tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38951661032394164142024-02-18T18:53:09.094-08:00Last of the BohemiansSearching for Meaning in Motherhood, Bankruptcy, and IndiaBretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-24415996441188136052014-10-24T13:27:00.001-07:002014-10-24T13:29:36.917-07:00Thoughts on my birthday, Zellweger, and the quality of life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I have been thinking about my age a lot recently. I am turning
fifty-four on Monday. That’s one year shy of fifty-five, which seems definitive
only because it is undeniably mid-fifties. Whereas fifty-three is sneakier,
still hugging the half centennial mark comfortably, like a baby chimp. <o:p></o:p></b></b></div>
<b>
</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Also,
my father has just been diagnosed with stage four lymphoma. This perfectly
ordinary life event has thrown me into a state of constant rumination about
aging, death, and what medical experts call, “the quality of life.” And, while
I endeavor to help my father make choices that empower him and make him
comfortable, my thoughts inevitably turn to the quality of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> life. What do I want the rest of it to look like? How can I
maintain my own happiness in such a terrifying and cruel world? I’m not just
talking about cancer. I’m talking about ISIS, Gaza, Fergusson, the NRA, Climate
Change and it’s deniers, and gun-toting crazies who could easily walk into my
sons’ schools, firing rounds of bullets into their coltish bodies, ripping
through their flesh, robbing them of their lives and me of one more night of
tucking them in, kissing their sweaty heads and telling them I love them. And
that is not a complete list. <o:p></o:p></b></b></div>
<b>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Which
brings me to the Renee Zellweger controversy, generated by a media that feeds
upon itself and pounced on by a public eager to be distracted from thoughts of
ISIS, Gaza, Fergusson, the NRA and all the rest. I am going to leave Ms.
Zellweger alone. But what I do want to talk about is “quality of life”, particularly
the quality of life for American women, and even more specifically for women of
a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">certain age</i>. Imagine me saying this
under my breath and behind a raised hand, in much the same way folks in the
fifties muttered, “cancer”. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
have looked at Ms. Z’s photos, read several blogs about them, formed my own
opinion, and even participated in a few back and forth comments about them on
Facebook. And the most striking thing to me about all that I have read, has
been the frequent attack on society. “Society doesn’t let women age”. “Society
expects us to conform to a set beauty standard.” “Society doesn’t judge men the
same way.” As if “society” is a thing apart from us women. A thing that we
can’t control. Holding us hostage like an abusive boyfriend. Smacking us across
the room for being too fat, then demanding that we make it dinner and serve it
on a tray while it sits in front of the TV guzzling a cold one. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Except
that is that it is not. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Society
is us. And every time that we lie about our age. Every time we slice into our
faces, breasts, and asses. Every time we shave our pussies clean – we are participating.
We are complicit. We are victims. And our quality of life? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
ladies, if you are angry about the way that society views older women. Stop
whining and do something about it. Come out of the closet. Grow a pair. Declare
yourself to be a survivor – because you are. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
often tell my boys that I am not smarter than they are. However, I have lived
on the planet a lot longer than they have, which means that I’ve learned a few
things. My knowledge, yes wisdom, about life and love and humanity and writing
and art and happiness and sadness and death – is worth something. It has taken
me almost fifty-four years to accumulate. With it comes a thicker waist and
lines around my eyes. But it is valuable. And I do not need society to tell me
that. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-19696189372366794252013-12-04T10:10:00.000-08:002013-12-04T20:10:57.481-08:00Age vs. Beauty<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>From a recent Spoken Word venue, at which I argued for Age against Beauty. Yes, it's a rant.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b>I am 53. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Let me tell you what that means.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It means that I was an American born during the cold war in Munich,
Germany, where the sound of my parents’ late night, booze-fueled conversations
with artists, educators, and social activists who worked for Radio Free Europe
was the walla of my childhood. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Being 53 means that I embody the optimism and radicalism of the
sixties, when giving peace a chance was not a slogan on a high end T-shirt, but
a viable philosophy. And when women grew their underarm hair to declare their
equality to men, instead of shaving their cootches to declare their insecurity
over not measuring up to their boyfriends’ porn fantasies.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Being 53 means that I lived in New York City in the early 80s.
Pre-AIDS, pre-economic crash, pre-snark. When young people still believed that
they could make something so profound that they could change the world.
Feminism wasn’t a confusing concept, and sex was fun because no one gave a shit
about “the rules”. It means that I did cocaine in the VIP room of Studio 54 and
danced with Andy Warhol. OK, he stood there and I shimmied around him. To be
honest, that was all anyone ever did around Warhol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later that night I actually
danced with Tony Danza and Phyllis Diller. Together. I have yet to meet another
person who can make this claim. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Being 53 means that I got to work on an HBO television show for three
years that nurtured some of the hottest, most relevant comedians of the late
90s and beyond. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’ve written a bestselling book, married my best friend, been a beauty
editor for a national magazine, backpacked through India, gazed upon the Panama
Canal, walked around the Gaza pyramids, birthed two children, read most of the
classics, lived in London, published in the New York Times, and chipped chunks
out of the Berlin wall just after it fell. I’ve hiked to the base camp of the
Matterhorn (the real one), occupied LA<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>– in a tent—with my family, danced with the London Festival Ballet, sold
seven television pilots, met living saints, and walked the very steps that
Ghandi walked before he was shot. I have stood amongst the funeral pyres on the
ghats of the Ganges, looked through the smoke of burning bodies, seen my own
death, and understood my existence to be both profoundly significant and
utterly irrelevant. I have stood in a classroom teaching seventh grade English
and wondered how any of us survive the wounding mortification of yearning and
not getting. And I have squatted behind a lone rock in the middle of the Sahara
Desert, digging a hole for my own waste, and realized that the only thing that
separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is shame. That, and thinking
puns are funny. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You may be young. You may be beautiful. You may have already had a
shitting in the wilderness epiphany by now. Eventually all of us do. But even
so, when you – youth and beauty-- and I are together, I am the most interesting
motherfucker in the room. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And even if you don’t agree with me. Even if you would still rather spend your limited time basking in the glow of already fading youth and
beauty – because, let’s face it, physical beauty always, always wanes unless
you’re Diane Sawyer -- even if you would trade every ounce of wisdom and
courage you would gain by growing older, for a decade more of youth and beauty
– I don’t give a fuck.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And that is the true beauty of aging – the
pure lack of fuck that I give about anything that doesn’t make me a better,
more compassionate, more connected, more useful, more committed, more sexy human
being. If only to myself. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the truest sense, aging is radicalizing.
Surviving loss and facing an uncertain future, either breaks you or makes you a
badass. Surviving loss gives you boundless compassion for the weak, the
dispossessed, the miserable, the vulnerable, and the spiritually numb. Surviving
heartbreak, teaches you that </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">humility is not passivity, tears are
not weakness, stillness is not laziness, and aging is not death. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Recently, I was at Ross, buying a
particularly jazzy pair of fashion forward skinny jeans. The checker eyeballed
me and said, “Senior discount?” <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My jaw dropped. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What? I mean, seriously, what the fuck? Do
I look like a grandma? I’m buying leggings that look like denim – no
grandmother does that! <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My younger self would have taken the
checker on, would have protested my obvious youth. Or impressed upon her that I
only looked worn out because I’d been up all night partying and screwing my
brains out. But my older self doesn’t give a flying fuck. So I said, “Why, yes.
Yes I am a senior.” <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And I got the discount on my jeggings. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: -4.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Because I am the coolest motherfucker in
the room. </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i>Originally performed at "The Write Club" -- Bootleg Theater, Los Angeles</i></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-25589968052627139782013-01-03T06:17:00.002-08:002013-01-15T22:39:55.799-08:00New Year's Thoughts on Grammar, my Mother, and Real Life <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I am sitting in a café in Madison,
Wisconsin. The snow fell yesterday. The powdery, light kind that falls without
purpose and doesn’t stick to the streets. Outside the window, the sidewalks are
slushy and a faint white fuzz drapes over modules of hardened gray snow,
making everything look cleaner. It’s merely cosmetic, this atmospheric
landscaping -- but I am grateful. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I do not live here. But the barista (not
called such in Madison) knows me. I am my mother’s daughter -- the Hollywood
actress (as my mother described me) who arrives from Los Angeles in the winter
and once every summer to visit and write at the table by the window. My mother
used to come here every day for a skinny late. Before she broke her hip. Today,
I will order her skinny late to-go before I pay my bill. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I haven’t written freely in several months.
This is mostly because I began a new job, teaching sixth grade English, in
September. The work has been overwhelming frankly. This has less to do with the
job itself than it does with me. I am incapable of doing anything by halves. As
a result, I wake up in the middle of the night, worrying about a student’s
grade. Or I am in the bath and I remember a poem that I simply have to teach –
one that will blow my sixth graders’ minds with its powerful dialectic on modern man’s disconnectedness from nature– oh hell, I can’t put it in to words.
