I'm becoming a bit of a fat advocate. Being a big underdog lover, I've never had trouble advocating for other subculture groups even if I didn't quite fit in with them, namely African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, geeks, hippies, and gays. Although I do still consider myself bisexual even though I happened to have married a wonderful man. If Hank were a woman I'd still love him. Uh, her. I probably wouldn't call her Hank, though. His mother was going to name him Celeste if Hank was a girl. I thought that was cool since we chose a similarly astronomy-themed name for our girl Stella.
But back to fat advocacy. Everywhere I go lately I'm having to defend fat people. And I'm one of them. Not that people are directly confronting me about my weight (other than that fertility specialist) but my friends and family and co-workers and everyone around me seems to have it in for fat people. And most of the people who have a problem with fat people are kinda fat themselves. It's like closeted gay people gay-bashing someone because they hate themselves.
Once and for all, fat people are fine. They're just like you and, well of course me because I'm fat. There is nothing wrong with being fat. Some fat people are unhealthy and lazy and ugly. And some fat people are healthy and industrious and beautiful. Just like everyone else. It feels kinda good to finally advocate for myself.
Please, every rational person out there: I beg you to read Health at Every Size by Dr. Linda Bacon. Here's a book review*:
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight by Dr. Linda Bacon
If you want to lose weight, achieve health, and live the life of your dreams—have I got a book for you! Many books offer that promise: just follow THIS diet and workout routine and you’ll magically shed pounds. The reality is it’s not that easy, to which I can personally attest.
I went on my first diet in third grade when my parents sent me to Weight Watchers. Never mind that both my parents are heavy themselves, as were all four of my grandparents. I suppose they thought they were too old to change their habits, but if I could be educated and encouraged to diet and exercise, there might be hope for me.
So I dutifully went to weekly meetings. Probably fifteen to fifty years younger than everyone else, I self-consciously stood on the scale and had my weight announced to the group. If I had lost weight, I felt proud, but if I had gained weight, I felt defeated in front of grownups I barely knew. I compared my progress to others’, thinking “I bet if I work harder next week I can be the best in the group.” Instead of eating popcorn, drinking Pepsi, and watching TV with my family, I’d hide in my bedroom, drinking Tab, poring over my food diary, counting calories to see how I could lower the daily total. The days I met my goal of just 500 calories I felt exhilarated with power. I’d run up and down the stairs to our basement for forty-five minutes at a time. I’d ignore my friends playing Barbies so I could go on hours-long walks by myself. Then in fifth grade, I visited the doctor. His diagnosis: anorexia nervosa. I was sent to a therapist. After a few rough patches—being threatened with hospitalization and force-fed by my raging father—I began eating again. And eating and eating and eating. I quit running up and down the stairs and going for long walks because I knew I’d get in trouble. By seventh grade, another doctor pointed to a chart and admonished me for being twenty pounds overweight.
Fast forward twenty-three years, and I’m visiting a fertility specialist to conceive my second child. The doctor announces he can’t treat me until I lose weight. I argue that two of my “normal” weight sisters also had fertility problems and that our mom took DES when she was pregnant with us. He shrugs off the effects of DES as scientifically inconclusive. I point out that he had helped me conceive my first child. He argues that I’ve gained fifty pounds since then. I inspect the chart and see a glaring typo. The nurse had transposed two numbers and I was only twenty pounds heavier than I had been the first go round, and since I had just had a baby a few months before, I figured he’d cut me some slack. He didn’t and told me to come back when I’d lost weight. I joined a gym. I follow a low-glycemic index diet. I didn’t lose weight.
A few months later it was time for the health-risk assessment at work. The BMI chart categorizes me as obese, but my blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol have always been normal, and this time, my good cholesterol elevated eleven points from the previous year and was now in the “excellent” range. But I still hadn’t lost weight.
Then I stumble upon the book Heath at Every Size by Dr. Linda Bacon and things start to click. In twelve accessibly written chapters with 419 references to scientific studies, Dr. Bacon disproves the myth that fat is not conducive to health. She shows us that much weight loss research, which doctors and the media reference, is funded by people who work for the diet industry. “At least seven of the nine members on the National Institute of Health’s Obesity Task Force were directors of weight-loss clinics, and most had multiple financial relationships with private industry.” She points out that from 1970-2004, during the so called “obesity epidemic” the average lifespan rose from 70.8 to 77.8. She addresses the issue that many diseases such as high blood pressure and heart disease associated with overweight are found in thin people too. She raises our awareness of the vast diversity of size among the human population, and proves that health can be achieved for all sizes.
But how? Her advice is simple. Give up trying to lose weight. Regardless of your size, “enjoy a variety of real food, primarily plants.” Move your body in pleasurable ways, which she calls “active living.” And most of all, love yourself. This health manual is not going to raise profits for the multi-billion dollar diet industry. But it raises awareness that health comes in all sizes and it has raised my self-esteem immeasurably.
*Parts of this entry were originally posted on the Johnson County Library Staff Picks blog .
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
She's Closer to Her Mother
I could hear Hazel crying in the other room. Mom and Dad's room I think. Dad was out in the family room watching golf with the sound turned way up. Golf is the most silent sport on the planet and yet my father evidentlly needs to hear the sound of the club hitting the ball. But then when the announcers come on it makes you jump unless you're on the other side of the house and even then it's loud.
So the fact that I could hear Hazel crying was a big deal. Plus, Hazel was nineteen at the time and even being only eleven myself I knew it was socially improper for nineteen year olds to cry unless they were FREAKING OUT.
I opened Hazel and my bedroom door to try to hear better, but that just made Dad's TV worse. I went back inside our room and shut the door. I pressed my ear up to the wall, next to the framed Jesus Carmex, but I couldn't hear any better. I looked inside the closet. Yes. I always loved hiding in closets anyway. I crawled to the very back of it, moving some of Hazel's shoes out of the way. I only had one pair of shoes and they were on my feet. I didn't understand why anyone would want to wear anything other than my grey and purple kanjaroos. I leaned my head against the wall. I really could hear better. Mom's closet must have been open. Their voices were muffled, but I got the gist of it.
Hazel was freaking out. She was begging Mom to take me to a psychiatrist. To a hospital. To another doctor. Anywhere. It was quiet for awhile but then suddenly Hazel blurted out, "People die from anorexia, Mother." Clearly, as if she finally knew what to say. I heard our mother sob. Mom didn't like us to watch her cry. I felt guilty for listening in on their conversation even though it was obviously about me. I felt sorry for my mom at the same time what Hazel was saying made my heart pound with what felt like walking into a surprise birthday party.
So we went. It was at this brick, flat roofed county mental health building far enough away Dad took the highway to get to it.
Dad was sitting in a chair with armrests and cushions but he didn't look comfortable at all. Mom and I were sitting at opposite ends of the couch. Mom's purse, opened with a wad of Kleenex at the top, sat next to her, between us. The therapist sat across from us on one of those really cool wooden spinning office chairs I always want to spin on but get in trouble for doing so when I come upon one. I must have been focusing too much on her chair, because the therapist raised her voice, "Sydney. Did you hear my question?"
"Uh, no, um, sorry."
"I asked you who you'd say you're closer to. Your mom--" she nodded her head at my mom's side of the couch, "Or your dad---" she looked over at my dad, who had his left calf crossing his right thigh in the way mom told me not to when I tried to sit that way. He was rolling his shoelace between his thumb and forefinger. I could tell he wanted to light up a cigarette, but the therapist mentioned at the start that she didn't want anyone smoking during the session. Mom and dad had to both put away their packs like people nowadays have to turn off their phones.
I had no idea how to answer. What a horrible question to ask someone. That was all I could think of. How could she put me on the spot like that, asking me who I'm closer to right here in front of him. I felt just like I did when Mom told me she mentioned to Dad that I had started my period the pervious year.
"She's closer to her mother."
I looked up at Dad. He wasn't looking up. Still twiddling his shoe lace. I felt so relieved. He knew. It wasn't just me who noticed. But then, as I stared at him twiddling his shoelace and not looking up, I felt so sad. Because if he knew we weren't close, then he also didn't seem too concerned about it. Here I'd been sitting here worrying about hurting Dad's feelings by admitting to the therapist that I was closer to my mom than I was to my dad, but with five words I realize my father doesn't care that we're not close.
So the fact that I could hear Hazel crying was a big deal. Plus, Hazel was nineteen at the time and even being only eleven myself I knew it was socially improper for nineteen year olds to cry unless they were FREAKING OUT.
I opened Hazel and my bedroom door to try to hear better, but that just made Dad's TV worse. I went back inside our room and shut the door. I pressed my ear up to the wall, next to the framed Jesus Carmex, but I couldn't hear any better. I looked inside the closet. Yes. I always loved hiding in closets anyway. I crawled to the very back of it, moving some of Hazel's shoes out of the way. I only had one pair of shoes and they were on my feet. I didn't understand why anyone would want to wear anything other than my grey and purple kanjaroos. I leaned my head against the wall. I really could hear better. Mom's closet must have been open. Their voices were muffled, but I got the gist of it.
Hazel was freaking out. She was begging Mom to take me to a psychiatrist. To a hospital. To another doctor. Anywhere. It was quiet for awhile but then suddenly Hazel blurted out, "People die from anorexia, Mother." Clearly, as if she finally knew what to say. I heard our mother sob. Mom didn't like us to watch her cry. I felt guilty for listening in on their conversation even though it was obviously about me. I felt sorry for my mom at the same time what Hazel was saying made my heart pound with what felt like walking into a surprise birthday party.
So we went. It was at this brick, flat roofed county mental health building far enough away Dad took the highway to get to it.
Dad was sitting in a chair with armrests and cushions but he didn't look comfortable at all. Mom and I were sitting at opposite ends of the couch. Mom's purse, opened with a wad of Kleenex at the top, sat next to her, between us. The therapist sat across from us on one of those really cool wooden spinning office chairs I always want to spin on but get in trouble for doing so when I come upon one. I must have been focusing too much on her chair, because the therapist raised her voice, "Sydney. Did you hear my question?"
"Uh, no, um, sorry."
"I asked you who you'd say you're closer to. Your mom--" she nodded her head at my mom's side of the couch, "Or your dad---" she looked over at my dad, who had his left calf crossing his right thigh in the way mom told me not to when I tried to sit that way. He was rolling his shoelace between his thumb and forefinger. I could tell he wanted to light up a cigarette, but the therapist mentioned at the start that she didn't want anyone smoking during the session. Mom and dad had to both put away their packs like people nowadays have to turn off their phones.
I had no idea how to answer. What a horrible question to ask someone. That was all I could think of. How could she put me on the spot like that, asking me who I'm closer to right here in front of him. I felt just like I did when Mom told me she mentioned to Dad that I had started my period the pervious year.
"She's closer to her mother."
I looked up at Dad. He wasn't looking up. Still twiddling his shoe lace. I felt so relieved. He knew. It wasn't just me who noticed. But then, as I stared at him twiddling his shoelace and not looking up, I felt so sad. Because if he knew we weren't close, then he also didn't seem too concerned about it. Here I'd been sitting here worrying about hurting Dad's feelings by admitting to the therapist that I was closer to my mom than I was to my dad, but with five words I realize my father doesn't care that we're not close.
Family Therapy and Writing Therapy
I began eating again just so I didn't have to suffer though any more family therapy sessions. During the last session, my therapist asked Mom and Dad to please go into the waiting room and give her a few minutes alone to talk to me. Neither of them said a word. They just turned and walked out the door.
I started to sweat a little even though my hands felt like I'd been soaking them in an Icee. What did she want to talk to me alone about? She got up and drew some stick figures on a chalkboard with arrows and circles surrounding them. She turned to me and smiled.
"How do you feel, Sydney?"
I smoothed my hands along the thighs of the size 3 jeans I was wearing. I had some cushion around my knees that wasn't there a few months ago when I began therapy weighing 79 pounds. After a few threats that I'd have to enter a rehab center and too many awkward couseling sessions with Mom and Dad, I decided to give in. I'll eat. Just leave me alone. It occured to me that as much of a thrill as it was for me to have lost my breasts and stopped menstruating - exhilarating freedom when you find out you can control how much of a grown up you want to be--I actually didn't like all the attention everyone was suddenly paying to my body, even in the baggiest sweats I could wear without them falling off me when I walk. I don't know if I just gave up or if I subconsciously thought, if I don't want people looking at my body I should let it get as big as it wants because I'd picked up from weight watchers and those three teasing boys who made fun of my breasts in fourth grade that boys definitely aren't interested in fat girls. Which only made the idea sound even better. I was sick of men staring at me. I decided to stop paying attention to my body and focus more on my mind.
"Ok." I was eleven and just learning what I now understand to be what the professionals call apparent competence. I knew better than to tell her what was going through my head.
My therapist pointed a stick to the various stick figures on the chalkboard which represented my family. I was in the center, which felt weird.
"I want you to know, Sydney, that often it's not the person brought in to get counseling who most needs it within a family. Do you know what I mean?" She sat down on the couch next to me and laid her hand a few inches from my leg.
I nodded even though I was fuzzy despite paying careful attention to her every word. I felt like she, like most people, treated me older than I was because I looked older than I actually was. I felt like this was a conversation she should have had with my mom. I smiled and thanked her and got up and left.
My parents and I ate at an all you can eat buffet immediately afterwards and then drove home in silence. I remember fastening my lap belt in the back seat of the Camaro my dad bought himself as a midlife crisis present a few years earlier. I peeked over his bald head and saw he was going 90. The last sign I saw said 55. I liked to keep track of these sorts of things to measure his mood. I knew speeding like this was not good. Mom never told him to slow down. She gripped the dashboard when he'd swerve to keep from sideswiping another car, but other than that, you could barely tell she was a passenger in the car.
We got home, watched TV and went to bed. Dad went to bed first. I sat on the couch where mom was reading a paperback with the TV on as background noise.
Neither of us said anything. I laid my head on her shoulder, she put her arm around me, and I fell asleep.
As a teenager, reading the works of Virginia Woolf and Gloria Steinem and Harriet Lerner, I shrugged off my mother as being an Edith Bunker to my dad's Archie. I think I was both Mike and Gloria. My siblings were the Jeffersons.
And I associated Mom's passive Edith-style with being a woman. A good, funny, smart, nice woman. I love my mom. She's one of my favorite people on earth. But it made me sad to see her always give in to what Dad demanded.
Until one day she didn't. She left him. Within a few months divorced. By nine months, Dad remarried one of his rich dance partners and by then Mom's mums had begun blooming on the porch of her tiny but neat apartment. I didn't understand why she didn't put up a fight. Ask for half the house. Bring the bed. But no, Mom loved him not as a husband or even a friend, but as a person. She couldn't leave him without a bed even though it meant she left him her grandmother's antique sleigh bed which he then sold to Hazel and her family for $200 so they could get it back in the family.
I was twenty-two and a bit annoyed she didn't do it when I was four when she first mentioned it. Or at least when I was twelve, after all my siblings had left me alone to witness their crumbling marriage. Not that it was their fault for getting out when they could. Mom later told me that she did indeed ask Dad for a divorce when I was twelve. He immediately developed the flu and got so sick he ended up in the hosptial where they discovered his coronary arteries were so blocked he could have had a heart attack at any moment. He was in the hospital for about a month. After the heart surgery, he developed pneumonia and was feeling withdrawal from forty-three years of smoking two cartons a week. The doctors told my mom at the time, in 1982, to expect him to live at most another five years. Mom figured she could stand him another five years. She felt it just wasn't right, leaving a dying man alone.
I wanted to be left alone. I spent a lot of time in my tiny bedroom listening to Duran Duran LPs while I fantasized in bed that I was touring with the band. I could write lyrics for them or something. Or maybe even something else.
It felt good to travel and have conversations with people all over the world inside my head without leaving my tiny space. I sat on my bed which was about sixty years old, one of those metal fold-up beds that had once belonged to my great-grandmother. The mattress was who knows how old. Could it possibly have been the original? You had to sleep on it just so or you'd get poked by one of the springs popping through one of the many holes in the mattress. I was totally used to it, as was Hazel who had a matching one. But when friends stayed the night they brought their sleeping bags and slept on the more comfortable green carpeted floor.
I sat in bed with the Brother word processor/electric typewriter my mom and dad had given me for Christmas. It was my favorite present ever, next to the dictionary and thesaurus they got me for my 13th birthday. I typed stories. I typed poems. If I hadn't cowardly thrown it all away when I was in my twenties and embarrassed by my childish emotions I'd share it with you today. I saw Harriet Lerner speak once and she read to the audience from her diary at age 13. It's so funny and sad and embarrassing. But it's so true. We've all felt that way sometimes. And it feels better knowing it's completely normal to feel awkward and stupid and unloveable. How else could you explain Morrissey's fanbase?
The thing I regret throwing away the most is a journal I wrote while I was madly in unrequited love with Noah Zilberschlag. It was covered with my heavily practiced signature: "Sydney Spencer Zilberschlag". Everything about Noah amazed me. I was smitten. We fooled around. Genitals were touched. Pink Floyd LPs were played. It was a beautiful night. The next day in junior year English class he said he thought we were getting too intense and maybe we should cool off for awhile. I was stunned. How could one of the best nights of my life be something he doesn't want repeated? I stopped talking to him. I forced myself to forget about him. When my friend went on a date with him I pretended I didn't care. I went back into my room and wrote and listened to music.
I am forty now. I am so over Noah Zilberschlag. I hope he's doing well. I have no hard feelings. I'm very happy with my romantic life. But I still have trouble with leaving the shelter of my room, writing about lives I can control and rationalize with words and ideas instead of facing the reality of our chaotic world.
I'm getting ready to see my doctor about the severe agoraphobia I experience somewhat regularly. Problem is I don't want to leave the house to go to the doctor's office.
I just want to write. Just like in high school. Avoiding the real world and making up my own.
I started to sweat a little even though my hands felt like I'd been soaking them in an Icee. What did she want to talk to me alone about? She got up and drew some stick figures on a chalkboard with arrows and circles surrounding them. She turned to me and smiled.
"How do you feel, Sydney?"
I smoothed my hands along the thighs of the size 3 jeans I was wearing. I had some cushion around my knees that wasn't there a few months ago when I began therapy weighing 79 pounds. After a few threats that I'd have to enter a rehab center and too many awkward couseling sessions with Mom and Dad, I decided to give in. I'll eat. Just leave me alone. It occured to me that as much of a thrill as it was for me to have lost my breasts and stopped menstruating - exhilarating freedom when you find out you can control how much of a grown up you want to be--I actually didn't like all the attention everyone was suddenly paying to my body, even in the baggiest sweats I could wear without them falling off me when I walk. I don't know if I just gave up or if I subconsciously thought, if I don't want people looking at my body I should let it get as big as it wants because I'd picked up from weight watchers and those three teasing boys who made fun of my breasts in fourth grade that boys definitely aren't interested in fat girls. Which only made the idea sound even better. I was sick of men staring at me. I decided to stop paying attention to my body and focus more on my mind.
