Well, dang. A "For Sale" sign, right there in Carole's front yard. Life will be so much less interesting without her.
Carole hates me. I have no idea why, but I've enjoyed it immensely for years.
It all started when Owen was a pre-schooler, and desperate for friends in the neighborhood. We were in our house on Cherokee, and Carole and her husband and two little boys lived just around the corner. We had met at a couple of neighborhood functions. I'll admit there was no immediate attraction. Carole is the kind of person for whom the word "coiffed" was coined. And her house sported "window treatments" rather than shades and drapes. Still, several of my best friends have window treatments and a number of them could even be described as coiffed. I'm a tolerant soul. Plus, my kid needed some nearby playmates. And there they were, Carole's Edward and Charles. They suited our needs:
1) They were kids.
2) They lived close by.
3) They seemed normal despite their Little Lord Fauntleroy playsuits and their royal names. (And I can say with a certain degree of pride in my self-control that I never ever gave in to the very strong temptation to call these kids Teddy and Charlie, and certainly not Ed and Chuck. But, can I just note that eventually Edward and Charles had two sisters named Isabella and Eugenia? 'Nuff said.)
To continue: Determined to get Owen some neighborhood buddies, I pursued Carole whenever I saw her on the sidewalk, trying to engage her in conversation, asking about the boys, talking about this and that. And she'd smile her perfectly modulated smile and nod in a kind of "oh, mmm, yes" way. I then pinned her down by issuing an outright invitation, complete with date and times, for her boys to come over and play. She agreed, but insisted that Owen come to their house instead. "Great!" said I. "And then I'll have your guys over next week." Wow. Her facial expression taught me what "brittle smile" really meant. The Play Date arrived, I dropped Owen off (God, he was so excited) and an hour later--an hour earlier than agreed--Carole brought Owen back. "We all had such a good time," she said politely, "Bye bye."
Now look. Owen was (and is--you've just got to embrace the tattoos) a perfectly normal, friendly, fun boy. He behaved himself at other people's houses. He wasn't mean or squirrelly or inappropriate or obnoxious. Even at age 4, he went out of his way to please the other kids, to do what they wanted to do, to play their way. In other words, no way in God's green earth this child caused any trouble in an hour. Yet Carole communicated, clearly and absolutely, that the first playdate was the last.
I understood. I got it. I immediately abandoned all hopes of Edward and Charles as preschool pals. (I am not as clueless as I appear.) But, you know, I'm a mom. And there was no excuse to do that to my boy. So, well, umm, ok, fact is, I decided to drive Carole nuts by pretending to be that clueless, by continuing to call and drop by and accost her on the sidewalk, by greeting her enthusiastically whenever our paths crossed at neighborhood parties, by acting as if I didn't notice that my very presence caused her pain. Her face, ah, her face, our first Halloween back after four years out of the neighborhood, when she and her kids (all four of them by this time) showed up at our door--different house, she had no idea--and I greeted her like an old and dearly beloved friend.
I shouldn't have done it, I'm sure. My mother raised me better. And yet, really, did I do any harm? And more to the point, boy howdy, it was fun.
Bye, bye Carole. I'm gonna miss you, darlin'.
Showing posts with label moms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moms. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
A Phone Call--and a Good Hard Cry
I talked on the phone for quite awhile with my good friend Joanne. Her mom's mental state, ravaged by vascular dementia, has deteriorated rapidly over the last few months. It hurt, that talk. After I hung up, I cried.
I cried for Joanne. She and her mom somehow escaped all the craziness and hurt that accompanies most mother-daughter relationships. They were always just so right--close, but not in that creepy way that makes you wonder if the mother is trying to relive or somehow make up for something that she lacked; no role reversal; no shutting out or closing in. Somehow they did it--Carol remained the mom yet Joanne grew up and they both recognized and rejoiced in that and were just so damned right with each other. I've rarely seen a relationship so solid and decent, so the way it is supposed to be.
I cried for Joe, Carol's husband and Joanne's dad. One of the most loving and genuinely kind men I have ever known, Joe cared for Carol through years of debilitating arthritis, and somehow made it seem simple, just love, you know. Somehow he made you think, "Oh right. That's the way love is. That's what people who love each other do." Until you looked around and realized, no, no, most don't.
And I cried for me. Joe and Carol never knew, even Joanne never knew, but those two, their marriage, their partnership, their Joe-and-Carolness, shaped my life in such important ways.
It was during college. Our third year? Maybe our senior year. Joanne and I shared a Calvin College apartment, with four girls, er, young women. Geez. We were girls, so unbelievably utterly girls. I was visiting Joanne in New Jersey and her parents took us into Manhattan. I don't know about most New Jerseyites, but Joanne's parents were not in the least intimidated by New York City. No, Joe and Carol made Manhattan their own. They may have lived in Paterson, but they were New Yorkers in their soul. We had gone to a show, I think, or perhaps dinner. It was late but of course the streets were full and we stopped for ice cream cones. And Joe and Carol walked ahead down the sidewalk--this New York sidewalk, teeming, bustling, bursting with life--and they held hands and Joe, a tall man, bent to hear Carol's quip and then tossed his head back and roared with laughter.
I looked at them and thought, "I want that." I wanted it all. The nighttime.The city street. The laughter. But most of all, the hand-holding. I often saw my parents hugging or kissing, but I had never seen them hold hands. I had never seen any of their friends or any of my aunts and uncles hold hands. Up until that point, frankly, I had no idea people over age 40 held hands. And I think--ok, yes, I'm probably giving my 19-or-20-year-old self way too much credit here--but I think I got it. I saw that hand holding for what it was: the obvious comfort in each other's company, the affection and amusement, the companionship.
My parents loved each other but they were opposites. They sparred and sparked and tussled and tore. Their relationship was the stuff of romance and drama, so appealing and exciting that most of my siblings chose a similar sort of marriage. But sparks can so easily ignite a raging fire that shrivels the skin and leaves lasting scars. I didn't want that. I didn't know how much I didn't want that, until that night, walking behind Joe and Carol, I saw a different sort of marriage, one in which the sparks glowed steadily, like a warming fire flickering behind the grate. Without even realizing it, I made a choice that night.
We've been so lucky. Keith and I have walked on so many city streets--New York, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, London, Dublin, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Orvieto--and we've walked holding hands.
So I hung up the phone and I cried. Cried in sorrow for what is gone and will be so missed, cried in thanks for all that was, and cried in wonder for the way the simplest things--an ice cream cone, a burst of laughter, a couple holding hands--can change, and make, one's world.
I cried for Joanne. She and her mom somehow escaped all the craziness and hurt that accompanies most mother-daughter relationships. They were always just so right--close, but not in that creepy way that makes you wonder if the mother is trying to relive or somehow make up for something that she lacked; no role reversal; no shutting out or closing in. Somehow they did it--Carol remained the mom yet Joanne grew up and they both recognized and rejoiced in that and were just so damned right with each other. I've rarely seen a relationship so solid and decent, so the way it is supposed to be.
I cried for Joe, Carol's husband and Joanne's dad. One of the most loving and genuinely kind men I have ever known, Joe cared for Carol through years of debilitating arthritis, and somehow made it seem simple, just love, you know. Somehow he made you think, "Oh right. That's the way love is. That's what people who love each other do." Until you looked around and realized, no, no, most don't.
And I cried for me. Joe and Carol never knew, even Joanne never knew, but those two, their marriage, their partnership, their Joe-and-Carolness, shaped my life in such important ways.
It was during college. Our third year? Maybe our senior year. Joanne and I shared a Calvin College apartment, with four girls, er, young women. Geez. We were girls, so unbelievably utterly girls. I was visiting Joanne in New Jersey and her parents took us into Manhattan. I don't know about most New Jerseyites, but Joanne's parents were not in the least intimidated by New York City. No, Joe and Carol made Manhattan their own. They may have lived in Paterson, but they were New Yorkers in their soul. We had gone to a show, I think, or perhaps dinner. It was late but of course the streets were full and we stopped for ice cream cones. And Joe and Carol walked ahead down the sidewalk--this New York sidewalk, teeming, bustling, bursting with life--and they held hands and Joe, a tall man, bent to hear Carol's quip and then tossed his head back and roared with laughter.
I looked at them and thought, "I want that." I wanted it all. The nighttime.The city street. The laughter. But most of all, the hand-holding. I often saw my parents hugging or kissing, but I had never seen them hold hands. I had never seen any of their friends or any of my aunts and uncles hold hands. Up until that point, frankly, I had no idea people over age 40 held hands. And I think--ok, yes, I'm probably giving my 19-or-20-year-old self way too much credit here--but I think I got it. I saw that hand holding for what it was: the obvious comfort in each other's company, the affection and amusement, the companionship.