T.S. Eliott. You know the one. And I have to jump out of the bath to write it
down to prevent it from receding from memory and leaving only a fragment that
will gnaw at my consciousness until it pops back into mind, waking me – yes,
that’s it “The Waste Land” – an hour before I have to get up in the morning. Jesus,
I can’t teach ‘The Waste Land’ to sixth graders. What was I thinking?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s fucking exhausting. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The floor on my side of the bed in Los
Angeles is piled high with books that are supposed to tell me how to teach. I
flip through them nightly. I got into a time crunch before the winter break and
didn’t get to do something clever with Santa’s “clauses”. What a missed
opportunity. I really want to dig into clauses and inspire the kids to write
beautiful complex sentences that rise off of the page. Hell, even if their
sentences just lie there looking like whole thoughts, it will be a partial win.
<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’ve come to believe that clauses are the
key to making their sentences at least hover. My favorite are independent
clauses -- added bits of information that could stand alone but, for reasons
left to the discretion of the writer, don’t.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My mother walks tentatively now and is
unlikely to brave the trip to this coffee shop until the snow thaws. Even then,
she would feel more confident walking here if she could lean on my father or
me.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
had to teach myself what a prepositional phrase was this year. A friend of mine
explained that prepositions are little locators. I am, for example, sitting <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">at the table, in the coffee shop, on the
street </i>where my mother lives. I never thought much about locators before.
And if I had, I doubt that I would have granted them much importance. Who cares
where you are, I would have said, as long as you’re <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doing </i>something.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">If you don’t have a verb, you don’t have
squat. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In this case, I am writing. Does it matter that
I am on the street where my mother lives? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It isn’t simply teaching that has
distracted me from writing the last few months. It has been the world at large.
It isn’t a peaceful place. This shouldn’t be a revelation to me. After all,
I’ve been living in it for decades. But before this year, I felt safe -- at my
desk, in my apartment, with my family. Then Pat and I lost our health
insurance, decimated our credit rating by declaring bankruptcy, and couldn’t
find any employment. For three months in a row, we didn’t have enough money to
pay the rent. When something like this happens, prepositional phrases become
vitally important to you. Who gives a flying fuck what you are doing, if you
can’t do it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in your home?</i> <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Which brings me to the street where my
mother lives. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When neighbors see my mother leaning on my
arm as we walk out her door, they are likely to assume that it is she who is reliant
upon me, who needs support, who cannot stand alone. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">They would be wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When I called my mother this past summer to
admit just how bad things had gotten, she said, “Just tell me what you need.”
She sent money, no questions asked. And, when I could barely hold a thought in
my head or get through an hour without weeping, she called me every day. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the education books beside my bed, I
have marked lessons on prepositions, clauses, conjunctions, and sentence fragments.
I am falling in love with the architecture of language. I like looking at the
numerous ways that one thought can build upon another. I like thinking about
how an idea can link to another, although semi-colons still mystify me.
Appositives, however, are a revelation. They allow a writer rename a noun.
Whether for clarity or redemption, the ability to rename, to go back, to say, “what
I need to you to know about this noun is this”, is mind-blowingly powerful. See
here:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Audrey lives on this street” is quite
different from “Audrey, my mother, lives on this street.” <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The writer, here, feels that it is
important that you know that Audrey isn’t just anyone on the street. She is the
writer’s mother. She is a person of importance. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few weeks ago, one of my sixth-grade students threw up his
hands when we were analyzing a sentence and said, “I’ll never use this in my
real life!” <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I couldn’t, in all honesty, assure him that
the ability to differentiate between a dependent clause and a sentence fragment
would put him in a different income bracket or get him the girl of his dreams
(the second being only slightly more possible). But I did tell him that the
ability to communicate beautifully, meaningfully, and clearly would enhance his
life no matter what path he chose. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He said, “What if I want to be a garbage
man?”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Anyone who knows anything about sixth
graders can guess that the ensuing conversation had more to do with the merits
and drawbacks of employment in the sanitation industry than it had to do with
grammar. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
that night, I awoke from deep sleep, replaying the conversation.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I’ll
never use this in my real life!”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What
the hell was I teaching these kids? Anything? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
looked at the books on the floor and remembered my life five months earlier,
prior to the phone call I made to my mother, prior to getting this job as an
English teacher. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There is only one thing we ever learn and
relearn in real life. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And only one thing to teach.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Everything is connected. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In real life.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Nothing, no one, stands alone. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Everything else is semantics. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-35257381578637068042012-10-04T10:47:00.000-07:002012-11-14T15:23:29.474-08:00The Actress and the Comedienne (or "Free Lunch")<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b> It happens every now and
then. Someone who is famous or semi-famous, someone that almost everyone would
recognize from the small screen, wants to meet with me because they liked my
first book and they want to make it into a TV show or a movie, and – even once
– a play. I go on these meetings because it’s Hollywood and anything can
happen. But mostly, I go because I get to meet the famous person in a
restaurant that is so upscale that I could never hope to afford it and couldn’t
even get hired as a waitress there because I’m not pretty enough, thin enough,
or young enough. It’s like getting a free pass to visit the planet where famous
people live.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>No
matter what anyone says about famous people putting their pants on one leg at a
time, they really aren’t like the rest of us. Not a bit. I do not make this
assessment from a place of judgment or envy. It is merely a fact. The pants
that famous people put their lasered smooth legs into cost more than my annual
rent and lots of people are fighting each other to take pictures of them in
those pants. It is simply impossible to remain unaffected by how excited people
get about you in your pants. You can still be a swell person; you can still be
generous, kind, and loyal to your friends. But in the end, you either think
that you deserve those pants or you are secretly frightened that you don’t
deserve the pants and you will go to extreme measures to hang onto them. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>You and
I do not have a relationship like this to any of our pants. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>I once
met a semi-famous person who liked my book at Sardi’s in Beverly Hills and got
caught up in a crush of excitement over someone who must have been super-famous
entering the bar. My heart started racing. Who was it? President Clinton?
Desmond Tutu? Princess Diana? The fervor in the room was so high that I
honestly felt like my life was about to be changed forever. Cameras flashed,
people in expensive suits shoved each other to get a better look. Finally the
throng reverently parted for creature that looked like Gandalf in make-up and
high heels. I hadn’t a clue who it was. The semi-famous person I was with
grabbed my hand across the table and whispered, “Oh my God. It’s Joan Collins.”
She didn’t even look like Joan Collins but it didn’t matter because she was.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
as many times as I have been on the edges of this world, I’ve never felt a part
of it and I wonder if writers ever do. Even when they, themselves, are famous-ish.
For the most part, writers are invisible, unless a seriously famous person
wants something from them. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>And in
that case, the writer gets to go to lunch.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Actress and the Comedienne love my book and they want to meet me in the bar of
the Beverly Hills Hotel. I don’t know what plans they have for the book but I’m
open to anything that will generate income. I am expecting two checks for
magazine articles and Pat is picking up work for a friend. But at this very moment,
we’re seriously tapped out until we get paid.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sometimes
I buy a new blouse for meetings like this, just so I can feel more confident
that people aren’t whispering to each other behind their menus, “How did she
get in here?” But this time I can’t even afford a schmatta from Target. So I’m
wearing an old standby that only needs one safety pin. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Comedienne waves me over to their booth in the back. She recognizes me even
though we’ve never met because in this particular room, I am the standout. I
walk over and shake both of their hands. Introductions are made and I slide in
opposite both of them. I notice that their glasses of white wine have already
been delivered and sipped. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We’ll
get you a glass,” the Actress says, raising her hand to a waiter and pointing
down at my chest. He nods. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Right?”
