Tennessee (L)

The cast of characters from my childhood slowly fade, while my old stone home’s background disintegrates to strip malls and condos. I feel a surprising dull ache to hear that my field that we played “Army” in, with its small ledges and waterfalls, the deep mud that once consumed my small yellow slipper is now torn up, waiting to become concrete and pavement like the other fields around it. This field was my Tennessee solace. I would run to it, escape in it, sit in it and watch for signs that it was safe to come home. We played in those fields as we could never play at home. Open and wild, creative and free. We sled over cow patties in the winter and cut through it to get home from school in the fall. We hated our parents for selecting this little ugly house with its paint chipped walls for our home. It was so unlike our friends gleaming new houses in friendly subdivisions. Our home was surrounded by fields and cows and further down the dirt road, small forests. We saw it as a means to hide our dirty underbelly of a life, slovenly and drunk, full of violence and hatred that one would have had to whisper in a subdivision where your neighbors might hear. In our lonely little stone house, we felt trapped, isolated and alone with no one to hear or to help. With no neighbors to casually drop by, our home was kept filthy and shameful, and we were mostly too embarrassed to have friends over. I used to see it in nightmares once we were safely ensconced in Maine, in rental houses with fresh paint.

After years of living in the beauty of Maine, where trees are out of every window you can find--home, shop, car. I understand my parent’s choice a little more. My mother must have thought she could stomach the conservative suburban south a little more if she could look out a window in the fall and see a swath of orange trees. It must have felt a bit like home to drive up a dirt road, past fields and farms, to come home every night. Sadly, I can almost never remember my mother outdoors in Tennessee. Whatever she might have hoped to recapture in the beautiful nature that stood stubbornly on our road, as the world around it was swallowed by progress, she never had much opportunity to appreciate. Whatever my mother did not take advantage of in our surroundings, we made up for in spades. She gave us what she had...fields and forests to roam and grow in. I am so grateful now that my childhood memories are full of trees and meadows, falls, streams, and even a small cave. That I spent hours alone cracking open rocks to find fossils and wrapping sticks with vines; that we found a secret clubhouse in the hollow insides of a fallen tree; that nights were spent picking harmless ticks from my head; that I grew up dirty from playing and running and climbing trees; that the fast world running by me was stampedes of cows running loose as we hid on our porch; that we had so many fields and forests around us that we had not one, not two, but three childhood hidden escaped convict stories to tell. Even with its peeling paint and shabby walls, our stone home was so much better than living in one identical to the 20 around it. But its essence of farm and field is therefore so much more painful, and ultimately likely, to lose. I know I had poor eyesight as a child, but there are sadly never any prescriptions for hindsight.

Rock-N-Roll Fantasy: Phase 2?? Complete.

For your reference, please refer to "Phase 1" of above said Fantasy. Here, some two years later, is an update for you.

I am in a new band. Chasin' Jasons. Marion is in it with me. We are a five-piece, four of whom are lead vocalists for an always entertaining "guess-who?" game. But here is the kicker -- I am the keyboard player.

Holy Hell. We are still in the practice stages, and our first gig together will be on 6/23 for a private party. I am torn between sheer terror and - well, milder sheer-er terror. But hey? Now I can honestly say that I haven't let fear of failure rule my adult mentality...and if I'm beheld as a fool, then I'm a fool in a rock band. I can live with that.

L, I am so proud of you for running a marathon that I almost burst from the swell of it. I always knew you had it in you. Maybe one day I can....run....ah, who am I kidding. "We" don't run.

Al, your babies look like Little Women. My sister's boy is 8 months now. How time flies by like a cannon ball...

My father, 5 days before his 23rd wedding anniversary, and 13 days before  his 76th birthday, has moved into an assisted living facility. His mind is....locked in dementia. My very strong stepmom has cared for him as well as anyone could have expected her to, but in the end the butcher knife episode and the gas-stove fright finally convinced her it was time. Surreal, talking to him now.

So anywhoozits -- It has been more than two years since our kindred souls met up in the same location, and I believe it's time. Ideas anyone? Love and miss you...... M

The Results are IN!

Ok, since Brady asked, I'll tell you. It was awesome! And since you aren't here to tell me enough with the details, I'll give you all of them! The most common advice we were given was to not start off fast. Our plan was to take the first almost 5 miles slow to warm up and prep for the first big hill. We were soon, I mean, within seconds, the dead last people. There were people ahead of us that looked like they wouldn't make it up a flight of stairs let alone a mile. It was humbling. But nothing beat the fast track to Shameville like the squeaking tires of the sweep cop car on our butts. That we hadn't quite prepared for. He had to pull over and wait for us as we hit the port-a-potties twice in less than 4 miles. He also stopped and picked up my gloves I dropped. (Nice guy!) I'm sure he thought we'd soon be riding in the back. By 4, we were no longer the last people. At 4.7 right before the big hill, we thought to ask the time when we took the next turn. It'd been OVER an hour. Neither of us can remember the exact time, but we couldn't believe we were running under 5 miles an hour! Slower than I'd ever run. That was the one oversight. Lacking experience, lacking a knowledge of real pacing, we should have kept a cell phone for time to calculate our pace. This was the last sign we had of our pacing and time until the timer at the finish line. We had no choice but to pick up our pace a little even up the hill sooner than we had planned.

It was a steep hill and then a slight uphill climb until almost mile 7. Then we knew we had a flat way until mile 10, and a water stop at mile 8 with my sister and girls (where one of them would hand me a tiny bottle of gatorade I'd filled earlier). At mile 7, "It Takes Two" came on my iPod and pumped up my pace. I felt incredible! Strong, no pain, sure we had it in the bag, and it was time to make up our pace. I whoohooed and sang a little. We decided it was our run theme song. That was my best epic mile. I even had to reign it in a few times to stay with my friend (that wouldn't happen again!). When I saw my sister and girls holding out water, calling out to me, I teared up. I wanted to stop and hug them! Instead I called to my daughter after I passed her and gave a big arms up "whoohoo!" I think the next mile was the longest of the run. Unchanging scenery and elevation that seemed neverending. Between mile 9 and 10 was when I first felt soreness in my legs and asthma in my lungs. But I knew we had it. We just had to roll back after mile 10 to prepare for the challenging final 2 miles. With nearly 2 miles to go we turned onto our final road and into a strong head wind that would accompany us to the end. Soon we were mounting the MILE long hill we knew was our Everest. The first half mile was STEEP. The wind was blowing cold and dirt in our faces, we tucked in and went, knowing the crest we could see offered false hope as it only led to another half mile slightly less steep hill. But we felt good, we had paced knowing this was coming.