My parents loved each other but they were opposites. They sparred and sparked and tussled and tore. Their relationship was the stuff of romance and drama, so appealing and exciting that most of my siblings chose a similar sort of marriage. But sparks can so easily ignite a raging fire that shrivels the skin and leaves lasting scars. I didn't want that. I didn't know how much I didn't want that, until that night, walking behind Joe and Carol, I saw a different sort of marriage, one in which the sparks glowed steadily, like a warming fire flickering behind the grate. Without even realizing it, I made a choice that night.
We've been so lucky. Keith and I have walked on so many city streets--New York, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, London, Dublin, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Orvieto--and we've walked holding hands.
So I hung up the phone and I cried. Cried in sorrow for what is gone and will be so missed, cried in thanks for all that was, and cried in wonder for the way the simplest things--an ice cream cone, a burst of laughter, a couple holding hands--can change, and make, one's world.
A New TV
Today we bought a new tv. A Google tv. We can access the Internet and stream Netflix in Hi Def.
Good lord.
Me: "You should know how to do this. Why don't you know how to do this? You're a teenager. Teenagers know how to do this stuff."
Owen: "Way to stereotype, Mom. You gonna start telling racist jokes now?"
I'm traumatized. We're all traumatized. Owen, upset by all the drama, has mounted his bike and disappeared into the gloaming. Over on the sofa, Hugh is glowering and muttering, sure if we'd only left it to him, all would be well. Keith is on the phone, trying not to cuss out some poor minimum-waged peon at the Best Buy Help Desk. And me, well, I'm blogging to y'all.
I remember tvs. You bought 'em. You plugged 'em in. You watched 'em. Life was Good. Or at least ok. We didn't know any better. Life was at least simple.
Our old tv is 10 years old. Huge, in terms of space consumed, small in terms of screen, pretty basic in terms of sound. Seemed ok to me. Except lately I found myself asking, "Gosh, why are they filming in such muted colors? Why do directors want everything to look so drained?" And it took College Son, home for the holidays, to point out that, no, no, Mom You Moron, directors aren't filming that way, it's your horrible tv.
We've talked and talked about getting a new tv but the whole process always seemed so overwhelming. And the tv prices so high. But then the holidays came and both the boys showed up at home, moaning about our rotten tv. Nothing too new there, but then my mother-in-law, my friggin' mother-in-law, queen of Never Spending Anything, arrived for a visit and actually commented on how bad the tv was. Geez. But of course the clincher, the thing that made it all happen, is that the Saints have a Big Game tonight and the LSU Tigers have A Really Really Big Game on Monday. So now we have a new tv.
Sort of.
The new tv sits on the antique chest-with-drawers that has served as our tv stand since Keith cut out the back of the cabinet for all the tv and vcr wires way back before we married.. He always meant to sand and refinish said chest, and of course he never has. So now there perches upon this lovely, battered wooden chest a totally up-to-date 42" flat screen. You can tell the new tv is wondering how and why it ended up in such a downmarket environment. Well, fine. Be snooty, ye wretched rectangle. "Just plug it in and follow the instructions on screen," said the cute Best Buy salesguy. Right. The 15-minutes set-up has now consumed ten hours and counting, several phone calls to the Best Buy Geek Squad (they've hung up on us no less than four times this afternoon), two phone calls to the Direct TV Satellite people, one quick trip to Radio Shack to buy a cord with blue-green-red thingies to replace the cord with yellow-white-red thingies, the conscription of Owen's somewhat technically inclined buddy Conrad, and several rather volume-intensive discussions between and among the various inhabitants of this household. These included a number of helpful exchanges along the lines of the following:
Hugh: "Here, let me try something. Hand me the controller."
Me: "It's not a controller. It's a keypad."
Hugh (rolling his eyes): "It's a controller. It controls the tv remotely. That means it's a remote control. A COOONNNNTROOOLLLLEEEEEERRRRR."
Me (by this time determined to show my obnoxiously condescending offspring that I do in fact possess useful and up-to-date knowledge): "No, no, no, if you say "controller" to the Best Buy Guys they'll think you're talking about this (I brandish the remote control that goes with our satellite tv box) but the problem is the KEYPAD ( I hold up the Star Trekky groovy device that's come with the new tv and that looks like we now have the capability of initiating nuclear war) . It's a KEYPAD."
Hugh: "MOM. It's a controller."
Me: "No, honestly, it's an important difference I think. It's a keypad."
Hugh: "Why are you acting like you know anything about any of this? It's ridiculous. And it's a controller."
. . . .
I'm embarrassed to admit how long we continued. So I won't.
Keith is now maniacally chopping vegetables in the kitchen--never a good sign. I'm not sure our marriage will survive this purchase. Should've gotten a new bathroom sink instead. At least then we wouldn't have discovered we'd need to spend $10 more every month for high definition reception (we had no idea we were even buying a "Hi Def" tv). Water comes without definition. And I know how to turn the faucet on and off and I understand the difference between hot and cold.
I don't remember there being such a huge technological gap between me and my parents. Certainly they didn't like the music I listened to--but they didn't have to ask me for help in operating the radio and record-player. My mom didn't know the difference between "The Waltons" and "Little House on the Prairie"--but she could work the tv. They got mad about how much time we kids spent on the phone and once to my mother's horror I ran up an enormoous monthly long-distance bill talking to my boyfriend in Kalamazoo--but she knew which buttons to press to make a call. And when it came to home movies--there my mom was completely in charge, the only one in the entire extended family who knew how to use the movie camera, how to splice the little reels of film to make the big ones, how to run the projector. It does seem, in fact, that not only childhood but early adulthood followed the same pattern: my mom showed me how to do things, how to make things, how to fix things, how to run things, how to operate things, from the hi-fi to the stickshift, from the lawn mower to the Christmas lights, from checking the oil to cleaning out the dryer lint.
I don't think--oh for pete's sake I know--that my sons don't have the same sense of me as a competent person. I need help with the remote and I can't figure out my smart phone and I have to ask Hugh to take pictures because I can't seem to make the camera work and I'm a little unclear on the whole Hulu thing.
Maybe this greater equality in parent-child relations is a good thing. Maybe the fact that my kids have no doubts about my limits and utter faillibility makes it easier for them to head in new directions. Maybe. But I dunno. The sense that your parent knows all the important stuff--that's a rather powerful protective shield to wield as you face the dragons of daily adolescent life. Still, I imagine there's an app for that.
Good lord.
Me: "You should know how to do this. Why don't you know how to do this? You're a teenager. Teenagers know how to do this stuff."
Owen: "Way to stereotype, Mom. You gonna start telling racist jokes now?"
I'm traumatized. We're all traumatized. Owen, upset by all the drama, has mounted his bike and disappeared into the gloaming. Over on the sofa, Hugh is glowering and muttering, sure if we'd only left it to him, all would be well. Keith is on the phone, trying not to cuss out some poor minimum-waged peon at the Best Buy Help Desk. And me, well, I'm blogging to y'all.
I remember tvs. You bought 'em. You plugged 'em in. You watched 'em. Life was Good. Or at least ok. We didn't know any better. Life was at least simple.
Our old tv is 10 years old. Huge, in terms of space consumed, small in terms of screen, pretty basic in terms of sound. Seemed ok to me. Except lately I found myself asking, "Gosh, why are they filming in such muted colors? Why do directors want everything to look so drained?" And it took College Son, home for the holidays, to point out that, no, no, Mom You Moron, directors aren't filming that way, it's your horrible tv.
We've talked and talked about getting a new tv but the whole process always seemed so overwhelming. And the tv prices so high. But then the holidays came and both the boys showed up at home, moaning about our rotten tv. Nothing too new there, but then my mother-in-law, my friggin' mother-in-law, queen of Never Spending Anything, arrived for a visit and actually commented on how bad the tv was. Geez. But of course the clincher, the thing that made it all happen, is that the Saints have a Big Game tonight and the LSU Tigers have A Really Really Big Game on Monday. So now we have a new tv.
Sort of.
The new tv sits on the antique chest-with-drawers that has served as our tv stand since Keith cut out the back of the cabinet for all the tv and vcr wires way back before we married.. He always meant to sand and refinish said chest, and of course he never has. So now there perches upon this lovely, battered wooden chest a totally up-to-date 42" flat screen. You can tell the new tv is wondering how and why it ended up in such a downmarket environment. Well, fine. Be snooty, ye wretched rectangle. "Just plug it in and follow the instructions on screen," said the cute Best Buy salesguy. Right. The 15-minutes set-up has now consumed ten hours and counting, several phone calls to the Best Buy Geek Squad (they've hung up on us no less than four times this afternoon), two phone calls to the Direct TV Satellite people, one quick trip to Radio Shack to buy a cord with blue-green-red thingies to replace the cord with yellow-white-red thingies, the conscription of Owen's somewhat technically inclined buddy Conrad, and several rather volume-intensive discussions between and among the various inhabitants of this household. These included a number of helpful exchanges along the lines of the following:
Hugh: "Here, let me try something. Hand me the controller."
Me: "It's not a controller. It's a keypad."
Hugh (rolling his eyes): "It's a controller. It controls the tv remotely. That means it's a remote control. A COOONNNNTROOOLLLLEEEEEERRRRR."