says the Comedienne. “It’s never too early. Right?”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
both laugh. My book is called “Mommies Who Drink” which leads readers of all
stripes to believe that I drink all the time. This is not the case in life or
in the book, but I’m not going to turn down a glass of fancy chilled wine in
the Beverly Hills Hotel.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Right,”
I affirm. Never too early.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Besides,”
says the actress who is on the thin side of lithe and whose silken blonde hair
falls in wisps from behind her ears in a way that is at once casual and
planned. “I just found out that my series is cancelled. So I’m celebrating,
right?”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
mock pouts. I’m not sure what my response should be. Is she happy or sad about
the cancellation? Fortunately, the waiter appears with my glass of wine. He
places it down in front of me and turns to the Comedienne.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I
just want to say, that I loved you in your show,” he says to her. “You were the
best thing on it. You were hilarious. I can’t believe it’s over.”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Thanks,
honey,” says the comedienne. “I fucking loved doing it.” She touches the
waiter’s arm, “Call up the network and tell them to put the fucking show back
on the air!”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
guffaws, leans over, and slaps her own ass. The Actress giggles and the waiter
throws back his head and laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard in
his whole life. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
corresponding smile, here, is not disingenuous. The Comedienne and the Actress
are harmless enough and this is probably one of the highlights of the waiter’s
year. In fact, I feel excited. Maybe they want to option my book. And I can’t
wait to see what is on the menu.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
tell me the parts of my book that made them howl with laughter. They tell me
that they are just like me. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>“You tell
the truth about motherhood,” the Comedienne says, conspiratorially. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure what truth they are talking
about. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It’s
boring,” says, the Actress. “I could never stay home and just play with the
kids.”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ah,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> truth, I think. In the book I write
about how bored I felt being at home with an infant. Days fuzzing into each
other and when the baby wasn’t sleeping, he was crying. I was bored, yes. But
the other part of that truth is that we banded together then. When he slept and
when he cried, I was smelling him. Cooing. Rocking, Feeling him against me and
making him mine. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>I wonder
if the Actress and the Comedienne have noticed that I have barely spoken at
all. Not that I mind. The endive salad with pear, caramelized onions, and goat
cheese crostini is so delicious that I have to tell myself to slow down. I’ve
already consumed half of it while my hosts have only moved food around on their
plates. In anticipation of a great meal, I didn’t eat any breakfast and I now
realize that this was a tactical mistake because the salad isn’t going to be
enough. I should have ordered the lamb burger with gorgonzola cheese and string
fries. But salads are standard famous-person food and I didn’t want to draw
attention to my otherness. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>I reach
over and take a second warm, crusty, sourdough roll out of the basket in the
middle of the table. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“We
have the best nanny. She just loves my fucking kid,” the comedienne says. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
smile. Not just because she’s just modified her child with an expletive (which
makes me uncomfortable), but because moms always say that the nanny loves their
children. Never thinking that quite possibly the nanny is just as bored by
their children as they are. The nanny is doing a job. The nanny needs the
money. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
wonder if they are thinking of the book as a series or a made-for-TV movie. I
want to tell them that I’m wide open.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Comedienne finally takes a bite of her salad. “We’re like you,” she says to me.
“Just because we’re moms doesn’t mean that all we talk about is playgroups and
diapers. You know what? The other day, I called her up,” she points to the
Actress, “and I asked her if she ever touches her vagina just for comfort. You
know. Not for anything else.”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Actress leans in, her eyes twinkling, “And I said, ‘Of course I do. We all
do.’”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
titter. I titter, rip my roll in half, and drag it through the olive oil on my
plate. Really? I think. Really? Are we going to talk about our vaginas now?
When are we going to talk about the book? For some reason, famous women feel
compelled to bring up their vaginas pretty early on in a conversation. I know
this because it has happened to me before on several occasions. And never with
a non-famous woman. Maybe famous women do it to convince the non-famous that
they are like everybody else. “Don’t worry,” they are saying, “I have a vagina
just like you.” Or possibly they are proving that they can get down and dirty
too. Whatever the reason, it’s standard fare and I never have a thing to add
about my own vagina. Not because I’m a prude but because it’s simply there,
doing what it does. I like it. I use it. But I don’t have anything funny or
interesting to say about it. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And
then I ask her,” the Comedienne continues, “if she ever does this two finger
thing on her vagina.” She holds her fingers up and slices them back and forth.
Not in a masturbatory way, but more contemplative.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And
I’ve never heard of that before,” chirps the Actress. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Neither
have I, “ I say, just to say in the game. “Three fingers. Sure. But never
two.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
whoop in response. I haven’t a clue what I’m saying, but I said it like it was
a quip and they bought it. I look down at my plate and my salad is gone.
Somehow I have eaten the whole thing without even realizing it. I feel a little
panicky because I am nowhere near full and I don’t handle hunger well. It’s
either blood sugar thing or basic immaturity, but I have been known to sob in
the car when we’re out in the middle of nowhere with no food. I have snapped at
my children to hand over their last five gumi bears before I lose it. If I had
lived through famine after a war, I’d be famous for performing any sex act just
to get a rotting potato. I’d been known to the soldiers as, “Rotting Potato
Jane”. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
reach for the breadbasket, flip over the napkin, and find it empty. How can
that be? Did I wolf down three pieces of bread? I thought I only had two and
famous women never eat bread. There should be at least one piece left. Then I
glance over at the Actress’ plate and spy an untouched roll. I forget.
Sometimes famous women pretend to eat like the rest of us and take a roll that
they never intend to eat. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Actress and the Comedienne order a couple of more drinks and talk about the
Actress’ kitchen. She needs a new one. That’s why, she says, she needs to get
another series soon. Because she needs a new kitchen and she has to keep the
nanny who loves her kid. Doesn’t her network understand that? </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>All of
these concerns I remind myself, stomach growling, are perfectly reasonable in
their world. It makes perfect sense, I tell myself, that the Actress wants a
new kitchen. If I were her I would want a new kitchen too. Hell, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> want a new kitchen. The Actress
doesn’t know that yesterday I rifled through my sons’ closet to see if there
was a passable pair of Spencer’s old sneakers that I could pass down to Murphy
-- and that I deemed a pair with a small hole in a sole worthy. She isn’t being
insensitive. For all she knows, I just got my own new kitchen. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>The
Actress says that she bought a ten-thousand dollar present as an apology to a
famous colleague. And the colleague didn’t have the grace to acknowledge it. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ten
thousand dollars? As an I’m-sorry-I-fucked-up gift? What happened to the
carefully worded e-mail?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their
concerns have nothing to do with me, I repeat to myself like a mantra. Their
concerns have nothing to do with me. The Actress and the Comedienne aren’t
parading what they have in front of my face to cause me pain. The Actress and
the Comedienne love their husbands and their fucking children. They have lost
pets and doubled over with pain. They have woken up in the middle of the night,
countless times, bewildered by how they got so old and agonized over why didn’t
they do this or that when they were younger. When they had time. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>They put
their pants on one leg at a time. They have vaginas. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>Why
isn’t the Actress eating her roll? I almost laugh when I think that. “An
actress eating her roll.” Maybe I should turn this into a joke. Steer the
conversation somewhere else. But normally I don’t do puns. I’m not punny.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>What the
fuck am I doing with my life? Why didn’t I settle into a real job years ago? Why
didn’t Pat? I can’t write for a whole living, it’s insane. I am not like these
women. I’m desperate. I cannot afford to buy a
ten-thousand-dollar-I’m-sorry-gift. Murphy has a hole in the sole of his
sneaker. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>If I
don’t get another writing job, what will we do? </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Can
you believe it? He couldn’t even pick up the fucking phone to thank me.”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b>The huge
gaping hunger in my belly widens, A carnivorous yawn. I will never be able to
fill it up. It will have to feed upon itself. Turn inside out and eat me whole.
Where is the waiter? I look for him above the ladies’ heads. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their
concerns have nothing to do with me.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Waiter.