When we hit the actual top with another half mile to go, one of my friends pulled up in a pick up and yelled out the window, "You F****ing did it!" And soon we would. We had a valley to go down and then a small hill to the turn of the end. That small hill was the hardest part of the whole run for me. We were running hell bent for leather to try and overcome a woman who was walking (we had succeeded in passing anyone who had walked in our view), she had another friend join her and picked up her pace as we struggled to finish ours. I experienced finish line blindness as I crested that hill and turned down into the finish, running right by a line of friends and family waiting for me, including my father. I could only see the time sign as I pounded under it, 2:25. I couldn't believe it! I expected my time to be close to 3, and with a start that slow and long, I would never have expected that time, slow as it is to anyone who actually runs for time. Our friends and my family came down to us and hugs and pictures ensued as I tried to inhale a muffin and as much water as I could. I was moved that so many people had come out to support me. I felt amazing for about an hour. Then reality started hitting inch by painful inch. I realized that I had never asked anyone advice on what to do AFTER a race. We made it though. My friend fared better than I did, even though I trained approximately four times as much as she did. I try not to be bitter!

A few times while I was running, I was overwhelmed by what I was accomplishing for myself. I teared up as I did when I saw my girls. I had a mantra when this happened, you can't start crying now, you need the salt and water!! The final time was when I was conquering the final hill and "Dog Days are Over" came on my iPod. I think if I had actually seen my father, sister, and children all sitting there when I ran to the finish line, I would have finished sobbing. Instead, thanks to a major endorphin rush, I finished smiling and smiling and smiling.

Today, I am still sore and recovering and a little bit wondering, "Now what?" It was a great experience, it's amazing what you can do when you dare to challenge yourself out of your comfort zone. I'm glad that I did, and I plan to keep on doing it. I think the best reward was not when my daughter posted "You were amazing! I was so proud of you!" on my FB wall, but when I saw it in her eyes.

Run Slow (L)

I'm running my first half-marathon tomorrow. Could double as my last, who knows? I don't. I've never done one. I think that's clear. Furthest I've gone in training is 10 miles. I'll let you know if I make it back. This course been described by seasoned marathoners as "rugged" and "challenging." Makes me wonder what the heck I'm up to. Would either of you ever thought I'd be attempting to run 13.1 miles without someone with a gun chasing me? I remember when I first tore my ACL thinking, "Thank goodness, I'll never have to run again." I'm not an athlete. In fact, doing athletic things is the first time in my life when I wish I wasn't what people describe as "long and lean" because people assume I am athletic. They think I'm fast. I look like a runner, I look like a swimmer, I have little fat on me, people expect I am fast. I am not large, but I am fighting weakness. I was shaped into weakness. My siblings called me "Rat Retard Refugee Runt" when I was little. I was scrawny and always topped with low blood sugar. That was before the surgery that took a tumor the size of a grapefruit off of lungs and spine. Scraping off that tumor left some scars on my lungs that add a challenge to my life, and for the past 8 years asthma. I can remember being afraid to exercise, I remember the pain when I would cough.

I'm not exactly how I ended up here. But 9 weeks ago when someone sent me the link to this inaugural run, the furthest I had ever run was about 3 miles. Someone else sent me a novice training plan, and I decided to try it. Why not? I could quit the training anytime and no one would be the wiser. At about mile 6 on the long runs, my friend decided to join me. I mostly trained alone but for that long run. At 7.5 I decided to sign up with her. Every time I increased that long run, I was in awe. Wow, I just ran that far? I just ran 7 miles? I was the kid bent over dry heaving after the presidential mile run in school they made us do for P.E. When I finished my first 10 miles, I was hooting and cheering myself on, luckily I was alone on a deserted bike path. I got another 10 under my belt, SLOW. But tomorrow will be the first 13.1. And the first 11, the first 12...Each time I run, something new hurts. I guess it's better than the same thing hurting. I plan to work on form after I finish this, assuming I finish this oneinjury free.

It's interesting to try new challenges. Having by nature always been a fearful person, it's feels so refreshing and healthy. I like making my body do new things, learn new shapes. Maybe it will stop shooting out new shapes of cancer and tumors if I give it something else to do.

One of my favorite running songs is "Dog Days are Over" by Florence and the Machine. I run a little faster on the line "Run fast for your mother and fast for your father, run for you children, your sisters and your brothers." I feel like I'm doing that every time I run. My brother was the first to run, I'm taking it over for awhile until he's back in form. I'll try and get my sister on the road slowly. I have the eyes for my father, the body for my mother. I'm doing what they never got the chance to do. I'm hoping my children are noticing me doing new things and it gives them the courage to do the same. I run, not because I am fast or good, but because I can.

Pictures of You (L)

I remember when we were whole and we kissed
to Pictures of You
you had a father
I had a mother
it all seemed so tragic
and epic and
moving

I remember when it was
so simple
as love

before our littlest
fell asleep in our bed
before our oldest
walked away
before
Pictures of You
wasn’t a night
when you were 45

looking down at you
and seeing the boy
I knew 25 years ago
who had a mother and a father
and not much else

I remember nights
that were music
and moments
when we didn’t know loss
when it was simply
Pictures of You

Pause (L)

My kids are getting older. We all know this, it happens every second, every minute, every year. It happens to the best of us, and it is the best thing that can happen. I’ve written about it in many ways, with longing and nostalgia, with fear, with fortitude and determination. Since my husband’s father died two weeks ago, something has stirred within me--taken everything in my soul and given it a tremor. Maybe that is partly the reason for my new way of seeing the aging of my children. Death can put things you’ve set on the back burner into a sudden boil, or in my case, a slow rising simmer.

My children are 13, 11, and 9. Which translated into my mother speak means, about to leave me, about to hit puberty (one step closer to leaving me), and will soon no longer sit on my lap. It’s hard to give words to what I’m feeling. I feel like the English language doesn’t provide them for me. I need interpretive dance or a language that better supports the nuances of feelings of a parent who had a shitty childhood and now wants to create a better one for their children. There is a sense now of immediacy for me, like this is it, this is the show. All the years before were a dress rehearsal.