Me (by this time determined to show my obnoxiously condescending offspring that I do in fact possess useful and up-to-date knowledge): "No, no, no, if you say "controller" to the Best Buy Guys they'll think you're talking about this (I brandish the remote control that goes with our satellite tv box) but the problem is the KEYPAD ( I hold up the Star Trekky groovy device that's come with the new tv and that looks like we now have the capability of initiating nuclear war) . It's a KEYPAD."
Hugh: "MOM. It's a controller."
Me: "No, honestly, it's an important difference I think. It's a keypad."
Hugh: "Why are you acting like you know anything about any of this? It's ridiculous. And it's a controller."
. . . .
I'm embarrassed to admit how long we continued. So I won't.
Keith is now maniacally chopping vegetables in the kitchen--never a good sign. I'm not sure our marriage will survive this purchase. Should've gotten a new bathroom sink instead. At least then we wouldn't have discovered we'd need to spend $10 more every month for high definition reception (we had no idea we were even buying a "Hi Def" tv). Water comes without definition. And I know how to turn the faucet on and off and I understand the difference between hot and cold.
I don't remember there being such a huge technological gap between me and my parents. Certainly they didn't like the music I listened to--but they didn't have to ask me for help in operating the radio and record-player. My mom didn't know the difference between "The Waltons" and "Little House on the Prairie"--but she could work the tv. They got mad about how much time we kids spent on the phone and once to my mother's horror I ran up an enormoous monthly long-distance bill talking to my boyfriend in Kalamazoo--but she knew which buttons to press to make a call. And when it came to home movies--there my mom was completely in charge, the only one in the entire extended family who knew how to use the movie camera, how to splice the little reels of film to make the big ones, how to run the projector. It does seem, in fact, that not only childhood but early adulthood followed the same pattern: my mom showed me how to do things, how to make things, how to fix things, how to run things, how to operate things, from the hi-fi to the stickshift, from the lawn mower to the Christmas lights, from checking the oil to cleaning out the dryer lint.
I don't think--oh for pete's sake I know--that my sons don't have the same sense of me as a competent person. I need help with the remote and I can't figure out my smart phone and I have to ask Hugh to take pictures because I can't seem to make the camera work and I'm a little unclear on the whole Hulu thing.
Maybe this greater equality in parent-child relations is a good thing. Maybe the fact that my kids have no doubts about my limits and utter faillibility makes it easier for them to head in new directions. Maybe. But I dunno. The sense that your parent knows all the important stuff--that's a rather powerful protective shield to wield as you face the dragons of daily adolescent life. Still, I imagine there's an app for that.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Checklist
So, it's true, thought I, as I upchucked vast quantities of foul-tasting fluid in the wee hours of this morning: the "prep" for a colonoscopy is horrid. Definitely true.
I wasn't supposed to be upchucking the fluid, of course; I was supposed to expel it from the other end. Nevertheless, despite my body's refusal to follow instructions, the colonoscopy went ahead as scheduled. And, all you colonoscopy virgins out there, let not your hearts be troubled, be ye not afraid: there's light at the end of the tunnel. So to speak. Perhaps tunnel imagery isn't the best in this context. Anyway, the actual procedure itself is quite marvellous, because you get the most groovy drugs. I've felt wonderfully loopy and at peace with the world for much of the day. (And I now am the proud owner of a series of photos of my healthy colon. Blown up and framed, they'll add a certain something to the front hallway.)
Plus I feel like I can now check off another item on my To Do list for growing old(er):
Stop having periods. Check.
Start watching weight. Check.
Cover up the grey roots. Check.
Develop embarrassing expertise in skin care products. Check.
Routinize nose and chin hair maintenance. Check.
Get colonoscopy. Check.
My mother does not have and never had such a list. When I told her I had a colonoscopy scheduled, she was appalled. "Why? What's wrong?" And when I explained nothing was wrong, that this was simply standard procedure, she was even more appalled. "They can't make you, can they?" This is a woman who truly does not understand the concept of preventive medicine. She's never had a pap smear, and her one and only mammogram convinced her that she should steer clear of all such things forevermore. "Whatever you're going to die of, you'll die of," she says cheerfully.
She's 81 and only just stopped roller-skating. So much for checklists.
I wasn't supposed to be upchucking the fluid, of course; I was supposed to expel it from the other end. Nevertheless, despite my body's refusal to follow instructions, the colonoscopy went ahead as scheduled. And, all you colonoscopy virgins out there, let not your hearts be troubled, be ye not afraid: there's light at the end of the tunnel. So to speak. Perhaps tunnel imagery isn't the best in this context. Anyway, the actual procedure itself is quite marvellous, because you get the most groovy drugs. I've felt wonderfully loopy and at peace with the world for much of the day. (And I now am the proud owner of a series of photos of my healthy colon. Blown up and framed, they'll add a certain something to the front hallway.)
Plus I feel like I can now check off another item on my To Do list for growing old(er):
Stop having periods. Check.
Start watching weight. Check.
Cover up the grey roots. Check.
Develop embarrassing expertise in skin care products. Check.
Routinize nose and chin hair maintenance. Check.
Get colonoscopy. Check.
My mother does not have and never had such a list. When I told her I had a colonoscopy scheduled, she was appalled. "Why? What's wrong?" And when I explained nothing was wrong, that this was simply standard procedure, she was even more appalled. "They can't make you, can they?" This is a woman who truly does not understand the concept of preventive medicine. She's never had a pap smear, and her one and only mammogram convinced her that she should steer clear of all such things forevermore. "Whatever you're going to die of, you'll die of," she says cheerfully.
She's 81 and only just stopped roller-skating. So much for checklists.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
So it's my fault?
So my husband just said to my son, "You're acting like a real son of a bitch."
Hey, umm, hey, wait a sec. . .
Hey, umm, hey, wait a sec. . .
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Lost the Plot
Whenever we can, Keith and I watch "The Daily Show" at 6:00 (Central time). Of course this is the rerun; we're too old and tired to watch the live show the night before. And yes, yes, we do know we can watch the rerun any old time online. But we're old. We like routines.
If all goes well, then, most Tuesdays thru Thursdays at around 5:55 one of us is turning on the tv and turning in to Comedy Central. That means for a number of years now, we catch the last few minutes of "Scrubs." We've never seen anything of "Scrubs" but these last few minutes; we know no characters' names; yet, over time, we've developed some sense of the characters and the plot. So, yesterday, when the nerdy but sweet main guy who's perennially involved with the attractive but all-over-the-place blonde doctor woke up next to a different woman with curly brown hair, Keith objected, "Hey, who's that? Where'd she come from? He's in love with the blonde."
"Dunno," I began, and then it suddenly hit me. Our knowledge of "Scrubs" mirrors our understanding of our teenaged sons. Every now and then we're allowed a quick glimpse into their lives. And on the basis of a five-minute snippet seen here and a dialogue overheard there, we extrapolate entire narratives; we delude ourselves into thinking we understand the plot and we discourse with great confidence on the motivations of the major characters. Actually, of course, we haven't a clue as to the storyline or cast list.
I remember once I was watching an episode of "Little House on the Prairie," and my mom, who never watched television, came and sat down next to me. In one of those excruciating Mom-trying-to-relate moments, she said, "Oh, this is 'The Brady Bunch,' isn't it?"
So here we are, thinking we're watching our sons and their chums Greg, Peter, and Bobby, when actually they're in another century, clearing the land, battling smallpox and blizzards and that annoying spoiled-rotten shopkeeper's daughter.
If all goes well, then, most Tuesdays thru Thursdays at around 5:55 one of us is turning on the tv and turning in to Comedy Central. That means for a number of years now, we catch the last few minutes of "Scrubs." We've never seen anything of "Scrubs" but these last few minutes; we know no characters' names; yet, over time, we've developed some sense of the characters and the plot. So, yesterday, when the nerdy but sweet main guy who's perennially involved with the attractive but all-over-the-place blonde doctor woke up next to a different woman with curly brown hair, Keith objected, "Hey, who's that? Where'd she come from? He's in love with the blonde."
"Dunno," I began, and then it suddenly hit me. Our knowledge of "Scrubs" mirrors our understanding of our teenaged sons. Every now and then we're allowed a quick glimpse into their lives. And on the basis of a five-minute snippet seen here and a dialogue overheard there, we extrapolate entire narratives; we delude ourselves into thinking we understand the plot and we discourse with great confidence on the motivations of the major characters. Actually, of course, we haven't a clue as to the storyline or cast list.
I remember once I was watching an episode of "Little House on the Prairie," and my mom, who never watched television, came and sat down next to me. In one of those excruciating Mom-trying-to-relate moments, she said, "Oh, this is 'The Brady Bunch,' isn't it?"
