Baghdad of the Heart

Owen left today for his second year of college. Of course, despite much parental encouragement and a healthy dose of maternal nagging, he left all his preparations til the last minute and so his room resembles a Baghdad marketplace after an insurgent bombing--I wouldn't be at all surprised to find a bloody limb or hunks of flesh somewhere amidst the debris.

He's planning to stay in Portland next summer and I figure that's it--he'll never again be at home for more than a week or so. Who can blame him? No sane person with an option elsewhere would stay in south Louisiana for the summer and besides that, Owen doesn't exactly fit into the culture of the Deep South. "You did this to yourself, you know," a friend of mine said. "You raised him this way." Hmm. It's true we raised him to question the parochialism, the endemic racism, the "oh what the hell" attitude toward the environment. But that doesn't mean we raised him to be a foreigner in the land of his birth. He was always that way. He never liked Mardi Gras, which is just plain weird and certainly not our fault. And when he was four, he asked for a sled for Christmas. We pointed out that 1) it never snows in Baton Rouge and 2) there are no hills. He replied, "That's ok. I just want to put it in the corner of the kitchen and look at it." When he was five, he packed mittens in his lunch box every schoolday, "just in case." By middle school, he had immersed himself in indie post-punk culture, completely at odds with Southern country. And in his early teens, he decided to be a vegan, which makes daily life in seafood-crazed Louisiana somewhat problematic.

So no, Owen won't live at "home" again. And yes. In the piles of musty clothes and torn receipts and broken cd cases that litter his abandoned bedroom, you probably won't see any severed limbs or mangled body parts, but without too much searching, you will find the pieces of my shattered heart.

A Conversation

Cleaning up Hugh's room the other day, I found some more porn pix that he'd printed off the Web. Pretty timid, on the whole--no animals, no violence, no sex acts, just sultry blondes with laughably huge boobs and impossibly trim waists and thighs. But still. I figured we'd better have a conversation, about responsible use of the internet and the way pornography exploits women and more effective ways to deal with his sexuality. You know, one of those conversations Good Parents have with their teenagers.

I am not a Good Parent. I do aspire. I do try. But I do not succeed.

Trying to make a point, tho' exactly what point it was I'm no longer entirely clear, I said something along the lines of "Real women do not have those boobs and real women do have pubic hair." To which Hugh responded, "Not if they wax the way they're supposed to!"

Supposed to? Supposed to? "It's not a requirement, you know!" I said indignantly. "Well, no. . . she can shave," admitted Hugh. GAHHHH! So there I was in Bizarroland, where no Good Parent ever goes, arguing with my 15-year-old about whether women should have pubic hair.

I remember once, long ago, attending a parenting seminar with Keith, and the perky social worker who led the session saying, "It's ok to let your child win occasionally." And Keith and I just looked at each other in astonishment. Letting Hugh win was never an issue. He always won. And he continues to do so. Somehow I emerge out of every encounter with him feeling out-of-date, woefully behind the times and beside the point, a hairy throwback from another era.

Wrinkles in Time

I have eye wrinkles. Not wrinkles around my eye--I mean, yes, I have those, but I'm talking about wrinkles in the eye. The left eye, to be precise. And actually only one wrinkle, but big enough, considering that the eye is, you know, really small. (If you peer closely at my eye, you can see the wrinkle, by the way. It's fascinating, in an oh-ick sort of way.) Anyway, this big wrinkle in my small eye means I have to settle for 20/30 vision in contact lenses--"good enough," said the eye doctor. Clearly I've reached the age where "good enough" is as good as it gets.

Meanwhile, there are the more noticeable wrinkles around the eye. And scattered around the forehead. And clustered around the lips. But--not for long! Cruising thru Macy's on my way out of the mall Saturday, I remembered I needed blusher. Zipped by the Clinique counter. Got Super-Efficient Aging Saleslady with Frightening Amounts of Eye Makeup. She takes one look at me and says, "Now I'm sure you've heard about our new amazing wrinkle corrector."

Well, no, have to admit I've been slightly distracted by the temporary presence of college son. And the start of the school year. And the occasional yet increasingly frequent existential crisis. And the Gulf oil spill. And headaches. And my new commitment to pursuing life as a Total Sex Goddess. And the obvious conflict between those last two.