Now, when I snap, when I fail to have a quality parenting day with my children, I have this global comprehension that this is a ship that has sailed, that I’ve not only just missed the opportunity to foster something that will shape them into happy, confidant creatures, but I have potentially created a traumatic memory that they will carry into adulthood. When they were three, well, I could have a bad day and feel like they would forget it, or I’d have years and years to balance out that bad day. Now, it feels like seconds.

This might sound like self berating, the kind of thing a friend would tell you, and you’d say, no, no, you’re being too hard on yourself. Everyone feels that way, or putting this kind of pressure on yourself can’t be good for you or for them. If what I’ve written has elicited these types of thoughts from you, it is because of the above mentioned shortcomings of the English language and/or because you cannot see my interpretive dance.

If, however, it has made you want to say, “You’re right, perhaps you should go onto some sort of anti-anxiety medication until they are out of the house because Joan Crawford called and she wants her job back,” or “Maybe you should quit your job, write a book, and clean your house before earwigs eat your children,” you might be getting what I am saying.

I am unfulfilled. People who are unfulfilled are less happy, less energetic. Taking up the challenge of learning swimming, following through on running, these are things that have helped. One of my wisest friends once told me that I need something that feeds me. Being unfulfilled was okay when I thought I was the only one who would suffer. But now when I see it through a parental lens of how this might be affecting my children and affecting them now...It has become a puzzle I feel I have to solve. Something that needs rectification. I used to think having children would make me happy. It has, it has given me more pleasure and meaning in my life than I could even imagine. But now it seems that having children is the thing that is driving me to discover HOW to be happy. I must admit, I feel better just writing this. And seriously, I have no wire hangers, but there are a lot earwigs about.

It's All Right

Last night in the shower, my mother’s legs flashed into my mind, vivid like I had just lifted a sheet from her bed to view them. Swollen with edema, giving a fine sheen to her skin, her many bruises in hologram like technicolor. I could almost touch them. Another flash. Her face, still, tilted, grey hair on her pillow, her former double chin sloping a new angle to join her face and neck into a single construct — eyes closed, then open, looking at me, brown, one eye smaller than the other, narrowed from 30 year old retinal damage. The flashes came unbidden, like machine gun fire waking up neurons in my brain that I’d soothed to sleep 3 years ago with life’s distractions. I didn’t want to stop them, there she was, so close, just outside of my shower, just there, a blink away, thrown so suddenly into my mind that it felt like a visitation. The spray hit my face as I wondered what her message could be. I closed my eyes, let the warm wet pour over me, face lifted for more. There I was a young girl on the carpet of my father’s study, this flash familiar less distinct, blurred in the framing, trying to tie my mother’s shoes on her puffy 35 year old feet. She has on panty hose for socks, slacks pulled up for the job of tying her leather wingtip shoes, black and tan, the laces a thin tight cord. I remember the smell of the leather, the size of her feet (so much smaller than I’ll ever see them again), the overwhelming worshipful love I feel for her. It’s the same era that I became obsessed with a fear of her dying. I would ride with her wherever she went, I would chase after her car when she tried to flee the swelling misery of our home, I would make her describe the spot where she would meet me in heaven.

Oh how sad that little girl would be to know that at 42 she would cling to flashes of a bruised swollen leg, a sleeping face of memorized peaks and valleys rising from a swarm of soft grey hair with flakes of dry skin resting on each strand, shading the black flecks of the woman she used to be, just so she could see her mother again. The 42 year old, she knows this is life and has friends who have also lost their parents. She knows the final years of her mother’s life, in bed, in pain. She knows the in between years of anger and distance. But that little girl, deep deep in the recesses of my mind, her worst fears are realized — she has lost her mommy. I let her grieve sometimes, as I tell it's all right.

To My Brother (L)

Dear John,

I’m sitting in bed, sipping Baileys and thinking about you. I always think of you when I have Baileys and it’s near Christmas. Remember that Christmas? I was in college, I think you might have been in your last year at WPI. We were home on break, sitting on your bed in the House in Warren (aka the Munckin’s house). The house was new to us, it felt like we had rented an old farmhouse for the holidays. You brought home a bottle of Baileys in that special can; I’d never had any. You told me it was the quintessential Christmas drink, taught me how to fill the ice first. We drank from short glasses, sipping with the Christmas lights I’d put up for you illuminating our hands as we raised them. We talked about Christmas memories, memories, dreams. I don’t remember the specifics. If it was a movie scene the conversation would be indistinct, the camera panning our faces lit by the glow of green, red, blue, yellow—more serious than laughing, a quietness around us, zooming out to the snow blanketing the house. If it was a movie, I’d put in a fireplace, the flames softly dancing, warming our feet. My memory has that cozy, peaceful feel to it.

This is possibly my favorite adult Christmas memory and one of my favorites of you. We were drinking not to get drunk, we’d done that plenty, that’s not the job of Baileys. Its job is to mull over the savory sweetness of the season. We were equals, you spoke to me as an adult, no age gap between us. We were equals, the same family, the same bittersweet yearning Christmas ignites within us—to feel, to absorb, to have that spark of life Christmas used to give our family once a year. There was no party after, no friends coming over, no childhood jobs to do, no homework—there was nothing, but you and me and that bottle of Baileys. We’d found a new adult way to celebrate Christmas together; I had your undivided attention, just for that quiet dark night.

The Phoenix (L)

1
When G was three and started to have nightmares, I was confused, distraught. I assumed nightmares only came from a childhood full of waking ones. How could she whose life had thus far been filled with love, calm, sweetness have nightmares? I didn’t want her to be like me, afraid to sleep until she was 12. I screened her television (some “Care Bear” episodes didn’t even make the cut), I hadn’t yelled at her (yet), her father was only quiet and kind to her (then), her little sister (still) sweet and yielding, how could she have nightmares?

When she first exhibited signs of anxiety, I recognized the beast and cursed myself for passing it along. I felt prepared to take on what no one in my childhood had even acknowledged they needed to. When it began to disrupt her life, I took her to therapy. For years, I’d brush her hair from her face, I’d tell her it was normal. I’d hold her and tell her what worked for me. She’d curl into me and say how good it was to talk to someone who understood.