So here we are, thinking we're watching our sons and their chums Greg, Peter, and Bobby, when actually they're in another century, clearing the land, battling smallpox and blizzards and that annoying spoiled-rotten shopkeeper's daughter.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
A Prayer; Occasioned by Three Days at Home with My Mom and My Mother-In-Law
Dear God,
Dear God,
As I move into the Aging Decades, please:
Let Yes outweigh No in my vocabulary;
Let me ask questions that do not demand certain answers;
Let the words "That's not the way I like it" never pass my lips;
Let "I've never done that" lead to "Show me how."
Pull me into the new.
Shower me with strangeness.
Pour change down upon me.
Forever and ever,
Amen
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
"And there were in the same country. . . "
So, we've become Gleeks. ("Gleeks," oh unknowing folks, are followers of "Glee," the stylized humorous-satirical-musical drama about a totally unreal, utterly mesmerizing high school.) You know you're a Gleek when you choose the Christmas episode of "Glee" over "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
I do feel guilty though. I'm not sure one can actually truly really deeply celebrate Christmas without "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
Yes, yes, I do know one can purchase the dvd and watch it any ol' time, even in July, but that's no good whatsoever. One must watch it on tv at the proper time, as determined by The Network. It's like, well, not really, but just sort of, a bit, kind of like (I'm not trying to be blasphemous here, just you know, metaphorical), one doesn't just eat a cracker and drink some grape juice in the kitchen and declare it Holy Communion.
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" debuted in 1965, when I was 5. I watched it. I've watched it almost every December since. My mom hated tv, but even she loved "A Charlie Brown Christmas." After all, it gets Christmas right: Linus quotes Luke 2; there's no Kris Kringle or puppet elves or animated red-nosed reindeer accompanied by damaged toys. And there's that fantastic jazz score and there's Snoopy, truly one of the 20th century's most brilliant fictional characters.
Oh damn. Fuck "Glee." I should have watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas." One should never mess with Truth. Or Snoopy.
I do feel guilty though. I'm not sure one can actually truly really deeply celebrate Christmas without "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
Yes, yes, I do know one can purchase the dvd and watch it any ol' time, even in July, but that's no good whatsoever. One must watch it on tv at the proper time, as determined by The Network. It's like, well, not really, but just sort of, a bit, kind of like (I'm not trying to be blasphemous here, just you know, metaphorical), one doesn't just eat a cracker and drink some grape juice in the kitchen and declare it Holy Communion.
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" debuted in 1965, when I was 5. I watched it. I've watched it almost every December since. My mom hated tv, but even she loved "A Charlie Brown Christmas." After all, it gets Christmas right: Linus quotes Luke 2; there's no Kris Kringle or puppet elves or animated red-nosed reindeer accompanied by damaged toys. And there's that fantastic jazz score and there's Snoopy, truly one of the 20th century's most brilliant fictional characters.
Oh damn. Fuck "Glee." I should have watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas." One should never mess with Truth. Or Snoopy.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Middle Age
Many of our friends find themselves in the "Middle Age," as the self-help books label it, caught in the middle between high-demand teenage kids and high-maintenance aging parents. While we have the high-demand teenage kids, Keith and I are lucky: our dads died when we were young.
Wait. That didn't come out right.
Umm, I just mean, we don't have aging dads. And our moms. Gosh, our moms. Incredible women, they live active, productive, energetic lives. My mom roller skates. Keith's mom smokes meat and cans veggies that she grows in a garden the size of New Hampshire. The moms are fine.
But we haven't quite escaped the squeeze between demanding kids and aging loved ones. It's just that our aging loved one is a dog. Rowan is aging--and not at all gracefully. He's a dog. A big furry lumbering slobbering dog. He doesn't do graceful. But he does do age. Every night. In our bedroom. Where he sleeps. Loudly. He snorts. He snores. He coughs. He sighs. He mutters. And then he wakes up and wanders. We have wood floors. Bracken has nails. He goes clickclickclickclick back and forth back and forth back and forth. It's like having the River Dance troupe in your bedroom in the middle of the night. And then all those clicking dancers suddenly throw themselves on the floor with a loud THUMP and begin to lick their genitals with great slurpy gusto.
I keep fantasizing about a pair of youthful West Highland terriers. I will call them Campion and Comfrey. They will not sleep in our bedroom. They will wear little terrier mittens so they will not click. And they will be de-tongued. . . or de-genitalled. . . anyway, they will not slurp.
Clearly I am not a Good Person. A Good Person does not fantasize about replacing her loyal and affectionate dog with a younger model. I wonder if this means that when we come to the point where we are caring for our aged, ailing moms, I'll daydream about substitutes,you know, like perhaps one of those wealthy old moms with a great summer house by the beach and a small collection of paintings by early Abstract Expressionists and a voracious appetite for world affairs.
Oh dear.
Wait. That didn't come out right.
Umm, I just mean, we don't have aging dads. And our moms. Gosh, our moms. Incredible women, they live active, productive, energetic lives. My mom roller skates. Keith's mom smokes meat and cans veggies that she grows in a garden the size of New Hampshire. The moms are fine.
But we haven't quite escaped the squeeze between demanding kids and aging loved ones. It's just that our aging loved one is a dog. Rowan is aging--and not at all gracefully. He's a dog. A big furry lumbering slobbering dog. He doesn't do graceful. But he does do age. Every night. In our bedroom. Where he sleeps. Loudly. He snorts. He snores. He coughs. He sighs. He mutters. And then he wakes up and wanders. We have wood floors. Bracken has nails. He goes clickclickclickclick back and forth back and forth back and forth. It's like having the River Dance troupe in your bedroom in the middle of the night. And then all those clicking dancers suddenly throw themselves on the floor with a loud THUMP and begin to lick their genitals with great slurpy gusto.
I keep fantasizing about a pair of youthful West Highland terriers. I will call them Campion and Comfrey. They will not sleep in our bedroom. They will wear little terrier mittens so they will not click. And they will be de-tongued. . . or de-genitalled. . . anyway, they will not slurp.
Clearly I am not a Good Person. A Good Person does not fantasize about replacing her loyal and affectionate dog with a younger model. I wonder if this means that when we come to the point where we are caring for our aged, ailing moms, I'll daydream about substitutes,you know, like perhaps one of those wealthy old moms with a great summer house by the beach and a small collection of paintings by early Abstract Expressionists and a voracious appetite for world affairs.
Oh dear.
Friday, October 1, 2010
It's really ok
The summer after my first year in graduate school I worked as a nanny for my brother and his wife. Nancy was a stay-at-home mom, heavily pregnant with Baby #5, and heavily weighed down with doctors' appointments and medical tests for Toddler 4, a charming, curly-haired, chubby little charmer born with a host of "issues," as we say when we can't figure out what's going on. (Like when the specialist told me I had what the experts call "sore arm syndrome." Seriously. That's what they call it. It means, as the specialist went on to explain, "we see there's a real problem and we haven't a clue how to help you." I liked this guy.)
Anyway, back to my shortlived nanny career: in the course of that summer, my sister-in-law Nancy said something really important: "I love all my children all of the time, but I don't always like all of them all of the time. Sometimes, you know, you just don't like a kid for awhile."
She said it casually, as we were scraping a concoction of melted Legos mixed with Skittles off the just-refinished wooden floor. But this casual comment has helped me immensely.
In the short term, it helped me see that no, I was not crazy, my mom really didn't like me, but that was ok, she loved me, which is all one can really expect, and hey, I didn't like her too much at that point either. And that was ok too.
[OK, Transparency Moment: it took me many exhausting hour-long sessions and many shredded Kleenexes in neutral-toned offices with neutral-faced therapists to be able to type "that was ok". ]
In the long term, damn, absolutely, you love your kid but holy cow, sometimes, you just don't like him (or her--but I never had a her, sadly) very much. Or at all.
Take the last two days, for example. I love Hugh absolutely and unconditionally. But over the last two days, I haven't liked him at all. Because he's been a colossal shit.
(I know, I know, he's 15 3/4; he's supposed to be a colossal shit. And I'm supposed to be colossally [is that a word? doesn't look like a word, does it?] annoyed. We're both playing our parts. But it's just that he's sooooo good at his part.)
Hugh was furious with me because I came home tired from work and wouldn't immediately jump in the car and drive him to the library (a 20-minute drive, btw). For the last few months, he's met once a week or so with some friends at the library to "study biology." And I've driven him there and Keith has picked him up. But Keith was out of town and I was tired and I wanted a glass of wine (ok, yes, several glasses of wine) and I didn't want to drive for 80 minutes back and forth, back and forth. So I said no. Am I a Bad Mom?
Personally, I think it's a structural/societal problem rather than a parental issue. Why do I have to drive this child to the library? Why can't he walk there or take a bus? Must I really shoulder the blame and the consequences for the many many many wrong-headed, wrong-hearted decisions made about taxation and urban planning and mass transit?
