Small Talk and My Tattoos

I just turned 40. Instead of blowing a good chunk of mortgage money on a sports car and a matching Coach bag to drive up to a mountain spa to get drunk with my high school girlfriends, a very sensible thing to do to do by the way, I drove the kid and I to a playdate with expat moms I don't know. These women from all corners of the world timidly arrive, sizing up the host's home, comparing it in their mind with what they've managed to find in this foreign country and pry their kids off their legs directing them to a pile of toys. Coffee and sweets are served and small talk begins interrupted regularly by the kids asking for help to put on a Spiderman cape or to go to the washroom. We share "our story", the country were from, how long we've been here, how long we'll stay, our husband's job, where to find peanut butter or yoga classes, and which school our kids attend. There's awkward silences broken by new rounds of coffee being poured.

My kid is seated on the floor with a toolbox and is "fixing" my chair. He's happy to be doing his own thing, glad there's kids around and new toys to play with, but not that interested in making new friends. I feel the same way, I'm glad to be around people, listening to others' stories, but not too motivated to take part in the small talk.

These days my conversations are mostly negotiations with my three year old and tired-end-of-the-day re-iterations of my day with my husband who has his face down in his dinner plate and his mind weighed down by work matters. Twice a week, Conceicao, who comes to clean my house, shares with me stories about her other employer's kids. I struggle to understand her Portuguese and I'm pretty sure she recycles the same 3 stories over and over again, but I can't be sure. I miss the conversations I have with my friends from home; the small talk long gone and now a "pick up where we left off" sharing of our desires, fears and mistakes, peppered with trash talk, teasing, and old inside jokes.

I'm pretty sure, as I look around at these expat moms from far away places, that we all wish we could move beyond this small talk, ditch the mid-morning coffees, have stiff cocktails and let loose. Maybe that's the trick, maybe if I want to move beyond the small talk, I just need to be completely honest and say exactly what's on my mind:

"Sometimes I'm so bored, I start thinking about getting a tattoo of the Sugar Loaf on one butt cheek and Christ the Redeemer on the other."

"Don't you?"

Beach Treasures?

In front of our place there is an 18km beach of soft, yellow, ultra fine sand. In fact the sand is so fine, that it squeaks when you walk and inevitably you find some in your ears, between your toes and in your underwear for days. I'm so lucky to be living next to the beach, something I could never afford in Vancouver.

Unlike Vancouver beaches which have interspersed logs to lean on, here vendors set up umbrellas and chairs every morning which you can sit in for the price of about $7-9. They serve an array of cold drinks and snacks. Sadly because of this service the beach is covered in plastic bottle caps, bottles, beer cans, straws and straw wrappers. Today I tested the bottle cap count. I walked along the beach for one hour. Every time I saw a cap or a piece of plastic right in my path, I picked it up. I didn't walk out of my way, just walked straight. Here is a picture of my loot. (This scares me because it's winter now, and the beach is pretty empty, imagine in summer.)

On a more positive note, this loot beckons for art project, doesn't it? Like these super cool robots or these fun cars. 

I wonder if I could pull off something like this "Tide" chandelier made by Stuart Haygarth?




If you've never seen the winner of the Audience Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival "Wasteland", make sure you rent it! It's a fascinating movie about an artist who transformed the lives of the "garbage pickers" in Rio's dump, the largest in the world. My "little loot" doesn't even compare to the images you will see in this film and the beautiful art that was made with the mountains of garbage collected by the pickers.