During the first week of this September, when a homeopathic doctor (who had been seeing G) told me G had been secretly, frequently harboring suicidal thoughts (since June), but he thought that with help, she would be okay. I picked my stomach up from the floor and nodded. I asked should I be afraid? He said no, I breathed. I asked should I tell her it’s normal? He said, no. Just listen, say, tell me more. I nodded. She’s 12.

Later that night, I asked her, I listened when she told me more. Hearing the words from her mouth, in her voice, just an octave or two from what it was when she was a laughing little girl with ringlets...I could no longer nod. I could no longer breathe. She showed me how it started, reluctantly, sadly, little scars and scratches hidden on her wrist under her collection of animal shaped elastic bracelets. Once the thought planted itself in her beautiful little mind, it blossomed like a infestation. Like a fear? I asked. No, she paused her eyes large, sweet, young, bursting, like a hope, she confessed. Her face the same expectant pleading as when she told me of her first crush on a boy.

This is what devastation tastes like—three words, the crunch of three short syllables slicing the roof of my soul, shattering my illusions that this is just a cry for attention, this is a phase—like not wanting to do homework, hating your parents, and skinny jeans. Make me a promise, I say. She shakes her head no, I can’t, she whispers. I want to say, promise me you’ll never do it, promise me promise me promise me. Fear is roaring inside me so loud, the flaming lion engulfing me. I say, promise you’ll always talk to me, promise you’ll tell me how you’re feeling. For hours it seems we are like this on my bed, my hands running through her hair, her head on my chest, where she used to nestle as a cooing baby. Me trying to convince her we can get past this place, she trying to convince me that dying is her sweetest salvation. Early on she whispers, I don’t think I could do it. It’s not that I am not grateful for those words, they keep my legs moving through daily functions. But I have only discovered this dark thought on her brain, I am destroyed first by her desire.

She asks me questions, I try to answer honestly, then later urgently saying anything I think will keep her alive, she shakes her head, the things she says, oh the things she says with her sweet voice, with her body, with her eyes. We are both wet with weeping using a bath towel between us to wipe and go on. Time is eclipsed by my lack of being able to breathe, every orifice so swollen with salt. I begin to wonder how we will ever leave this room.

I recall the video of when she was two when both Chris and I said “no” to her at the same time, in normal kind voices, and she burst into tears. I realize of the significance of her needing therapy at only four for anxiety. She's always been so sensitive. I whisper to her, maybe there is something missing in your brain, some chemical. That’s all the medicine would be, a replacement. She shakes her head. No different than when a thyroid isn’t working right, you supplement it. It’s a supplement. She shakes her head. Why don’t you want to take medicine? What are you afraid will happen? You’ll have to force me. To take the medicine? To live. I will. I have.

2

It’s not that she’s thought it, that it flickered across her mind in frustration, anger—trapped in the pre-teen walls of no choice. It’s that she wallowed in it, polished it, harvested her crops of death, cherishing them, yearning for their peace. When I thought she was lying in her bed, mp3 player in her ears dreaming of boys to come, Justin Beiber and Taylor Lautner gazing down to illuminate her dreams. She was secretly entertaining plots I can’t even let slide across my mind.

3

I’m calmer about it now, though the scratches on her wrists grow deeper. It’s become like anything intolerable that you can’t escape from, a task. My new job is trying to help her stay afloat. Phone calls to find psychiatrists (surprisingly hard if you want someone insurance will pay for and the patient is 12, turns out, actually, impossible. So, out of pocket we are), to her therapist, to new therapists, to see about book clubs, teen centers, writing workshops, music lessons, orchestras, friends, new places for her to go, things for her to do. I am getting flashbacks to my mother’s last months. I feel like I am on a hamster wheel, going round and round getting nowhere new—exhausted and distanced from the business of trying to solve this complex riddle of how to help her.

4

I keep waiting to finish writing this—waiting to find the solution, the psychiatrist, the medicine, the writing class, the remedy, the new friend that will help her. After each step we take, she does seem lighter, less burdened, as if shedding those dark secrets has elevated her from depths we never understood were there, holding her down. Though there was that week, when the scratches became deeper, scarring; I felt myself becoming ashes, waiting for the phoenix.

It’s amazing to me how many times in life you can break and mend and move on, the scar thickening, never quite the same, but grown over. I am not the same person I was weeks ago, before I heard those words from her mouth. I’ve shattered, dissolved, reformed as a fragmented part and moved on. I’m regaining strength, but some unbreakable piece in me is broken. It’s like not knowing you had a certain type of bone until you shattered it. I’m on the other side of a dark curtain that not every parent has to stand in front of. I’ve passed through and it’s fallen behind me, sealing me from the world that was before, from those who have no dark curtain. I am alone and blinking in the dim light of a new world. I’d say I hope I don’t falter, or I hope we move beyond, or I hope we find a new path. But I’m beyond hope. I don’t mean that in a negative way, just factual. If I cling to such words as hopes and dreams and the sunlit world I imagined my precious daughter waking to, I won’t be present enough to help her in this reality. I won’t be here. Help even seems a distant word right now. I am. She is. We are. One day at a time has never seemed so genuine.


(Update: It’s better. We found a good, expensive psychiatrist that we can’t afford. He diagnosed her with a “serious” depression, the "illness of depression," possibly stemming from mourning for my mother, possibly just her destiny. He confirmed all my worst fears from that first night when she told me: that this age group up throughout the teens is the most likely to actually attempt and commit suicide, that having had depression once she is more at risk to have it again, that we will have to be vigilant, vigilant in our watch over her. But we have advantage over other parents, we know she's thought it. He said 99.9 % of the time suicide is the end result of the illness of depression. We just got the shock of discovering the illness through a symptom. The medicine started so low it got worse before better, panic attacks, locking, fleeing...as the dose goes up, so do her moods, and for the first time in her life, her anxiety is going down. I’ve seen some beautiful things. I might even feel a wing growing.)

Request: Unless you've walked through the other side of the dark curtain, please don't offer advice. I just wanted to share.