Of course I don't admit to Scary Saleslady that I haven't been keeping up with the latest breakthroughs in skin care. I just nod. So of course I'm doomed. I buy not only blusher but also a bottle of "Repairwear Laser Focus." Now, by the standards of department-store anti-aging cosmetics, "Repairwear" (not sure where the laser comes in, no obvious laser in the package) is not all that expensive. $40. But that's more than twice as much as I've ever spent for skin care.

Previously, that record was held by an English product: Boots' "Protect and Defend." No. That's not right. "Protect and Survive." No, shoot, that was the name of the English government's official civil defense campaign of the early 1980s--how to survive a nuclear bombing. "Protect and Perfect"! That's it. (I just think of it as "Lock and Load." )

Does it really work? Um, well, I admit that year by year, I look older. But I tell myself that without "Protect and Perfect," I'd look really old. I do have moments of sanity, however, when I recognize that all of this is about as useful as covering your windows with black paper and sandbagging your doorways so that you'll survive a nuclear holocaust.

The thing is, isn't it better to die deluded?

Individually wrapped packages

Am in the car, nearing the end of three days of a pretty much non-stop, searing, make-you-vomit headache. Not driving, thank God. Fifteen-year-old Hugh has his driver's permit; he's at the wheel and I am grateful. Really. He's a good driver, alert, careful, already probably better than me on a good day, let alone a Headache Day. We have been to the mall and I have bought him clothes so he's in a good mood. Me, I'm just barely hanging on.

And then I lose my grip and plummet downward. Don't know why--it all just adds up, I guess. Hugh is chatting pleasantly and I want so hard to listen, to respond well, to be a Good Mother. So many of our interactions are hostile, hurtful, fraught, and I long to appreciate this moment, to enjoy his company and the fact that we are Getting Along. But I can't. I just want to be home, in bed, alone, without light or sound or heat or expectations. And then, God help me, I start to cry.

Hugh's a cheerful, live-in-the-moment, it's-all-about-now sort of soul. He doesn't believe in planning or consequences or regret or apologies or any emotions, really, other than enjoyment and a fierce loyalty to friends. And I am sitting in the passenger's seat next to him, crying.

I blurt out, "It must be crummy, having a mom who always has headaches and feels rotten."

Silence.

Then, Hugh, quietly: "It's not so bad."

Me, through the tears: "Geez. It's gotta be. I mean, I don't like being with me, and I'm me."

Hugh: "Well, I think you should smoke pot."

I'm astounded. So he's been paying attention to my discussions with Keith about medicinal marijuana? Lurching into Unknown Territory--conversation with a sympathetic Hugh--I regress into total self-pity: "I don't even know how to smoke!" I wail.

"You can try a pipe," he suggests, helpfully. "I guess I could bake pot into brownies," I admit, and Hugh is exultant "Yeah! In Colorado, you can buy weed cookies! In individually wrapped packages!"

And suddenly, the pain recedes, just for a moment, and I am in a place of grace. "This is My body," in the form of individually wrapped packages of Colorado-produced cannabis cookies offered by my teenaged son.

What's playing?

Owen and I just had one of those arguments, the kind of ridiculous fight in which you both retreat to extreme positions that, in fact, you'd really rather not occupy, let alone defend.

It was so much easier when he was little. Back then it came down to knowing what film we were in today. From the moment when Owen first realized that movies tell stories--at about 14 months old--he was a film buff. Movies provided him with jumping-off platforms for his rich fantasy life. It took Keith and me a little while, however, to cotton on to what was going on.

The first glimmer came when Owen and I were in the grocery store. About two years old, he was sitting in the little seat at the front of the cart as I pushed up and down the aisles. All of a sudden, he said, loudly, "My father's not crazy!" "Umm, no dear, Daddy's not crazy," I whispered. "MY FATHER'S NOT CRAZY!" he shouted, louder. "That's right, honey, he's not, " I said soothingly, in low tones. "MY FATHER'S NOT CRAZY! he bellowed, again and again, as I hustled through canned goods and produce, head down eyes averted. Finally, in the checkout line, it hit me: Of course. Belle. Beauty and the Beast. Into the scene I jumped, my lines correct and ready, and all was well.

I didn't take quite as long, then, when one day Owen kept slinging a backpack over one shoulder, running through the front screen door, deliberately letting it slam, and calling out, "Don't worry, Mom!" Cody. Rescuers Down Under. Tho' of course, in that particular movie, the mom should worry as her son is just about to be kidnapped by an evil poacher out to kill the golden eagle. But then the mice Bianca and Bernard save the day, so hell, why worry?