"Ok." I was eleven and just learning what I now understand to be what the professionals call apparent competence. I knew better than to tell her what was going through my head.
My therapist pointed a stick to the various stick figures on the chalkboard which represented my family. I was in the center, which felt weird.
"I want you to know, Sydney, that often it's not the person brought in to get counseling who most needs it within a family. Do you know what I mean?" She sat down on the couch next to me and laid her hand a few inches from my leg.
I nodded even though I was fuzzy despite paying careful attention to her every word. I felt like she, like most people, treated me older than I was because I looked older than I actually was. I felt like this was a conversation she should have had with my mom. I smiled and thanked her and got up and left.
My parents and I ate at an all you can eat buffet immediately afterwards and then drove home in silence. I remember fastening my lap belt in the back seat of the Camaro my dad bought himself as a midlife crisis present a few years earlier. I peeked over his bald head and saw he was going 90. The last sign I saw said 55. I liked to keep track of these sorts of things to measure his mood. I knew speeding like this was not good. Mom never told him to slow down. She gripped the dashboard when he'd swerve to keep from sideswiping another car, but other than that, you could barely tell she was a passenger in the car.
We got home, watched TV and went to bed. Dad went to bed first. I sat on the couch where mom was reading a paperback with the TV on as background noise.
Neither of us said anything. I laid my head on her shoulder, she put her arm around me, and I fell asleep.
As a teenager, reading the works of Virginia Woolf and Gloria Steinem and Harriet Lerner, I shrugged off my mother as being an Edith Bunker to my dad's Archie. I think I was both Mike and Gloria. My siblings were the Jeffersons.
And I associated Mom's passive Edith-style with being a woman. A good, funny, smart, nice woman. I love my mom. She's one of my favorite people on earth. But it made me sad to see her always give in to what Dad demanded.
Until one day she didn't. She left him. Within a few months divorced. By nine months, Dad remarried one of his rich dance partners and by then Mom's mums had begun blooming on the porch of her tiny but neat apartment. I didn't understand why she didn't put up a fight. Ask for half the house. Bring the bed. But no, Mom loved him not as a husband or even a friend, but as a person. She couldn't leave him without a bed even though it meant she left him her grandmother's antique sleigh bed which he then sold to Hazel and her family for $200 so they could get it back in the family.
I was twenty-two and a bit annoyed she didn't do it when I was four when she first mentioned it. Or at least when I was twelve, after all my siblings had left me alone to witness their crumbling marriage. Not that it was their fault for getting out when they could. Mom later told me that she did indeed ask Dad for a divorce when I was twelve. He immediately developed the flu and got so sick he ended up in the hosptial where they discovered his coronary arteries were so blocked he could have had a heart attack at any moment. He was in the hospital for about a month. After the heart surgery, he developed pneumonia and was feeling withdrawal from forty-three years of smoking two cartons a week. The doctors told my mom at the time, in 1982, to expect him to live at most another five years. Mom figured she could stand him another five years. She felt it just wasn't right, leaving a dying man alone.
I wanted to be left alone. I spent a lot of time in my tiny bedroom listening to Duran Duran LPs while I fantasized in bed that I was touring with the band. I could write lyrics for them or something. Or maybe even something else.
It felt good to travel and have conversations with people all over the world inside my head without leaving my tiny space. I sat on my bed which was about sixty years old, one of those metal fold-up beds that had once belonged to my great-grandmother. The mattress was who knows how old. Could it possibly have been the original? You had to sleep on it just so or you'd get poked by one of the springs popping through one of the many holes in the mattress. I was totally used to it, as was Hazel who had a matching one. But when friends stayed the night they brought their sleeping bags and slept on the more comfortable green carpeted floor.
I sat in bed with the Brother word processor/electric typewriter my mom and dad had given me for Christmas. It was my favorite present ever, next to the dictionary and thesaurus they got me for my 13th birthday. I typed stories. I typed poems. If I hadn't cowardly thrown it all away when I was in my twenties and embarrassed by my childish emotions I'd share it with you today. I saw Harriet Lerner speak once and she read to the audience from her diary at age 13. It's so funny and sad and embarrassing. But it's so true. We've all felt that way sometimes. And it feels better knowing it's completely normal to feel awkward and stupid and unloveable. How else could you explain Morrissey's fanbase?
The thing I regret throwing away the most is a journal I wrote while I was madly in unrequited love with Noah Zilberschlag. It was covered with my heavily practiced signature: "Sydney Spencer Zilberschlag". Everything about Noah amazed me. I was smitten. We fooled around. Genitals were touched. Pink Floyd LPs were played. It was a beautiful night. The next day in junior year English class he said he thought we were getting too intense and maybe we should cool off for awhile. I was stunned. How could one of the best nights of my life be something he doesn't want repeated? I stopped talking to him. I forced myself to forget about him. When my friend went on a date with him I pretended I didn't care. I went back into my room and wrote and listened to music.
I am forty now. I am so over Noah Zilberschlag. I hope he's doing well. I have no hard feelings. I'm very happy with my romantic life. But I still have trouble with leaving the shelter of my room, writing about lives I can control and rationalize with words and ideas instead of facing the reality of our chaotic world.
I'm getting ready to see my doctor about the severe agoraphobia I experience somewhat regularly. Problem is I don't want to leave the house to go to the doctor's office.
I just want to write. Just like in high school. Avoiding the real world and making up my own.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Movin On
I snuck out of the Writer’s Workshop class at JCCC during the lunch break and drove home, listening to my “Your Arsenal” CD, feeling like a big arse myself, a quitter, thinking of excuses to tell my dad why I just wasted $75 of his hard-earned money to not even get through an entire day of a weekend writing course he’d paid for, even though he thought writing was a frivolous endeavor and I should be studying accounting or computers or something useful. It was February 1992. I had just moved back in my parent’s house for a temporary stay, after I’d first left, full of good riddance for my father, when I was 18. I didn’t like asking my dad to help me out financially, because the strings he attached always came with a lecture about all the things I was doing wrong with my life.
As I entered the door from our garage to the kitchen, my parents were sitting at the table, not eating, as if they had expected me to walk through the door at that exact moment.
"Stella, sit down. Your mother and I need to talk to you.” My dad said without anger or judgment. I sat.
They were both drinking coffee, like old friends, and I remember thinking it was weird—they never sat and talked over coffee. I had expected my dad to be in his La-Z-Boy in front of the giant TV with the volume turned up so loud I was always surprised the next door neighbors never complained. Since he nearly always watched things like golf matches, Entertainment Tonight, and The Lawrence Welk Show, I figured they’d just drifted off to sleep before managing to come over and tell us to turn it down. And as for Mom, she should have been down the hall in her room, painting or flower arranging or whatever current craft project she had going on, not sitting in the kitchen with my father. What the hell did they have to talk about? I hadn’t seen them really talking in at least a decade.
My dad spoke more than I’d ever heard him say in my entire lifetime. He explained that my mom had asked him for a divorce, that he didn’t want one, but he understood it would make her happy, and so he would go through with it. He made it all sound like he expected it to be a shock to me, and so I opened my eyes and raised my eyebrows and nodded my head as if it were. It was all very mild and un-dramatic and rational. No one cried. No one screamed. We just discussed the situation, the plans, what needed to be done. It was agreed upon that I would move out with my mom, and that we’d go driving around later that afternoon to look for an apartment.
She did it. She finally followed through. I didn't know what to do so I sat there a long time and just stared. I looked up and noticed Mom had left the table.
Dad got up from the table, dumped his coffee cup into the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet, rinsed his cup, filled it half full, took a sip of water, dumped the water out, and set his cup on the counter. “Well, I’m going to go take a nap so I’ll be rested enough to go to my dance tonight.”
Evidently Dad had already scanned some seniors bulletin for something singles-ish and fun to do that evening. What’s the point of spending any more of his valuable time dwelling on anything, even his crumbling 22 year marriage? His second crumbled marriage.
He never questioned me about the class I dropped, and after I did move out with my mom, he pretty much stayed off my back about everything practical and responsible. Not living with my dad has been a relief not just for my mother.
I moved out for good a few months after my mom got her apartment. Mom lived alone and enjoyed her meandering independence for ten years, until she met a man online and they married six weeks later. We were all scared, what with Mom’s track record at the great race of love, but the addition of Frank Ferguson to my mom’s life has made her happier, more comfortable, and more peaceful. Just what we all want.
Skip ahead seventeen years. I’m no longer the 21 year old aspiring writer, slacker, unemployed college dropout, trying to scrape the surface of my parent’s marriage to get to the point that is no longer numb. I am now the 40 year old aspiring writer, slacker, college dropout who is gainfully employed at a job I love, and I occasionally scrape the surface of my own life to make sure I never live life numb. I see Dad a couple times a year and that's fine with both of us.
So then I opened my email one morning from my sister Cally (also my father’s daughter, from his first marriage before my mom and he married) saying could I come over to Dad’s tomorrow at 11AM to help him move out. His wife Trudie is in Santa Fe visiting her son, and my dad’s taking the opportunity to leave her, something he’s been trying to do off and on for about five years now. She’s blocked his efforts so many times before, he had to wait until she was out of town to gather the courage and the opportunity to finally move on.
After I talked to my sister on the phone and got the details, I called Dad to see if he needed any help packing beforehand. I feel like I need to pull my share of the weight, since Cally’s getting most of the burden by having him move in with her until he can find a place of his own. I asked him when would be a good time to come over and help him pack, and he asked if I could come right then.
I got there about forty-five minutes later, even though he just lives five minutes from me. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas, at Cally’s house party, where there were lots of people and not much opportunity to talk one-on-one, like we’d have anything to say to each other anyway.
He needed some help washing some pants and underwear – he didn’t want to bring dirty laundry over to Cally’s, and it was apparent that perhaps one of the things that kept changing his mind when he’d decided in the past to leave Trudie was the fact that he doesn’t know how to operate a washing machine. I distinctly remember at his and Trudie’s wedding, in October 1992 I think it was, his saying to me afterwards, during the small reception at Trudie's church, that he was glad he didn’t have to be a “Mr. Mom” anymore and it would be nice to have someone to do his laundry again.
After I showed him how to spin the dial and pull the button to turn on the washer, and how much detergent to scoop inside the measuring cup provided inside the detergent carton, we went into his office. We packed things from his desk drawer, the same desk he’s had since before I was born. The same desk I remember hesitantly approaching when I was two, at the request of my brother Murray and my sister Hazel, to ask Dad if we could get a dog.
Dad had a “LIST OF THINGS TO MOVE OUT” written in his distinctive handwriting (very heavily pushed into the paper, all caps, print, never cursive) on a yellow legal pad.
1. Desk and Chair
2. TV and stand
3. radio
On down to #9, “pictures.” I had noticed he had a box full of framed pictures of Glenda, her daughter and son, me, and my daughter sitting in the living room when I came in, sharing space with three trophies, I guessed he’d won pool playing. I thought it was funny that he had pictures as number nine on the list. It probably would have been number one on my list, a list I hope to never have to make, and I’m so lucky to say my husband is so right for me, I probably never will.
We worked pretty silently, not discussing any details, any emotions, just getting done what needed to get done. Dad hummed a little bit, like he always does when he’s working on something, not a specific tune, just a little white noise coming from a mind obviously trying to avoid whatever troubles invade it. We moved on to the kitchen. I thought it was funny he decided to bring a container of oatmeal and some sugar-free flavored drink mix. It’s odd to observe what goes through someone’s mind as they’re taking steps to move on with their life.
In the bedroom, Dad got down on all fours—something I was pretty impressed with considering he has 44 years on me, and my then-38 year old knees don’t like to be in that position much anymore—to get some luggage out from under the bed, so we could pack all his neatly pressed and starched white shirts and suit jackets he must wear to all the dances he attends now.
After about an hour, after I showed him how to put the clothes into the dyer, spin the dial, and push the start button, we went into the living room and sat down for a few minutes. I had to get back home so Hank could go to work and I could watch Stella. I asked Dad if he had any ideas of where he wanted to live. He said Johnson County, because he has dances and bridge and pool playing here. Of course it's been two years since then and he's still living at Cally's up north of the river because she treats him too good. She was only twelve when he moved out so she didn't get the privilege of experiencing him much during the teenage years.
He's a hot commodity: he's alive, he's fairly healthy, he loves to dance. That's pretty much what it appears many senior women are looking for in a man because he's had about four girlfriends since he left Trudie. My dad, the asshole. And yet it took my mom, the funniest, smartest, sweetest woman on the planet ten years to find a husband. Dad now has a fiancee and is planning on marrying her next year and moving to Independence. At age 85. He just don't quit.
Back when I was getting ready to leave after helping him pack a little when he was leaving Trudie, Dad said after he dropped Trudie at the airport Thursday, he went to a dance out south at some place called Camelot, and he “had the most fun I’d had in about thirteen years.” He said he danced with lots of women, and afterward, he went to the VFW and hung out with some friends there. He asked me to get him a directory of retirement communities in the area, and I told him I would. But he said it didn’t have to be a retirement place, just any maintenance-free place under $750 a month would do. I told him that shouldn’t be a problem, that I knew of lots of apartments he could rent for less than that around here.
As I rose to get my jacket, he stood too and said quickly, like he had to get it out before I left, “I just don’t know how much time I have left, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life miserable.” I told him I didn’t blame him at all. That’s all anyone deserves is to live the kind of life that makes them happy. What I should have added, but I'm too much of a cowardly daughter, is "as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else" like I tell Stella all the time. I can raise my daughter but I gave up long ago trying to raise my dad.
I kissed him on the cheek and said, “I love you, Dad. Cally and I will take care of you.” He kissed my cheek and said he loved me too. We'd been doing that since his second heart by-pass surgery.
I walked out Dad’s door, took a deep breath, got into my car and drove home to my husband, my daughter, my family. Dad would fix some lunch and take a nap. He had to rest up for the dance he had tonight.
As I entered the door from our garage to the kitchen, my parents were sitting at the table, not eating, as if they had expected me to walk through the door at that exact moment.
"Stella, sit down. Your mother and I need to talk to you.” My dad said without anger or judgment. I sat.
They were both drinking coffee, like old friends, and I remember thinking it was weird—they never sat and talked over coffee. I had expected my dad to be in his La-Z-Boy in front of the giant TV with the volume turned up so loud I was always surprised the next door neighbors never complained. Since he nearly always watched things like golf matches, Entertainment Tonight, and The Lawrence Welk Show, I figured they’d just drifted off to sleep before managing to come over and tell us to turn it down. And as for Mom, she should have been down the hall in her room, painting or flower arranging or whatever current craft project she had going on, not sitting in the kitchen with my father. What the hell did they have to talk about? I hadn’t seen them really talking in at least a decade.
My dad spoke more than I’d ever heard him say in my entire lifetime. He explained that my mom had asked him for a divorce, that he didn’t want one, but he understood it would make her happy, and so he would go through with it. He made it all sound like he expected it to be a shock to me, and so I opened my eyes and raised my eyebrows and nodded my head as if it were. It was all very mild and un-dramatic and rational. No one cried. No one screamed. We just discussed the situation, the plans, what needed to be done. It was agreed upon that I would move out with my mom, and that we’d go driving around later that afternoon to look for an apartment.
She did it. She finally followed through. I didn't know what to do so I sat there a long time and just stared. I looked up and noticed Mom had left the table.
Dad got up from the table, dumped his coffee cup into the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet, rinsed his cup, filled it half full, took a sip of water, dumped the water out, and set his cup on the counter. “Well, I’m going to go take a nap so I’ll be rested enough to go to my dance tonight.”
Evidently Dad had already scanned some seniors bulletin for something singles-ish and fun to do that evening. What’s the point of spending any more of his valuable time dwelling on anything, even his crumbling 22 year marriage? His second crumbled marriage.
He never questioned me about the class I dropped, and after I did move out with my mom, he pretty much stayed off my back about everything practical and responsible. Not living with my dad has been a relief not just for my mother.
I moved out for good a few months after my mom got her apartment. Mom lived alone and enjoyed her meandering independence for ten years, until she met a man online and they married six weeks later. We were all scared, what with Mom’s track record at the great race of love, but the addition of Frank Ferguson to my mom’s life has made her happier, more comfortable, and more peaceful. Just what we all want.
Skip ahead seventeen years. I’m no longer the 21 year old aspiring writer, slacker, unemployed college dropout, trying to scrape the surface of my parent’s marriage to get to the point that is no longer numb. I am now the 40 year old aspiring writer, slacker, college dropout who is gainfully employed at a job I love, and I occasionally scrape the surface of my own life to make sure I never live life numb. I see Dad a couple times a year and that's fine with both of us.
So then I opened my email one morning from my sister Cally (also my father’s daughter, from his first marriage before my mom and he married) saying could I come over to Dad’s tomorrow at 11AM to help him move out. His wife Trudie is in Santa Fe visiting her son, and my dad’s taking the opportunity to leave her, something he’s been trying to do off and on for about five years now. She’s blocked his efforts so many times before, he had to wait until she was out of town to gather the courage and the opportunity to finally move on.
After I talked to my sister on the phone and got the details, I called Dad to see if he needed any help packing beforehand. I feel like I need to pull my share of the weight, since Cally’s getting most of the burden by having him move in with her until he can find a place of his own. I asked him when would be a good time to come over and help him pack, and he asked if I could come right then.
I got there about forty-five minutes later, even though he just lives five minutes from me. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas, at Cally’s house party, where there were lots of people and not much opportunity to talk one-on-one, like we’d have anything to say to each other anyway.
He needed some help washing some pants and underwear – he didn’t want to bring dirty laundry over to Cally’s, and it was apparent that perhaps one of the things that kept changing his mind when he’d decided in the past to leave Trudie was the fact that he doesn’t know how to operate a washing machine. I distinctly remember at his and Trudie’s wedding, in October 1992 I think it was, his saying to me afterwards, during the small reception at Trudie's church, that he was glad he didn’t have to be a “Mr. Mom” anymore and it would be nice to have someone to do his laundry again.
After I showed him how to spin the dial and pull the button to turn on the washer, and how much detergent to scoop inside the measuring cup provided inside the detergent carton, we went into his office. We packed things from his desk drawer, the same desk he’s had since before I was born. The same desk I remember hesitantly approaching when I was two, at the request of my brother Murray and my sister Hazel, to ask Dad if we could get a dog.