Image: http://www.sapergalleries.com/Garcia.html

What We Sold For Mold (L)

Alessandra, I hate for you to read this, I really do...I know you’ve been surviving jam jar stinky diaper mornings with the beacon of “someday they’ll sleep” blinking as a light at the end of your tunnel...but... (Oh God, this feels like telling the kids about sex all over again. The horror of the truth, bashing the sweet fantasies of the innocent.) I won’t say it, I won’t tell you, “It gets worse.” Because, in truth, I can’t remember the days you are in all that clearly anymore.They exist in the mist of myth, the memory recreated by Memorex. I sit in the present watching my kids in the past play Ring Around the Rosie, with S toddling in hand trying to keep up, lifting his onsie to try and make it twirl like F’s skirt. I inhale the sight of them loopty looing over and over, day after day, in the track circle from kitchen to dining room, hugging each other, laughing, falling.

I watch those sweet glory tapes and think, “We lost our family Mojo when we lost that kitchen. Traded it in for a new sparkling smaller kitchen.” We gave up on the dream. Mold and asthma, man, they conquered the dream. Smashed it into four equal parts arriving by truck to be assembled. S’s almost outgrown his asthma and the only mold found in our new house is on the unwashed shower curtain and forgotten wet towels on the basement floor. But I have to wonder, was it worth it? Maybe S would have outgrown his asthma anyway. Maybe I would have even recovered from the loathing and fear of the house that mold had instilled in me.

Recently, I actually went through a week’s insane dream of wanting a new baby. Thinking, maybe a new baby would fix it all, we could focus on something other than us, raise a baby together. It would be the beautiful bandaid our family so desperately needs right now. It would give S a little brother (I know it’d be a boy.) It’d give F something to nurture and love besides her bunny (and babies don’t have fur, no worries for S’s asthma.) It’d give G the needed boost to get her past the tweeny crisis she is in (either getting her to think outside of her little chaotic sad world or giving her something to actually be miserable about.) My fantasy baby would calm me, tame me, until menopause kicked in. Most of all, it’d bring us all back together again as a family, re-create that unit, get back the Mojo we left in that kitchen long ago. Fortunately, the doctor’s knot we put in C’s testicles 6 years ago holds firm. But I don’t know if I can ever really relinquish the idea of velvet newborn skin snuffling into my neck, seeking my scent above all others.

After I’d shaken off the fog of baby lust, I wondered what had made it so desperately appealing for me? Do I really want to be dealing with teenage depression at the same time as being spit on by a toddler? Of course not. Inescapable misery incurs crazy fantasy solutions. But there’s a certain beauty in knowing how to make someone you love happy. To be able to evoke delight by just lifting a shirt. Unfortunately, lifting my shirt doesn’t bring a light to anyone’s eyes anymore. But this post is about our family’s current struggle to endure the dizzying hormonal assault on our overly intelligent, creative, 12 year old introvert in a small Maine town, not the perils of 40 year old aging.

I am no less determined to make G happy than I was 12 years ago, when I would come home from a walk to find her crying in her bouncy seat on the other side of the room from C. I’d pick her up with a glance of shocked disdain at my husband who would shrug and say, “She wouldn’t stop crying whether she was in my lap or over there.” I would soothe her in my arms feel her trembling and shuddering subside from the smell of me, the sureness of my body that I could quiet her.

Now, I don’t know how to assuage her. I won’t bore you with the details of my methods or attempts. My desire to stop G’s wracking sorrow is perhaps worn down slightly by a decade of having to placate it while succoring two other children. And yes, it’s a bit chipped away by the devastation of hearing the words, “I hate you!” slip from her mouth, cold eyes of hatred attempting to rip me apart foot to soul. Unconditional love does begin to challenge as the years wear on. It is easier to flow soothing mother love over a kicking baby who pulls your chin to her mouth to gum for comfort than a 12 year old who complains of the ugliness of her life and then leaves no less than four water cups in her wake, sighing with exasperation when you ask her to put them away.

So, yes, Alessandra, some things do get better. Our children may still be up at all hours of the night at times, but when they are older we can choose to ignore it. I remember when I would complain about the horrific 3 1/2-5 years and older parents would say sagely and maddeningly, “Wait ‘til they’re teenagers.” It’s a cliche, that phrase, isn’t it? But with a morose 12 year old, I’m starting to get it. It’s not that they are SO monstrous (yet), it’s that you can’t make it all better no matter how much you want to. And when they are bad, they make sure they are ruinous to the entire day, event, household. I’m told the oldest (girl especially) is the worst and they improve after college. I guess that means there is still a beacon of light at the end of the tunnel, however distant. I just have to figure out how to survive the sinking ship without going down with it or letting it drown F, S, and my marriage. Until then, I’m keeping well stocked in red wine. I am not opposed to drowning in that.

Rock-N-Roll Fantasy: Phase One? Complete. (M)

So every kid in America (at least when I was a kid) wanted to be either an Astronaut or a rock star. There were garage bands everywhere, kids taking guitar lessons, beating on trash cans. I had years of piano lessons and my fingers could just never get out of their "classical" mode; I was very much a mimic, and not at all a creative force on the piano. I finally stopped playing all together at around 20. When my husband and I got our own house I moved my childhood piano into it though, in the hopes that one day I'd sit down at it again. It's still sitting there, but at least these days I'm trying to pick out other people's songs on it.

I've always kind of toyed with singing. I never had any formal training as a kid, and my brother and sister were merciless in their hatred of my voice. "Who's that singing on the radio?" "Journey," I'd say. "Then let them SING IT!" That was the mildest of retorts, but it really didn't take long for me to utterly believe that I had the worst singing voice on the planet and I should just keep my trap shut. Still, I had a love for all things harmony and whenever I'd hear new stuff back then (Madonna or Taylor Dayne, for instance) I'd sing the background harmonies loudly when I was alone. Sometimes I'd forget where I was and at least once someone listening said to me "how'd you learn that harmony? Can you teach it to me?" Hmmmmm. Interesting.

Flash forward about 20 years. My darling husband played in bands (as a lead vocalist, no less) through most of his teens and twenties. About 10 years into our relationship we both realized we had let our creative sides be totally repressed by our work and business sides. One trip to Burlington, IA where Marion spent his teen years changed things for me. His friends have four children, and for family night they would gather in the basement and perform to karaoke tracks. I was enjoying hanging out in the back of the room listening, when one of them says "Hey, you should sing something." Well of course I refused: I have the world's worst voice according to my siblings. (Wait, did I just quote my then 11-year-old sister? Sheesh!) I didn't want to use the mic, so I sat in the back and belted out something (no idea what) and for a second my husband and friends were stunned. One, that I actually did it, and two, that it didn't break mirrors like I told them it would. Truth be told, noone was more surprised than I was.