Some of our friends did worry, however. One evening, after Owen had spent the day with his friend Wesley, Keith and I were having drinks with Wesley's parents. We had barely sat down and taken our first sips when Cindy said, "You guys, we're really concerned about Owen." As I recall, we said something along the lines of "huh?" "We're worried about his self-esteem," Cindy explained. I think she caught me in mid-sip and I spewed gin across the table. "Self-esteem?" I choked. "He's friggin' 3 years old." Bill picked up the gauntlet. "No, really, we're really worried. Owen thinks he's stupid. He says so all the time." Keith and I looked at each other, bewildered. "Well, what exactly does he say?" asked Keith. He's very wise, my Keith. Bill--such a good, decent, caring man--looked us both in the eyes, clearly desperate to communicate to us how much this mattered, and replied, "He keeps knocking himself in the head and saying 'I don't have a brain.'" We burst out laughing. Bill and Cindy were aghast. We sputtered, "The Scarecrow. Wizard of Oz." Thank God Owen wasn't the Tin Man that day, or they'd have thought he needed major surgery.

Owen is still a film buff but he keeps his fantasy life well-hidden from his parents. I don't know what movie we're in any more. I just know, no matter what's playing, I'll be in the front row, applauding one of my all-time favorite leading men.

Generation Gap

As I noted in my last post, this summer's month-long tour of Ireland in the company of a gaggle of undergraduates provided me with a number of unpleasant reminders that I am no longer 25 years old. Example 2:

Traveling from one place to another, the undergrads would often play the "Would you rather" game--the one that requires you to choose between two usually disgusting or horrifying options: e.g. Would you rather eat a cup of slugs or a plateful of live cockroaches? Would you rather be hit on the head with a hammer or stabbed in the chest with a scissors? etc. etc. etc. Fairly tedious after awhile, obviously, except one afternoon when the following question came to the top of the pile: Would you rather be handsome/beautiful yet always look bad in photographs, or physically unattractive in person but nice-looking in photographs? Eavesdropping, I immediately thought, Well, duh. The first option, clearly. To my astonishment, all the students opted for the second. Image over actuality. The triumph of the virtual over the real. Photographs, they decided, would reach more people. And they would last.

The generation gap, already the size of the Grand Canyon, suddenly widened further. The cliffs on both sides crumbled and crashed; the bridges spanning the chasm slid into the deep. Peering through the dust thrown up by the collapsing canyon walls, I could just make out figures on the other side. They looked familiar, but when the air cleared, I realized that no, no, they were another species altogether.

Age on Wheels

My month-long jaunt with university students in Ireland finished up a few weeks ago, but I am still recovering. So many unwelcome reminders that I am no longer 25. For example--

Most of the female students traveled with breathtakingly, backbreakingly huge suitcases (despite repeated orders to "pack light"). As we were gathering for the bus one day, some of the guys were kidding the women about the enormity of their cases and the women were insisting that they had packed only the essentials for a four-week trip. Foolishly, I interrupted the conversation.

"You know, when I was a college student, I traveled through Europe with a group like this for eight weeks and my only suitcase was a little square bag about half the size of your typical carry-on."

Sullen silence, shuffling feet, rolling eyes.

I realized I had just uttered the equivalent of the classic geezer "in-my-day" monologue: "When I was a lad, I walked five miles to school and five miles back over hill and dale in shoes made of cardboard and only a cold potato in my pocket. . . "

It got worse. One of the more assertive young women piped up. "But why? Why would you travel with such a ridiculously small suitcase?"

"Well, we moved around a lot and we had to. . . to. . . "

I couldn't, I simply couldn't continue. How could I tell them that I had to be able to carry, literally carry, whatever bag I brought, that my suitcase didn't have wheels, that no suitcases back then had wheels, that, yes, I am so old that I actually attended college back in the days when no one had yet thought of putting luggage on wheels. How could I admit that to them? How could I so clearly, convincingly confirm my dinosaur status? And how, oh how can I be that friggin' old?