Dad had a “LIST OF THINGS TO MOVE OUT” written in his distinctive handwriting (very heavily pushed into the paper, all caps, print, never cursive) on a yellow legal pad.
1. Desk and Chair
2. TV and stand
3. radio
On down to #9, “pictures.” I had noticed he had a box full of framed pictures of Glenda, her daughter and son, me, and my daughter sitting in the living room when I came in, sharing space with three trophies, I guessed he’d won pool playing. I thought it was funny that he had pictures as number nine on the list. It probably would have been number one on my list, a list I hope to never have to make, and I’m so lucky to say my husband is so right for me, I probably never will.
We worked pretty silently, not discussing any details, any emotions, just getting done what needed to get done. Dad hummed a little bit, like he always does when he’s working on something, not a specific tune, just a little white noise coming from a mind obviously trying to avoid whatever troubles invade it. We moved on to the kitchen. I thought it was funny he decided to bring a container of oatmeal and some sugar-free flavored drink mix. It’s odd to observe what goes through someone’s mind as they’re taking steps to move on with their life.
In the bedroom, Dad got down on all fours—something I was pretty impressed with considering he has 44 years on me, and my then-38 year old knees don’t like to be in that position much anymore—to get some luggage out from under the bed, so we could pack all his neatly pressed and starched white shirts and suit jackets he must wear to all the dances he attends now.
After about an hour, after I showed him how to put the clothes into the dyer, spin the dial, and push the start button, we went into the living room and sat down for a few minutes. I had to get back home so Hank could go to work and I could watch Stella. I asked Dad if he had any ideas of where he wanted to live. He said Johnson County, because he has dances and bridge and pool playing here. Of course it's been two years since then and he's still living at Cally's up north of the river because she treats him too good. She was only twelve when he moved out so she didn't get the privilege of experiencing him much during the teenage years.
He's a hot commodity: he's alive, he's fairly healthy, he loves to dance. That's pretty much what it appears many senior women are looking for in a man because he's had about four girlfriends since he left Trudie. My dad, the asshole. And yet it took my mom, the funniest, smartest, sweetest woman on the planet ten years to find a husband. Dad now has a fiancee and is planning on marrying her next year and moving to Independence. At age 85. He just don't quit.
Back when I was getting ready to leave after helping him pack a little when he was leaving Trudie, Dad said after he dropped Trudie at the airport Thursday, he went to a dance out south at some place called Camelot, and he “had the most fun I’d had in about thirteen years.” He said he danced with lots of women, and afterward, he went to the VFW and hung out with some friends there. He asked me to get him a directory of retirement communities in the area, and I told him I would. But he said it didn’t have to be a retirement place, just any maintenance-free place under $750 a month would do. I told him that shouldn’t be a problem, that I knew of lots of apartments he could rent for less than that around here.
As I rose to get my jacket, he stood too and said quickly, like he had to get it out before I left, “I just don’t know how much time I have left, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life miserable.” I told him I didn’t blame him at all. That’s all anyone deserves is to live the kind of life that makes them happy. What I should have added, but I'm too much of a cowardly daughter, is "as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else" like I tell Stella all the time. I can raise my daughter but I gave up long ago trying to raise my dad.
I kissed him on the cheek and said, “I love you, Dad. Cally and I will take care of you.” He kissed my cheek and said he loved me too. We'd been doing that since his second heart by-pass surgery.
I walked out Dad’s door, took a deep breath, got into my car and drove home to my husband, my daughter, my family. Dad would fix some lunch and take a nap. He had to rest up for the dance he had tonight.
The Way Home From St. Joe
Stella and I drove up to St. Joe last weekend. We listened to my ipod and sang most of the way, in between my pulling answers to Stella's four year old philosopher questions out of my ass. We stopped at the grocery store to buy Hazel some hazelnut coffee creamer, a package of her favorite coffee, and some Little Suzie Honey Buns, her favorite.
When we got to Walt's, Hazel's entire family was there eating Walt's famous chili eggs. Basically scrambled eggs with some leftover chili added, served with a drizzle of ketchup on top. He even made me a TVP one in a small pan. Aww.
We had a nice time. It was the first time Walt, Hazel and I had been together since Murray's death. But it didn't feel weird at all. Could be the skills I'm learning in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Could be the one-on-one counseling Sara and I have been doing. Could be the massages and the hot baths and the playing with my kid. Could be fooling around with my husband. Could be the Sertraline or Clonazepam. Could be the ipod and the singing. But it was the first time I drove home from St. Joe after a family gathering without crying. Being ignored. Missed chances. Wrong words said. Nothing said. Empty reminiscing. I felt none of that this time. I just felt like I was making a trip back to the family I have made for myself as an adult: Hank and Stella and Hank's relatives. And despite the magnetic pull I felt leading me back to my husband and home, I simultaneously felt close to the family of my past. The family I shared so many good and bad and everything in between times with when I was just finding my way in the world.
I unplugged the ipod when we took the exit off the interstate to our home. It was late. Was it Sunday? I drove home slowly with the windows cracked, smelling the baking bread down the street at the Wonder Bread factory. Stella had passed out in her booster seat by the time we got to Faucett and saw the big truck up in the air.
As I pulled closer to our house I saw some familiar vehicles. I pulled into my spot and shut off the car. I grabbed my bag, my kid, and walked up to the porch. The door was partially open so I just tapped it to enter.
I could hear them jamming downstairs. My new family. Singing and playing and laughing and reminding me what life's really about.
When we got to Walt's, Hazel's entire family was there eating Walt's famous chili eggs. Basically scrambled eggs with some leftover chili added, served with a drizzle of ketchup on top. He even made me a TVP one in a small pan. Aww.
We had a nice time. It was the first time Walt, Hazel and I had been together since Murray's death. But it didn't feel weird at all. Could be the skills I'm learning in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Could be the one-on-one counseling Sara and I have been doing. Could be the massages and the hot baths and the playing with my kid. Could be fooling around with my husband. Could be the Sertraline or Clonazepam. Could be the ipod and the singing. But it was the first time I drove home from St. Joe after a family gathering without crying. Being ignored. Missed chances. Wrong words said. Nothing said. Empty reminiscing. I felt none of that this time. I just felt like I was making a trip back to the family I have made for myself as an adult: Hank and Stella and Hank's relatives. And despite the magnetic pull I felt leading me back to my husband and home, I simultaneously felt close to the family of my past. The family I shared so many good and bad and everything in between times with when I was just finding my way in the world.
I unplugged the ipod when we took the exit off the interstate to our home. It was late. Was it Sunday? I drove home slowly with the windows cracked, smelling the baking bread down the street at the Wonder Bread factory. Stella had passed out in her booster seat by the time we got to Faucett and saw the big truck up in the air.
As I pulled closer to our house I saw some familiar vehicles. I pulled into my spot and shut off the car. I grabbed my bag, my kid, and walked up to the porch. The door was partially open so I just tapped it to enter.
I could hear them jamming downstairs. My new family. Singing and playing and laughing and reminding me what life's really about.
Greatful Dead Funeral
Grandmother Ruthanne had a stroke while watching TV. Probably “her program” Judge Judy. She hit her head on the nightstand as she fell out of bed. At the time, Marty lived thousands of miles away. She would never stoop to our grandmother’s level, but I am not as evolved as Marty, so I like to imagine that when Grandmother Ruthanne bashed her head on the corner, Marty’s spirit was hovering over her saying, “You get what you deserve.” That was Grandmother Ruthanne’s response to eight year old Marty when Grandmother Ruthanne chased her around the house to spank her, and Marty stumbled into the ironing board, tipping the iron over onto her head.
When Grandmother Ruthanne didn’t show up for dinner downstairs, one of her neighbors who had a key to her apartment came to check on her and found her unconscious on the bedroom floor, bleeding from her head. The neighbor called 911, then Walt. Grandmother Ruthanne died later in the hospital, with a morphine drip flowing through her veins. She was ninety-four. She had lived alone in her senior living apartment for about five years after her third husband Gene died. In her early years she needed help with nearly everything, she was so sick with her “nervous condition.” Mom remembers the day when she was very young and realized all along her mother had not been calling her a “nurse” but instead was saying “Go away. You make me nervous.” But by the end of her life Grandmother Ruthanne had become a pretty self-sufficient tough old broad.
Walt got stuck with most of the grunt work, calling all the family, making the funeral arrangements, and picking out which photo to use for her obituary. But the worst part was cleaning out her apartment. He tried to give away most of her stuff to various family members, but a grandmother’s treasure quite often is her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren’s crap.
Hank and I went through her apartment and took a few things we wanted—mostly family pictures, her bed for Stella who was still in a crib at the time but we knew she’d need a twin bed soon. My favorite memory of rifling through Grandma Ruthanne’s things was when I opened her freezer and discovered ten boxes of Twinkies. This from the woman who argued with me once as our family was playing Scattergories that apple pie is indeed a health food because it has apples in it. She had been diagnosed with diabetes about twenty years before she died, but it didn’t seem to curb her sweet tooth. As I looked at her Twinkie stash, I thought, “Good for her.” When I’m ninety-four I’ll eat whatever the hell I want too.
The funeral was pretty small. Mom’s brother, who had been estranged from Grandmother Ruthanne for years, flew in for it, but stayed just one night before he got the hell back out of St. Joe. Mom’s kids were all there, mostly to support Mom. Even Murray and Cheryl made it. When they entered the visitation room before the funeral started, Cheryl was leaning on Murray, who was helping steady her walk. Murray seemed fairly sober, not just because he was the designated driver that day.
After the visitation and funeral, we were all supposed to drive out to the burial site to pray over Grandmother Ruthanne’s casket as it dropped six feet below the earth. Walt, Murray, Dan and Keith were elected to be the pall bearers whose job was to unload the casket from the hearse to Grandmother Ruthanne’s grave next to Gene. As Hank, baby Stella and I exited the funeral home into the bright sun and headed over to our car so we could drive to the burial site, I saw Murray retching at the side of his truck. Cheryl was sitting on the passenger’s side. I couldn’t see her face, but the angle of her head made me think she was asleep.
Hank took Stella to get her buckled into her car seat. I went over to Murray, who was still spilling the contents of his stomach onto the asphalt parking lot.
I put my hand on his back, “Are you ok, Bud?”
He flinched when he felt my hand, stood up straight, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of the suit Walt had lent him, and said, “Yeah. Yeah. I think I’ve got some kind of bug. I’ve been feeling really lousy all day.”
All I could think to say was, “Yeah.”
“Fuck, don’t look at that,” Murray said, nodding his head toward the vomitus in front of us.
“I’m not. Don’t worry about it. I bet they get lots of puke in this parking lot. It’s not the happiest of places.” I smiled and Murray faked one.
His eyes looked desperate. It reminded me of the way Dad looked when he was leaving Trudie and he told me he didn’t know how much time he had left and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life miserable. “Syd, I gotta get out of here. I can’t stand this.” He nodded toward the hearse. “Will you tell Walt and Mom and everybody I’m sorry?”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Go home. Take it easy. We all understand,” I said, patting his shoulder.
“Yeah, I think I have a bug or something,” Murray said again as he climbed into his truck. I looked through his driver’s side window and saw Cheryl was indeed asleep. She had an open beer can resting in her lap. At her feet there were several cans of Milwaukee's Best floating inside a cooler full of melted ice. I didn’t see the lid anywhere. I started to wonder where they stashed their empties, but then I realized I was staring too long and didn’t want to embarrass Murray so I looked away.
“Thanks, Hon. Give us a call and we’ll hang out soon. Love you,” he said as he started the ignition and drove off.
“I love you too.” I said to the back of the truck. I looked down at the ground. All I could see was bile and beer.
I couldn’t find Walt anywhere, so Hank and I drove to the burial spot to see if he was there already. He was, standing right by the hearse with Dan and Keith.
“Murray can’t make it. He’s throwing up.” I announced as I approached them.
Walt half-heartedly smiled and said, “I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did. Good for him. He doesn’t need to be here. Come on, men, the three of us can take this.”
“Wait. Let me get Hank.” I ran off before they could say anything.
Hank stepped in, no problem. He looked a little funny in his Grateful Dead T-shirt and jeans next to the three others in suits, but it was his brawn and not his clothing that counted. Marty leaned over to me as they carried the casket in front of us and whispered in my ear, “We should have all worn Grateful Dead shirts.” We smiled and tried not to giggle.
When Grandmother Ruthanne didn’t show up for dinner downstairs, one of her neighbors who had a key to her apartment came to check on her and found her unconscious on the bedroom floor, bleeding from her head. The neighbor called 911, then Walt. Grandmother Ruthanne died later in the hospital, with a morphine drip flowing through her veins. She was ninety-four. She had lived alone in her senior living apartment for about five years after her third husband Gene died. In her early years she needed help with nearly everything, she was so sick with her “nervous condition.” Mom remembers the day when she was very young and realized all along her mother had not been calling her a “nurse” but instead was saying “Go away. You make me nervous.” But by the end of her life Grandmother Ruthanne had become a pretty self-sufficient tough old broad.
Walt got stuck with most of the grunt work, calling all the family, making the funeral arrangements, and picking out which photo to use for her obituary. But the worst part was cleaning out her apartment. He tried to give away most of her stuff to various family members, but a grandmother’s treasure quite often is her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren’s crap.
Hank and I went through her apartment and took a few things we wanted—mostly family pictures, her bed for Stella who was still in a crib at the time but we knew she’d need a twin bed soon. My favorite memory of rifling through Grandma Ruthanne’s things was when I opened her freezer and discovered ten boxes of Twinkies. This from the woman who argued with me once as our family was playing Scattergories that apple pie is indeed a health food because it has apples in it. She had been diagnosed with diabetes about twenty years before she died, but it didn’t seem to curb her sweet tooth. As I looked at her Twinkie stash, I thought, “Good for her.” When I’m ninety-four I’ll eat whatever the hell I want too.
The funeral was pretty small. Mom’s brother, who had been estranged from Grandmother Ruthanne for years, flew in for it, but stayed just one night before he got the hell back out of St. Joe. Mom’s kids were all there, mostly to support Mom. Even Murray and Cheryl made it. When they entered the visitation room before the funeral started, Cheryl was leaning on Murray, who was helping steady her walk. Murray seemed fairly sober, not just because he was the designated driver that day.
After the visitation and funeral, we were all supposed to drive out to the burial site to pray over Grandmother Ruthanne’s casket as it dropped six feet below the earth. Walt, Murray, Dan and Keith were elected to be the pall bearers whose job was to unload the casket from the hearse to Grandmother Ruthanne’s grave next to Gene. As Hank, baby Stella and I exited the funeral home into the bright sun and headed over to our car so we could drive to the burial site, I saw Murray retching at the side of his truck. Cheryl was sitting on the passenger’s side. I couldn’t see her face, but the angle of her head made me think she was asleep.
Hank took Stella to get her buckled into her car seat. I went over to Murray, who was still spilling the contents of his stomach onto the asphalt parking lot.
I put my hand on his back, “Are you ok, Bud?”
He flinched when he felt my hand, stood up straight, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of the suit Walt had lent him, and said, “Yeah. Yeah. I think I’ve got some kind of bug. I’ve been feeling really lousy all day.”
All I could think to say was, “Yeah.”
“Fuck, don’t look at that,” Murray said, nodding his head toward the vomitus in front of us.
“I’m not. Don’t worry about it. I bet they get lots of puke in this parking lot. It’s not the happiest of places.” I smiled and Murray faked one.
His eyes looked desperate. It reminded me of the way Dad looked when he was leaving Trudie and he told me he didn’t know how much time he had left and he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life miserable. “Syd, I gotta get out of here. I can’t stand this.” He nodded toward the hearse. “Will you tell Walt and Mom and everybody I’m sorry?”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Go home. Take it easy. We all understand,” I said, patting his shoulder.
“Yeah, I think I have a bug or something,” Murray said again as he climbed into his truck. I looked through his driver’s side window and saw Cheryl was indeed asleep. She had an open beer can resting in her lap. At her feet there were several cans of Milwaukee's Best floating inside a cooler full of melted ice. I didn’t see the lid anywhere. I started to wonder where they stashed their empties, but then I realized I was staring too long and didn’t want to embarrass Murray so I looked away.
“Thanks, Hon. Give us a call and we’ll hang out soon. Love you,” he said as he started the ignition and drove off.
“I love you too.” I said to the back of the truck. I looked down at the ground. All I could see was bile and beer.
I couldn’t find Walt anywhere, so Hank and I drove to the burial spot to see if he was there already. He was, standing right by the hearse with Dan and Keith.
“Murray can’t make it. He’s throwing up.” I announced as I approached them.
Walt half-heartedly smiled and said, “I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did. Good for him. He doesn’t need to be here. Come on, men, the three of us can take this.”
“Wait. Let me get Hank.” I ran off before they could say anything.
Hank stepped in, no problem. He looked a little funny in his Grateful Dead T-shirt and jeans next to the three others in suits, but it was his brawn and not his clothing that counted. Marty leaned over to me as they carried the casket in front of us and whispered in my ear, “We should have all worn Grateful Dead shirts.” We smiled and tried not to giggle.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Being an Outcast of Outcasts Doesn't Make Someone Mainstream
In 1983 my dad decided that the home we'd lived in from the time I was six until I was twelve up north of the river was too far to his new job in Overland Park. He wanted to uproot his crumbling family from a place where they were starting to feel comfortable so he could arrive to work twenty minutes faster, even though he was already always the first person at the office nearly an hour and a half before he was supposed to be there.
He'd had trouble keeping jobs ever since I was born, he mentioned to me more than once. Before I was born he worked for a company for twenty years. Just after I was born, the company went under and Dad was laid off. He would get jobs pretty easily since he had worked his way up from bookkeeper to office controller which looked impressive on his resume. But he had trouble keeping the new jobs. Every few years he'd be out looking for another one. It might have been the pride-hurting salary cuts he had to take that made him more crabby. His wife having to go back to work full time to keep up with the bills. Or maybe he was just getting old and tired and ready to do more with his life than play with other people's money. Whatever the reason, it seemed like every year from the time I can remember until Dad retired when I was a senior in high school he seemed more and more miserable.
I remember some chuckles and smiles here and there - at his side of the family reunions, at Worlds of Fun, when he was gorging himself at a buffet, and when he heard big band era swing music. He loved Long John Silver's fried fish and Chinese food. He got up at 5:00 or earlier, got to work by 6:30, before I was even awake, and got home from work around 5:30-6:00. We ate dinner as a family but I don't remember dad talking much. Mom would be sitting there eating dinner in just her bra and slip because Dad was too cheap to turn on the air conditioner and it was a muggy summer night. After dinner Dad would sit in his La-z Boy and watch TV, then go to bed by 8:00.