Not long after that trip, I started doing theater again for the first time in 18 years, and he started singing in a band again, for the first time in at least 20 years. Just a couple of years later we left the landlocked city we were in and headed to the coast where each of us has learned to balance our lives a lot more. We started making friends with other creative people, and we met this absolutely amazing female lead guitar player. Another year later, and I'm performing in an acoustic duo. Singing, and coordinating the harmonies for us. Holy shit. Another friend, the most amazing keyboard player I've ever met in person, likes what we do so much that he wants to join us and make it a trio. Are you f'ing kidding me? Are you sure you were listening to the right people?

We have a regular gig on Wednesdays through the summer. We're picking up other stuff as we go. The keyboard player may have to jet for a job as a car salesman, but my duo partner and I think we can pull it off by ourselves. And even as I type these words, I still can't believe it's me. At the age of 40, "fronting" my first band. Rock-N-Roll Fantasy: Phase 1? Complete.

Reply-Wind...(A)

I like that previous piece very much. Often with the kids when I find the pressure mounting I think of the future as the past, i.e., the memories I'm making right now. And surely it is enough to stop me from my petty concerns and frustrations and remember to be more loving and let the little things slide.

Your evocation of childhood summers in Maine is beautiful, I wish i had something equally evocative to share but I think as a kid I lived so much inside my own head in fantasies and books. I didn't have a lot of friends and the ones I did have were also kind of nerdy bookish types and we reveled in writing and passing notes making up jokes and stories. There is a certain sort of nostalgia for summer days, but mostly having to do with hanging out with my Dad doing something car related. It's those bonds with the now dead you're talking about too, the physicality of them finite, the memory of them ephemeral. But, if passed on, the bond is unbroken and it is almost as good as the concrete reality. But there are infinite stretches within that "almost" to be sure. Reality wants to teach you that missing someone you love that is dead is a self-indulgent nostalgia, what else can it be? I'm still trying to figure that out.

It's funny when I have memories the kind that pause you in your tracks, the kind that the wind brings to you through an open window on a summer's day, they're often of the trip I took in Europe by myself. Maybe it was reading all those Sherlock Holmes books that made the U.K. feel more like my childhood memories! (Problem is, Europe and its cultures really have nothing to do with me or my background. Paging adult identity crisis...) Anyway, I suppose we're not responsible for what speaks to us, although it's our choice whether to respond.

I don't find myself yearning for the past at all. But what I know I need to stop doing is this amorphous waiting although it's not done consciously. Living in the present sounds so simple, and I guess it is. But it feels like a struggle most times.

Alessandra-- I just found this bit of writing. I guess the time for writing comments is passed and it will only let me tag on. I think it makes sense that your Europe trip is what you pause for. I think that was your childhood. The time you let yourself be. The time when life that was swirling around you was just a backdrop to whatever you were doing in that moment. If you were a bit bound in books as a child, this was your "doing" childhood--your physical one.  I'd love to read some accounts of that time. As I suggested before, you could copy old journal in or just write a recollection.

What the wind blew in (L)

I'm sitting on my bed in an empty house. The wind has suddenly quieted, building up again for another roll across the tall grass out my window, laying it down in ripples like moving water. The sky is blue, the sun bright, the birds and insects of summer have crawled out to sound their approval. I am following through on my intent to write without editing without regard, to keep our blog alive, and to keep part of me alive, too.

Days like this bring back childhood memories of Maine. They call up ghosts of my grandmother, my aunt, and now my mother. Drawing them back to the sun, back to the wild blueberry fields, freshly mowed lawns by grills, the sloping grass of Walker Park, the dirt road that dusted my grandmother's green grass as we ran paths through it. When C and I first moved back to Maine, I was nearly suffocated by the ache of my yearning for those days. I'd drive to my mother's and aunt's for fresh fuel to keep the fires of my burning nostalgia for those days, for my grandmother. Somehow it seemed if the bittersweet was acute enough, I could somehow conjure up a portal in time to step back to those days of my long brown legs running free beneath a bathing suit, eyes squinting up into a camera.

When I had my children, I'd whisper the stories in their ears, hoping they could continue to chant my spell for resurrection after me. I'm sure I lost some of the moments of their sunny young days as they seemed to pale in comparison to the memories of mine. After all, there is no go greater power of summer memories than summers not spent at home. You can't recreate the magic of parents not being at the table they write bills at all year, next to the phone that can break the spell of a perfect summer moment to jar you back to reality.

There was no sound that could compete with the laughter of my mother and grandmother mingling together over a deck of cards. Though I think some of the power of our summertime happiness was created by the dark lonely shade of the rest of our lives.
In Maine, we had cousins and family and, somehow, money for ice cream. My mother never resisted buying my father as much beer as he could drink. My mother didn't yell, my father didn't snap, I wasn't hit by flying objects meant for one of them. They went fishing together instead. There was peace.

Now, I don't hunger for those days as much. I watch the wind rolling the grass as it used to in the fields out back of my grandmother's house. I feel a twinge, the wisps of an old spell settle in me to write. But nothing like the pining I had before my mother died. Maybe it's because that old pining brought me to my mother for more memories, for salve on my wounded yearning heart. Now it can only bring me to graves. The kids have tired of the drives past all my heart landmarks. They will either remember my songs, or they won't. I feel a lot less yearning these days. I don't know if I'm jaded or wise. But I'm leaving this writing now, posting it without re-reading, so I can go join my kids at our cottage on a sunny day. I feel a renewed charge to give them something more than whispers of memories, to try and give them some of their own days of shining peace.

Brainless

I am determined to write a new post, so I don't have to keep looking at my yearnful "poem." Trouble is, I don't know what to write. When we started this, we agreed it'd be a place to throw thoughts, frequently, with no worry to the quality of the writing. Now, I'm out to prove it. I am going to write a thoughtless bit, full of some of my current thoughts. Hey, ever keep a journal in the past? Maybe we should type in one of those passages, with or without our current reflections on them...