Hugh could care less about the societal/structural issues. He sees things simply and clearly. Simply and clearly, I'm a Bad Mom. And so his response to my "no, not this week, honey," was to punish me. Over the next two days, I became acquainted with my shortcomings as a housecleaner, a cook. a pet owner, a laundress, a driver, a gardener, a wife, a teacher, and a friend; I learned why my clothes, my hair, my jewelry, my toenail polish, and my taste in tv shows were not only inadequate but an insult to humankind; I was forced to see that the way I walk, blow my nose, sleep, remember family vacations, pronounce various words, and chop onions all threatened the future of civilization.
So, I'm grateful to Nancy. Because of her, I know it's ok not to like a kid for awhile. I'll always love him. And sometimes I like him. Some time soon, I'm sure, I'll like him. And that's ok. It's all one can expect. And really, it's ok. Really. OK.
Anyway, back to my shortlived nanny career: in the course of that summer, my sister-in-law Nancy said something really important: "I love all my children all of the time, but I don't always like all of them all of the time. Sometimes, you know, you just don't like a kid for awhile."
She said it casually, as we were scraping a concoction of melted Legos mixed with Skittles off the just-refinished wooden floor. But this casual comment has helped me immensely.
In the short term, it helped me see that no, I was not crazy, my mom really didn't like me, but that was ok, she loved me, which is all one can really expect, and hey, I didn't like her too much at that point either. And that was ok too.
[OK, Transparency Moment: it took me many exhausting hour-long sessions and many shredded Kleenexes in neutral-toned offices with neutral-faced therapists to be able to type "that was ok". ]
In the long term, damn, absolutely, you love your kid but holy cow, sometimes, you just don't like him (or her--but I never had a her, sadly) very much. Or at all.
Take the last two days, for example. I love Hugh absolutely and unconditionally. But over the last two days, I haven't liked him at all. Because he's been a colossal shit.
(I know, I know, he's 15 3/4; he's supposed to be a colossal shit. And I'm supposed to be colossally [is that a word? doesn't look like a word, does it?] annoyed. We're both playing our parts. But it's just that he's sooooo good at his part.)
Hugh was furious with me because I came home tired from work and wouldn't immediately jump in the car and drive him to the library (a 20-minute drive, btw). For the last few months, he's met once a week or so with some friends at the library to "study biology." And I've driven him there and Keith has picked him up. But Keith was out of town and I was tired and I wanted a glass of wine (ok, yes, several glasses of wine) and I didn't want to drive for 80 minutes back and forth, back and forth. So I said no. Am I a Bad Mom?
Personally, I think it's a structural/societal problem rather than a parental issue. Why do I have to drive this child to the library? Why can't he walk there or take a bus? Must I really shoulder the blame and the consequences for the many many many wrong-headed, wrong-hearted decisions made about taxation and urban planning and mass transit?
Hugh could care less about the societal/structural issues. He sees things simply and clearly. Simply and clearly, I'm a Bad Mom. And so his response to my "no, not this week, honey," was to punish me. Over the next two days, I became acquainted with my shortcomings as a housecleaner, a cook. a pet owner, a laundress, a driver, a gardener, a wife, a teacher, and a friend; I learned why my clothes, my hair, my jewelry, my toenail polish, and my taste in tv shows were not only inadequate but an insult to humankind; I was forced to see that the way I walk, blow my nose, sleep, remember family vacations, pronounce various words, and chop onions all threatened the future of civilization.
So, I'm grateful to Nancy. Because of her, I know it's ok not to like a kid for awhile. I'll always love him. And sometimes I like him. Some time soon, I'm sure, I'll like him. And that's ok. It's all one can expect. And really, it's ok. Really. OK.
Monday, August 9, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Younger Brothers
Last night I went to a pub and watched the World Cup semi-final between Spain and Germany--hardly my usual choice of activity. But I was hanging out with two colleagues who are teaching with me here in Ireland, it was what they wanted to do, and I tagged along. Dan and Joe are in their 30s. Relaxed, witty, and smart, they're fun travel companions. (Except when I start talking about things that happened at LSU in the early 90s and they smile politely and I remember, oh right, they were, what, 12 years old when that happened, and then feel old and feeble-minded.)
I imagine that having younger brothers is like the last few weeks with Joe and Dan--hanging out, having a drink, watching sports, laughing a lot. I've never had younger brothers, but they strike me as far preferable to older brothers. They don't hang you upside down and dunk your head in the toilet. They don't nail you inside the clubhouse. They don't tie you to the bedpost with a belt and then leave you there while they go out with friends. They don't tell you that their friends say you're fat. They don't sit you down before your first day of high school and advise you to do with boys whatever boys want you to do so that you'll be popular. Often, when people learn that I grew up with five older brothers, they coo, "Oh, you must have felt so protected." I can only conclude that such people have no experience with older brothers, or at least not with mine.
My sister's husband once asked, after hearing her recount the toilet dunking story (which I confess happened to her rather than to me: I was a chunk of a child whereas she was one of those skinny kids with bones jutting out all over, the perfect size and shape for a quick grab, flip, and dunk),"Where in the world was your mom?" Such a strange question. My mom fed and clothed us. She made sure we caught the school bus. She washed out our mouths with soap if we swore and she slapped us if we spoke disrespectfully to an adult. She tucked us in at night and heard our prayers. She helped us memorize the books of the Bible. She bought our Christmas and birthday presents. She drove us to our various school and church activities. It never occurred to us, or to her, I am quite sure, that she was supposed to do anything more. Making it through the day, surviving the torments that older brothers devised, that was up to us.
I got back at them, of course. I turned to the time-honored survival strategies of the weak: I became a world-class eavesdropper and snitch. I suppose I should thank my brothers for teaching me that words have power and that information, when wielded well, is a powerful weapon. Right after I find some really big guy with experience in toilet dunking.
I imagine that having younger brothers is like the last few weeks with Joe and Dan--hanging out, having a drink, watching sports, laughing a lot. I've never had younger brothers, but they strike me as far preferable to older brothers. They don't hang you upside down and dunk your head in the toilet. They don't nail you inside the clubhouse. They don't tie you to the bedpost with a belt and then leave you there while they go out with friends. They don't tell you that their friends say you're fat. They don't sit you down before your first day of high school and advise you to do with boys whatever boys want you to do so that you'll be popular. Often, when people learn that I grew up with five older brothers, they coo, "Oh, you must have felt so protected." I can only conclude that such people have no experience with older brothers, or at least not with mine.
My sister's husband once asked, after hearing her recount the toilet dunking story (which I confess happened to her rather than to me: I was a chunk of a child whereas she was one of those skinny kids with bones jutting out all over, the perfect size and shape for a quick grab, flip, and dunk),"Where in the world was your mom?" Such a strange question. My mom fed and clothed us. She made sure we caught the school bus. She washed out our mouths with soap if we swore and she slapped us if we spoke disrespectfully to an adult. She tucked us in at night and heard our prayers. She helped us memorize the books of the Bible. She bought our Christmas and birthday presents. She drove us to our various school and church activities. It never occurred to us, or to her, I am quite sure, that she was supposed to do anything more. Making it through the day, surviving the torments that older brothers devised, that was up to us.
I got back at them, of course. I turned to the time-honored survival strategies of the weak: I became a world-class eavesdropper and snitch. I suppose I should thank my brothers for teaching me that words have power and that information, when wielded well, is a powerful weapon. Right after I find some really big guy with experience in toilet dunking.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Just don't pay attention
I guess for many women, facing 50 means empty nests or even grandchildren. Not me yet. Still got a teenager in the house, and tomorrow, that teenager starts driver's ed. What a bizarre experience--all of these years protecting a child and suddenly it's as if you douse him with lighter fluid and then toss him onto a bonfire while saying, "Just be careful, honey." I asked my mother how she ever survived seven children learning how to drive. She just laughed, and said, "Oh, I don't know. I guess I really didn't pay that much attention." So there it, the Great Parenting Secret: Just don't pay attention.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
But that's dangerous!
I'm a pretty cautious person, rule-oriented, inclined to consider worst-case scenarios. A timid, tepid sort of soul, really. Yet in the eyes of my mother-in-law, I'm an adventurer.
The oldest child in a poor but upwardly aspiring Southern rural family, Marilyn married young. Her husband, Keith's father, was a schoolteacher, so there never was much money, yet Marilyn never worked outside the home. Scrimping is thus bred into her bones; it structures her approach not just to money matters but to life. Holding back, being careful, regarding the world as hostile and unpredictable--these are attitudes that have served Marilyn well. "But that's dangerous!" is her mantra. (You have to imagine this voiced plaintively in the country accent of central Louisiana to get the full effect.)
Compared to Marilyn, I'm a wanton, and Keith and I live lives of great recklessness. We're buccaneers, willing to place even our children in peril. We let them them lick the batter from the bowl (raw eggs!), bicycle around the neighborhood (cars!), fly across the Atlantic alone at age 8 (hijackings!), and, in then-15-year-old Owen's case, spend six months in South Africa (too many dangers to put between parentheses!).