Mother and Son Moments

I.
Me, annoyed, with the latest Netflix dvd delivery: Hey, what's this? What's "Babe I"? Who the heck ordered "Babe I"? What kind of movie is "Babe I"? What's this rated anyway?
Owen: Mom. "Babel." It says "Babel."
II.
Owen and I are trying to find an address.
Owen: Check Google.
I start typing: www.go--
Owen: It's just so cute that you still type the www.
III.
In church.
An unfortunate liturgical attempt at up-to-dateness during the Prayer of Confession. "Imaginative God." I see Owen grin.
We confess that we've messed up Imaginative God's creation with "litter and violence." The juxtaposition makes me giggle; Owen snorts as he tries to swallow his laughter.
By the time we admit that we've turned away from God's banquet table to "Fast Food counters," the pew is shaking. We've lost it entirely.
You're a bad influence, I tell Owen. He reminds me that I'm the one who's supposed to be doing the influencing.
Right. I knew that.

Normal Dreams

I was normal until I started therapy. Or at least, I thought I was normal; I perceived myself as normal and in the end, really, isn't our perception of reality the only reality we actually know?

When I dream--night dreams, not ambition-type dreams--the drama almost always unfolds within the house in which I grew up, the house into which we moved just after I turned 4 and that my mother sold when I was 25. The rules of time and space fall apart in dreams-- my teenaged brothers, my mother in her late 30s, my vicious junior-high classmates, baby Owen, toddler Hugh, the current Keith, now-dead colleagues, and friends from England and Poland all move in and out, but they do so, usually, in my childhood bedroom or the den with the shag carpet and faux leather sofa or the rarely used "front room" with its white couch and breakable knick-knacks or the massive front yard with its gravel driveway descending down a hill made treacherous by Chicago winters.

It always made sense to me that my dreamscapes were those of my childhood--obviously, it would have been different had I been an army brat, say, or a corporate kid who moved every year or so, but I wasn't, and given that "home" still tends to call up this very specific half-wood, half-brick, five-bedroomed, 3 1/2 baths suburban split-level, well, why shouldn't it be the setting of my subconscious? That just seemed, yes, normal. Until I happened to mention to my therapist (my former therapist, I should say, one in a long line of therapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers, pastors, nuns, and caring professionals, all of whom meant well, a few of whom actually did well) that my dreams almost always occur within the confines of the house in which I grew up.

Gosh. Bingo. Paydirt. The treasure map unearthed. You'd have thought I confessed I fantasized about murdering my mother and having sex with my dad. No, you'd have thought I confessed I actually did kill off mom and fuck my father. The therapist could barely remain seated. Perched on the edge of her chair, positively vibrating excitement, she informed me in her thick German accent (yes, she really did have a German accent) that no, no, most people (normal people, that is) did not dream regularly about their childhood home and that the fact that I did so clearly indicated the presence of "unresolved conflicts about my upbringing."

Well, of course I have unresolved conflicts about my upbringing. Who doesn't? Surely it's, umm, yes, not normal to have no unresolved childhood conflicts? Geez. Had this woman never read Philip Larkin?

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you up with the faults they had
And add some extra just for you.

But they were fucked-up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats. . .

So I reject the whole childhood house dream=unresolved family conflict thesis. Given the fuckeduppedness of family life in general, if the thesis were true, we'd all be dreaming constantly of our family home. And evidently we all don't. Evidently only not-normal me.

Actually, tho', that house has featured far less in my dreams of late. Ever since this past May, when Hugh and I visited the house with my mother. We were just driving by the old neighborhood, me and mom pointing out the skating lake and the Heckman's old house and the corner where all the accidents occurred. But then there was our house on the hill. "Looks empty, doesn't it?" says Mom. "There's a For Sale sign," Hugh points out. So of course we park and begin to snoop around the yard and peer into the windows--activities that bring out the somewhat alarmed occupant and her toddler daughter. Yet we're able to convince her our intentions are honorable and soon we're having a tour of the entire house. There are the inevitable changes: All the carpet has been ripped out. My bedroom has disappeared, swallowed up in an expansion of the master suite. My parents' bathroom now features a black toilet and sink. A much-used tv area has replaced the pristine and uncomfortable front room. There are surprising continuities: The back yard remains enormous. the kids' bathroom is untouched--same tile, same sinks, same tub and toilet. But overall is a sense of shabbiness, of a house worn down and worn out. The wood is cracking, the bricks could use some nipping and tucking, water-stains mark the ceilings, pits and pock marks dot the cement porch.