How about I talk about addictions? Recently learned that kids who do alcohol, tobacco, or any drugs before age 16 are more likely to become dependent on them because their frontal lobes are still forming, and they create receptors for the "drug" that wouldn't otherwise be there. Their brain develops around the drug and creates more of those receptors setting them up for needing it.

Is this, perhaps, why I seem to be so addicted to ALL the things I did before I was 16, or shortly thereafter? Boys, kissing, laughing, fun, music, revealing clothes, beer, boys, dancing, late nights, friends, reading, movies, being lazy, boys...? Is this why I don't seem to be officially a grown up? I can't seem to make those good choices of what is "best" for me. Is my 16 year old brain the culprit for why knuckling down, doing hard work, cleaning, and being disciplined are so difficult for me? Because I was never made to do them when my brain was forming? I clearly need to create some new brain receptors.

Days Gone By (For my children)

I found the small princess doll that looked like Belle.
It reminded me of days gone by—of sweet desires—
squeaky toys, stars and moons and skies of clouds.

When hair was twisted, crunched, or in curls, and I knew just how to make you happy. But had no clue how to be myself.
I only knew to drown in moments full of babies’ savory odors, squeals of joy, and salty tears. All of you in a circle around me—corralling my importance.


Sunlit days overflowed with parks green, chilled by oceans, dripping with ice cream—the passenger seat full of Mema or Aunt Edith. Islands loomed ahead, while smooth rocks and shells shaded like the sunset waited for us, below chipped picnic tables on uneven ground.


Autumn leaves fell on dreams of a future where an apple pie would rule majestic from the center of a bare shining table in a cozy clean kitchen. I would stand handing out cookies to my babies as they flowed home from school into my cinnamon fantasy that first found its seed in my grandmother’s sunlit afghan 15 years before.

On brisk days of reality, I pushed strollers and recounted days gone by to tiny ears alongside bow lips that only opened for “Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma” and did not yet know, “Enough.”

Russet snapshots flash—a baby in red on a flat rock in Appleton’s ridge, sweet full cheeks flush in plaid on a blanket covered with leaves at Aunt Edith’s stoop, and a perfect chin beneath a crown of curls that finally dips down in sleep as R.E.M.’s relentless lullaby around the sun works its magic, as the van passes the “Witchy Pumpkin” yet again.


Winter was crisper than autumn, the sharp bite of Northeasters edging out sunny dreams. These days brimmed with Mema in Ames, Walmart, Penny’s—donning her Santa cap as I tried to recreate her magic. It’s so cold here, I do not want to drift back, save for those few balsam weeks.


Spring blooms eternal in southern places, but up here only my dreams of summer could take root in the chilled muddy ground. I chased them impatiently into Aunt Edith’s kitchen for tea as little hands reached in the cookie drawer and we made ready for a drive. Mema’s office would be surprised by a lunchtime visit and little feet would not want to touch the brittle frosted grass of winter’s cold grave.


Those days my best friends were old ladies and my favorite memories were remembering ones older still, all my dreams were merely dreams, and I was trying to be what I had imagined I would be, not what was my share of destiny.

This is where I drift back to now, with a sweet small ache for cocoon days of dim lights by a bedside where tiny feet kicked as I lifted them to change—to days when a trip to the store could bring time with my mother or Aunt, simple favorite foods, and a bright light in small eyes.

I don’t know yet how to reconcile the longing for such company as I’ll never have again—the yearning for a mother, for a family with roots deep in the earth. But I plow on, up hills framed by blueberries with small hands in mine, that grow despite my pleas. I look at the eyes of changing faces and try to keep focused on a path still into them, so that one day we can drive by old places and tell new stories in between, and sweet desires will have safe haven and new dreams will be discovered.

Is That a Phone or my Tinnitus? (L)

In a moment of revelation, I set my cell phone ringer to sound like an actual phone ringing (or some electronic imitation thereof). I decided I'd like to have my first thought when I hear it ringing be, "Hey, a phone is ringing!"

I enjoy imagining my purse on a park bench between my grandmother (were she alive) and me and hearing her say, "Well, I'll be, is that a phone ringing in your purse?" rather than, "I think I'm going crazy, I hear Pachelbel's Canon!"

I have a low brow Tracfone that doesn't give me the option of choosing the song that best suits my personality of the day. But even if I did, I think I'm sticking with a phone sounding like a phone. When it rings at the beach, there's no longer a domino effect of other mothers madly searching their bag. At first, everyone would just state quite confidently, "It's not my phone", because, after all, it didn't sound like music, it sounded like a phone. Now, they just look at me and say, "Your phone is ringing" before I can even slip my hand into my bag.

Maybe somewhere deep down inside me, I'm a bit old fashioned, even if I do Facebook. I would never "lol" for the simple reason that I would never write "laugh out loud", so why would I abbreviate it? I spent the first few years thinking it meant "lots of love" and that my nieces really liked me more than I thought they did. When I watch my daughter type an email (which I just broke down to), I want to slap her hand as I see her backspace over "see you later" and re-type "c u later". I tell her that's for texting (which she can't do because I won't let her have a phone) or IMing (which I also won't let her do) when time and space is limited. But she read in American Girl that it's better to write that way in an email because it then takes less time for your friends to read it. I told her it was promoting stupidity and American Girl should be ashamed. I was driving so I couldn't see her, but I'm pretty sure I felt her roll her eyes.

I've broken down and let her wear skinny jeans, if they aren't too tight, and I've even been known to "OMG" in an IM (it somehow seems less sacrilegious, and I say the full phrase around many a Christian). So, maybe it's just a matter of time before I give in to some things. Maybe you'll drive by my daughter when she's in high school, wearing skin tight jeans texting "LMAO" on her cell phone to some boy she's never met from Facebook. But for now, I take comfort in knowing that if my grandmother could read my emails she would understand every word I wrote, and if she heard my cell phone ringing, she'd actually say, "You'll turn that thing off when you're with me or, by God, I'll leave you sitting here".

Birthday Princess (L) June 4, 2009

Today is my first birthday without my mother. To say my birthday without my mother doesn’t feel the same seems redundant. Without our mothers, we would have no birthday. There isn’t a mother in the world that doesn’t remember something about her child’s actual “birth” day. The details of our children’s first Christmas, first Easter, even first birthday celebration get fuzzy and blend together. Pain makes memory more vivid, emotional or physical. It makes sense that this day remains crisp in a mother’s mind, the memory of a small human making its way out of your body in one form or another.