I love it. When I'm with Marilyn, when I see myself through Marilyn's eyes, I'm transfigured. I'm no longer a menopausal mom with a stagnant academic career and a cat litter box in need of cleaning and a lawn in need of mowing. Instead, I'm Marion careening through Egypt on a jeep with Indiana Jones. I'm Rose saving the Doctor. I'm Princess Leia leading the rebellion. I'm Katherine Hepburn braving the snakes and leeches with Humphrey Bogart on the African Queen.
Actually, I hate leeches. I rarely exceed the speed limit. I've never shot a gun. I read warning labels. In times of crisis, I sit down and cry.
Maybe I should ask my mother-in-law to visit more often.
The oldest child in a poor but upwardly aspiring Southern rural family, Marilyn married young. Her husband, Keith's father, was a schoolteacher, so there never was much money, yet Marilyn never worked outside the home. Scrimping is thus bred into her bones; it structures her approach not just to money matters but to life. Holding back, being careful, regarding the world as hostile and unpredictable--these are attitudes that have served Marilyn well. "But that's dangerous!" is her mantra. (You have to imagine this voiced plaintively in the country accent of central Louisiana to get the full effect.)
Compared to Marilyn, I'm a wanton, and Keith and I live lives of great recklessness. We're buccaneers, willing to place even our children in peril. We let them them lick the batter from the bowl (raw eggs!), bicycle around the neighborhood (cars!), fly across the Atlantic alone at age 8 (hijackings!), and, in then-15-year-old Owen's case, spend six months in South Africa (too many dangers to put between parentheses!).
I love it. When I'm with Marilyn, when I see myself through Marilyn's eyes, I'm transfigured. I'm no longer a menopausal mom with a stagnant academic career and a cat litter box in need of cleaning and a lawn in need of mowing. Instead, I'm Marion careening through Egypt on a jeep with Indiana Jones. I'm Rose saving the Doctor. I'm Princess Leia leading the rebellion. I'm Katherine Hepburn braving the snakes and leeches with Humphrey Bogart on the African Queen.
Actually, I hate leeches. I rarely exceed the speed limit. I've never shot a gun. I read warning labels. In times of crisis, I sit down and cry.
Maybe I should ask my mother-in-law to visit more often.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
DNA
This weekend we celebrated my mom's 80th birthday with a weekend of family frivolity. "We" meant 5 of my mom's 6 surviving kids, 22 of her 24 grandchildren, all 15 of her great-grandchildren (as well as the 2 in utero), plus assorted spouses and partners. My family has always taken the "be fruitful and multiply" commandment very seriously.
Owen was one of the 2 absent grandchildren. It was an excused absence: he's bicycling across the country with a homeless advocacy group. Travel and volunteer work for a worthy cause--Mom wholeheartedly approves of both.
I missed him. Especially since I kept seeing him, various versions of him, bits and pieces of him. There he was at age 2, in the chubby cheeks and legs of my godson. And see, there, his thick and unruly blonde hair, on the head of my nephew's middle boy. And over there, there's his smile on another nephew. And my brother's face, a glimpse of the Owen yet to come.
In big family gatherings, the laws of time and space fall apart. I'm holding a baby, and it's me at 17, holding my very first niece or is it that niece at 17, holding baby Owen, or is it me again, holding my niece's first son? This stocky Tom Sawyer look-alike with freckles and a gap-toothed grin, it's my oldest nephew and yet it's his son. My second oldest brother's been dead for 37 years, but there's his walk, his stance, the way he wrinkled up his nose. All these strands, these fragments, tossed together, rearranged, updated, resurrected.
Except here is Hugh. No strands cling to him, no fragments of uncles or cousins reappear in the shape of his calves or the way he cocks his head. Cut from the biological web by adoption, Hugh stands free in his Hughness.
And yet. Love has its own biology and life in a family seems to produce its own genetic code. In Hugh's wicked sense of fun, his infectious personality and love of the outrageous, my dad comes back to life. Just like the grandpa he never knew, Hugh enjoys lobbing incendiary comments across the table and then sitting back to enjoy the fireworks. Deeper than DNA, somehow, love and life form their own thick web.
And, as it happens, my brown adopted baby fits into my extended family much better than my biological son--or me. Hugh prefers the vast houses, manicured lawns, and backyard swimming pools of suburbia; Hugh longs for an SUV; Hugh has a need for order and absolute rules that my family's political and religious conservatism fulfills. Desperate to hunt and fish and tinker with machines, Hugh suffocates in our book-lined house. But here, in the western suburbs of Chicago, Republicanville, the Land Beyond O'Hare, here Hugh comes into his own.
With his own family.
Owen was one of the 2 absent grandchildren. It was an excused absence: he's bicycling across the country with a homeless advocacy group. Travel and volunteer work for a worthy cause--Mom wholeheartedly approves of both.
I missed him. Especially since I kept seeing him, various versions of him, bits and pieces of him. There he was at age 2, in the chubby cheeks and legs of my godson. And see, there, his thick and unruly blonde hair, on the head of my nephew's middle boy. And over there, there's his smile on another nephew. And my brother's face, a glimpse of the Owen yet to come.
In big family gatherings, the laws of time and space fall apart. I'm holding a baby, and it's me at 17, holding my very first niece or is it that niece at 17, holding baby Owen, or is it me again, holding my niece's first son? This stocky Tom Sawyer look-alike with freckles and a gap-toothed grin, it's my oldest nephew and yet it's his son. My second oldest brother's been dead for 37 years, but there's his walk, his stance, the way he wrinkled up his nose. All these strands, these fragments, tossed together, rearranged, updated, resurrected.
Except here is Hugh. No strands cling to him, no fragments of uncles or cousins reappear in the shape of his calves or the way he cocks his head. Cut from the biological web by adoption, Hugh stands free in his Hughness.
And yet. Love has its own biology and life in a family seems to produce its own genetic code. In Hugh's wicked sense of fun, his infectious personality and love of the outrageous, my dad comes back to life. Just like the grandpa he never knew, Hugh enjoys lobbing incendiary comments across the table and then sitting back to enjoy the fireworks. Deeper than DNA, somehow, love and life form their own thick web.
And, as it happens, my brown adopted baby fits into my extended family much better than my biological son--or me. Hugh prefers the vast houses, manicured lawns, and backyard swimming pools of suburbia; Hugh longs for an SUV; Hugh has a need for order and absolute rules that my family's political and religious conservatism fulfills. Desperate to hunt and fish and tinker with machines, Hugh suffocates in our book-lined house. But here, in the western suburbs of Chicago, Republicanville, the Land Beyond O'Hare, here Hugh comes into his own.
With his own family.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Hatchets
My kids were still quite small when I realized that the only way that I would have the time and energy to be the sort of mother than I wanted to be was to get rid of my children. Otherwise I was bound to make a hatchet job of it.
Interesting phrase: "hatchet job." I guess the idea is that if you use a big ol' hatchet instead of the precision blade that the task requires, the process will be messy. Works for me. Me as mother, I mean.
I watch my niece with her two little boys and she's an artist, a sculptor, carefully trimming here, delicately carving there, using her exacting tools with such grace and attention to detail. Whereas I, I was more like Lizzie Borden than Michelangelo, or maybe just a rusty tin woodsman, hacking and gouging, wood chips flying, splinters everywhere.
Which is not to say that the end products necessarily reflect my lack of skill. Turns out children are less like blocks of wood than those antibiotic-resistant superviruses. Thank God.
Interesting phrase: "hatchet job." I guess the idea is that if you use a big ol' hatchet instead of the precision blade that the task requires, the process will be messy. Works for me. Me as mother, I mean.
I watch my niece with her two little boys and she's an artist, a sculptor, carefully trimming here, delicately carving there, using her exacting tools with such grace and attention to detail. Whereas I, I was more like Lizzie Borden than Michelangelo, or maybe just a rusty tin woodsman, hacking and gouging, wood chips flying, splinters everywhere.
Which is not to say that the end products necessarily reflect my lack of skill. Turns out children are less like blocks of wood than those antibiotic-resistant superviruses. Thank God.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Bad Words
I never used to swear or curse. I grew up in an astonishingly curse-free, swear-averse environment. My mom and dad did both say the occasional shit, but that didn't count--as I explained in an earlier post, shit isn't really a Bad Word in the Dutch immigrant society that constituted my early universe. But hell, damn, dammit, God, Goddamn, oh God, my God, oh my God, Jesus, Christ, and Jesus Christ--if not used in the religious context, such words were absolutely, utterly forbidden. And I never heard either of my parents--or their friends-- use these words in a cursing context, not ever, not even during their pinochle games with friends that went long into the night and were accompanied by copious quantities of hard liquor. (Always a light sleeper and a highly skilled eavesdropper, I'd lie in bed and listen to the rumble of adult talk punctuated by shouts of laughter.) The only exceptions were the Donovans, but that made sense because unlike all my parents' other friends, the Donovans were not Dutch and they did not attend a Reformed or a Christian Reformed church. So they did utter the occasional damn and their girls, my some time playmates, frequently said, Oh my Gahd. But Mrs. Donovan was also the only mom I knew who smoked and drank beer, so it was all of a piece.