Waiter. There is a fly in my soup. There is a hole in my sole. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-87851582836949091252012-09-05T12:13:00.001-07:002012-09-05T12:15:30.376-07:00How to Say a Prayer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>204</o:Words> <o:Characters>1165</o:Characters> <o:Company>Mommies Who Drink</o:Company> <o:Lines>9</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>2</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>1430</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><i>Last Saturday I had the honor of being a "guest preacher" at our Unitarian Church. The whole experience was humbling and wonderful. I was most nervous about writing a prayer. So much so that I started to write notes to myself about it. When I finished, I realized that my notes were the prayer and so that is how I left it:</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">How to say a Prayer<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">When in doubt, start with gratitude. Start by giving conscious thanks for the earth, your family and friends, your mind, your heart, and your humanity. Give thanks for all that connects us to each other. We have all ached with love, loss, joy, and despair. And we know what it is to languish too. To feel numb. To wait. To yearn. And to get some kind of reprieve. To celebrate. Stop and give thanks for all of it because it is in that metaphoric tissue that we find empathy, hope, forgiveness, and love. Not simply for each other, but for ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Don’t forget to pray for those who suffer. The hungry, the sick, the angry, the embattled. Syria. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Pray for wisdom. Always for wisdom. For yourself and others. Pray for compassion too. Which is, in fact, wisdom in the profoundest sense. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Pray for courage. Mostly the courage to be yourself. Because that is where strength comes from. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Pray for guidance. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Remind yourself that humility is not passivity, tears are not weakness, stillness is not laziness, and aging is not death.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Remember to breathe. To let air fill your chest. To let yourself feel small and big at the same time. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Don’t forget that when you do any task with generosity and love, you cannot entirely fail, because you’ll still end up with generosity and love.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And then. Let your mind rest so that you can listen to the world around you and to the beating of your own heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -4.5pt; tab-stops: 270.15pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdP2o8YZQBrzSdQKPjZY551GpBD49HXRni6k6ogChOw-VxxL2Ctjq-zbw9eoIwS4HMFiXfMoxO1dPyEIXaKcbm6wa5f2R3g8BlxVCaaoOdWhore8tktUaF7D2fRJzlD55xwfi4v65N-XJ/s1600/pulpit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdP2o8YZQBrzSdQKPjZY551GpBD49HXRni6k6ogChOw-VxxL2Ctjq-zbw9eoIwS4HMFiXfMoxO1dPyEIXaKcbm6wa5f2R3g8BlxVCaaoOdWhore8tktUaF7D2fRJzlD55xwfi4v65N-XJ/s640/pulpit.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boyz wanted to check out the pulpit with me</td></tr>
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</span></div><!--EndFragment--></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-67371732482038564042012-07-12T11:52:00.001-07:002012-07-12T11:54:26.780-07:00What I did in the Summer of 2007<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The ocean is a hundred yards away, just as it said on the campsite’s website. I glance over at the crashing waves, wishing we were done with the tent nonsense and already burying our toes in wet sand. Our two sons sit on a log staring at Daddy who attempts to connect two poles over his head. He’s been at this an hour and tent parts still litter the ground. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“That’s one long one and one short one,” I say to him. “I think the poles that connect have to be the same length.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“This is the door, Brett. So it’s a longer pole than the others,” says Pat in a voice full of suppressed rage. “The directions say to insert this pole first. Then the others will pop into place.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I think that’s the middle pole. The one that holds up the roof.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat lets out a groan that’s louder than the ocean, “If you would take a minute to look at the directions, you’d see that the roof pole is the one that the boys were playing with earlier.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We both throw a glance to the boys who look back at us blankly.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Where’s that pole?” Pat asks them.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spence, the seven-year-old shrugs. Murphy, the three-year-old says, “What pole?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat drops the poles he’s been wrestling with and walks over the gravely road. He looks down the road and mumbles something. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“What’s Daddy saying?” asks Murphy.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I don’t think he wants us to hear what he’s saying,” I say. “Let’s find that bendy pole and Daddy will feel better.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The boys and I look around a couple of trees and find the pole pretty quickly.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Found it,” I yell to Pat, who doesn’t turn immediately. He continues looking down the road like it’s viable option. After a moment of nothing but the sound of waves, his back straightens and he walks back toward us purposefully, “You guys go to the beach. I’ll put up the tent.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Are you sure?” I say, hoping he is.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Very.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The boys and I grab our buckets and shovels and head out to the beach. Three hours later, Pat joins us looking beleaguered but triumphant, “It’s up. We just can’t unzip the window or the tent will expand and fall over.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> A month later, the bones of the tent are laid out in our backyard. I’ve decided I need a tutorial since I’m taking it on a “women and children only” camping weekend. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“Lay out poles to insert in sleeves,” Pat says, reading the directions. I’ve glanced at the same directions and they are indecipherable to me, like encrypted directions to an undiscovered Anglo-Saxon Burial Mound.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> “What poles, Pat?” I say. “There are long ones, short ones, and the two bendy ones.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> Murph lets out a scream of frustration. Apparently, Spence took one of the tent pegs he was using as a rocket ship.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“Spence give it back,” I say.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>Spence pitches it at Murph’s feet. Normally I’d take him to task. But I can’t afford the digression. All my attention must be on the tent. </b><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Now I’m going to write this on the directions,” says Pat, taking out a pencil and writing on the worn paper. “Short poles first.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat’s penciled clarification is useless to me and he knows it. But he persists, as all spouses do, with the hope that one day his mate will wake up and decide to change her most annoying trait. In my case, the trait has no name -- I shut down when I look at a set of instructions. I start to hyperventilate when a cashier at the drug store hands me a rewards card application to fill-out. I’ve been known to giggle and cry when faced with a long form at the doctor’s office. I perceive instructions to be a test I have failed long before I put pen to paper or fingers to the keypad. The result of this phobia is that I cannot assemble anything, cook anything, or apply for anything by looking at instructions. I need to be told and shown how to do it two, maybe three, times. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> It takes an hour for Pat to take me through all the steps. It takes another fifteen minutes for him to repeat the steps a couple more times. After I am confident that I understand the tent, we all high five each other and stand back to look at it. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Then there’s the rain cover,” Pat says, waving a piece of fabric that clips over the net roof, to keep out rain, dew, and wind. “That’s the easy part. We don’t have to do that now. Just strap it on like the picture on the front of the tent bag.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> At the Big Sur Campgrounds, the moms and the kids are impressed when I’m the first to erect my tent, pretty much single handedly. Spence and Murph half-heartedly attempted to fulfill their peg job, but gave up when the ground proved too hard for their lackadaisical pounding. Never mind. I’m feeling positively macho about having assembled the tent. I don’t even care that it lists to one side and the door is blocked by a boulder that we’ll have to scootch around when getting in and out. The point is that I assembled something. From an intimidated non-assembler, this is a seminal moment. It is also notable because the boys have seen me do a job that would typically be Daddy’s. I look into their eyes for recognition of this fact. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Nice job, Mommy,” says Spence, in a more casual tone than I had hoped for. “Can we get in now?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Just let me get this rain cover on,” I say confidently. I look at the picture on the tent bag. The rain cover is diaper shaped with stretchy straps on each corner.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I slide the rain-cover over the top and stretch one strap down to a key at the bottom of the tent. When I move to anchor the other side, the strap won’t stretch that far and I find that the position of the rain-cover leaves half the tent uncovered. All right, it’s on backwards, I think. I turn it around, and make another attempt. It’s a tiny bit better, but when I stretch the second strap is zings loose, stinging me in the elbow. I stifle an invective. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> After forty minutes of more zinging straps and increasingly audible invectives, I’m no further along. How could Pat have thought that this part was so simple? By this time, the other mothers have moved luggage into their tents and poured wine into jars, brought to serve as glasses. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Cathy brings me over a jar of wine, “Let’s take a look.” She glances at the front of the tent bag and shifts the rain cover. No luck. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Let’s look at the directions,” she says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I hand them to her. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “These are indecipherable,” she announces.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> YOU SEE, I think, feeling vindicated, even though I’ve barely glanced at them. The sisterhood gathers around with their jars to collaborate as the kids zip through the other tents. Twenty minutes of a collective attempt bears fruit when I notice that the logo of the tentmaker is shown on the front of the tent in the picture. Cathy finds fabric loops half way down the sides of the tent, Paula moves a tent pole in making the roof area smaller, and Mo stands back to direct the whole enterprise. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> That evening, as the campfire casts shadows on our tents, we tell stories and roast marshmallows. I glance over at my tent and congratulate myself for resisting my initial impulse to throw up my hands and walk away from it. I have given these jobs over to Pat through the years because of our differing skill sets and also out of laziness. But in doing so, I realize that I have robbed myself of the sweet satisfaction of succeeding against my own odds. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I look back at the other mothers’ faces glowing in the firelight, reminding myself that it also doesn’t hurt to know when to accept a little help from your friends.<o:p></o:p></b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghiqVi2SMEpnufADArzqY9mmJPKNPJ79DCpM9r80um5FbajCqq3ltIWuKaMUsy3Rdp2cUSZaOv_STceaokDGDCcEujqUz4bNiL4UDv6nqzapE8j65nxgzB4By_hF8D2fgfTzdrcGhiUGJ3/s1600/IMG_1695.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghiqVi2SMEpnufADArzqY9mmJPKNPJ79DCpM9r80um5FbajCqq3ltIWuKaMUsy3Rdp2cUSZaOv_STceaokDGDCcEujqUz4bNiL4UDv6nqzapE8j65nxgzB4By_hF8D2fgfTzdrcGhiUGJ3/s400/IMG_1695.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Murphy and Spencer asleep that summer in the tent that Mommy and her friends built.</td></tr>