But this morning when I woke up, I was surprised to find that umbilical cord was still there, the end now dangling in the netherworld. I could pull it in hand over fist, and find its end raw and unattached. I waited for the reassuring calm and comfort that my brother and father have spoken of feeling enveloped in, as they feel my mother’s presence. But like my sister, I felt nothing. My mind then moved on to guilt. Wasn’t it too bad that I never said to my mother, “I can’t imagine a birthday without you.”, or “thanks for the life”, or even a simple, “thanks for all the birthday spoils”, of which there were many.

What my mother lacked in patience for traditional mothering throughout the rest of the year, she attempted to make up in holidays and birthdays. I often feel the strain as a mother to try and live up to the exuberance of my holidays past, and the generosity of my mother in my children’s holidays and birthdays.

When we were little, whether our birthdays will filled with just our family of 5 or with a few friends thrown in, there were always streamers and balloons and cake and numerous, numerous presents. The last present was always hidden in a treasure hunt led by creative, witty clues all written in my mother’s neat slanted script. Later in life, when she lacked the energy or ability to do the actual “leg work” of a party she was still always ready with the cash fund and usually some general orders. No one’s birthday went by without a dinner, a cake, ice cream and some presents, even when cash was tight.

My mother’s indulgence has damaged my real world expectations. When C and I were first dating, I remember being stunned when he forgot to buy me a present. How could that be possible? I was the birthday princess! This year, lacking the drive of my mother’s birthday spirit, C asked me “Do you want a cake?” I looked at him as if he was crazy, as if he had just asked me would I need my feet for the rest of the day or would I like them chopped off. You see, my mother has spoiled me. What a shame, now that I am acutely aware of just how much, that I can’t spoil her back.

Fuggedaboudit

Easter night I saw there was a preview for the TV show "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and OK, I bit. Being real, kind of a housewife, and definitely from NJ, I was curious. The characters? housewives? were an extended family with the men "in construction" and the women have children, buy stuff, and work out. And they're Italian. Ummm, hello? Italian, from N.J. and "in construction"? Isn't that white-people-speak for mob? You know like when someone leaves their job to "spend more time with the family"? Or when a guy has a "neat apartment, likes show tunes and Barbra Streisand"?

It's pathetic that this is the extent of being Italian American. I was a big "Sopranos" fan, I thought it was incredibly realistic and well done. I saw a lot of the people, places and things on the screen that reminded me of my relatives (one of them actually was a relative...). But there was at least some human drama--decisions made, actions taken. A wide range of characters and viewpoints. This reality show is so incredibly vapid and horrible (yes I can tell that from watching 15 minutes! Let me rant!) but I can't even really whine about stereotypes because these people are 100 percent real. Of course there's a lot of control in editing, but let's not split big hair.

I'm not going all b.s. highbrow on you either. I love me some mindless tv like the next person. During the first sleepless new baby months I watched a marathon of America's Next Top Model and then like a coke addict pawing through a shag carpet hoping against hope for a little forgotten nugget, started flipping thru the channels looking for more. Dark days. TV-watching does trigger the same responses as drug addiction. But I'm getting off my topic here.

I guess despite the fact that these people are fascinating in a trivial way and entertaining like a car accident, I'm just done with this stereotype. It's gotten so incredibly stale. Here's some other wops from Jersey: Bruce Springsteen, Janeane Garofalo, Tom Perrotta. More like these, please.

In the meantime I'd rather hang with the real real housewives of NJ, i.e., my friends down the street. Eeeeey. Fuggedaboudit.

Trails and Trials (L)

I don’t know if I can go about actually describing the moments, the reminders, the trails that lead to my sorrow these days of mourning my mother. Mourning, grieving, grieving is better-- mourning gives an illusion that there is an end, “a period of mourning”. I don’t believe there is an end. I believe I am in, or am entering into, my first real period of understanding of what my life is to be like without her. How many instincts, moments, there are that I didn’t recognize before; of thinking of her, bonding with her. How much of my life was lived for her approval--not approval, but in order to join her more. Joining her in her past was the only way I knew to get to her, it was there that she seemed the most content, the most “in life”. I suppose that’s why I am writing the story that I am.

Her living brought me great comfort, there were only a handful of months put together that brought me great stress. But I’ll admit the best of her evaporated when she left her home. That’s the real reason of the story isn’t it? My dream fulfillment of bringing her home again somehow.

Sorrow, real sorrow, it is a verb, it is a place, a plane of being. It can’t be explained, there are triggers that pull you there in a moment, but to try and capture them and hold them out for Chris to understand how I came there; it’s futile, pointless, because it’s not the moments that ferry me there that matter--to speak of them feels a distraction. How can you explain to someone who hasn’t been there? It is a place that will always exist on some level within me--because my mother will never be a voice I can speak to, a conversation, a story told, a question answered, an existence to be comforted by, eyes to see the pictures of my life. Part of me is now gone, half of my history swallowed up, dissipated, scattered. My favorite half by far.

How ironic the things you can’t understand about your mother until she is gone, I could never understand, truly, how she felt about losing her mother, such a huge loss for her, until I lost her. So many stories have come forward to me that I can’t query her about because she is gone, gone from me in the way I needed her.

I could curl up in this sorrow for a year and not be done with it. With work and babies and love and life, it sits below the surface waiting for the moments in a day to pulse out. It strikes now, blows to my heart and stomach, surprising me. It’s becoming familiar and I’m sure that the sharpness, the acute blunt force will dull with time, but the striking will not. Writing is my only hope of resurrection.

A Testament to Our Kindred Spiritness

I was just sitting here working like a fiend when it occurred to me that Facebook is the Devil. Beelzebub, Death Rusher, Time Stealer, Old Age Maker...you know, the Devil. I was thinking, "Huh, I haven't written on the blog in a while, maybe I should write a post about Facebook. In fact, I haven't even checked our blog in a while...wonder what my girls are up to?" When what to my wondering eyes should appear... but a like-minded rant, and all without beer! Ok, ok, I was forced to make it rhyme...sue me.

Which really all just goes to show...you can't fuck with kizmit. It will have its way. And thank holy crapinola for that.