Swear words had a small but more marked presence in my childhood,via my older brothers and the occasional movie. I first heard cunt, for example, when I saw An Officer and a Gentleman in high school; I wasn't really sure what it meant tho' I sort of got the gist of it. And I first heard prick in an argument between my brothers; I just thought, huh? Fuck came in much earlier, I don't know how, when, where, or why (probably the Donovan girls); but I knew the word, and knew it was Really Really Bad long before I knew its literal meaning.
But the point is, I didn't say it. Or any of these words. Except in situations of extreme duress or heartbreak. That's what they were for. Words that tore through the curtains of respectability, words that broke all the rules in acknowledgment that extraordinary times demand extraordinary words.
Now I swear and curse all the time. Extraordinary words for extraordinary times? Umm, well, "extraordinary times" hardly seems an appropriate label for the mundanities of menopause. Mostly I'm just tired, confused, and pissed off most of the time, and so inclined to ignore the rules.
But my linguistic descent began before the onset of menopause. First, there was George W. Bush. Honestly, during the Bush years, how could one not swear and curse?
And then there was, there is, the Owen Factor. I realize parents are supposed to mold their children, rather than vice versa, but basically I've learned to swear from my son. Most kids are fascinated by Bad Words but Owen, Owen was enchanted, mesmerized, transfixed, obsessed. When he was tiny and the Bad Words were shut up and stupid, I finally told him if he felt like saying them, he should go into the bathroom. If he wanted to whisper Bad Words in there, or shout them, or chant them, well, ok. So, golly, that's what he did. Repeatedly. Enjoyed himself immensely. As Owen got older and we'd allow him to watch the occasional PG film, he'd giggle in absolute delight at every naughty word. And then we moved to England, where we lived in a working-class neighborhood and took the city bus to his school, so his mornings were filled with "fookin' idjut" and "bloody hell, yeh wanker." He lapped it up.
Then we came home from England and took the boys to an anti-Iraq war rally in New Orleans. Within minutes, 12-year-old Owen was part of a college group that had resurrected that old chant, "1-2-3-4, We don't want your fuckin' war!" He was so happy.
By the time Owen entered high school, we were battling constantly, and fruitlessly, against his bad language. Then, at age 15, he spent 6 months in South Africa on an international student program. Fundamentalist Christians, his host family nonetheless utilized fuck as comma, period, exclamation point, adjective, and qualifying adverb. And that was it. Owen came home, we acknowledged defeat in the language war, and somewhere along the line I went over to his side.
Which is a problem. Because when the bad times come, as they do, as they will, what words will I have left?
Swear words had a small but more marked presence in my childhood,via my older brothers and the occasional movie. I first heard cunt, for example, when I saw An Officer and a Gentleman in high school; I wasn't really sure what it meant tho' I sort of got the gist of it. And I first heard prick in an argument between my brothers; I just thought, huh? Fuck came in much earlier, I don't know how, when, where, or why (probably the Donovan girls); but I knew the word, and knew it was Really Really Bad long before I knew its literal meaning.
But the point is, I didn't say it. Or any of these words. Except in situations of extreme duress or heartbreak. That's what they were for. Words that tore through the curtains of respectability, words that broke all the rules in acknowledgment that extraordinary times demand extraordinary words.
Now I swear and curse all the time. Extraordinary words for extraordinary times? Umm, well, "extraordinary times" hardly seems an appropriate label for the mundanities of menopause. Mostly I'm just tired, confused, and pissed off most of the time, and so inclined to ignore the rules.
But my linguistic descent began before the onset of menopause. First, there was George W. Bush. Honestly, during the Bush years, how could one not swear and curse?
And then there was, there is, the Owen Factor. I realize parents are supposed to mold their children, rather than vice versa, but basically I've learned to swear from my son. Most kids are fascinated by Bad Words but Owen, Owen was enchanted, mesmerized, transfixed, obsessed. When he was tiny and the Bad Words were shut up and stupid, I finally told him if he felt like saying them, he should go into the bathroom. If he wanted to whisper Bad Words in there, or shout them, or chant them, well, ok. So, golly, that's what he did. Repeatedly. Enjoyed himself immensely. As Owen got older and we'd allow him to watch the occasional PG film, he'd giggle in absolute delight at every naughty word. And then we moved to England, where we lived in a working-class neighborhood and took the city bus to his school, so his mornings were filled with "fookin' idjut" and "bloody hell, yeh wanker." He lapped it up.
Then we came home from England and took the boys to an anti-Iraq war rally in New Orleans. Within minutes, 12-year-old Owen was part of a college group that had resurrected that old chant, "1-2-3-4, We don't want your fuckin' war!" He was so happy.
By the time Owen entered high school, we were battling constantly, and fruitlessly, against his bad language. Then, at age 15, he spent 6 months in South Africa on an international student program. Fundamentalist Christians, his host family nonetheless utilized fuck as comma, period, exclamation point, adjective, and qualifying adverb. And that was it. Owen came home, we acknowledged defeat in the language war, and somewhere along the line I went over to his side.
Which is a problem. Because when the bad times come, as they do, as they will, what words will I have left?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
A Life of Danger
All of my life I've been a cautious, rules-oriented, color-within-the-lines sort of soul. So, now, facing 50, it's kind of a revelation to look back and realize that really, I've lived a life of incredible danger.
I grew up drinking whole-fat milk at every meal (the Dutch legacy--milk and cheese were big) and eating red meat at least once a day. We'd pour spoonfuls of sugar onto our already sweetened cereal and shake layers of salt onto our canned vegetables.
I didn't have a car seat; as a toddler I sat on the arm rest next to my mom and when she braked suddenly she'd put out her arm to block me from flying through the wind shield. (To this day, Mom flings out her right arm when coming to a sudden stop while driving.) When I was older, I romped around the back seat; using a seat belt was unheard of. Bike helmets? I don't think we knew they existed. (Did they?)
And by the time I was 4, it was common, in fact expected, that I'd disappear from home for hours on end. We frequently went exploring in the woods behind our house that led up and beyond the interstate highway--which we ran across without much thought. We also never gave a thought to the signs screaming WARNING: HEALTH HAZARD: NO SWIMMING that were posted along the stream that ran through the fields below. We couldn't see any health hazards so we thought the signs were silly. Into the stream we'd plunge, the same stream that came running out of Argonne National Laboratories (you may have heard of Argonne; big name in the development of atomic and then nuclear weapons).
On summer nights we'd listen for the telltale rumble of the mosquito truck, and once we heard it we'd all run out, jump on our bikes, and peddle like mad to catch up with the sweet-smelling, cough-inducing cloud of poison.
On Halloween we headed out as soon as we could get off the school bus and into our costumes; we'd tumble back home around 10 pm, exhausted, streaked with chocolate, (no one told us an adult should check out our candy before we ate it; I doubt if any adult in our lives realized they were supposed to do such a thing), our costumes ripped from climbing fences and jumping culverts. Sometimes grown-ups would drive by and see us, slogging on home with our bulging bags of candy, and they'd offer us rides, which we gratefully accepted. Strangers. In cars. And in we'd pile.
Good lord. Where were our parents?
Inside. Drinking martinis. Playing pinochle. Watching Gunsmoke. Living adult lives completely separate from our own.
Bizarre. Tempting, but bizarre.
I grew up drinking whole-fat milk at every meal (the Dutch legacy--milk and cheese were big) and eating red meat at least once a day. We'd pour spoonfuls of sugar onto our already sweetened cereal and shake layers of salt onto our canned vegetables.
I didn't have a car seat; as a toddler I sat on the arm rest next to my mom and when she braked suddenly she'd put out her arm to block me from flying through the wind shield. (To this day, Mom flings out her right arm when coming to a sudden stop while driving.) When I was older, I romped around the back seat; using a seat belt was unheard of. Bike helmets? I don't think we knew they existed. (Did they?)
And by the time I was 4, it was common, in fact expected, that I'd disappear from home for hours on end. We frequently went exploring in the woods behind our house that led up and beyond the interstate highway--which we ran across without much thought. We also never gave a thought to the signs screaming WARNING: HEALTH HAZARD: NO SWIMMING that were posted along the stream that ran through the fields below. We couldn't see any health hazards so we thought the signs were silly. Into the stream we'd plunge, the same stream that came running out of Argonne National Laboratories (you may have heard of Argonne; big name in the development of atomic and then nuclear weapons).
On summer nights we'd listen for the telltale rumble of the mosquito truck, and once we heard it we'd all run out, jump on our bikes, and peddle like mad to catch up with the sweet-smelling, cough-inducing cloud of poison.
On Halloween we headed out as soon as we could get off the school bus and into our costumes; we'd tumble back home around 10 pm, exhausted, streaked with chocolate, (no one told us an adult should check out our candy before we ate it; I doubt if any adult in our lives realized they were supposed to do such a thing), our costumes ripped from climbing fences and jumping culverts. Sometimes grown-ups would drive by and see us, slogging on home with our bulging bags of candy, and they'd offer us rides, which we gratefully accepted. Strangers. In cars. And in we'd pile.