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</b></div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-137777937511164782012-05-23T11:27:00.000-07:002012-05-23T11:27:24.927-07:00Spencer's Birthday at Santa Anita Racetrack (Part Two)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>967</o:Words> <o:Characters>5516</o:Characters> <o:Company>Mommies Who Drink</o:Company> <o:Lines>45</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>11</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>6774</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b><i>At the end of the last post, I was savoring a moment of clarity about how very little we truly need...</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Unfortunately, the boys have not pondered this basic truth as I have. And after repeating that mad dash to the fence a few more times, they are restless. Just as I start rifling through my mind for some organized game I can pull together, Pat appears with tickets for the booths. Five per kid. Earlier, we had decided that the tickets would serve as party favors.</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Plus,” he tells the kids as he rips up the tickets, “there’s a real treat here. We’re going to get to meet the actual real live horse who played Seabiscuit in the movie.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spence and Murphy clap their hands, eyes wide with anticipation. The other boys’ reactions are more subdued. What? Were they were expecting the real Seabiscuit? Maybe they haven’t seen the movie. Or perhaps they have become jaded Hollywood kids already. Last year, the dog who played Marmaduke visited their school and they all got their pictures taken with him. Meeting animal actors, and even human ones, who portrayed heroes, was routine for them. Who knows? Perhaps they had grown wary, suspicious. When they visited the doctor, they worried. Would he turn to them in front of his framed headshot on the wall, and say “It looks like a hairline fracture to me. But, hey, I’m not a real doctor. I just play one on TV.” Poor guys. They were growing up in a fake world. I get it.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spencer, however, is still eager. To say that he has a rich imagination is to understate it. He has lived out many lives and roamed as many fictional lands in his mind. So meeting the horse that portrayed his all time favorite steed in the movie is good enough for him. Small events like these are seeds. Out of them grow hours of play. Next week I might look out our window to see him racing around the courtyard, hearing the thunder of hooves behind him as he storms across the finish line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat closes up the cooler and leads the boys across the field as I trail, counting heads. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We find the smallish horse, pawing the ground in a small paddock. A painted sign on cardboard identifies him as “The horse who played Seasbuscuit”. There is no mention of the equine actor’s real name. That has to sting. And we are the only fans there. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat pulls an apple out of his pocket and starts cutting it with his jackknife, “Who wants to feed him?” He asks. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Small hands jut forward and he doles out slices of the apple. Spencer presses his forehead to a slat of the gate to get a closer look. And it is comforting to know that he is seeing his hero – the tiny horse who wouldn’t quit – and not the actor who had outlived his usefulness. I check myself. Maybe that’s not it at all. This horse is not you. Possibly this is enough. Hell, maybe he hated the movie set and dreamed of a day when he could lazily nibble apple from children’s palms. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I take a picture of them hanging onto the gate with the horse’s face sticking through the slats. I will send it to them as a memento of the party. They can place it next to the one of them with the canine actor who played Marmaduke. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat tosses the apple core into the paddock and rallies the troops. We are on the move again. My eyes slid over the tops of the boys’ heads. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good. It’s a short distance to the booths and the kids quickly scatter. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Pat. I have Murphy, Spencer, and Kevin Wu,” I shout, keeping my eyes trained on them.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat shouts back that he has the rest. Although it’s possible that he doesn’t. Just as much as he expects to be loved, he expects the universe to be benign. To support rather than squash. To lift up, rather than cast aside. To deliver the lost child, rather than swallow him altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As charming as this worldview is, it requires me to be that much more vigilant. I must be the sentry, always anticipating danger so that it does not overtake us.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">One. Two. Three. Four. Four. Four. Where’s? Five. And six.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t wait to get back to the cooler. Away from the crowds where I can count over and over in peace. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Kevin Wu runs up to me, Spencer and Murphy behind him. “I won a glider,” he crows, thrusting the flimsy balsa model forward. Spencer and Murphy inspect it.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I am happy for Kevin Wu. Maybe it will keep his mind off of fake nausea on the way home. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Young-Jae materializes. “Where did you get that?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Over there,” says Kevin Wu, pointing to a ring toss booth. Really? Kevin Wu actually won at ring toss?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I want one of those,” Young-Jae says. “But I don’t have any tickets left.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He looks up at me, his look of entitlement so plain that I can see the hotshot floor trader in his future, hopped up from coke the night before. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Giovanni strolls up and spies the glider, “Hey, where did you get that?” Kevin Wu points to the booth again. Giovanni goes through his pockets. But I already know that he won’t find any tickets there. I throw a look to Pat walking toward us, with Max in tow. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Young-Jae turns to Pat, “Do you have any more tickets?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat stops. At a buck a pop, we have already exhausted our ticket budget of thirty dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Christ sake, these kids might not possess Kevin Wu’s ring toss talent. It could cost us another fifty just to get five more gliders. I consider slipping the sweaty vendor a ten and buying the piece-of-shit toys outright. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat runs his hands through his hair, “Guys, we said five tickets each. You’ve had your fun. Now let’s get back to the cooler and play a game.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">All but Spencer let out an audible groan. It’s not that Spencer wants the glider any less. Or that he’s fundamentally less acquisitive than the others. He simply knows that Pat won’t budge. And, unfortunately, he also knows that we cannot afford it. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The boys stand their ground, not knowing what Spencer knows. Pat is not going to buy more tickets. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Giovanni’s hand shoots up from the small throng, a wad of cash in his grasp. “I’ll buy them,” he says, like a cowboy walking into a saloon from a month long cattle drive. The boys jump up and down. Even Spencer. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Before Pat and I can say a thing, they turn, tripping over themselves, and follow Giovanni striding toward the ticket booth. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“What just happened,” I say to Pat. “Should we stop them?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Why?” He says, putting his arm around my shoulder.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And for the life of me I can’t think of a good reason. I lean into Pat. The benign universe has delivered up Giovanni and his wad of cash. I have known Giovannis all my life. They love the big moment. The grand gesture. And today, he gets to be the hero. I watch Giovanni hand strings of tickets to each boy and they move in a clump toward the ring toss.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I don’t how how much money it takes for each boy to walk away with a glider. But when they return to the cooler, they toss them into the air until Kevin Wu breaks his and it’s time to go home. <o:p></o:p></b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnC8aOGQqmr_rtM6uxR4AtAYmfzOomJhdEoecAE2pQEMQQTLyGMIxfgheuUqsQ5QDnaVLw__O9dMcAzu-3ob7zFnKfYdDNBnzqTycuijh8j-jPvAR0sf5po0iVIsE1RVIoBmHkXBSdcmPk/s1600/jockey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnC8aOGQqmr_rtM6uxR4AtAYmfzOomJhdEoecAE2pQEMQQTLyGMIxfgheuUqsQ5QDnaVLw__O9dMcAzu-3ob7zFnKfYdDNBnzqTycuijh8j-jPvAR0sf5po0iVIsE1RVIoBmHkXBSdcmPk/s400/jockey.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Jocky</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilGd7QNNbrrgxRN_3S_Rddqx3rbHivfLNYXE2iMozr0HhlYpN3qfvVFrP37fsUh4lNVipu9fqGUwKG31iwYwWiuDCwYP8L5E9lEL-VaEphNODYgDxLyp2HbHRqwL33XoboOFq1-ZM9Cixt/s1600/seabuscuit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilGd7QNNbrrgxRN_3S_Rddqx3rbHivfLNYXE2iMozr0HhlYpN3qfvVFrP37fsUh4lNVipu9fqGUwKG31iwYwWiuDCwYP8L5E9lEL-VaEphNODYgDxLyp2HbHRqwL33XoboOFq1-ZM9Cixt/s400/seabuscuit.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boys meet the horse who played Seabuscuit</td></tr>
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</div><!--EndFragment--></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-14404594260187789722012-05-17T11:43:00.004-07:002012-05-17T23:28:37.826-07:00Spencer's Birthday at Santa Anita Racetrack (Part One)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A couple of years ago, Pat and I held Spencer’s Birthday Party at the Santa Anita Racetrack. This I that story: <o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It is Spencer’s birthday and we’re between checks again. It’s foolish to spend our scant resources on a big party. We cannot afford laser tag or Medieval Times. But what we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i> afford, Pat announces one evening from his station at the computer, is, “The Santa Anita Racetrack. Children get in free.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“That’s because they are in the business of creating lifelong gambling addicts,” I say, folding laundry on the dining room table. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“No. The kids won’t gamble. We’ll take them to the infield and set up a picnic. They get to see the horses race around them. It’ll be thrilling. And it says here that there even have booths set up for kids. Ring toss. That kind of thing.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Ring toss?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Kids love ring toss,” he says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I hated ring toss.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “That’s because you never won.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Ring toss is a set up for failure,” I say, dumping loose socks onto the table. “The odds are with the house.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Of course the odds are with the house. Otherwise the house would never make any money.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I snatch all dark socks, put them aside, and allow myself to think about the possibility of the racetrack. Spencer loves watching horse racing on TV which is what inspired Pat to look it up. But what will the kids’ parents say? I’m still living down Murphy’s birthday two years ago. On the morning of the party, I realized that we hadn’t gotten party favors for the kids. So I ran across the street to a cooking store, thinking that I might find cute cookie cutters. Instead, I found darling little snow globes in individual boxes for four bucks a pop. At the end of the party, in the crush of handing out the snow globes to eager sticky hands, a parent said to me, “Brett, did you know that the globes are wine stoppers?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I start with the white socks.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “So we would make it clear on the invitation that there won’t be any gambling?” I say.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Of course,” says Pat, turning around in his chair to look at me. “All we are gambling on is the weather. The only shelter is inside near the betting windows.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We borrow a friend’s minivan to transport all of the children to the track. Within minutes of our departure, Kevin Wu says that he’s going to throw up. He isn’t getting enough air in the back, he says, and Pat rolls down the window. I’m not too worried, because Kevin Wu is a first class complainer. He knows that if he really throws up, it will be the talk of the fourth grade. It takes an hour to get to Santa Anita with six boys swatting each other and Kevin Wu periodically dry heaving for effect. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Spencer makes quips from the center seat next to me. He’s in fine form and doesn’t seem fazed by Kevin Wu’s theatrics since they are routine. He is excited to be the center of attention. Unlike me, he expects to be loved. He also expects everyone to be as excited as he is about seeing a horse race up close. I’m not so sure they will be and I muttered my fears to Pat two days ago. