The Playground Director strikes again

When I was a kid, I was not so affectionately nicknamed Amy the Playground Director by my family for my propensity to organize/boss all the kids around.

I remembered the title today with more affection as I recruited kids on my block to join our neighborhood's Youth Farm this summer. The count so far from our block is up to 4 including Anjali. I'd love to say I had noble motives but it was mostly self-defense as Anjali has befriended these girls and my Chaos-O-Meter is already nudging towards the red zone and it's not even summer vacation yet.

I did get slugged by compassion on Monday when one of these friend's family invited us to the neighborhood park for her birthday party. As I chatted with her mom she told me her husband is in Somalia and can't get immigration approval to come but her kids are now at home in America and don't intend to go back. She confessed that she likes MN except that it is so hard to raise teenagers here. She doesn't drive or read and write English and is dependent on her kids. I inquired what her plans are for her girls, 12 and 14, this summer and and she said that the girls dropped the registration forms I had picked up at the neighborhood open house between my home and their home two doors down so they haven't registered for anything. I offered to find another copy of the forms and she was very grateful. Compassion, mom to mom, was stirred within me. Walking home Anjali got choked up as she told me that she and the birthday girl loved each other like sisters.

Now what? Reach my hand intentionally into the tornado? Move to the suburbs? How do I do this without getting whizzed in the blender or falling into co-dependent controlling?

"Compassion, that was your first mistake," Tim said with a grin. "Compassion with good boundaries, " my sister said with a firm voice. I keep repeating both phrases to myself depending on if I need dark comic relief or rubber meets the road reminders.

Info in hand, I went to this mom's home yesterday to hand deliver it and asked if she'd like help with the form. She accepted and we sat on my porch this morning for 40 minutes filling it out. One thing lead to another. I wound up walking over to the neighborhood association with her and her son, Anjali, Mark, and Megan. We were a parade. Preschooler, 8 year-old strawberry blond, tall Somali teen, 20-something homegrown Minnesotan, hijab-wearing Somali mom, and me. People actually gawked at the stoplight as we crossed.

To really add to the complexity, I've been warned by my block leader that this son of hers is being investigated by the police. Yep. They didn't cover this in Motherhood Class and there's no chapter on this in my manual either. I checked.

It's one thing to send money to those poor lost souls in Africa but another thing entirely when they move in next door and start making my alley unsafe. I'm going to blog more about that later. Let me sum up by saying that I'm realizing that so much of what I labeled spiritual was actually co-dependent, controlling, manipulative, and fear-driven. I'm finding my life confusing, irritating, and comic. I am intentional in grounding myself when I start to feel grandiose- Super Amy to the rescue!- and in reminding myself what my goals are when I start to feel put upon.

I want my daughter to grow up knowing how to set good boundaries with difficult people and how to trust her gut and make discerning evaluations about her safety because not everyone, even the people we like, are safe people. I want her to be free to love a Muslim like a sister. I want her to have gritty tested values not hazy, dreamy ideals. I want so much for her and for her, I'm engaging.

So friends, look for me in the Youth Farm kitchen this summer. This mom and I are volunteering Tuesdays as kitchen helpers to make the kids lunch. Because the mom of any sister of Anjali's is my friend.

We're going to walk there together with all our kids on the first day. If you want to join the parade, we'll be leaving our yard at 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, June 22 and walking the 8 blocks to the check-in spot.

I'm serious. Come and walk and bring your friends and your kids. Let's give them something to gawk at. Together.