Good lord. Where were our parents?
Inside. Drinking martinis. Playing pinochle. Watching Gunsmoke. Living adult lives completely separate from our own.
Bizarre. Tempting, but bizarre.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Fashion Revolution
The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things. . . actually, just hats and gloves. And I'm not really the Walrus. I think that was John Lennon.
Anyway. I've been looking at my hands. They are old lady hands. Wrinkly. And there are these spots. They used to be freckles--charming, mischievous, evoking a youth spent dropping from the rope swing into the lake (there was no swing; there was no lake; there wasn't much of a youth-but the freckles didn't know that). Now these insouciant little freckles have morphed into age spots. Just like my mom's. Geez. Just like my Gram's. They (the age spots, not Mom and Gram) look like some amoeba-like aliens planning their conquest of the human race.
And then there are the fingernails. Or lack thereof. I try. I really do. And for a month last spring, I actually did have nails. A brief, shining moment of being good at being female. But then I reverted to my usual ragged, jagged nails bit to the quick, bleeding cuticles, pus-pulsating hangnails. I can't help it. Life is hard. Fingers are close at hand. I bite. I tear. I chew. I pick. I prod. I peel.
So. The solution, obviously, is a grass-roots renaissance of gloves. Not utilitarian winter gloves, which clearly would not catch on here in the Deep South. I mean, ladies' gloves. Gloves for all climates and classes. Elegant, silk-like elbow-caressing gloves. And little lacy white wrist gloves. You know, gloves. The sort of gloves I have some vague, primordial memory of my mother wearing to church. And even me, as a very little girl, in white fake patent-leather shoes and white tights and a pastel blue church dress. And gloves.
And if we're doing gloves, then we must do hats. Again, fuzzy, hazy pictures come swimming up from long ago of my mother and the other Ladies, bedecked and bedazzling up on top. Think of it. No more Bad Hair Days. The ability to put off your roots touch-up for another month. No more blowdryers and curling irons and straightening rods, no more mousse and gel and paste and wax and "Product." Just pop on that sexy little beret. A dashing toque. A demure yet ooh-la-la pillbox. A jaunty newsboy cap. A feminine, postmodernist take on the cowboy hat. Oh, the possibilities are endless.
But if the grassroots Hats-and-Gloves movement fails, then I suggest we all adopt the hijab in solidarity with our Muslim sisters. Or shoot. Given the realities of the Body Facing 50, let's just go for the fullout burka. All this time, I've identified the burka with oppression, but honestly, maybe it would be the ultimate liberation: Time to go to work? Pull on the burka and you're heading out the door, 60 seconds max.
But I've got my eye on the cutest straw cloche with a black silk ribbon, paired with lacy black cotton gloves. Maidens of menopause, unite!
Anyway. I've been looking at my hands. They are old lady hands. Wrinkly. And there are these spots. They used to be freckles--charming, mischievous, evoking a youth spent dropping from the rope swing into the lake (there was no swing; there was no lake; there wasn't much of a youth-but the freckles didn't know that). Now these insouciant little freckles have morphed into age spots. Just like my mom's. Geez. Just like my Gram's. They (the age spots, not Mom and Gram) look like some amoeba-like aliens planning their conquest of the human race.
And then there are the fingernails. Or lack thereof. I try. I really do. And for a month last spring, I actually did have nails. A brief, shining moment of being good at being female. But then I reverted to my usual ragged, jagged nails bit to the quick, bleeding cuticles, pus-pulsating hangnails. I can't help it. Life is hard. Fingers are close at hand. I bite. I tear. I chew. I pick. I prod. I peel.
So. The solution, obviously, is a grass-roots renaissance of gloves. Not utilitarian winter gloves, which clearly would not catch on here in the Deep South. I mean, ladies' gloves. Gloves for all climates and classes. Elegant, silk-like elbow-caressing gloves. And little lacy white wrist gloves. You know, gloves. The sort of gloves I have some vague, primordial memory of my mother wearing to church. And even me, as a very little girl, in white fake patent-leather shoes and white tights and a pastel blue church dress. And gloves.
And if we're doing gloves, then we must do hats. Again, fuzzy, hazy pictures come swimming up from long ago of my mother and the other Ladies, bedecked and bedazzling up on top. Think of it. No more Bad Hair Days. The ability to put off your roots touch-up for another month. No more blowdryers and curling irons and straightening rods, no more mousse and gel and paste and wax and "Product." Just pop on that sexy little beret. A dashing toque. A demure yet ooh-la-la pillbox. A jaunty newsboy cap. A feminine, postmodernist take on the cowboy hat. Oh, the possibilities are endless.
But if the grassroots Hats-and-Gloves movement fails, then I suggest we all adopt the hijab in solidarity with our Muslim sisters. Or shoot. Given the realities of the Body Facing 50, let's just go for the fullout burka. All this time, I've identified the burka with oppression, but honestly, maybe it would be the ultimate liberation: Time to go to work? Pull on the burka and you're heading out the door, 60 seconds max.
But I've got my eye on the cutest straw cloche with a black silk ribbon, paired with lacy black cotton gloves. Maidens of menopause, unite!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Grounding and Garbage
Hugh is grounded. Again. "Can't you think of a different punishment for once?" Hugh demanded. Dweeb parents that we are, we can't.
Could be worse, I tell him. My brother J.T. was grounded for his entire senior year of high school--and even into that summer. It didn't initially start out as a year-long grounding. I think first he faced a month-long detention, but just as the month was ending, he snuck out of the house. And got caught. So the month became three months. And then, just as the end of his purgatory was drawing nigh, yes, out he snuck again. And got caught again. Poor J.T. He really really wanted to be a Bad Kid, but he just wasn't very good at it. Anyway, on it went, for his entire senior year.
We kid my mom now, about the endless grounding. It's not really fair as she was generally quite creative in the punishment department. Take the time she found some pornographic magazine--not Playboy, not Penthouse, far beyond that--that J.T. had tucked in amidst the towels in the bathroom. (Like I said, he was really very bad at being bad.) Mom didn't say a word. But that night, when we sat down for dinner, there was no plate at J.T.'s place. "I've made something special just for you," she explained to him. Cheryl and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes; it wasn't out of the ordinary for my mother to cook just for one of the boys. In fact, once there was no longer a boy at home, Mom simply stopped cooking altogether. The fact that Cheryl and I were there, well, that didn't count. But--I digress. Back to the fateful dinner. So daughters roll their eyes, son anticipates a treat, we all say grace. And then my mom gets up, pulls a plate out of the warm oven, and sets it in front of J.T. On it sat a pile of garbage, an oozing glop of gunk from the trash can. And then, very calmly, she said, "If you're going to put garbage in your mind, you'll put it in your body."
I was totally impressed.
I was even more impressed by what she said next: "If you ever show such disrespect to me or your sisters again, you'll eat nothing but garbage at my table." I was 15. I had never thought of myself as someone to be respected. I certainly had never dared to think that any one of my five older brothers was supposed to respect me. I rather liked the idea.
Hugh hasn't a clue how lucky he is that I failed Creative Punishments.
Could be worse, I tell him. My brother J.T. was grounded for his entire senior year of high school--and even into that summer. It didn't initially start out as a year-long grounding. I think first he faced a month-long detention, but just as the month was ending, he snuck out of the house. And got caught. So the month became three months. And then, just as the end of his purgatory was drawing nigh, yes, out he snuck again. And got caught again. Poor J.T. He really really wanted to be a Bad Kid, but he just wasn't very good at it. Anyway, on it went, for his entire senior year.
We kid my mom now, about the endless grounding. It's not really fair as she was generally quite creative in the punishment department. Take the time she found some pornographic magazine--not Playboy, not Penthouse, far beyond that--that J.T. had tucked in amidst the towels in the bathroom. (Like I said, he was really very bad at being bad.) Mom didn't say a word. But that night, when we sat down for dinner, there was no plate at J.T.'s place. "I've made something special just for you," she explained to him. Cheryl and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes; it wasn't out of the ordinary for my mother to cook just for one of the boys. In fact, once there was no longer a boy at home, Mom simply stopped cooking altogether. The fact that Cheryl and I were there, well, that didn't count. But--I digress. Back to the fateful dinner. So daughters roll their eyes, son anticipates a treat, we all say grace. And then my mom gets up, pulls a plate out of the warm oven, and sets it in front of J.T. On it sat a pile of garbage, an oozing glop of gunk from the trash can. And then, very calmly, she said, "If you're going to put garbage in your mind, you'll put it in your body."
I was totally impressed.
I was even more impressed by what she said next: "If you ever show such disrespect to me or your sisters again, you'll eat nothing but garbage at my table." I was 15. I had never thought of myself as someone to be respected. I certainly had never dared to think that any one of my five older brothers was supposed to respect me. I rather liked the idea.
Hugh hasn't a clue how lucky he is that I failed Creative Punishments.
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