When mom was in her early forties and I was about ten, she decided to go to college. She wanted to do something like graphic design or something where she could use her artistic abilities, but Dad said he wouldn't pay for college unless she did something practical. So she went to Maple Woods Community College and got a certificate in accounting. This was when my life seriously turned into hell living with the two of them. When they weren't ignoring each other, all they'd talk about was finances, debit this and credit that and all I could do was tune out. When they had finished their riveting discussion, Mom would start whispering to me. My dad was so hard of hearing if we talked softly enough we could have an entire conversation behind his back in front of his face. I feel badly now that we did that. My dad was a dick. Don't get me wrong. He and Mom were ill-suited for each other, for sure. Mom deserved way better. But instead of whispering to her middle-school age daughter complaints about her father right in front of him without his hearing, she should have left him long ago. It was like watching a really bad soap opera that had jumped the shark before even Happy Days was on.
So to shave twenty minutes off his morning commute, my father moved our family south of the river to the wealthiest county in the six county Kansas City metro area. Although we were doing ok for ourselves, we were definitely not the type of family that ran out and consumed the latest trends. It was pretty much library books, LPs, commercial radio and broadcast TV. We never owned a computer or a video game. We got a microwave when I was in middle school. We didn't even get a VCR until I was in ninth grade. I remember Mom and me giggling as we paused it at the scene in "A Room with a View" where the naked men are swimming in the pond.
The clothes I didn't inherit from my older siblings I got as gifts, from Mom's Blue Light Specials, and from my mom's own ingenuity with a sewing machine. She made me the coolest hippie clothes - flared pants and long skirts. I loved them. The problem was I was born ten years too late. In the early to late Eighties hippies were out of fashion, and I was the only one who dressed this way at school. It sheltered me from romantic attention. I guess people who weren't my friends thought I was a weirdo.
My ninth grade year I decided to settle among the punks even though I was not one of them. They accepted me into their mosh pit of underage drinking, anarchy, and drama. I was excited to be around people who didn't always talk about accounting and golf and TV. We were suburban kids, but we were the cool suburban kids who wished we weren't suburban kids.
Although we refused to follow the materialistic 80s pastel plasticism path, most of the kids in our group did dress alike, so you couldn't argue that they were dressing that way to be different. They didn't pay attention to the mainstream styles, but they wore the same all black outfits, black eyeliner, black undercut hair, silver jewelry and black canvas shoes they bought at Asian specialty stores. Or they wore jeans and concert Tshirts from bands like Robert Smith and Kate Bush. I wore mostly the hippie clothes my mom made me. I didn't even like to wear jeans and a concert Tshirt because jeans showed off my growing hips too much. I stood out physically from the group--I looked kinda like the group's matronly hippie grandma--but our social and political beliefs were pretty much the same. We all thought that gay people and women and immigrants and minorities and everyone should be treated fairly whether they have money or not. But we were suburban commies who ignored the political and social facets of our philosophy in favor of hanging out at the Liberty World War I memorial, getting drunk on Boone's Farm wine, making out with other mentally unstable teenagers and forgetting about our home lives for awhile. We were the kind of commies who hung out in our parent's basement inhaling ethyl off each other's body parts while listening to the Communards. Fuck you prom queen and student class president. Fuck you President Regan. Our leader was Morrissey.
At least that's what I told myself about my friends and I in high school. It actually probably had more to do with our common love of The Smiths and less to do with a shared hatred of Margaret Thatcher than I let myself believe. But it was a fun bunch of rejects who the preps and the jocks really missed out not knowing. But still, I never really felt like I fit in with them. They joked that I was a pippy, a punk hippie. But I really wasn't. I was more than that. I was curious about all sorts of subcultures and not just one that involved razor blades and safety pins.
Since I rarely got carded when I bought alcohol, I had lots of friends who wanted to hang out with me. But I knew looking like a hippie grandmother might be my style and it might get me easy access to alcohol for my friends and I but it apparently also kept most of my 14-19 year old friends from finding me attractive. So I'd hear about all kinds of intergender trysts and three-ways, in every mix and match imaginable. But I rarely got to participate in such bacchanal behavior. I was usually the one sitting in the corner, pining for whichever unrequited lover didn't see me.
He'd had trouble keeping jobs ever since I was born, he mentioned to me more than once. Before I was born he worked for a company for twenty years. Just after I was born, the company went under and Dad was laid off. He would get jobs pretty easily since he had worked his way up from bookkeeper to office controller which looked impressive on his resume. But he had trouble keeping the new jobs. Every few years he'd be out looking for another one. It might have been the pride-hurting salary cuts he had to take that made him more crabby. His wife having to go back to work full time to keep up with the bills. Or maybe he was just getting old and tired and ready to do more with his life than play with other people's money. Whatever the reason, it seemed like every year from the time I can remember until Dad retired when I was a senior in high school he seemed more and more miserable.
I remember some chuckles and smiles here and there - at his side of the family reunions, at Worlds of Fun, when he was gorging himself at a buffet, and when he heard big band era swing music. He loved Long John Silver's fried fish and Chinese food. He got up at 5:00 or earlier, got to work by 6:30, before I was even awake, and got home from work around 5:30-6:00. We ate dinner as a family but I don't remember dad talking much. Mom would be sitting there eating dinner in just her bra and slip because Dad was too cheap to turn on the air conditioner and it was a muggy summer night. After dinner Dad would sit in his La-z Boy and watch TV, then go to bed by 8:00.
When mom was in her early forties and I was about ten, she decided to go to college. She wanted to do something like graphic design or something where she could use her artistic abilities, but Dad said he wouldn't pay for college unless she did something practical. So she went to Maple Woods Community College and got a certificate in accounting. This was when my life seriously turned into hell living with the two of them. When they weren't ignoring each other, all they'd talk about was finances, debit this and credit that and all I could do was tune out. When they had finished their riveting discussion, Mom would start whispering to me. My dad was so hard of hearing if we talked softly enough we could have an entire conversation behind his back in front of his face. I feel badly now that we did that. My dad was a dick. Don't get me wrong. He and Mom were ill-suited for each other, for sure. Mom deserved way better. But instead of whispering to her middle-school age daughter complaints about her father right in front of him without his hearing, she should have left him long ago. It was like watching a really bad soap opera that had jumped the shark before even Happy Days was on.
So to shave twenty minutes off his morning commute, my father moved our family south of the river to the wealthiest county in the six county Kansas City metro area. Although we were doing ok for ourselves, we were definitely not the type of family that ran out and consumed the latest trends. It was pretty much library books, LPs, commercial radio and broadcast TV. We never owned a computer or a video game. We got a microwave when I was in middle school. We didn't even get a VCR until I was in ninth grade. I remember Mom and me giggling as we paused it at the scene in "A Room with a View" where the naked men are swimming in the pond.
The clothes I didn't inherit from my older siblings I got as gifts, from Mom's Blue Light Specials, and from my mom's own ingenuity with a sewing machine. She made me the coolest hippie clothes - flared pants and long skirts. I loved them. The problem was I was born ten years too late. In the early to late Eighties hippies were out of fashion, and I was the only one who dressed this way at school. It sheltered me from romantic attention. I guess people who weren't my friends thought I was a weirdo.
My ninth grade year I decided to settle among the punks even though I was not one of them. They accepted me into their mosh pit of underage drinking, anarchy, and drama. I was excited to be around people who didn't always talk about accounting and golf and TV. We were suburban kids, but we were the cool suburban kids who wished we weren't suburban kids.
Although we refused to follow the materialistic 80s pastel plasticism path, most of the kids in our group did dress alike, so you couldn't argue that they were dressing that way to be different. They didn't pay attention to the mainstream styles, but they wore the same all black outfits, black eyeliner, black undercut hair, silver jewelry and black canvas shoes they bought at Asian specialty stores. Or they wore jeans and concert Tshirts from bands like Robert Smith and Kate Bush. I wore mostly the hippie clothes my mom made me. I didn't even like to wear jeans and a concert Tshirt because jeans showed off my growing hips too much. I stood out physically from the group--I looked kinda like the group's matronly hippie grandma--but our social and political beliefs were pretty much the same. We all thought that gay people and women and immigrants and minorities and everyone should be treated fairly whether they have money or not. But we were suburban commies who ignored the political and social facets of our philosophy in favor of hanging out at the Liberty World War I memorial, getting drunk on Boone's Farm wine, making out with other mentally unstable teenagers and forgetting about our home lives for awhile. We were the kind of commies who hung out in our parent's basement inhaling ethyl off each other's body parts while listening to the Communards. Fuck you prom queen and student class president. Fuck you President Regan. Our leader was Morrissey.
At least that's what I told myself about my friends and I in high school. It actually probably had more to do with our common love of The Smiths and less to do with a shared hatred of Margaret Thatcher than I let myself believe. But it was a fun bunch of rejects who the preps and the jocks really missed out not knowing. But still, I never really felt like I fit in with them. They joked that I was a pippy, a punk hippie. But I really wasn't. I was more than that. I was curious about all sorts of subcultures and not just one that involved razor blades and safety pins.
Since I rarely got carded when I bought alcohol, I had lots of friends who wanted to hang out with me. But I knew looking like a hippie grandmother might be my style and it might get me easy access to alcohol for my friends and I but it apparently also kept most of my 14-19 year old friends from finding me attractive. So I'd hear about all kinds of intergender trysts and three-ways, in every mix and match imaginable. But I rarely got to participate in such bacchanal behavior. I was usually the one sitting in the corner, pining for whichever unrequited lover didn't see me.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
My Evolution from Allison Reynolds to Claire Standish
I turned forty last fall. Wow. How did that happen? A few days afterwards at work a patron was obviously trying to flirt me into waiving his fine, but I refused with the most charming smile on my face. He smiled big and winked at me. "You're a tough old broad." I laughed with him and said, "Thank you."
It's hard to believe I am no longer the meek little girl who hid from strangers in the grocery check out line under her mother's fake fur coats. Or the weird Ally Sheedy-esque teenager who hid her insecure body under my mom's hand-me-down coats in a big fashion FU to 80s-era affluent culture. When I was a shy teenager, I couldn't even call in a pizza. My mom forced me to do it when I was about thirteen. I was practically in tears. But I did it. And then I couldn't even remember why I felt so weird about it before. I wanted to call in all the pizzas after that.
When old guys would hit on me when I was young, it creeped me out and all I could do was ignore them. I don't remember much from French class, but the one phrase I'll never forget is "l'esprit d'escalier". I could always think of a good comeback after the creep had left, but while they were staring at my body, I became instantly mute. I'd wish I had less chest and more guts to tell the old creeps off, or even better yet, to not give a shit what they thought about me.
The other day one of my new colleagues at work and I were talking about who we were most like from "The Breakfast Club" back in high school. He guessed I had been the Molly Ringwald character. I laughed so loudly a couple of patrons shushed me. "No way, I was totally the Alley Sheedy character, pre-makeover at the end of the movie." He didn't believe me. "You're so cheery and friendly," he argued. I rolled my eyes, "Who me?" Then it suddenly hit me that it is no longer 1985 and I have changed quite a bit over the years.
It's funny how no matter how I evolve or how I present myself today, I still feel like the weirdo I once was and I'm surprised to see what a tough old broad I've become.
It's hard to believe I am no longer the meek little girl who hid from strangers in the grocery check out line under her mother's fake fur coats. Or the weird Ally Sheedy-esque teenager who hid her insecure body under my mom's hand-me-down coats in a big fashion FU to 80s-era affluent culture. When I was a shy teenager, I couldn't even call in a pizza. My mom forced me to do it when I was about thirteen. I was practically in tears. But I did it. And then I couldn't even remember why I felt so weird about it before. I wanted to call in all the pizzas after that.
When old guys would hit on me when I was young, it creeped me out and all I could do was ignore them. I don't remember much from French class, but the one phrase I'll never forget is "l'esprit d'escalier". I could always think of a good comeback after the creep had left, but while they were staring at my body, I became instantly mute. I'd wish I had less chest and more guts to tell the old creeps off, or even better yet, to not give a shit what they thought about me.
The other day one of my new colleagues at work and I were talking about who we were most like from "The Breakfast Club" back in high school. He guessed I had been the Molly Ringwald character. I laughed so loudly a couple of patrons shushed me. "No way, I was totally the Alley Sheedy character, pre-makeover at the end of the movie." He didn't believe me. "You're so cheery and friendly," he argued. I rolled my eyes, "Who me?" Then it suddenly hit me that it is no longer 1985 and I have changed quite a bit over the years.
It's funny how no matter how I evolve or how I present myself today, I still feel like the weirdo I once was and I'm surprised to see what a tough old broad I've become.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
An Odd One's Overland Park Roots
Having spent the majority of my last twenty-eight years living in Overland Park, Kansas, it's finally starting to feel like home. Not quite like Dorothy feels. And certainly not like San Francisco did as soon as I inhaled my first whiff of the Bay area air during a one week trip there more than a decade ago. Since I can't convince my comfortable Kansas born and bred husband to move to the coast, Overland Park appears to be my plan B. I still don't understand it. He loves seafood. He's a big hippie progressive let's-all-treat-each-other-decently-despite-our-differences kind of guy. He'd fit right in in San Francisco. He says, "No, let's stay here so we can influence others to become more progressive." I think he has delusions of grandeur. I don't get it, but I let it go because no matter where I live I want it to be with him.
I stopped asking him why he likes living in a suburb of Kansas City, surrounded by conservatives, terrible public transportation, and not much to do culturally except visit the various ethnic restaurants that pop up from time to time. He always said the same thing, "I just like it. It's a good place to grow up and I know everybody."
It's true. Hank's family moved to Overland Park when he was six. He has lots of good memories here. We can't go inside any store within a five mile radius of our house without hearing someone call out, "Hey Hank!" Stella will go to the same middle and high school as Hank did if we don't move by then. That's important to him, these neighborhood roots. I act like I want to move to San Francisco, and if Hank changed his mind I'd be on the next flight heading west. But I have to admit these twenty-eight year old roots are starting to wrap themselves around my ankles too.
When Dad got the new job in Overland Park and decided he wanted to live closer to work, he immediately put the house on the market and it sold that weekend. Mom claims it was because of two things: She had been baking a roast in the oven and I had just returned from crawdad fishing at the creek a block away. The couple who bought the house had a two year old and the wife looked about eight months pregnant, so when they sauntered into our open house, smelled the home cooked meal and saw a kid in overalls with mud on her feet and a bucket of crawdads walk through the door, they made an offer. In this one glimpse of our life in this house, another family coveted our existence. How weird. If only they knew about the mice traps and the roots in the sewer line and the other siblings left out and the shouting followed by the terrible awful silence I wasn't supposed to talk about. We put up a facade. We had to present our house as if a happy family lived in it to get the highest bidder.
Since the house sold so fast, we didn't have time to buy something else, so we rented a duplex in Overland Park. It was the first time I had lived in a rental property. It nearly drove my mom insane not being able to paint murals on the walls during the three months we lived there.
My dad now had a fifteen minute drive to work, but my mom had an extra twenty minutes added to her commute. Not including taking me back and forth to school at first.
It was two weeks before my last day of sixth grade at Renner Elementary school when my parents got the key to our new duplex. They hired movers and within days all our stuff had been hauled to the duplex. So I wouldn't have to transfer two weeks before the end of the year, my mom drove me to our old house each morning around 7:30 before she headed to work and then she picked me up every evening around 5:30 after work. School didn't start til 8:15, so some days instead of waiting for the bus to pick me up like I was supposed to, I'd walk to school. I strolled up and down the neighborhood blocks to soak in as much of it as I could since I knew I wouldn't live there much longer.
I got out of school at 3:15. My old Barbie friends were all one to two grades ahead of me and in middle school so they didn't get out of school until nearly 4:00 and then they had debate practice and track and dance lessons. Hazel had been moving in and out of our house since she was a senior in school and lived with Walt and Adrienne. But she and Keith had recently bought a house so she was out for good now.
I'd skip the bus again and walk home, thinking. Although I had walked these neighborhood blocks so many times these past six years, especially the year I was anorexic, I felt lost. My family had started out seven of us in one house and now we were down to three. And one of them was unfortunately my dad. The end of my elementary school days was near. I was moving away from all my friends who'd distracted me from the yelling and silence with their Barbies and Ataris and kick ball and night games.
I walked alone, taking the scenic route because I still enjoyed the creek even though it helped sell our house before I was ready to leave, but also because it took longer to get "home" to the emptiness. When I'd finally make it to my street, I'd scan the area for other kids. If I couldn't find anyone to play with, I let myself into our old empty house and sat on the newly shampooed green carpeted floor in the living room and waited. And thought. I couldn't believe he was doing this to me and she's always just standing by, letting him get what he wants, what's only best for him. I hate Overland Park and those fucking snotty rich people luring my dad to them. All he fucking cares about is money and his house and cars. He'll fit right in and I'll fucking hate Overland Park. Walt even said I'd hate it. He and Adrienne lived there for a couple years and he said I'll think everybody's stuck up.
Hearing my mom's horn honk, I'd snap out of my internal rage, gather my things, and go ride home with mom, talking about how we were glad "Benson" was on tonight but how we both wished "Soap" was on.
When I heard Mom's horn on he very last day of school, I gathered my things and stepped onto the front porch. As I'd turned to shut the door, I took one last glimpse of the green felt wallpaper at the entrance, the ugly wood paneling on the family room wall, and the clean spot on our family room floor where the television hadn't been moved since 1977.
I had many joyous moments in this house. Playing Barbies with my friends in the living room, sister talk late at night with Hazel, warm soapy baths in the green tub, watching TV with my mom, hanging out with our dog Tiger in his cob-webby dog house. That's what I remembered about living in our house. Not Dad shoving food down my throat til I gagged. Not watching my grandfather shrivel up and die in our home while I was anorexic and my dad had just had triple-bypass heart surgery. I once caught a glimpse of my mom giving Grandpa Joe a sponge bath. I could see each of his ribs and I suddenly realized I looked like him and he looked like death. Mom was taking care of three people on the verge of death. But those thoughts weren't on my mind when I looked inside the house and locked the door for the last time. I longed for what I'd grown to know and the joy that made it worthwhile.
Now I've lived in Overland Park for twenty-eight years. My parents have long ago divorced and moved to different states. I don't have to live here. I happened to fall in love with a great man who wants to stay here, and I have an amazing job that keeps me here, but I could leave if I really wanted to.