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Kids expect so much these days,” I said. “All the other parents drop five hundred to a grand on some pre-packaged party that provides non-stop entertainment, all the crappy food they can cram into their faces, and a party favor that’s a neat-o light-up, whirly, plastic weapon of some kind that they can take apart and reassemble into something else.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “We aren’t ‘other parents’,” Pat said. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Like Spencer, Pat expects to be loved. He doesn’t know that you have to work at it. You have to study what other people do and at least attempt to fit in. Otherwise…Otherwise, what? I ask myself.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I don’t want to find out.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> When we get to the track and tumble out of the van, I am struck by how accurately the movies depict racetracks. There is a constant swirling of activity. People pouring in and out of the gates. Noonday sun sharpening the color so it looks like a Doris Day picture. From the parking lot we can hear the announcer calling out the places of the horses in quick succession as they round a bend. Their names are like titles of noir novels: Last Hope, Fancy Girl, Ruby Ruby. Spencer bounces up and down with excitement. I do a quick head count of the boys and as we wind our way through the crowds, past vendors, I quickly realize what my greatest challenge will be. Keeping track of everyone. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Giovanni wanders off to a cotton candy concession to buy one with his own money. While Max zips ahead of us, disappearing into the crowd. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “You stay with Giovanni,” I yell to Pat, hightailing it to the entrance.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I catch up to Max who has dragged Murphy along to the turnstiles, “Guys, wait with me here. Where’s Kevin Wu?” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I spin around and spot him heaving into a garbage can with Young-Jae standing next to him, eyes rolled heavenward, like he’s praying for aliens to beam him out of there. To be fair, this is what Young-Jae always looks like. Childhood is something he’s barely enduring until he can make a ton of money at a high-powered job he hates and blow it all on coke and prostitutes. Spencer has known Young-Jae since first grade and invited him out of a vague sense of waning loyalty. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I watch Pat, Spencer, and Giovanni catch up to Kevin Wu. Pat parks the cooler, squats down, and puts his hand on his shoulder. Kevin Wu nods at Pat. Hee looks down and kicks the ground. Then Pat turns to the group and says something that appears to pull them all together, since they all bunch up behind him as he picks up the handle of the cooler. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Max and Murphy run up a tiny hill next to the turnstiles. I watch them out of the corner of my eye while Pat pulls the cooler with the boys, looking subdued, stumbling in step behind him. I suspect that he has spoken to them sternly. Pat is a loving parent. But he has absolutely no difficulty taking command and laying out his expectations to children. I abdicate this duty all the time in favor of being liked. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat waves to me as he approaches, “All accounted for.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Great,” I say. I look down at the boys and say in my best, most warm, mommy voice. “This is going to be fun!”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat pays for the two of us at the window and we shuffle the kids through the turnstiles. On the other side, he amasses the children and says, “Keep your eyes on me. We’re going to go through the main building to the infield. Follow me and don’t stop to look at stuff right now. I can take you back in later, if you want.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The boys start to follow Pat and I bring up the rear, obsessively counting them over and over again. In shocking contrast to the whirl of color and noise outside, the inside is muffled, moody, and gray. It’s like we took an elevator down to purgatory. I look around hoping that the kids aren’t seeing what I see. A sticky cement floor. Men sitting at Formica tables, hunched over betting forms, with foggy plastic cups of flat beer in front of them. Fast food containers littering the floor and tables. Grimy TVs circling the cavernous hall, showing stats and the track. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Giovanni turns back to me, cotton candy residue lining his lips like mishandled lip liner on an old lady, and says, “What can we buy here?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “What?” I say, before I can stop myself. “We’re not buying anything.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Curse his parents for giving him money. I had expected the other kids to clamor for cotton candy after Giovanni bought his, but I think they were too dazed to figure out what was happening. Perhaps they assumed they’d get theirs later. I square my shoulders in anticipation of the begging to come. Maybe we should have written on the invitation, “To keep things even, please don’t send money with your child. He will be provided with juice, sandwiches, and cookies from our cooler. Each kid will get five tickets for the booths and no more. If your child requires anything further, tell him to place a bet.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We make our way to the exit where light pours in like the opening of a tomb. I touch Giovanni on his shoulder and say, “If you want to spend your money later, I’ll bring you back here.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I don’t know how I will negotiate this, but I don’t want to get a phone call from his mother this evening. I quite like Giovanni. He told me earlier that he had been to the track with his uncle a few times and this doesn’t surprise me. He has the wheeler-dealer air of a man who wears a vest over his shirtsleeves and runs a craps game. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We emerge like emigrees from a dank land into a new world. The Santa Anita infield. Where colors are their true selves – the green of the grass, pure blue sky, the reds, yellows, and purples, of peoples’ clothing as they mill around buying souvenirs, programs, and snacks. Pat strides ahead, pulling the cooler over the grass like he knows where he is going. The passel of boys dutifully follows him. They glance around furtively, but appear determined to keep in step. What on earth did Pat say to them? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We walk further into the field and away from all the action. Did Pat look at a map before we came? Where are we going? We keep walking over the soft grass until Pat stops in the middle of the field and declares, “This is it.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> This is it, I think? Where are the horses? Why are we so far away from the rest of the people? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But the boys are relieved to stop walking. Kevin Wu complains that his shins hurt and he sinks into the grass. Spencer, Murphy, and Max chase each other around. Pat offers the kids juice boxes from the cooler and Giovanni and Young-Jae take one. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I hear a bugle call and the announcement for the mounts to post. From watching horse racing with Spencer on TV, I know this means that the horses are moving into their stalls and getting ready for the race. But we can’t see the race? Isn’t that what we came here for? The race is the main activity. Without it, we’re just in a field with cranky kids who would rather be playing video games. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Now that the cooler has been opened, the boys gather around it, pulling out sandwiches and bags of chips. Dear God, I think, they are going to wolf down all the food within the first ten minutes and then ask what’s next. The thing about a successful kids’ birthday party is to pace activities. If you speed through the food, games, cake, and gifts within the first hour (and I have done this) you end up with pandemonium. The outsiders – and there are always one or two (I glance at Kevin Wu) -- beg you to call their mothers to come and pick them up early. They know what’s coming. And the rangy pack of other boys become so hyped on the food and freedom that they start running in circles throwing spiky objects at each other, until one of them is wrestled to the ground and starts wailing. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Boys are born warriors,” a new-agey friend of mine once told me when my kids were little. She shrugged, dipping her chamomile teabag in a mug like, what can you do?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> And at the time, I said, “No. That can’t be. Boys aren’t born warriors. Warfare is taught. And I will teach my sons the way of the Tao.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> My new agey friend whose son was a holy terror, simply smiled and said, “It’s what they do. They must fight.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Then she lit up a joint. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I look at the boys circling the cooler and I can feel the thrum of anarchy in the air. They are gearing up, like the horses we can’t see at the starting gate. Except for Kevin Wu, who is picking at the grass. He was not born a warrior. He was born a systems analyst. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Pat,” I say. “Do you want to take the boys over to the track so they can see the actual horses?” I had promised myself that I wouldn’t interfere when I handed Pat the task of planning the whole party. I’ve planned most of them in the past and, seriously, the stress of each one has shaved a respective year off of my life. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat smiles, “Oh we’re going to see them any minute.” He points to a fence half a field away. Then I hear the announcer call for the race to begin and there is a shot. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The crowd roars in the distance and I glare at Pat. We’re nowhere close. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> He points to the fence and yells to us all, “Run!” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> He starts running and we all take off after him. The noise of the crowd intensifies. I hear rhythmic pounding. Is it the crowd stomping their feet? I bound across the field behind them, Kevin Wu at my heels. Every breath hurts my throat. But I don’t care. I can barely stand it. I want to yell. Maybe I do yell. What am I running toward? I don’t know. Who the fuck cares? This is the most thrilling thing I’ve done in years. I feel like picking up a rock and hurling it into the air. But I can’t stop. The noise of the crowd drives me on. I have to make it to the fence. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat gets there first and climbs up. The boys do the same. And just as Kevin Wu and I clamber up next to them, we see massive thoroughbreds baring down on us. Jockeys’ colors glinting in the sunlight. They race by in a flash. So close that I can feel the steam from the horses’ nostrils on the hairs of my arm. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We keep our eyes on the horses until they turn the bend. The crowd gets even louder. The announcer amps up his patter. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Atta Boy. Dora’s Prize, One Fine Morning. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We hang on the fence waiting. Listening. Gasping. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The announcer intones so fast that I can’t make out the horses’ names. It’s a chant, building, building to a crescendo as we hang onto the fence. And finally a cacophony. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Announcer. Pounding hooves. Crowd. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And it’s over. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat, the boys, and I look at each other’s red faces. We jump down from the fence, raise our fists in the air, and whoop. The boys race around with no particular purpose and I run over to Pat and throw my arms around him like I haven’t seen him in years. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You cannot buy moments like this. Or, yes, you can buy them for little more than the price of two adult admissions. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I would like to have more money. I long for a time when I don’t feel the mounting tension of waiting for the next check to arrive. But there are times like these when I think that our inability to pay for distraction has brought us here. To this bare moment of crazy joy. I do not aggrandize financial hardship. But it has shown me how very little I really need.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGy3M8rNAgcc1Qw1wETKceZf456k0YWw7ft6RIRFYXJDID5S4YpKxSKqQloVoz82-rwJxepWLQieoaq_0xEAaEXA48UIEWGI3isVMnH5xPNWykpd_y4_c_VnfQ-aPdOKdS6H5rnhZi_ziR/s1600/Santa+Anita.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGy3M8rNAgcc1Qw1wETKceZf456k0YWw7ft6RIRFYXJDID5S4YpKxSKqQloVoz82-rwJxepWLQieoaq_0xEAaEXA48UIEWGI3isVMnH5xPNWykpd_y4_c_VnfQ-aPdOKdS6H5rnhZi_ziR/s400/Santa+Anita.