturns were no longer going to get it done. There were kids everywhere! Although the thought of driving a minivan was less than enticing it was, none-the-less, a necessity.

Since we didn't really have the money for a new van we searched the internet for a used one. After a few weeks of searching we found a couple we liked on Car Soup and drove out to see them. We opted for the Caravan and pretty much paid full asking price from the guy who was selling it. His asking price was pretty consistent with what the Kelly Blue Book said it was worth and we weren't much in the practice of negotiating deals anyway. It was probably a good thing we didn't have the money for a new van because a real salesman would have taken us for all we're worth.

A  few years later we moved to Columbia and found ourselves in need of a car -again. I researched and researched and found out that buying a car at a dealership didn't actually have to be all that bad of an experience. In fact, it could be fun. And fair.

I found out how much the dealerships pay for the cars. I learned how much other car buyers here in South Carolina were paying on average for the same cars we were looking at. I read about the subtle scams that dealerships sometimes try to pull to get anywhere from a few extra hundred to a few extra thousand dollars. I printed all this out, slipped it into a folder, and visited the Honda dealership knowing, already, exactly which car I wanted and how much I would pay for it. Amazingly, it worked!

So heading over to Greystone Boulevard this past Friday I didn't feel too bad. I knew we had leverage (we could buy the leased van, look at a new Dodge, or completely walk away and look at other dealerships). I also knew that times are really bad for car sales and that the dealership would (I hope) be much more focused on pleasing the customer and moving cars than turning people away with underhanded practices.

The first thing I expected as I pulled in to the lot and stepped out of the van was to be smothered by a salesman before I even hit the sidewalk. However, after tidying up the van (stashing a slew of broken crayons, pencils, and toys under the seats) I hopped out of the van and noone was there to hassle me. I was shocked.

I made it inside the doors until finally someone came over and asked if I needed any help. It turned out to be the salesman, Eric, that I had an appointment with. Eric was an older African American guy who insisted on calling me "Mr. Chris" - think Morgan Freeman saying  "Come on now Ms. Daisy. Let me drive you down to the Piggly Wiggly!" I wasn't real comfortable with the whole Mr. Chris thing but let it go on too long to comfortably protest.

Eric sat down with me and laid out all the financials of my options. He explained the fees associated with turning the van back in (a $500 fee for having replaced two tires and a $450 fee for giving it back), gave me the price for buying the van outright ($12,500), and offered to show me a new model that closely matched our current van. He spent about two minutes asking if I'd like to upgrade to video monitors or automatic sliding doors but quit rather quickly after I provided him my "I don't like cell phones, video games, or devices designed for lazy people" speech.

He showed me a new van that was exactly like ours except that it had a roof rack and Satellite radio. I saw on the sticker that it was $25, 540. However, there was also a side sticker with other charges that brought the price up to around $29,000. When we came back in to his office, which was no more of a barren cubicle with his nameplate sitting on a non-descript file cabinet, he went off to speak with his manager. I sat and wrote down everything he had said to me up to this point and recorded all the important figures. A little later he came back and explained that they were offering a $1500 rebate for returning customers as well as 0% financing on five year loans or 1.9% for six year loans. Careful never to share an actual sales price, he explained that our monthly payment would be very similar to our current lease payment.

I sat and thought about that. I had read that this was a common trick. Salesmen share monthly payments which allow them to add costs in by stretching out the term of your loan, thus keeping your payment low.

"Okay," I said. "I have a question."

"Shoot," he said.

"Is this monthly payment calculated on the $25,540 I saw on the sticker or the $29,000 based on the other costs on that side sticker? Because I've never had to pay the price on that side sticker before."

He paused and then started laughing really hard. It kind of took me by surprise because I wasn't sure if he was attempting to laugh with me or at me.

"That's a good question Mr. Chris," he bellowed. "A very good question! I'll be right back."

He went to the cubicle next door and I could overhear him recounting the conversation with his boss. Soon he came back and showed me that these monthly payments had been calculated based on a selling price of $24,040. This was the $25,540 on the original sticker minus the promised rebate. I couldn't believe it. He didn't even try to get me to purchase it for the higher listed price.

"You go on home and talk about it with your wife and call me in the morning to let me know what you want to do, either way," he said. "But the 0% financing ends on the 30th which is next Thursday so you probably want to make a decision soon."

I thanked him and drove back home. At first I felt as though I had really accomplished something. I knew we could buy the lease van and have it paid off in just a few years or get the new van, pay a very fair price, and feel comfortable that it would last us the next ten years - at which time we'd no longer need a van.

But then reality hit me. Wait a minute, I thought. I didn't negotiate anything. I was so surprised that he was offering a price lower than what I had anticipated that I gladly accepted his offer as fair. I was pretty sure I'd been fooled.

I came home and Tricia and I discussed it. We thought a new van made a lot of sense because we would save about $3000 in financing costs and purchase the "last minivan of our lives." I went back to the computer and researched some more. I found out that Dodge was the only dealership offering a financing incentive (worth thousands of dollars over five or six years) and that other dealerships didn't allow customers to use both a rebate AND financing incentive in combination. It was usually an either/or.

I searched to see how much people in our area pay for the minivan he showed me and it was $23, 522. This was about $500 less than what the deal I thought I was getting. My heart dropped a bit. I thought this was all going to be so easy.

The next morning he called as soon as he got into the office and I told him about the price difference. He told me he'd talk with his manager and after about two or three more calls he agreed to the lower price, the rebate, and the 0% financing. It all worked out.

Tricia and I went in on Saturday and left a little over an hour later with our new van. There was no last minute sales pitch for an extended warranty or undercoating or any of those other add ons. They just had us test drive the van, sign the papers, and walk out.

So perhaps there's hope. If buying a new car can be so pain free maybe we can begin to expect more from our universal adversaries. Maybe we can even expect a Christmas card this year from the IRS. With a fat check inside.