But I kinda don't want to. I don't know if it's that I've changed or if it's because Overland Park has changed. Probably both. Overland Park's changed drastically in nearly three decades. It has changed as much as I have changed. Lots of immigrant families from Russia and Latin America and Africa and even from across the state line in what had changed from a predominately white neighborhood to a predominately black neighborhood during the white flight of the 60s. But now the suburbs of Kansas City are getting more diversified and the inner city is finding small groups of white hipsters popping up.
I used to think I wanted to be an anthropologist since I've always had a fascination with cutures other than my own: mainstream, middle class, mid-size midwest suburban, white non-church-going American. In third grade when I befriended an Iranian girl at school who had just escaped with her parents during the revolution, I didn't understand why other kids in my class were afraid to play with her. I thought she was nice and really interesting. And I was so excited when a black girl, well half-black because her mom was white, joined my class in sixth grade. I was fascinated with her. I was also drawn to her because she was even bigger than me, taller and wider. She looked like she was about eighteen. I felt like I could be myself around her because she wasn't like the people in my mainstream culture who made me feel uncomfortable. In Junior high it was the gay kids and alternative kids and anyone different. I wanted to spend time with them partially because I'm a culturally curious person, but also for the enlightenment that there are other ways to live your life. I was amazed to realize that I'm not stuck being anyone I didn't want to be.
I love taking Stella to the mall now. I never would have dreamed I would some day say I actually enjoy the mall. I still hate all the blatant consumerism. But now it's almost more of a community gathering place. Instead of someplace where the preppy bitches hung out when I was a teenager, it now has an indoor children's play area Stella loves. Each time we go, it's like a mini UN right here in my formerly homogeneous hood. Parents from Russia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, India, Eastern Asia and who knows where all speak to their kids in their native tongues and then these little kids, under age 8, talk to me and Stella in English. Perfectly without an accent. I love it. It makes me so happy to see little kids have such a magnificent ability to segue into a new situation.
When we moved to Overland park in 1983 there were a couple Asian kids and a couple Latino kids in my class, but only one black boy and one black girl. By comparison, when Hank and I took Stella to kindergarten round up the other day, it reminded me of a Benetton Ad. I would have made a joke about it to the other parents sitting around the table, but they all looked about 10-15 years younger than me and probably wouldn't get it.
So yeah, I've become a suburban mom, but I still tred against the mainstream. I love our parks, our dog park, our sidewalks, our libraries, our schools. But I will always be a mother of "advanced maternal age" since I was thrity-five when Stella was born, so at least I'll have being the oldest parent in the group to cling to in my need to be the odd one.
I stopped asking him why he likes living in a suburb of Kansas City, surrounded by conservatives, terrible public transportation, and not much to do culturally except visit the various ethnic restaurants that pop up from time to time. He always said the same thing, "I just like it. It's a good place to grow up and I know everybody."
It's true. Hank's family moved to Overland Park when he was six. He has lots of good memories here. We can't go inside any store within a five mile radius of our house without hearing someone call out, "Hey Hank!" Stella will go to the same middle and high school as Hank did if we don't move by then. That's important to him, these neighborhood roots. I act like I want to move to San Francisco, and if Hank changed his mind I'd be on the next flight heading west. But I have to admit these twenty-eight year old roots are starting to wrap themselves around my ankles too.
When Dad got the new job in Overland Park and decided he wanted to live closer to work, he immediately put the house on the market and it sold that weekend. Mom claims it was because of two things: She had been baking a roast in the oven and I had just returned from crawdad fishing at the creek a block away. The couple who bought the house had a two year old and the wife looked about eight months pregnant, so when they sauntered into our open house, smelled the home cooked meal and saw a kid in overalls with mud on her feet and a bucket of crawdads walk through the door, they made an offer. In this one glimpse of our life in this house, another family coveted our existence. How weird. If only they knew about the mice traps and the roots in the sewer line and the other siblings left out and the shouting followed by the terrible awful silence I wasn't supposed to talk about. We put up a facade. We had to present our house as if a happy family lived in it to get the highest bidder.
Since the house sold so fast, we didn't have time to buy something else, so we rented a duplex in Overland Park. It was the first time I had lived in a rental property. It nearly drove my mom insane not being able to paint murals on the walls during the three months we lived there.
My dad now had a fifteen minute drive to work, but my mom had an extra twenty minutes added to her commute. Not including taking me back and forth to school at first.
It was two weeks before my last day of sixth grade at Renner Elementary school when my parents got the key to our new duplex. They hired movers and within days all our stuff had been hauled to the duplex. So I wouldn't have to transfer two weeks before the end of the year, my mom drove me to our old house each morning around 7:30 before she headed to work and then she picked me up every evening around 5:30 after work. School didn't start til 8:15, so some days instead of waiting for the bus to pick me up like I was supposed to, I'd walk to school. I strolled up and down the neighborhood blocks to soak in as much of it as I could since I knew I wouldn't live there much longer.
I got out of school at 3:15. My old Barbie friends were all one to two grades ahead of me and in middle school so they didn't get out of school until nearly 4:00 and then they had debate practice and track and dance lessons. Hazel had been moving in and out of our house since she was a senior in school and lived with Walt and Adrienne. But she and Keith had recently bought a house so she was out for good now.
I'd skip the bus again and walk home, thinking. Although I had walked these neighborhood blocks so many times these past six years, especially the year I was anorexic, I felt lost. My family had started out seven of us in one house and now we were down to three. And one of them was unfortunately my dad. The end of my elementary school days was near. I was moving away from all my friends who'd distracted me from the yelling and silence with their Barbies and Ataris and kick ball and night games.
I walked alone, taking the scenic route because I still enjoyed the creek even though it helped sell our house before I was ready to leave, but also because it took longer to get "home" to the emptiness. When I'd finally make it to my street, I'd scan the area for other kids. If I couldn't find anyone to play with, I let myself into our old empty house and sat on the newly shampooed green carpeted floor in the living room and waited. And thought. I couldn't believe he was doing this to me and she's always just standing by, letting him get what he wants, what's only best for him. I hate Overland Park and those fucking snotty rich people luring my dad to them. All he fucking cares about is money and his house and cars. He'll fit right in and I'll fucking hate Overland Park. Walt even said I'd hate it. He and Adrienne lived there for a couple years and he said I'll think everybody's stuck up.
Hearing my mom's horn honk, I'd snap out of my internal rage, gather my things, and go ride home with mom, talking about how we were glad "Benson" was on tonight but how we both wished "Soap" was on.
When I heard Mom's horn on he very last day of school, I gathered my things and stepped onto the front porch. As I'd turned to shut the door, I took one last glimpse of the green felt wallpaper at the entrance, the ugly wood paneling on the family room wall, and the clean spot on our family room floor where the television hadn't been moved since 1977.
I had many joyous moments in this house. Playing Barbies with my friends in the living room, sister talk late at night with Hazel, warm soapy baths in the green tub, watching TV with my mom, hanging out with our dog Tiger in his cob-webby dog house. That's what I remembered about living in our house. Not Dad shoving food down my throat til I gagged. Not watching my grandfather shrivel up and die in our home while I was anorexic and my dad had just had triple-bypass heart surgery. I once caught a glimpse of my mom giving Grandpa Joe a sponge bath. I could see each of his ribs and I suddenly realized I looked like him and he looked like death. Mom was taking care of three people on the verge of death. But those thoughts weren't on my mind when I looked inside the house and locked the door for the last time. I longed for what I'd grown to know and the joy that made it worthwhile.
Now I've lived in Overland Park for twenty-eight years. My parents have long ago divorced and moved to different states. I don't have to live here. I happened to fall in love with a great man who wants to stay here, and I have an amazing job that keeps me here, but I could leave if I really wanted to.
But I kinda don't want to. I don't know if it's that I've changed or if it's because Overland Park has changed. Probably both. Overland Park's changed drastically in nearly three decades. It has changed as much as I have changed. Lots of immigrant families from Russia and Latin America and Africa and even from across the state line in what had changed from a predominately white neighborhood to a predominately black neighborhood during the white flight of the 60s. But now the suburbs of Kansas City are getting more diversified and the inner city is finding small groups of white hipsters popping up.
I used to think I wanted to be an anthropologist since I've always had a fascination with cutures other than my own: mainstream, middle class, mid-size midwest suburban, white non-church-going American. In third grade when I befriended an Iranian girl at school who had just escaped with her parents during the revolution, I didn't understand why other kids in my class were afraid to play with her. I thought she was nice and really interesting. And I was so excited when a black girl, well half-black because her mom was white, joined my class in sixth grade. I was fascinated with her. I was also drawn to her because she was even bigger than me, taller and wider. She looked like she was about eighteen. I felt like I could be myself around her because she wasn't like the people in my mainstream culture who made me feel uncomfortable. In Junior high it was the gay kids and alternative kids and anyone different. I wanted to spend time with them partially because I'm a culturally curious person, but also for the enlightenment that there are other ways to live your life. I was amazed to realize that I'm not stuck being anyone I didn't want to be.
I love taking Stella to the mall now. I never would have dreamed I would some day say I actually enjoy the mall. I still hate all the blatant consumerism. But now it's almost more of a community gathering place. Instead of someplace where the preppy bitches hung out when I was a teenager, it now has an indoor children's play area Stella loves. Each time we go, it's like a mini UN right here in my formerly homogeneous hood. Parents from Russia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, India, Eastern Asia and who knows where all speak to their kids in their native tongues and then these little kids, under age 8, talk to me and Stella in English. Perfectly without an accent. I love it. It makes me so happy to see little kids have such a magnificent ability to segue into a new situation.
When we moved to Overland park in 1983 there were a couple Asian kids and a couple Latino kids in my class, but only one black boy and one black girl. By comparison, when Hank and I took Stella to kindergarten round up the other day, it reminded me of a Benetton Ad. I would have made a joke about it to the other parents sitting around the table, but they all looked about 10-15 years younger than me and probably wouldn't get it.
So yeah, I've become a suburban mom, but I still tred against the mainstream. I love our parks, our dog park, our sidewalks, our libraries, our schools. But I will always be a mother of "advanced maternal age" since I was thrity-five when Stella was born, so at least I'll have being the oldest parent in the group to cling to in my need to be the odd one.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Unsaid's Still Communication
Miranda's dad escaped from his native Hungary during the revolution in the 1950s. He settled in Kasas City, got married and had two kids. He drove a bus for a living. Every time I would come over to Miranda's house to play he'd greet me with an, "Ah, Sydney!" He'd hug me and kiss me on the cheek. Then he'd release me to play and go back to cooking in the kitchen.
I wanted him to be my dad. The only time my dad put his arm around me was when he'd introduce me to some extended relative I didn't know, only he'd squeeze my shoulder so tight it hurt. Maybe it's like when you don't use a certain part of your body it goes numb, and so it physically hurt when my dad tried to side-hug me. "This is my youngest daughter," he'd boast. His voice sounded like an announcer at a dog show. He'd finally release his grip from my shoulder so I could run back to the field where I had been befriending a feral cat before I was called up to meet some family. I'd heard the term pissing contest and that's how I felt at Dad's family reunions. "Look at me. Yeah, I fathered a kid when I was 43. I'm not irrelevant yet!"
With Miranda's dad, he enjoyed his kids. They were not his tax deductible or his fountain of youth.
Miranda's mom was stricter than mine. She made Miranda brush her teeth and wear shoes outside, and sunscreen, and she was constantly reminding Miranda that she wanted the dishes in the dishwasher before she got back from work.
But when she'd come home, whether the dishes were done or not, simply because she missed her and wanted to hold her, Miranda's mom would blop down on their cushiony chair, hold out her arms and say, "Where's my girl?" Miranda was a year older than me, so she had to be at least seven or eight, and yet each time her mom would call out to her this way, Miranda would run into the living room, jump into her mom's lap nuzzle cheek to cheek, and hug and kiss their hellos. It was time for Miranda to stop playing and go finish the half loaded dishwasher which had gotten ignored when we heard the ice cream truck outside, which led to a spontaneous sprinkler fight in the front yard. But it was hard for me to turn and walk away. It was so beautiful to see Miranda sitting in her mother's lap. It reminded me of that picture I saw when Miranda's family took me to Mass with them that one time. The little baby Jesus and his mom, so proud of her baby.
The first time I saw this magnificent display of a contemporary Madonna and Child I was transfixed. I walked down the street to my house and saw my mom's Vega pull into her side of the garage.
"Hi, Mom!" I jumped up and down.
"Hi punkin. Hold on a second, I've got something for you." She dug through her bag and took out this cool ankle bracelet style jump roap with a lemon attached to the end that you have to skip over.
"Thanks, Mommy!" I jumped around the driveway with my new toy until Mom had gathered all her things.
I followed her upstairs. I could tell she was tired from standing on her feet cashiering all day. She plopped her bags in her corner and sat on the couch. My dad had the local TV news blaring. He looked over at us walking through the garage door and with no change of expression on his face asked, "What's for dinner?" then turned his head back toward the TV.
Mom ignored him and went to change out of her work clothes. I went into the kitchen, pulled a chair over to the cabinets and inspected our choices. I started pulling out dark red kidney beans to help Mom make some chili when she came into the room wearing her terry cloth onsie. It was my favorite of her lounge clothes. It was periwinkle which made her grey-green eyes twinkle.
I helped her open the cans and dump the ingredients into the pot. She let me stir it for a minute but not too close so I wouldn't get burnt on the range. She brought the bread and butter to the kitchen table, handed me a plate and herself a plate, handed me a butter knife and herself a butter knife, gave three pieces of bread to both of us, and away we buttered bread. Mmm. The smell and taste of buttered bread to this day makes me feel like Mom is with me.
While we waited for the chili to finish cooking, Mom plopped down on the couch. Dad's eyes were focused completely on the screen like he was an anthropologist studying a strange culture. Every Sunday morning Dad would get up and makes breakfast. The breakfast was always horrible: usually sausage gravy and biscuits or something with runny eggs and bacon. But waking up to the music he played on the turntable while he cooked was wonderful. Ninteen-forties era Big Band Swing and balads by the great singers of the day. It's one of those nice memories of my Dad that pop into my head from time to time. They're nice little visitors and I appreciate their reminder that no one is all bad or all good. Another one is when I was anorexic and always had cold hands so he'd puff on his own hands and rub them together really fast, then wrap his hands over mine. It really did warm them up.
I walked over to the couch, but instead of sitting next to her, I took the crochet hook out of her hand, moved the afghan she was working on to her side, and sat in her lap. My mom sat frozen.
"I love you, Mommy" I said as I nuzzled her cheek with mine.
"I love you too, Punkin, but you're too big to talk baby talk."
She gently pushed me off her lap, picked up her needle and went back to work on an afghan, one that no doubt would feel snuggly warm when I'd come home from school, wrap it around myself on the couch, watch "Tom and Jerry" and "Scooby Doo" while eating Doritos until my tongue is so raw and my fingers stained so orange that it kinda hurts to lick my fingers but in a good way while I waited from Mom to bring me my Blue Light Special.
Once a bunch of neighborhood kids and I were outside during the summer playing night games. Somehow as we all sat down to take a break it was decided by unanimous vote that if we could choose our parents we'd choose Miranda's dad and my mom. I voted along with everyone else, even though I secretly wished that somehow my mom and Miranda's mom could meld and become the perfect mother. I think my mom isn't lovey-dovey enough and Miranda thinks her mom is too naggy. But we also know that Miranda's mom is a super snuggler and my mom knows what kinds of toys kids like. We wanted a mother who didn't make us pick up our Barbies or do chores, but one who also had a lap and a cheek and some lips whenever we felt the need to have them near.
I have never once doubted that my mom loves me. The circumstances of my childhood were not ideal, but my mom did the best with what she got. She wasn't comfortable with physical affection or negative emotions, but I can think of no other person in my life who has consistantly made me feel like I realy could do anything I wanted if I put my passion and my rational mind to it. She's my biggest fan. And as society in general is becoming more emotionally demonstrative these last few decades, so has my mom. Now we regularly hug and kiss, we say "I love you" to each other and it's not quite so awkward.
I think Mom has fairly well controlled Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, but I over-pathologize quirks in people. And I could be projecting. When I was dating girls for the longest time I assumed everyone was bisexual. Mom's getting better at expressing the happy emotions: hugging, kissing, saying I love you. But she still crumbles when she's hit with negative emotions.
A few weeks before Murray died we had a Christmas gathering at Marty's house in St. Joe. We were all there: Mom and Frank, Walt and Adrienne and their daughter Lily, Marty and Dan, Murray, Hazel, Keith and their son Jordan, Hank, Stella and me. We knew it would probably be the last time we'd all get together before Murray would pass away. I forgot to bring my camera.
After about a half hour of sitting up in a chair, Murray suddenly ran to the bathroom where we could hear him retching. The rest of us kept talking like nothing was happening. Except Mom. She was silent and digging in her purse. I couldn't see her face.
Murray came back into the living room and asked Walt if he could drive him back home. his arms were shaking and he needed Walt to grab ahold of his elbow so he wouldn't fall. As they crossed back over the threshold to the front porch, Murray turned his head toward the living room and shouted, "Hey everybody. Thanks for coming up. Sorry I couldn't stay longer. This medicine's jacking me up."
He turned, adjusted the fake leopard skin hat he'd been wearing since he got there, tightened his zebra striped robe over his neck and clomped away in some of Walt's borrowed slippers that looked like they had been worn during the painting of at least five houses. And the fur looked suspiciously not fake and like one of the taxidermied animals of which Walt is an avid Ebay purchaser.
I watched Walt get Murray into the car and drive off. Then I turned my attention back into the living room. Everyone was milling around, eating candy and cinnamon rolls or standing in the corner texting. Everyone except Stella, who had built a fort under Aunt Marty's Winter Wonderland decorative table. She was playing with both snowmen and the nativity scene and I thought snow would actually be a really nice gift to bring someone in Bethlehem.
Then I saw Mom in her stiff backed chair. She didn't like the cushiony chairs she said because they were too difficult for her 72 year old ass to get out of. I think it has to do more with her martyr's personality than her ass. Grandma Ruthanne instilled in Mom the belief that only certain people deserve the nice seat and Mom was not one of them.
I noticed Mom was slouching over and her back was shaking. She was crying. Without thinking, I rushed over and wrapped my arms around her. "It's ok, Mom. It's ok."
She looked briefly into my eyes. Hers were bloodshot and filled with tears that streamed down her face onto her knit pants like sad polkadots. I've never seen so much suffering in another person's eyes.
"Please don't touch me. Leave me alone. Pretend I'm not here." I could barely understand her gravelly whispered voice. It was as if it pained her to speak.
I wanted so much to keep holding on, to let Mom know we can all get through this together. I wanted her to know I wouldn't change her, even in this miserable moment. I wouldn't want any Mom but her. That no matter how much I complain about my unhappy childhood, it got me here to where I am now, and that's right where I want to be.