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-16568574236880296022012-05-01T10:01:00.000-07:002012-05-01T10:01:48.094-07:00The Dance-off<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>1421</o:Words> <o:Characters>8101</o:Characters> <o:Company>Mommies Who Drink</o:Company> <o:Lines>67</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>16</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>9948</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I’m going to make up score sheets for Daddy and me,” Spencer says. “We’ll judge you in different categories.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I look at him and wonder if the preteen in him is enjoying the thought of judging his mother just a little too much. Should I be concerned about bias in his brother’s favor?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We are discussing the dance-off to be held this evening between eight-year-old, Murphy, and me. Murphy has finally challenged me after weeks of dinner conversations following his refusal to dance with me at his school’s Valentine’s Day Party. This was a serious blow because I love to shake my thing like nothing and nobody. Dance floors in several countries have cleared for me and my moves. I have heard my name chanted countless times as I shimmied, fake limboed, and swung my hips to the beat. I vary it up. Do a little swim thing, just for levity. But then I really bring it home with some homage-to-punk jumping in place and a few spins that were damned impressive thirty years ago –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but now they are mind-blowing feats of daring. I’m telling you, I am electric on that floor and there isn’t a soul in the universe who can deny it.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Except Murphy. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He claims that it’s embarrassing to look at me. He says that it’s not just because I’m his mom and, who dances with their mom anyway? It is because my moves are all over the place. He maintains that I need to calm down. Be smoother. At dinner last week, he played some funky ‘Earth Wind and Fire’ and showed me <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his </i>dancing – swaying from foot to foot, tossing his long curls, and repeating a move I’ve seen a million times: a wave that travels from one hand to the other through his shoulders. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There’s a word for that. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Predictable.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy finishes off his hotdog and brushes the crumbs from his hands all over the place. I try not to react. “I’m going to pick three different songs,” He says. “Score us on each one then add them up together at the end.” He gets up from his chair and walks over to the computer to fire up ITunes. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I don’t point out that by choosing all three songs by himself, he is tipping the dance-off in his favor. Because I’m feeling confident. Spencer’s possible bias aside, the sheer variety of my moves is undeniable. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I clear the table while my husband, Pat, and Spencer get to work on creating the score sheets. The sky outside the kitchen window is still light but I can see the moon already. A half-moon. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I think of Janis Joplin rocking, “Half Moon”, her body pumping out the lyrics, scratchy and real. Her whole self becoming the music. I’m not Pearl, but I know what made her move like that. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I close the door to the dishwasher and when I get back into the living room the judges, Pat and Spencer, are sitting on the couch with pages ripped from a spiral notebook in front of them. I lean over to grab one and see how they’ve broken down the categories.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“No peeking,” Spencer says, snatching the paper out of my hand.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Behind me, Murphy pushes chairs around to clear our stage.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I just wanted to make sure that you included ‘originality’,” I say.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Don’t worry,” says Pat. “The judging will be fair. We’ve covered all the bases.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Then why can’t I see the categories? The contestants should know how you are breaking everything down.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“You just worry about the dancing,” says Pat. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I love him for this. This smile behind his business-like manner. He’s always been able to strike this dual chord of assuring the kids that he takes them seriously while simultaneously sharing the joke with me. How does he manage that?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“OK. First song,” says Murphy, standing in the middle of the cleared floor. “It’s ‘Midnight Cruiser’ by Steely Dan.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He walks over to the ITunes.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Wait,” I say. “Who starts? Do we each do half of a song? Or do we dance at the same time? Did anyone think this through?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Mom,” Murphy says, like ‘isn’t it obvious’, “I dance for a bit and then I throw it to you. Then you dance some and throw it back to me. We go back and forth like that until the end of the song.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“OK,” I say, shrugging. “Sounds like someone is going to get more time. But if that’s the way you want to play it.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Decided.” Pat interjects. “Start the music.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy hits the tunes and gestures to me to lead off.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Felonious, my old friend<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Step on in and let me shake your hand.</i><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I slide into the middle of the floor, making sinewy arcs with my hands. Ballet-like and, I hope, a little surprising. The boys can sing to this song over and over again and I’m baffled by their singular attachment to it over others. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So glad that you’re here again for one more time<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Let your madness run with mine<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I isolate one shoulder and lift it up and down while looking out the window like I don’t even know my shoulder’s doing that. The lyrics are somewhat enigmatic, but as far as I can make out it’s about two middle-aged criminals who get together and cruise their old neighborhood. What is it about that scenario that resonates with the kids so much?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I do a quick spin and throw it to Murphy, who leaps into the middle of the floor and lands in a pose like an archer taking aim right at the judges. It’s the chorus.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tell me where are you driving Midnight Cruiser<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where is your bounty of fortune and fame?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spencer leans forward and I watch them both mouth the words as Murphy struts around, pointing at various parts of the room. That’s it. They’re both imagining themselves zooming around town in a car that they call the Midnight Cruiser. It’s a buddy song. And they’re the buddies. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy does the wave thing with his arms and shoulders through the next verse and throws it back to me. I shimmy to the center in a move that everyone has seen before too. But I’m not thinking now. The music takes over and I let my pelvis swing to the beat as I raise my hands above my head and punch the air. We’re back to the chorus and we’re all singing.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tell me where are you driving Midnight Cruiser<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where is your bounty of fortune and fame?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy turns up the volume and I throw it back to him. He races into the middle, acts like he’s getting into an imaginary car, and starts driving toward the judges. We keep singing the chorus that repeats over and over, probably because Steely Dan ran out of narrative. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tell me where are you driving Midnight Cruiser<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where is your bounty of fortune and fame?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am another gentleman loser<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drive me to Harlem or somewhere the same<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Murphy and I toss the floor back and forth to each other. Strutting and swinging and jumping and twirling all the way to the end, when we collapse into chairs. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I am spent. My wet hair sticks to my neck and I am covered in a glistening layer of sweat. Looking, I imagine, like an old otter. I can’t believe we have two more songs to go. The judges mark up their papers. Spencer leans over, tries to look at Pat’s, and he covers it up.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“No looking at each other’s scores,” Pat says, while Murphy and I pant. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I sag into our high-backed chair. Flaps of leather and loose stuffing scratches the back of my knees. The seat split over a year ago. We seriously have to get this battered old thing to an upholsterer.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“All right,” announces Pat. “We’re done with that round. Moving on.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I admonish myself for thinking about the chair. I can’t think like a mom right now. I’m in the middle of a competition here. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy stands on a chair and announces that the next to selections are ‘Earth Wind and Fire’s’ “Gratitude” and “Thriller”. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“‘Thriller’?” I say to Murphy and he smiles.That song never ends. Is this a calculation on his part to make me forfeit from sheer exhaustion? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Contemplating this possibility gives me the fire I need to get back in the game and stay in. Although I do find out that I can no longer do high kicks at the end of ‘Gratitude’. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the middle of ‘Thriller’ I pull a glut. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We end with a lightning round of moonwalking and fling ourselves into our respective chairs like boxers. Only no one plies us with water. Pat and Spencer grab their score sheets and leave us to eye each other with new respect. I really didn’t think that Murphy would change it up that much. And I bet that Murphy greatly underestimated my stamina. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Nice work,” I say between gasps.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“You really shouldn’t try to kick, Mom,” he says. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I didn’t know that until I tried,” I say.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“The rest was pretty good though,” he says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Thanks.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’m still breathing heavily when the judges return. They take their places on the couch and arrange themselves while Murphy and I wait. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“It was very close,” says Pat.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Very,” says Spencer. “In fact…” He pauses for effect. “Mom only won by two points.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I shoot a look over to Murphy. The thought occurring, maybe this win matters to him. He is smiling. Face a little soft. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It does matter. It does, I can tell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I want to give my victory back. It doesn’t matter to me, I want to say. I don’t care about winning. I only agreed to this silly dance-off because I wanted you to see me as me and not just your mother. I wanted you to tell me that I’m a dancing queen, not an embarrassment you had to dodge at your school’s Valentine’s Day party. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This, of course, is the truth of it. One that I haven’t admitted to myself. Until now, I thought that we were simply playing a dopey family game.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy gets up from his chair and stands in front of me. “Congratulations, Mom,” he says, his voice catching. “Let’s do a rematch next week. I know I can win.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I draw him to my chest. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I bet you can win, too,” I say. “I bet you can.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’ll take out the kicks and the fake limbo, I think, as I bury my face in his hair. I can give up some of it. That little bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But I also know that there isn’t a person in this world that can stop my hips from doing what they do when that music rocks my soul. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I pull him onto my lap. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He may never love my moves. But I hope that he learns to love the woman who trusts the inner thrum of who she is. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A dancing queen and so much more.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