Maybe the house will fill up my dreams again. Or maybe that visit shattered some residual tie. Goodness, maybe it even resolved some childhood conflict. Dunno. But when we drove away and I turned around for a last look, I felt triumphant. We're about the same age, that house and me, but damn, I've worn much better.

Canine Christ

Two nights ago, I met Christ in my dog. Not with Rowan but in him--God incarnate in my mutt. I'm aware that might sound a wee bit sacrilegious or a whopping bit insane, but it happened. Like this:

It was about 8:30 and I was utterly exhausted so decided to take the dog for his walk and go to bed. Keith and I had flown in from Dublin the night before and I had spent the entire day feeling jet-lagged and fuzzy and puky and just downright yucky. Keith, in contrast, was up before 6 am, put in a full day of work, and then played basketball as usual--which infuriated me. Not the basketball per se but rather all that productivity and efficiency and grown-up-edness while I, the cranky toddler, staggered around the house the entire day, unable to contemplate composing a grocery list, let alone drawing up my fall semester syllabus or, ye gods, actually working on the book I am supposed to be writing. So, feeling crazed and worthless, and hating every sane and worthwhile fiber in my husband's body, I snapped the leash on the dog and stomped out into the hot, humid night.

The dog's nighttime walk takes us past the home of the Rich People. We live in a middle-class neighborhood, a collection of older, mostly wooden bungalows and two-story houses sitting on 1/4-acre, tree-filled lots. The Rich People, however, dwell within an enormous fenced-in compound: an imposing, many-winged brick house, with an equally huge, glassed-in car garage (the better to show off the many costly vehicles within), a massive yard complete with children's playground, and a built-in swimming pool with a pool house larger than most Normal People's actual house. I've never met the Rich People. Perhaps they are really nice; I have no idea. Perhaps if I met them, I would like them. But in the abstract, I hate the Rich People. Especially during hurricane season when the powerlines are down and everyone in the neighborhood swelters in the subtropical heat and endures in the darkness--except the Rich People, who possess an automatic generator the size of a semi that ensures their uninterruped air-conditioned, illuminated comfort. Even their pool lights remain on and the vast expanse of their yard glows with decorative spotlights, every single one of them mocking the hoi-polloi, the Normal People, as we take our cold tepid showers and eat cold Spaghettios out of the can.

Even in the best of times, a walk past this house can make me a tad tetchy. Picture me, then, trudging along two nights ago, my mood growing ever darker as the roaches scuttled underfoot and the mosquitoes flicked along my hairline. Rowan and I had just turned the corner of the Rich People's compound when--yipyipyipyip--up behind their iron fence bounced a pair of dog-like objects, little moppish creatures who careened against each other and hurtled themselves against the fence, growling and yowling and yipping at Rowan in furious passion. Oh fuck off, I scowled.

And then I looked at Rowan. He's an old dog. Nervous. Usually not very interested in other dogs, particularly small, jumpy dogs. But there he stood in the moonlight, all 65 pounds of him, looking down at these bouncing balls of fluff, with his head cocked, his ears up and friendly, his tail wagging eagerly, even joyfully. To my astonishment, this normally mournful-looking dog actually appeared to be smiling. And then, still smiling, he turned to me, and his gaze contained a look of affection and acceptance so powerful that it embraced these yapping, leaping doggy mops, and me, and the Rich People, and Keith, and the entirety of the universe. For a moment, just for a moment, we were all enfolded, knit together, made one and made well.

Then Rowan peed and we walked on.

The Queen Goes Shopping

I've finally solved a mystery that has been perplexing me for years: Where does the Queen of England get those dresses and handbags? Now I know. From a small coastal town in Norfolk called Sheringham. Like all coastal British towns, Sheringham bulges with tea shops and fish-n-chippies and ice cream counters and hopeful watercolorists. Unusually, however (at least in my experience, and I actually do have some experience in British beach holidays--much more so, bizarrely, than most of the natives of my acquaintance, who flee to Spain or Egypt or Thailand for their seaside getaways), Sheringham also includes a large number of ladies' clothing shops, all frozen somewhere in the mid-1950s.

So now I know. In the off-season, Her Maj must scutter on down and load up the Rolls with heaps of flowered frocks and boxy handbags. Maybe she stops at Ye Olde Tea Shoppe for a herring bap or a bacon buttie, and then strolls along the promenade and watches the waves. I hope so. I'm sure it would do her good.