That's what I wanted to tell her, but I could feel her quivering back stiffen the longer I held on, so I let her go.
I wanted him to be my dad. The only time my dad put his arm around me was when he'd introduce me to some extended relative I didn't know, only he'd squeeze my shoulder so tight it hurt. Maybe it's like when you don't use a certain part of your body it goes numb, and so it physically hurt when my dad tried to side-hug me. "This is my youngest daughter," he'd boast. His voice sounded like an announcer at a dog show. He'd finally release his grip from my shoulder so I could run back to the field where I had been befriending a feral cat before I was called up to meet some family. I'd heard the term pissing contest and that's how I felt at Dad's family reunions. "Look at me. Yeah, I fathered a kid when I was 43. I'm not irrelevant yet!"
With Miranda's dad, he enjoyed his kids. They were not his tax deductible or his fountain of youth.
Miranda's mom was stricter than mine. She made Miranda brush her teeth and wear shoes outside, and sunscreen, and she was constantly reminding Miranda that she wanted the dishes in the dishwasher before she got back from work.
But when she'd come home, whether the dishes were done or not, simply because she missed her and wanted to hold her, Miranda's mom would blop down on their cushiony chair, hold out her arms and say, "Where's my girl?" Miranda was a year older than me, so she had to be at least seven or eight, and yet each time her mom would call out to her this way, Miranda would run into the living room, jump into her mom's lap nuzzle cheek to cheek, and hug and kiss their hellos. It was time for Miranda to stop playing and go finish the half loaded dishwasher which had gotten ignored when we heard the ice cream truck outside, which led to a spontaneous sprinkler fight in the front yard. But it was hard for me to turn and walk away. It was so beautiful to see Miranda sitting in her mother's lap. It reminded me of that picture I saw when Miranda's family took me to Mass with them that one time. The little baby Jesus and his mom, so proud of her baby.
The first time I saw this magnificent display of a contemporary Madonna and Child I was transfixed. I walked down the street to my house and saw my mom's Vega pull into her side of the garage.
"Hi, Mom!" I jumped up and down.
"Hi punkin. Hold on a second, I've got something for you." She dug through her bag and took out this cool ankle bracelet style jump roap with a lemon attached to the end that you have to skip over.
"Thanks, Mommy!" I jumped around the driveway with my new toy until Mom had gathered all her things.
I followed her upstairs. I could tell she was tired from standing on her feet cashiering all day. She plopped her bags in her corner and sat on the couch. My dad had the local TV news blaring. He looked over at us walking through the garage door and with no change of expression on his face asked, "What's for dinner?" then turned his head back toward the TV.
Mom ignored him and went to change out of her work clothes. I went into the kitchen, pulled a chair over to the cabinets and inspected our choices. I started pulling out dark red kidney beans to help Mom make some chili when she came into the room wearing her terry cloth onsie. It was my favorite of her lounge clothes. It was periwinkle which made her grey-green eyes twinkle.
I helped her open the cans and dump the ingredients into the pot. She let me stir it for a minute but not too close so I wouldn't get burnt on the range. She brought the bread and butter to the kitchen table, handed me a plate and herself a plate, handed me a butter knife and herself a butter knife, gave three pieces of bread to both of us, and away we buttered bread. Mmm. The smell and taste of buttered bread to this day makes me feel like Mom is with me.
While we waited for the chili to finish cooking, Mom plopped down on the couch. Dad's eyes were focused completely on the screen like he was an anthropologist studying a strange culture. Every Sunday morning Dad would get up and makes breakfast. The breakfast was always horrible: usually sausage gravy and biscuits or something with runny eggs and bacon. But waking up to the music he played on the turntable while he cooked was wonderful. Ninteen-forties era Big Band Swing and balads by the great singers of the day. It's one of those nice memories of my Dad that pop into my head from time to time. They're nice little visitors and I appreciate their reminder that no one is all bad or all good. Another one is when I was anorexic and always had cold hands so he'd puff on his own hands and rub them together really fast, then wrap his hands over mine. It really did warm them up.
I walked over to the couch, but instead of sitting next to her, I took the crochet hook out of her hand, moved the afghan she was working on to her side, and sat in her lap. My mom sat frozen.
"I love you, Mommy" I said as I nuzzled her cheek with mine.
"I love you too, Punkin, but you're too big to talk baby talk."
She gently pushed me off her lap, picked up her needle and went back to work on an afghan, one that no doubt would feel snuggly warm when I'd come home from school, wrap it around myself on the couch, watch "Tom and Jerry" and "Scooby Doo" while eating Doritos until my tongue is so raw and my fingers stained so orange that it kinda hurts to lick my fingers but in a good way while I waited from Mom to bring me my Blue Light Special.
Once a bunch of neighborhood kids and I were outside during the summer playing night games. Somehow as we all sat down to take a break it was decided by unanimous vote that if we could choose our parents we'd choose Miranda's dad and my mom. I voted along with everyone else, even though I secretly wished that somehow my mom and Miranda's mom could meld and become the perfect mother. I think my mom isn't lovey-dovey enough and Miranda thinks her mom is too naggy. But we also know that Miranda's mom is a super snuggler and my mom knows what kinds of toys kids like. We wanted a mother who didn't make us pick up our Barbies or do chores, but one who also had a lap and a cheek and some lips whenever we felt the need to have them near.
I have never once doubted that my mom loves me. The circumstances of my childhood were not ideal, but my mom did the best with what she got. She wasn't comfortable with physical affection or negative emotions, but I can think of no other person in my life who has consistantly made me feel like I realy could do anything I wanted if I put my passion and my rational mind to it. She's my biggest fan. And as society in general is becoming more emotionally demonstrative these last few decades, so has my mom. Now we regularly hug and kiss, we say "I love you" to each other and it's not quite so awkward.
I think Mom has fairly well controlled Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, but I over-pathologize quirks in people. And I could be projecting. When I was dating girls for the longest time I assumed everyone was bisexual. Mom's getting better at expressing the happy emotions: hugging, kissing, saying I love you. But she still crumbles when she's hit with negative emotions.
A few weeks before Murray died we had a Christmas gathering at Marty's house in St. Joe. We were all there: Mom and Frank, Walt and Adrienne and their daughter Lily, Marty and Dan, Murray, Hazel, Keith and their son Jordan, Hank, Stella and me. We knew it would probably be the last time we'd all get together before Murray would pass away. I forgot to bring my camera.
After about a half hour of sitting up in a chair, Murray suddenly ran to the bathroom where we could hear him retching. The rest of us kept talking like nothing was happening. Except Mom. She was silent and digging in her purse. I couldn't see her face.
Murray came back into the living room and asked Walt if he could drive him back home. his arms were shaking and he needed Walt to grab ahold of his elbow so he wouldn't fall. As they crossed back over the threshold to the front porch, Murray turned his head toward the living room and shouted, "Hey everybody. Thanks for coming up. Sorry I couldn't stay longer. This medicine's jacking me up."
He turned, adjusted the fake leopard skin hat he'd been wearing since he got there, tightened his zebra striped robe over his neck and clomped away in some of Walt's borrowed slippers that looked like they had been worn during the painting of at least five houses. And the fur looked suspiciously not fake and like one of the taxidermied animals of which Walt is an avid Ebay purchaser.
I watched Walt get Murray into the car and drive off. Then I turned my attention back into the living room. Everyone was milling around, eating candy and cinnamon rolls or standing in the corner texting. Everyone except Stella, who had built a fort under Aunt Marty's Winter Wonderland decorative table. She was playing with both snowmen and the nativity scene and I thought snow would actually be a really nice gift to bring someone in Bethlehem.
Then I saw Mom in her stiff backed chair. She didn't like the cushiony chairs she said because they were too difficult for her 72 year old ass to get out of. I think it has to do more with her martyr's personality than her ass. Grandma Ruthanne instilled in Mom the belief that only certain people deserve the nice seat and Mom was not one of them.
I noticed Mom was slouching over and her back was shaking. She was crying. Without thinking, I rushed over and wrapped my arms around her. "It's ok, Mom. It's ok."
She looked briefly into my eyes. Hers were bloodshot and filled with tears that streamed down her face onto her knit pants like sad polkadots. I've never seen so much suffering in another person's eyes.
"Please don't touch me. Leave me alone. Pretend I'm not here." I could barely understand her gravelly whispered voice. It was as if it pained her to speak.
I wanted so much to keep holding on, to let Mom know we can all get through this together. I wanted her to know I wouldn't change her, even in this miserable moment. I wouldn't want any Mom but her. That no matter how much I complain about my unhappy childhood, it got me here to where I am now, and that's right where I want to be.
That's what I wanted to tell her, but I could feel her quivering back stiffen the longer I held on, so I let her go.
Monday, January 24, 2011
My Weirdly Wonderful Mother-in-Law and Hot Husband
My mother-in-law is a different story. She drives me nuts, sure. Things fly out of her mouth that I just choose to let fly on by, making sure Stella's out of the way so they don't stick. But with a big personality comes big affection, and sometimes big affection is exactly what you need.
Hank and I hardly ever fight. We argue. We sit and talk and reason. We try to persuade. But we don't yell much. Especially since I've been back on Sertraline.
But once we got into a huge fight. In public. Not just in public but in front of his parents and his brother and sister-in-law. I threw some pizza at him and he called me a bitch. Neither of us is proud of our behavior now, but at the moment, we were furious.
And that's when I cry. That's not the only time I cry. I also cry when picking out greeting cards and while watching commericals for laundry detergent, but I'm at my soggiest when enraged.
I got into my own car and drove home. Thank God I had my seatbelt on and other cars were driving defensively. Hank had his own car since he got off work late. That was the argument. I had the time--and the place--all mixed up. I said I was sorry and when he didn't accept that I felt he was overreacting. He thought I was being insensitive and selfish. It was an awful fight. The worst we've ever had for sure.
I got home miraculously through tear stained eyes and foggy glasses. I ran into my room, flopped on the bed face first and started sobbing. The dogs jumped on the bed so I got up to let them out, my chest heaving and snot rolling down my face as I walked to the back door to let the dogs go potty. I felt exhausted. Like I hadn't slept in months. I just wanted to lie down. I sat on the floor with the back door open, waiting for the dogs to come back in. I couldn't leave them out or they'd bark all night.
Both dogs licked my cheeks as they came in and tried to paw me with sympathy as I sat on the floor. I allowed them to for a moment. Then I got up and went back to bed. I removed my glasses this time. I was lucky they didn't crush a few minutes ago. I pulled the covers over my head and quietly cried while both dogs and the cat keep guard on top of the bed.
Just a couple minutes after we'd all quieted down, the dogs started going crazy. They ran to see who was opening the front door. My body tensed. It was probably Hank.
I hear a female voice, "No! No! Down! DOWN!" she was yelling at the dogs. "Hellooooow? Sydney, are you in here?" She came to the door and saw the lump in the bed.
And then the weirdest thing. She came and lied down with me. She spooned me and rocked me and gently brushed the hair off my wet face. She whispered, "It's ok. It's ok. Don't worry. My son can be a jerk sometimes. I'm sure it was a misunderstanding. We all love you so much."
I was bawling then. Like lying on my back, mouth wide open, making animalistic death calls. Hank's mom didn't let go. She hugged me harder the harder I cried. It felt both so weird and so so wonderful. I never felt that my grief was so accepted and that I wouldn't die from it. I knew everything would be ok. Nothing was said. I felt it simply from my mother-in-law's embrace of me at my worst.
Hank showed up a few minutes later and took over his Mom's spot spooning me. It's funny how I didn't feel like crying anymore once I realized it was ok to cry. As Hank's mom walked down the hallway to go home, Hank and I stared at each other. He had his arm around me and it was heavy but in a good protective way. "You called me a bitch." I pouted.
"You threw pizza at my face." He stared back and licked his lips.
My husband is so hot. And so sweet. He misses out on so many family gatherings because he works late shifts. I'm rather time-challenged and forget where I'm supposed to be at any given moment, so it's difficult for me to keep track of just myself, let alone my entire family's whereabouts.
"I'm sorry." I said and kissed him gently on the lips. "I didn't mean to leave you out."
He smiled. "Thank you. I'm sorry too."
I waited for him to say more. Finally I asked, "Why are you sorry too?"
He began kissing my mouth and my neck and rubbing his hands down my sides. He stopped kissing, looked up at my face, smiled and said, "If I'm gonna make you yell it's more fun to make you yell with pleasure."
Hank and I hardly ever fight. We argue. We sit and talk and reason. We try to persuade. But we don't yell much. Especially since I've been back on Sertraline.
But once we got into a huge fight. In public. Not just in public but in front of his parents and his brother and sister-in-law. I threw some pizza at him and he called me a bitch. Neither of us is proud of our behavior now, but at the moment, we were furious.
And that's when I cry. That's not the only time I cry. I also cry when picking out greeting cards and while watching commericals for laundry detergent, but I'm at my soggiest when enraged.
I got into my own car and drove home. Thank God I had my seatbelt on and other cars were driving defensively. Hank had his own car since he got off work late. That was the argument. I had the time--and the place--all mixed up. I said I was sorry and when he didn't accept that I felt he was overreacting. He thought I was being insensitive and selfish. It was an awful fight. The worst we've ever had for sure.
I got home miraculously through tear stained eyes and foggy glasses. I ran into my room, flopped on the bed face first and started sobbing. The dogs jumped on the bed so I got up to let them out, my chest heaving and snot rolling down my face as I walked to the back door to let the dogs go potty. I felt exhausted. Like I hadn't slept in months. I just wanted to lie down. I sat on the floor with the back door open, waiting for the dogs to come back in. I couldn't leave them out or they'd bark all night.
Both dogs licked my cheeks as they came in and tried to paw me with sympathy as I sat on the floor. I allowed them to for a moment. Then I got up and went back to bed. I removed my glasses this time. I was lucky they didn't crush a few minutes ago. I pulled the covers over my head and quietly cried while both dogs and the cat keep guard on top of the bed.
Just a couple minutes after we'd all quieted down, the dogs started going crazy. They ran to see who was opening the front door. My body tensed. It was probably Hank.
I hear a female voice, "No! No! Down! DOWN!" she was yelling at the dogs. "Hellooooow? Sydney, are you in here?" She came to the door and saw the lump in the bed.
And then the weirdest thing. She came and lied down with me. She spooned me and rocked me and gently brushed the hair off my wet face. She whispered, "It's ok. It's ok. Don't worry. My son can be a jerk sometimes. I'm sure it was a misunderstanding. We all love you so much."
I was bawling then. Like lying on my back, mouth wide open, making animalistic death calls. Hank's mom didn't let go. She hugged me harder the harder I cried. It felt both so weird and so so wonderful. I never felt that my grief was so accepted and that I wouldn't die from it. I knew everything would be ok. Nothing was said. I felt it simply from my mother-in-law's embrace of me at my worst.
Hank showed up a few minutes later and took over his Mom's spot spooning me. It's funny how I didn't feel like crying anymore once I realized it was ok to cry. As Hank's mom walked down the hallway to go home, Hank and I stared at each other. He had his arm around me and it was heavy but in a good protective way. "You called me a bitch." I pouted.
"You threw pizza at my face." He stared back and licked his lips.
My husband is so hot. And so sweet. He misses out on so many family gatherings because he works late shifts. I'm rather time-challenged and forget where I'm supposed to be at any given moment, so it's difficult for me to keep track of just myself, let alone my entire family's whereabouts.
"I'm sorry." I said and kissed him gently on the lips. "I didn't mean to leave you out."
He smiled. "Thank you. I'm sorry too."
I waited for him to say more. Finally I asked, "Why are you sorry too?"
He began kissing my mouth and my neck and rubbing his hands down my sides. He stopped kissing, looked up at my face, smiled and said, "If I'm gonna make you yell it's more fun to make you yell with pleasure."
If I Were a Financial Wizard I'd Make It All Disapper Just As I Frequently Do with My Bank Account
“But there was a time I asked my father for a dollar and he gave it a ten dollar raise.” –Indigo Girls “Prince of Darkness”
I’m bad at math. I am so bad at math that I am currently not seeking the “Literature, Language and Writing” degree from KU that I would love to complete if it weren’t for the harsh math requirements. (Requiring a class one level HIGHER than College Algebra for basically a fancy creative writing degree, really?) I say I’m bad at math, but really, I’m just lazy at math. I can do it if I try, but I don’t like math and I’m really lousy at making myself do things I don’t like. I’m too spoiled to burden my brain with all those silly numbers.
The reason I don’t like math is because I associate it with money, and I associate money with my dad, a retired accountant. This is the man who spent Saturday mornings at his desk, fingers tap tap tapping on his adding machine like Fred Astaire’s feet on the dance floor, reconciling our bank account. I say “our” bank account loosely because in theory it paid for the entire family’s expenses, but my dad had final say on how the money was allotted. Steak for Dad. Tuna casserole for Mom and the kids. A bitchin’ Camaro for dad. A shitty Vega for mom. An air-conditioner for Dad’s closed-door bedroom. Window fans for the kids’ bedrooms. Regular mattress and box springs in an actual bed for Dad. Roll-away fold-out beds with springs that poked us if we laid a certain way inherited from my great-grandmother for my sister and me. Canned pop for my dad’s lunch (which we weren’t allowed to touch). 2-Liter bottles of pop for the rest of the family. There were all these rules in our house about who got what, and they amounted to Dad growling until he got his lion’s share.
When I was in junior high, I stumbled upon the expression "The love of money is the root of all evil" no doubt while reading about some anti-money but nonetheless rich celebrity in “Star Hits” magazine. Living in wealthy, suburban Johnson County Kansas during the Regan-era, I was relieved to find out I wasn’t the only person who despised money. Much later I discovered the quote’s biblical roots (1 Timothy 6:10, KJV) and it made sense that someone like Jesus, who had the audacity to love the poor, would say something like that. I don’t believe in God in the traditional sense (white bearded old guy hanging out in the clouds) and I can’t be bothered to drag my ass out of bed to congregate with my neighbors on Sundays, and a lot of the Bible's useage to judge people (particularly homosexuals) offends me, so I don’t call myself a Christian, but I really dig a lot of what Jesus had to say and I’ve tried to live my life accordingly.
But I’ve twisted my ankle many times wandering along the path of hating money, especially while wearing my Jesusesque sandals. For one thing, I’ve discovered in my 40 years of life that paying attention to something you hate is important. As any self-help millionaire/guru will tell you, ignoring something doesn't make it go away. Simply hating greed doesn’t immune me from having to pay my bills. And if I don't pay close enough attention to what happens to the money I earn to pay for my comfortable life, it can get quite uncomfortable.
Hank and I just boosted the auto repair industry's economy by $473 so we can continue to electronically roll down our window as we stimulate the fast-food industry's economy in various drive thrus. Normally, I'd swipe our credit card to pay for such an emergency expense. (Savings account? What's a savings account? If you mean Stella's piggy bank, I think it was emptied the last time I desperately needed an eyebrow waxing or a massage, you know, one of those life-dependent emergency situations.) But lately I've been trying to stimulate the credit card industry's economy less so I have more money to stimulate other economies I care for more: Whole Foods, Zappos, The Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant, just to name a few.
So I looked over our, well, uh, it's not exactly a check book ledger. It's a mini calendar that I write down when bills are due to be electronically debited from our checking account, and also when my most fertile ovulation days are. (Maybe I should move the mortgage payment date to a couple of weeks away from when I'm ovulating to alliviate the stress in my life and perhaps improve my chances of conception?) So I checked in my mini ovulation calendar/bank account ledger and it looked like we could squeak by paying for the car repair out of our checking account. We'd have to eat up our canned goods instead of going to the grocery store, and I might have to skip a few washings to conserve on the contents of our nearly empty shampoo bottle, but it was worth it to not pay The Man interest, man. And I'd look like a dirty hippie while stickin' it to the man - right on!
My excitement subsided a couple hours later when I opened my email and saw the nice, cheery email from Shutterfly telling me that the 600+ pictures I ordered a couple days earlier had been shipped. Panic. Looked at ovulation calendar/bank account ledger. More panic. I had not written down the Shutterfly purchase. Our bank account would be overdrawn.
Immediately it felt like someone hit me at the top of my shoulders with a sledgehammer. I could hear my dad's voice nagging at me even though he lives 30 miles away. I started thinking, "Maybe I could call back the car repair place and have them re-run the transaction so I could pay for it with my credit card?" The car repair place was already closed. "Maybe I could return the flea medicine I just bought for the dogs and cross my fingers that a few days Frontline-free wouldn't be an open invitation to all Overland Park fleas to jump onto my dogs." Nope, they're closed too. "Maybe I could borrow the money from my mom." I'm still paying off the loan her husband gave me to pay off the freakin' car that just needed repaired. "How much can I get for selling plasma? Is there a place open this late at night?" My thoughts only grew more desperate from there.
My friends whose dads weren't so greedy/frugal/authoritarian have no idea why I panic when I make stupid financial mistakes. They say, "Don't worry about it. Pay the overdraft fee and forget about it. We all make mistakes. You're human!" But I always sink into self-loathing instead.
Is it ironic that something I hate, by not paying close attention to it, causes me to hate myself? I'm not sure because I haven't taken the Calculus prerequisite needed to take the "Literature, Language and Writing" course that goes over irony. But I think it's interesting, and maybe I should do something about it.
In the meantime, I'm going to wrap myself in the comforting arms of my husband, and my husband's mom and dad. Last night, as I sat crying on our futon telling Hank what a dumbass I am, he started whipping out some cash. He got up, wordless, went to our bedroom (we have central air, by the way) and came back with his piggy bank. He emptied the contents onto our table and started counting. "Call my dad. He'll lend us some money til Friday."
I was astounded. What? No "how could you be so stupid"? No "what were you thinking"? No "This is coming out of your eyebrow waxes and Ethiopian food binges"? My husband just stopped, calmly found a solution to the problem, and without much ado, pulled together enough cash for us to deposit into the ATM so we'd be covered. I called my father-in-law to make sure.
"Uh, um, I did a really stupid thing and our checking account is overdrawn. Is there any possible way we could, uh, um, borrow like $20 until Friday?" He actually cut me off before I got the rest of "until Friday" out of my mouth with, "Sure, no problem!" No questions asked. No judgment given. He immediately came over and handed us not one, but two twenties. "Just as a little cushion. Do you want more?"
I’m bad at math. I am so bad at math that I am currently not seeking the “Literature, Language and Writing” degree from KU that I would love to complete if it weren’t for the harsh math requirements. (Requiring a class one level HIGHER than College Algebra for basically a fancy creative writing degree, really?) I say I’m bad at math, but really, I’m just lazy at math. I can do it if I try, but I don’t like math and I’m really lousy at making myself do things I don’t like. I’m too spoiled to burden my brain with all those silly numbers.
The reason I don’t like math is because I associate it with money, and I associate money with my dad, a retired accountant. This is the man who spent Saturday mornings at his desk, fingers tap tap tapping on his adding machine like Fred Astaire’s feet on the dance floor, reconciling our bank account. I say “our” bank account loosely because in theory it paid for the entire family’s expenses, but my dad had final say on how the money was allotted. Steak for Dad. Tuna casserole for Mom and the kids. A bitchin’ Camaro for dad. A shitty Vega for mom. An air-conditioner for Dad’s closed-door bedroom. Window fans for the kids’ bedrooms. Regular mattress and box springs in an actual bed for Dad. Roll-away fold-out beds with springs that poked us if we laid a certain way inherited from my great-grandmother for my sister and me. Canned pop for my dad’s lunch (which we weren’t allowed to touch). 2-Liter bottles of pop for the rest of the family. There were all these rules in our house about who got what, and they amounted to Dad growling until he got his lion’s share.
When I was in junior high, I stumbled upon the expression "The love of money is the root of all evil" no doubt while reading about some anti-money but nonetheless rich celebrity in “Star Hits” magazine. Living in wealthy, suburban Johnson County Kansas during the Regan-era, I was relieved to find out I wasn’t the only person who despised money. Much later I discovered the quote’s biblical roots (1 Timothy 6:10, KJV) and it made sense that someone like Jesus, who had the audacity to love the poor, would say something like that. I don’t believe in God in the traditional sense (white bearded old guy hanging out in the clouds) and I can’t be bothered to drag my ass out of bed to congregate with my neighbors on Sundays, and a lot of the Bible's useage to judge people (particularly homosexuals) offends me, so I don’t call myself a Christian, but I really dig a lot of what Jesus had to say and I’ve tried to live my life accordingly.
But I’ve twisted my ankle many times wandering along the path of hating money, especially while wearing my Jesusesque sandals. For one thing, I’ve discovered in my 40 years of life that paying attention to something you hate is important. As any self-help millionaire/guru will tell you, ignoring something doesn't make it go away. Simply hating greed doesn’t immune me from having to pay my bills. And if I don't pay close enough attention to what happens to the money I earn to pay for my comfortable life, it can get quite uncomfortable.
Hank and I just boosted the auto repair industry's economy by $473 so we can continue to electronically roll down our window as we stimulate the fast-food industry's economy in various drive thrus. Normally, I'd swipe our credit card to pay for such an emergency expense. (Savings account? What's a savings account? If you mean Stella's piggy bank, I think it was emptied the last time I desperately needed an eyebrow waxing or a massage, you know, one of those life-dependent emergency situations.) But lately I've been trying to stimulate the credit card industry's economy less so I have more money to stimulate other economies I care for more: Whole Foods, Zappos, The Blue Nile Ethiopian restaurant, just to name a few.
So I looked over our, well, uh, it's not exactly a check book ledger. It's a mini calendar that I write down when bills are due to be electronically debited from our checking account, and also when my most fertile ovulation days are. (Maybe I should move the mortgage payment date to a couple of weeks away from when I'm ovulating to alliviate the stress in my life and perhaps improve my chances of conception?) So I checked in my mini ovulation calendar/bank account ledger and it looked like we could squeak by paying for the car repair out of our checking account. We'd have to eat up our canned goods instead of going to the grocery store, and I might have to skip a few washings to conserve on the contents of our nearly empty shampoo bottle, but it was worth it to not pay The Man interest, man. And I'd look like a dirty hippie while stickin' it to the man - right on!
My excitement subsided a couple hours later when I opened my email and saw the nice, cheery email from Shutterfly telling me that the 600+ pictures I ordered a couple days earlier had been shipped. Panic. Looked at ovulation calendar/bank account ledger. More panic. I had not written down the Shutterfly purchase. Our bank account would be overdrawn.
Immediately it felt like someone hit me at the top of my shoulders with a sledgehammer. I could hear my dad's voice nagging at me even though he lives 30 miles away. I started thinking, "Maybe I could call back the car repair place and have them re-run the transaction so I could pay for it with my credit card?" The car repair place was already closed. "Maybe I could return the flea medicine I just bought for the dogs and cross my fingers that a few days Frontline-free wouldn't be an open invitation to all Overland Park fleas to jump onto my dogs." Nope, they're closed too. "Maybe I could borrow the money from my mom." I'm still paying off the loan her husband gave me to pay off the freakin' car that just needed repaired. "How much can I get for selling plasma? Is there a place open this late at night?" My thoughts only grew more desperate from there.
My friends whose dads weren't so greedy/frugal/authoritarian have no idea why I panic when I make stupid financial mistakes. They say, "Don't worry about it. Pay the overdraft fee and forget about it. We all make mistakes. You're human!" But I always sink into self-loathing instead.
Is it ironic that something I hate, by not paying close attention to it, causes me to hate myself? I'm not sure because I haven't taken the Calculus prerequisite needed to take the "Literature, Language and Writing" course that goes over irony. But I think it's interesting, and maybe I should do something about it.
In the meantime, I'm going to wrap myself in the comforting arms of my husband, and my husband's mom and dad. Last night, as I sat crying on our futon telling Hank what a dumbass I am, he started whipping out some cash. He got up, wordless, went to our bedroom (we have central air, by the way) and came back with his piggy bank. He emptied the contents onto our table and started counting. "Call my dad. He'll lend us some money til Friday."
I was astounded. What? No "how could you be so stupid"? No "what were you thinking"? No "This is coming out of your eyebrow waxes and Ethiopian food binges"? My husband just stopped, calmly found a solution to the problem, and without much ado, pulled together enough cash for us to deposit into the ATM so we'd be covered. I called my father-in-law to make sure.
"Uh, um, I did a really stupid thing and our checking account is overdrawn. Is there any possible way we could, uh, um, borrow like $20 until Friday?" He actually cut me off before I got the rest of "until Friday" out of my mouth with, "Sure, no problem!" No questions asked. No judgment given. He immediately came over and handed us not one, but two twenties. "Just as a little cushion. Do you want more?"
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Pill Popper
I'm pretty sure my medical doctor is younger than me and if so, she's definitely the reincarnation of John Lennon. To look at her you'd never know it. She wears monochromatic business casual outfits and has a short wash and wear hair style. She's smart, both looking and thinking. And John Lennon's inside her somewhere, guiding her. When I mentioned to her that I was concerned about the long-term effects of taking benzodiazepines, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "Let me worry about that. Let's just get you through the next four months of this intense psychotherapy and then we'll evaluate how you're doing. Four months of daily benzodiazepeine use is not going to turn you into a junkie." She smiled and that alone calmed me. "Trust me, if you think of the long term effect, these next few months of therapy are going to bring back a lot of pain and you're going to have to go through it. This will help. And you'll be better off in the long run."
I know I'm nervous about taking a benzo because that's what Mom says she mixed with beer, which is what landed her in the psychiatric ward both times. But since I know that, I just avoid alcohol. Hank teases his own mom by picking up her bag full of pills and shaking it like a maraca. I never thought I'd come to rely on some type of "mother's little helper." But as I am advancing as a woman I realize I have no right to judge what other people use to get through the night because we all need something. It could be prayer, meditation, alcohol, sleeping pills, an orgasm, warm milk and cookies, or a fan to drown out your internal noise.
I wasn't always a pill popper. I think I was twelve before I really swallowed my first pill. Before that my mom had to crush it and try to hide it in my orange juice. I believe this is the reason orange juice leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to this day.
Now I'm a fan of pills. Some pills. The Pill, for instance. Excellent. Antihistimes. Aaaaaachoooooray! Viagra. Must I say anything? But also Sertraline and Clonazepam. I wonder how people handled their anxiety before modern medication came along? Wine, mead and weed, I suspect. But then they didn't drive cars or hold 8-5 public service jobs.
I take pills and eat Lays Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips and take our dogs to the dog park and watch Stella play with kids at the playground. Hank does yoga, eats candy like a kid, cooks and jams on his instruments, Hank's mom takes pills, smokes, and plays music, Hank's dad is a poker player computer junkie and heavy smoker whose singing forces a smile on everyone's face, Hazel found religion and works every day to follow Jesus's example of love and charity, Marty and Walt are both creative adventurers and community activists. Murray had found it in alcohol and being a good friend. My mom finds it in crafting and recalling fond memories of us when we were kids. Stella twirls her hair and sucks her tongue. We all have our self-soothing tools. Lennon and my doctor are right. Whatever gets you through the night is all right.
After Keith joined AA and Hazel started attending Al-anon meetings, they met some friends they enjoyed hanging out with who had been down similar paths. They invited Keith and Hazel to their evangelical church, and suddenly Keith and Hazel found their home.
When I was thirteen during the summer before eigth grade, I stayed for a week at their house. They took me to their friends' house Wednesday night for Bible study. I was the only kid. The rest of them were at least eight years older than me. I didn't understand a lot of the rapture and revelations talk, so my mind wandered elsewhere. Some guys got up to try to play a Black Sabbath album backwards to hear the devil, but all I heard was scratching and warped voices. Everyone was nice to me. Each one of them asked me how I liked school. Fine. If I had a boyfriend. No. If I wanted a boyfriend. No. What I liked to do. Read. If I liked to read the Bible. Not really.
My mom would read the Bible to me sometimes. She read it every day and if something popped out at her, she'd put a piece of toilet paper inside to hold the place so she could read it to me later. But we didn't really go to church much. Mom claims she baptised me in the kitchen sink when I was a baby. The other kids were baptized Catholic, but since Mom had divorced I had to be a heathen I guess. The movie "Jesus of Nazareth" they played on TV when I was a kid made me cry every time though, so I think Mom was pretty confident in my spiritual journey.
We briefly went to a Presbyterian church. I thought it was cool that the organist was an openly gay old man, but no one was allowed to talk about it. But when we moved to Overland Park, we stopped going to church. I was glad. The church kids I met were often petty and mean when adults weren't around.
While I was staying with Hazel and Keith they took me to church with them on Sunday morning. A teenager, I wasn't in the mood to wake up early any day of the week, and especially on a day when I was expected to wear hose.
As we walked through the doors of Jesus is Love Church of the Light, I could hear a band playing. They kinda sounded like Styx only they were singing about His light inside me. We sat three row from the front in the very center. My scalp and forehead broke into a sweat. Hazel was greeting everyone and trying to introduce me, but I was having trouble breathing. Hazel grabbed my arm, "Are you ok, Syd?" I said I felt dizzy. Hazel looked at Keith. He grabbed my arm and led me outside.
"You probably just need some fresh air."
I nodded and sat on a bench, focusing on my breathing.
After about five minutes, Keith asked if I was ready to go back in. I stood up and said sure. More people were seated then and you could tell the service was about to get started. Everyone stood as the pastor entered the room. Only instead of just standing, they all closed their eyes and raised their hands into the air palms up. I felt like falling down on my face. I sat down and tried not to be noticed. Some people started singing a nice melodious tune about Jesus saving us from the harshness of life. Then some people started shouting out. In words I couldn't understand. And someone across the room began quoting something. I felt like throwing up.
After the service we went into the hallway and Hazel introduced me to about five hundred of her closest friends. I smiled and tried not to say anything because I mix my words up and get embarrassed. Hazel looked radiant. She found the familial love she needed. I just wanted to crawl into bed.
We finally left and filed into their Toyota Corolla. Keith had traded his big blue boat in for a zippy blue subcompact. Then my dad started complaining that Keith hadn't bought an American car.
On the drive home, Hazel suddenly turned around and smiled wide at me. Here eyes were gigantic, like she just saw Jesus himself. "So?
"So what?" I looked out the window at the cattle grazing.
"So what did you think?" I don't think she could remove the smile from her face if she tried.
"It was nice." I said and looked down at my shoe.
"Nice? Just nice? Did you have a good time?" Her smile went down a notch.
I shrugged. I didn't want to hurt Hazel and Keith's feelings because I was happy they had finally found a place they felt like they belonged. But I totally didn't feel like I belonged. I just didn't know how to tell them that.
Hazel turned back around and looked out the windshield. After a couple minutes, still with enthusiasm in her voice she said, "If you wanna get saved just let me know. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me."
All I could think of was, "Saved from what?" But I just sat quietly in the back seat until they drove me home. I felt ashamed. I felt like I had disappointed Hazel, who had stood by me in my darkest moments. She wanted to help me but I just wanted to be left alone.
In the year or so since I was left alone in the cyclone of sadness that was my parent's marriage, I quit dwelling on my feelings of abandonment. Like Hermey the IN-DE-PEND-ENT dentist wannabe who didn't want to live the life of an elf that was expected of him said, "Hey, what do you say we both be independent together, huh?" I started hanging out with a group of kids in junior high who were very socially active, in-your-face progressives. One of their agendas was to end homophobia. That's when I remember my mom bringing out the Bible that day and showing me the passage. I kept focusing on the word abomination. I didn't even really know what it meant, but I knew it was bad. But from hanging out with my new friends, I knew first hand that they weren't bad. They were just different kids. The outcasts radical Jesus would have liked. So no, I did not want to be saved by a religion that uses words like abomination to describe my friends. My living, breathing, loving, laughing, human friends. I thought we were supposed to love each other, not judge each other?
So as splintered families often do, my siblings and I over the years continued to live separate lives, gathering only at big holidays throughout the year. I had to come to terms that older siblings leaving is a fact of life. That siblings having different beliefs is a fact of life. It's not intentional abandonment as it felt like when I was an insecure teenager. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
I realize now, in the introspective work I've been doing before deciding to adopt or not and all the DBT sessions, that it hurt worse for me to lose my siblings to adulthood since my siblings were all pseudo-parents to me when I was very young. That's understandable. That's what I love about dialectical behavior therapy: it assumes life sucks and sometimes bad things happen. But it gives you some understanding of why things evolve the way they do and what you can do, today, this moment, to tolerate the distressing thought. DBT, benzodiazepam, prayer, groups, isolation, sharing. Whatever gets you through the night is alright.
I know I'm nervous about taking a benzo because that's what Mom says she mixed with beer, which is what landed her in the psychiatric ward both times. But since I know that, I just avoid alcohol. Hank teases his own mom by picking up her bag full of pills and shaking it like a maraca. I never thought I'd come to rely on some type of "mother's little helper." But as I am advancing as a woman I realize I have no right to judge what other people use to get through the night because we all need something. It could be prayer, meditation, alcohol, sleeping pills, an orgasm, warm milk and cookies, or a fan to drown out your internal noise.
I wasn't always a pill popper. I think I was twelve before I really swallowed my first pill. Before that my mom had to crush it and try to hide it in my orange juice. I believe this is the reason orange juice leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to this day.
Now I'm a fan of pills. Some pills. The Pill, for instance. Excellent. Antihistimes. Aaaaaachoooooray! Viagra. Must I say anything? But also Sertraline and Clonazepam. I wonder how people handled their anxiety before modern medication came along? Wine, mead and weed, I suspect. But then they didn't drive cars or hold 8-5 public service jobs.
I take pills and eat Lays Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips and take our dogs to the dog park and watch Stella play with kids at the playground. Hank does yoga, eats candy like a kid, cooks and jams on his instruments, Hank's mom takes pills, smokes, and plays music, Hank's dad is a poker player computer junkie and heavy smoker whose singing forces a smile on everyone's face, Hazel found religion and works every day to follow Jesus's example of love and charity, Marty and Walt are both creative adventurers and community activists. Murray had found it in alcohol and being a good friend. My mom finds it in crafting and recalling fond memories of us when we were kids. Stella twirls her hair and sucks her tongue. We all have our self-soothing tools. Lennon and my doctor are right. Whatever gets you through the night is all right.
After Keith joined AA and Hazel started attending Al-anon meetings, they met some friends they enjoyed hanging out with who had been down similar paths. They invited Keith and Hazel to their evangelical church, and suddenly Keith and Hazel found their home.
When I was thirteen during the summer before eigth grade, I stayed for a week at their house. They took me to their friends' house Wednesday night for Bible study. I was the only kid. The rest of them were at least eight years older than me. I didn't understand a lot of the rapture and revelations talk, so my mind wandered elsewhere. Some guys got up to try to play a Black Sabbath album backwards to hear the devil, but all I heard was scratching and warped voices. Everyone was nice to me. Each one of them asked me how I liked school. Fine. If I had a boyfriend. No. If I wanted a boyfriend. No. What I liked to do. Read. If I liked to read the Bible. Not really.
My mom would read the Bible to me sometimes. She read it every day and if something popped out at her, she'd put a piece of toilet paper inside to hold the place so she could read it to me later. But we didn't really go to church much. Mom claims she baptised me in the kitchen sink when I was a baby. The other kids were baptized Catholic, but since Mom had divorced I had to be a heathen I guess. The movie "Jesus of Nazareth" they played on TV when I was a kid made me cry every time though, so I think Mom was pretty confident in my spiritual journey.
We briefly went to a Presbyterian church. I thought it was cool that the organist was an openly gay old man, but no one was allowed to talk about it. But when we moved to Overland Park, we stopped going to church. I was glad. The church kids I met were often petty and mean when adults weren't around.
While I was staying with Hazel and Keith they took me to church with them on Sunday morning. A teenager, I wasn't in the mood to wake up early any day of the week, and especially on a day when I was expected to wear hose.
As we walked through the doors of Jesus is Love Church of the Light, I could hear a band playing. They kinda sounded like Styx only they were singing about His light inside me. We sat three row from the front in the very center. My scalp and forehead broke into a sweat. Hazel was greeting everyone and trying to introduce me, but I was having trouble breathing. Hazel grabbed my arm, "Are you ok, Syd?" I said I felt dizzy. Hazel looked at Keith. He grabbed my arm and led me outside.
"You probably just need some fresh air."
I nodded and sat on a bench, focusing on my breathing.
After about five minutes, Keith asked if I was ready to go back in. I stood up and said sure. More people were seated then and you could tell the service was about to get started. Everyone stood as the pastor entered the room. Only instead of just standing, they all closed their eyes and raised their hands into the air palms up. I felt like falling down on my face. I sat down and tried not to be noticed. Some people started singing a nice melodious tune about Jesus saving us from the harshness of life. Then some people started shouting out. In words I couldn't understand. And someone across the room began quoting something. I felt like throwing up.
After the service we went into the hallway and Hazel introduced me to about five hundred of her closest friends. I smiled and tried not to say anything because I mix my words up and get embarrassed. Hazel looked radiant. She found the familial love she needed. I just wanted to crawl into bed.
We finally left and filed into their Toyota Corolla. Keith had traded his big blue boat in for a zippy blue subcompact. Then my dad started complaining that Keith hadn't bought an American car.
On the drive home, Hazel suddenly turned around and smiled wide at me. Here eyes were gigantic, like she just saw Jesus himself. "So?
"So what?" I looked out the window at the cattle grazing.
"So what did you think?" I don't think she could remove the smile from her face if she tried.
"It was nice." I said and looked down at my shoe.
"Nice? Just nice? Did you have a good time?" Her smile went down a notch.
I shrugged. I didn't want to hurt Hazel and Keith's feelings because I was happy they had finally found a place they felt like they belonged. But I totally didn't feel like I belonged. I just didn't know how to tell them that.
Hazel turned back around and looked out the windshield. After a couple minutes, still with enthusiasm in her voice she said, "If you wanna get saved just let me know. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me."
All I could think of was, "Saved from what?" But I just sat quietly in the back seat until they drove me home. I felt ashamed. I felt like I had disappointed Hazel, who had stood by me in my darkest moments. She wanted to help me but I just wanted to be left alone.
In the year or so since I was left alone in the cyclone of sadness that was my parent's marriage, I quit dwelling on my feelings of abandonment. Like Hermey the IN-DE-PEND-ENT dentist wannabe who didn't want to live the life of an elf that was expected of him said, "Hey, what do you say we both be independent together, huh?" I started hanging out with a group of kids in junior high who were very socially active, in-your-face progressives. One of their agendas was to end homophobia. That's when I remember my mom bringing out the Bible that day and showing me the passage. I kept focusing on the word abomination. I didn't even really know what it meant, but I knew it was bad. But from hanging out with my new friends, I knew first hand that they weren't bad. They were just different kids. The outcasts radical Jesus would have liked. So no, I did not want to be saved by a religion that uses words like abomination to describe my friends. My living, breathing, loving, laughing, human friends. I thought we were supposed to love each other, not judge each other?
So as splintered families often do, my siblings and I over the years continued to live separate lives, gathering only at big holidays throughout the year. I had to come to terms that older siblings leaving is a fact of life. That siblings having different beliefs is a fact of life. It's not intentional abandonment as it felt like when I was an insecure teenager. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
I realize now, in the introspective work I've been doing before deciding to adopt or not and all the DBT sessions, that it hurt worse for me to lose my siblings to adulthood since my siblings were all pseudo-parents to me when I was very young. That's understandable. That's what I love about dialectical behavior therapy: it assumes life sucks and sometimes bad things happen. But it gives you some understanding of why things evolve the way they do and what you can do, today, this moment, to tolerate the distressing thought. DBT, benzodiazepam, prayer, groups, isolation, sharing. Whatever gets you through the night is alright.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Fighting and Making Up
Hank and I got into an argument this morning when I (for the fifth year in a row!) evidently bought him the wrong kind of Russell Stover's milk chocolate coconut candies he loves. What kind of company sells three freaking boxes of milk chocolate coconut candies??? I was mad at myself for having done it again, and mad at Hank for being so freaking precise in his taste. I started yelling and I called him an ungrateful prick.
Happy Anniversary, Dear!
I later apologized and we talked about it, and of course I wasn't really yelling at him but I was yelling at my dad for all those years of his ingratitude and how Hank reminded me of my dad for that moment, and how in doing so I momentarily turned into my dad myself by calling the person I love the most in life a bad name. (Deep breath.) But the good thing about Hank is he knows I'm a hot head and I don't mean to say mean things, and so once I apologized we laughed about it and he said no matter how I act, he'll always love me. I've bemoaned the fact that I never felt unconditionally loved by my own father for so long I'm even sick of bringing it up again. But it's much easier to accept that I have a crappy relationship with my dad, knowing that I'm unconditionally loved by my husband. I am so lucky to have Hank.
After I calmed down, I also had to talk to Stella, who had witnessed the fight, about how I had been wrong, and it's not nice to yell and call people bad names, and she said, "Yes, Mama, when you're feeling mad, say what's making you mad and you'll feel better," (which is verbatim off a Ni Hao Kai Lan show about not yelling but talking calmly about how we feel). So yes, my four year old is already more emotionally mature than I am.
Here's to calm communication, forgiveness, and unconditional love!
Happy Anniversary, Dear!
I later apologized and we talked about it, and of course I wasn't really yelling at him but I was yelling at my dad for all those years of his ingratitude and how Hank reminded me of my dad for that moment, and how in doing so I momentarily turned into my dad myself by calling the person I love the most in life a bad name. (Deep breath.) But the good thing about Hank is he knows I'm a hot head and I don't mean to say mean things, and so once I apologized we laughed about it and he said no matter how I act, he'll always love me. I've bemoaned the fact that I never felt unconditionally loved by my own father for so long I'm even sick of bringing it up again. But it's much easier to accept that I have a crappy relationship with my dad, knowing that I'm unconditionally loved by my husband. I am so lucky to have Hank.
After I calmed down, I also had to talk to Stella, who had witnessed the fight, about how I had been wrong, and it's not nice to yell and call people bad names, and she said, "Yes, Mama, when you're feeling mad, say what's making you mad and you'll feel better," (which is verbatim off a Ni Hao Kai Lan show about not yelling but talking calmly about how we feel). So yes, my four year old is already more emotionally mature than I am.
Here's to calm communication, forgiveness, and unconditional love!
Some Things are Better Left Unsaid
I'm all for communication. I tend to lean on the overshare side of the spectrum of disclosure. My mother, on the other hand, feels that everthing that pops into her head should immediately pop out. And sometimes it pops out so fast it's kinda hard to understand what the heck she's talking about.
My mother cannot keep a secret. She just can't. Don't even try. This is not a judgment. It is just a fact. She's the kind of person who emails you a month before you birthday and starts out the email with hints about what she made you for a present and closes with something to the effect of, "I hope you find lots of things to match the purple, fushia, grey and camel scarf I made you. I'll put it in the mail today. Go ahead and open it. You don't have to wait for your birthday."
Our differences in holding our tongues causes some conflict in my relationship with my mother. For example. Here are some situations I really would have been better off not knowing about, which my mother revealed to me:
1. I did not need to know that the last time my mom and dad had sex was when I was twelve years old.
2. I really didn't even need to know that I was conceived in the morning of Valentines Day 1970, although I have to admit it's kinda funny to know.
3. I did not need to listen to my mom complain about her marriage to my father from the time I was 12 until I got kicked out of the house at age 18. Every time she'd ask my advice I would tell her to leave him. When she would ignore my advice and just want to vent, I'd listen dutifully, but it really wore me out. I loved our conversations because they made me feel closer to my mom than I ever had. She opened herself up to me in ways she never had with anyone. I felt special. I enjoyed feeling like I was helping her feel better. But when she'd spend the weekend in bed with a migraine or lay on the couch all weekend and not talk, it made me think I must be doing something wrong. It's my fault she's depressed. I must cheer her up. So I'd get her to talk to me and the cycle would begin. She's tell me her troubles, her life stories, her good and bad times, and I'd listen and feel important. But at the same time it parentalized me.
4. In my mid-twenties I did not need for Mom to tell me that Murray mentioned to her the last time he came into town that he couldn't believe how big I'd gotten and wasn't I concerned about my weight. I know Murray only liked skinny girls. He mentioned it several times. And I heard the story at least ten times about how he got so drunk one night he woke up with this really fat chick in bed and he started puking right there on the spot. Nice. Anyway, who gives a shit what Murray thinks of my body? That's gross. So I told mom to quit telling me when people make comments about my body.
5. This is not from my mom, but speaking of fat chicks, my dad and I met for lunch one day at the Chinese buffet. We were talking about his then third wife Trudie who he is now divorced from, and why she didn't like me. I did not start the conversation. I can't remember how it started, and I was hoping we could change the subject, but soon dad spat it out like a chicken wing into a small porcelin bowl, "Trudie doesn't like heavy-set people." I was stunned. But then I said, "Well that's ok. I don't like stupid racist people." Dad just laughed. I felt weird because I knew he was going to go back and tell Trudie I said that. And I felt weird that I cared that she'd know I said that. Stupid bitch.
6. When Kendall and I had been dating for about two years or so, evidently Keith and Hazel asked my mom about our relationship, at least according to my mom's retelling me the story. She said, "They said, well, we still love Sydney but we think it's a sin." I remember saying something like, "Yeah, and?" When mom told me this like it was some big secret. I just wondered if it was mom's way of ratting out my sister and brother-in-law or if she was passively-agressively agreeing with them and telling me how she felt. I do remember watching an episode of Phil Donoghue about gay people with her. When the show was over, I asked her what she would do if one of her kids told her they were gay. I was about 13. I had no gay inklings at all. I was just curious. She grabbed the Bible, flipped it to a certain chaper and read me about how being gay is an abomination.
We spoke of it never again until I was sixteen, drunk, and stumbled through the door once at 3:00am and woke up my mom on the day bed she slept in after she and dad stopped sleeping together but before she left him. I was crying. She asked me what wrong. I blurted out, "I think I'm gay. I just kissed Crissy!" Mom was silent for a moment and then said softly, "Yeah, I know honey. Go dry off and get some sleep." She never brought out the Bible. She never said anything. In fact, my lover Kendall and I shared a house with her for a while. I guess she loved the sinner but not the sin.
When Marty came over to Murrays, a few months before he died, we were all looking at old photos. We had each dug through our collections of old stapshots. I brought out one of my favorites. Mom's taking the photo. Walt, Marty, Murray, Hazel, My dad, My dad's mom and step-dad (not the drunk) are all standing in front of a motel. Walt is holding me up so my head is even with nearly everyone but Hazel and dad's mom.
I held it out for Marty to see the picture. She took the picture with her left hand and held her right hand to her heart and gasped. "That's the vacation when Mom asked me if she should divorce Calvin." I was stunned. All this time I had thought I was Mom's only mini-psychotherapist. "How old were you?" I asked. "About 13," Marty replied. "That's about how old I was when she started confiding in me about their relationship." We both crunched our faces and kinda half smiled and half frowned like a clown who's giving up chasing after his scarf.
My mother cannot keep a secret. She just can't. Don't even try. This is not a judgment. It is just a fact. She's the kind of person who emails you a month before you birthday and starts out the email with hints about what she made you for a present and closes with something to the effect of, "I hope you find lots of things to match the purple, fushia, grey and camel scarf I made you. I'll put it in the mail today. Go ahead and open it. You don't have to wait for your birthday."
Our differences in holding our tongues causes some conflict in my relationship with my mother. For example. Here are some situations I really would have been better off not knowing about, which my mother revealed to me:
1. I did not need to know that the last time my mom and dad had sex was when I was twelve years old.
2. I really didn't even need to know that I was conceived in the morning of Valentines Day 1970, although I have to admit it's kinda funny to know.
3. I did not need to listen to my mom complain about her marriage to my father from the time I was 12 until I got kicked out of the house at age 18. Every time she'd ask my advice I would tell her to leave him. When she would ignore my advice and just want to vent, I'd listen dutifully, but it really wore me out. I loved our conversations because they made me feel closer to my mom than I ever had. She opened herself up to me in ways she never had with anyone. I felt special. I enjoyed feeling like I was helping her feel better. But when she'd spend the weekend in bed with a migraine or lay on the couch all weekend and not talk, it made me think I must be doing something wrong. It's my fault she's depressed. I must cheer her up. So I'd get her to talk to me and the cycle would begin. She's tell me her troubles, her life stories, her good and bad times, and I'd listen and feel important. But at the same time it parentalized me.
4. In my mid-twenties I did not need for Mom to tell me that Murray mentioned to her the last time he came into town that he couldn't believe how big I'd gotten and wasn't I concerned about my weight. I know Murray only liked skinny girls. He mentioned it several times. And I heard the story at least ten times about how he got so drunk one night he woke up with this really fat chick in bed and he started puking right there on the spot. Nice. Anyway, who gives a shit what Murray thinks of my body? That's gross. So I told mom to quit telling me when people make comments about my body.
5. This is not from my mom, but speaking of fat chicks, my dad and I met for lunch one day at the Chinese buffet. We were talking about his then third wife Trudie who he is now divorced from, and why she didn't like me. I did not start the conversation. I can't remember how it started, and I was hoping we could change the subject, but soon dad spat it out like a chicken wing into a small porcelin bowl, "Trudie doesn't like heavy-set people." I was stunned. But then I said, "Well that's ok. I don't like stupid racist people." Dad just laughed. I felt weird because I knew he was going to go back and tell Trudie I said that. And I felt weird that I cared that she'd know I said that. Stupid bitch.
6. When Kendall and I had been dating for about two years or so, evidently Keith and Hazel asked my mom about our relationship, at least according to my mom's retelling me the story. She said, "They said, well, we still love Sydney but we think it's a sin." I remember saying something like, "Yeah, and?" When mom told me this like it was some big secret. I just wondered if it was mom's way of ratting out my sister and brother-in-law or if she was passively-agressively agreeing with them and telling me how she felt. I do remember watching an episode of Phil Donoghue about gay people with her. When the show was over, I asked her what she would do if one of her kids told her they were gay. I was about 13. I had no gay inklings at all. I was just curious. She grabbed the Bible, flipped it to a certain chaper and read me about how being gay is an abomination.
We spoke of it never again until I was sixteen, drunk, and stumbled through the door once at 3:00am and woke up my mom on the day bed she slept in after she and dad stopped sleeping together but before she left him. I was crying. She asked me what wrong. I blurted out, "I think I'm gay. I just kissed Crissy!" Mom was silent for a moment and then said softly, "Yeah, I know honey. Go dry off and get some sleep." She never brought out the Bible. She never said anything. In fact, my lover Kendall and I shared a house with her for a while. I guess she loved the sinner but not the sin.
When Marty came over to Murrays, a few months before he died, we were all looking at old photos. We had each dug through our collections of old stapshots. I brought out one of my favorites. Mom's taking the photo. Walt, Marty, Murray, Hazel, My dad, My dad's mom and step-dad (not the drunk) are all standing in front of a motel. Walt is holding me up so my head is even with nearly everyone but Hazel and dad's mom.
I held it out for Marty to see the picture. She took the picture with her left hand and held her right hand to her heart and gasped. "That's the vacation when Mom asked me if she should divorce Calvin." I was stunned. All this time I had thought I was Mom's only mini-psychotherapist. "How old were you?" I asked. "About 13," Marty replied. "That's about how old I was when she started confiding in me about their relationship." We both crunched our faces and kinda half smiled and half frowned like a clown who's giving up chasing after his scarf.
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