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</div><!--EndFragment--></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-12567108305643431142012-04-24T10:59:00.000-07:002012-04-24T10:59:31.681-07:00Murphy's Teeth and the Insurance (Part Two)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>862</o:Words> <o:Characters>4915</o:Characters> <o:Company>Mommies Who Drink</o:Company> <o:Lines>40</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>9</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>6035</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">By nine in the morning, Pat is back in bed having whisked Spencer to his bus stop and Murphy is sleeping on the couch. He glows with fever, his curls sticking to his reddened face, looking like a Victorian porcelain doll. I consider forcing him awake and walking him around in circles like people do in movies when they have to sober up a drunk. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’ve laid a my cool hand on his forehead a couple of times in the last few minutes and said, “Remember we have to wake up soon to go to the dentist.” But the only response has been a flutter of eyelashes. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s hopeless. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I can’t do this to Murphy. If the whole point of cramming all of these appointments in at the last minute was to take care of my children in the best way I could under the circumstances, then forcing Murphy to go to the dentist in this condition is the opposite of that. I have to think of him first and not the money. I’ll have to pay for the cavities out of pocket. That’s all there is to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can save up for a few months. Or we can sell the coronet. We can even turn it into a family joke, “Remember, now. Those are the fillings your grandfather’s coronet paid for.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lately, it all comes down to the coronet. When we don’t have the rent, Pat looks at me sideways and says, “Maybe it’s time to sell the old girl.” Meaning the instrument, not me. Although, given the strains in our marriage lately, the ambiguity is downright poetic. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat’s half-brother gave the coronet to him after their dad died, extracting a promise that Pat would never sell it. We’re the kind of people who traditionally honor promises like that. But that fraternal contract was made when Pat and I were making four times what we make now – when we had health insurance and every reason to believe that our fiscal future was bright. Pat was an at-home dad, acting in a couple of national commercials a year. And I was writing for television. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I pick up the phone and call the dentist.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Oh, yes. We completely understand,” says the receptionist. “And we wouldn’t want to make the Dr. Olsen sick.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There is that too, I think. Dr. Olsen is a sweet man who is so cheerful you can almost believe that filling and extracting teeth is his life’s singular passion.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I don’t suppose we can reschedule the Murphy’s appointment for the end of the week?” I say, trying not to sound desperate. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Oh, no,” she says brightly. “There won’t be anything open until next month.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I pause, listening to the clicking of her computer keys while she searches for an opening next month. I feel shaky and about to cry. But I take the chance, “You see. We run out of health insurance at the end of the month and I’m not sure when we will be able to afford to bring Murphy in again.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The keys stop clicking. Tears spill down my cheeks and I adjust the phone so she won’t hear any sounds that I might make.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Oh,” she says, not giving anything away. I sniff as lightly as possible to stop the snot from pouring out of my nose. “Well, what we could do is make the appointment for next month, but I will change the date on the insurance forms. That way it will be covered. We don’t do that often. But we can do it for you. Will that help?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Will that help? Relief suffuses my body like a fast-acting drug. Snot flows out of my nose and I sputter, “Yes. Yes. That would help us very much.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I wipe my nose with my sleeve. The computer keys click again and I say, “You know we will pay you everything we owe you. I promise.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I know,” she says. “Times are hard. And you can pay us a little bit each<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>month like you have been. We know you will.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Thank you. Thank you,” I say, like I’m kissing the hem of her skirt.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I put down the phone and walk into the bathroom to grab tissues and honk into them. Looking up, I catch my reflection. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I look like Mickey Rourke. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But I’m so spent, so drained of feeling, that I don’t care. In fact, it crosses my mind that this is exactly what I should look like – a has-been fighter who is desperate for a comeback.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the bedroom, I lie down next to Pat who flops a semi-conscious arm over my belly. I think about the receptionist’s kindness and how she rescued me from complete despair within seconds. The last two years have been the hardest of my life. But there have been glorious moments throughout. Little rescues like this one. Flashes of clarity about what really matters. Even times of uncontrollable laughter that completely gutted me over some adjustment we had to make because we were broke. I have been more angry at Pat than I have ever been. And I don’t know when I will be able to let go of it. But I have loved him too. Fiercely, protectively, resentfully. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And I have discovered a seemingly endless well of compassion inside me for anyone who is broken or helpless or lost. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Which is all of us at some point or another. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I roll over and look at Pat. His chest rises and falls. The cat jumps onto the foot of the bed. My thoughts settle. “You are here, right now,” I tell myself. “You are here right now with your husband and your cat and a boy in the living room who you have just taken care of. “<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Naming what is around me is one of the ways that I have saved myself from feeling completely helpless. And in the last few months I have learned that we have to save our own lives over and over and over again. By staying conscious. By naming. By actively choosing, rather than waiting for life or an intemperate god to put up a roadblock or toss us a bone. The dental receptionist was kind but I had to choose to ask her for help. I did it with snot spurting out of my nose. I shook with the effort of it. I looked like hell. But I had fixed the problem. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If this cosmically tiny domestic challenge had stood in front of me two years ago, I would not have been able to scale it.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I put my hand on Pat’s stubbled cheek. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is my husband. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The cat is at my feet. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It is sunny outside. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spencer is at school and Murphy is on the couch. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There is food in cupboard. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There is work to be done. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment--></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-41127277191383737932012-04-18T12:11:00.001-07:002012-04-18T12:32:18.272-07:00Murphy's Teeth and the Insurance (Part One)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I wake as I do all school days, two minutes before the five-thirty alarm. I am wound tight, like a night watchman who accidentally dozed off. My hand slaps the alarm that never gets a chance to buzz and my feet hit the carpet as I prioritize. No day is the same and there is little room for error. If I forget to pack a lunch, write an excuse note, or buy toilet paper on the way home from the bus stop, everything will be thrown off. The boys are on two different school schedules and keeping track requires a mind capable of last minute recalibrations. Pat for example, who sleeps on the other side of the bed, has probably neglected to tell me about an appointment that can scatter the best-laid plans like an ill wind on a neatly raked pile of leaves.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Which isn’t to say I don’t love him. But I don’t have time for that now.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I pad out to the dark living room and turn on the lamp. This is routine. I flip on the light switch in the kitchen, feed the cat, and walk back into the living room to turn on the computer and check the weather. I look out our bay window, seven stories above a street in West Hollywood. The odd car drives by. A woman walks her dog. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I breathe in. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The top priority today is getting Murphy to the dentist. We lose our health insurance at the end of the month because our union only gives insurance based on income. We didn’t make enough last year to get more coverage. Three months ago, I assigned Pat the task of booking our physicals and dental appointments so we could get everything done before we move to a plan that only kicks in after we have paid an $8500.00 deductible per person. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A gate across the road swings open and a man in a business suit shuts it behind him. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">$8500.00 out of pocket per person. I feel my lips curl. I told a friend that all I would be getting for $450.00 a month was assurance that if one of us got cancer it wouldn’t cost us more than twenty percent after we’d paid off $8500.00. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">She said, “Forget cancer. What if one of you breaks a leg in three places? That adds up fast.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Now I have to worry about our legs being broken in three places.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I breathe in again to soften my belly, which is tightening.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The lady with the dog across the street unlocks the gate that the businessman just passed through.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Of course, Pat didn’t schedule the physicals and dental appointments. It’s not his usual job. He does the bills and the car. I do the appointments and dusting. I allowed six weeks to tick by, waiting and reminding him to make the appointments until I couldn’t stand it anymore and I picked up the phone to do it myself. It took me all of fifteen minutes to nail everything down in a tight, almost triumphant voice that must have confused the office assistants. Then I wrote the appointments on a clean sheet of paper, in jagged handwriting, and smacked the list down in front of Pat at the computer. Proof, you see. Proof that I have to do everything around here.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Except the bills and the car. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And the bathrooms. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I haven’t done a bathroom in twenty-one years. My girlfriends want to know if Pat has a brother.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A truck drives by. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the last month, all four of us have had our physicals and teeth cleanings. Spencer and Murphy are scheduled to see an orthodontist later this week. I just had a pap smear and my mammogram. And Pat and I both had colonoscopies. It’s like we are on a reality show that involves a wacky family health challenge. We would have an excellent chance of winning it too. Except that Murphy ended up having seven cavities. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Can you squeeze his appointments in before the end of the month?” I implored the receptionist, who has known our family for several years. “I’m leaving town in April.” I wasn’t about to tell her that our insurance was running out for fear that she would drop us entirely. “Or what about doing all seven cavities in one sitting? Has anyone ever done that?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The receptionist smiled vaguely and consulted the schedule, “I don’t think an eight-year-old can sit in the chair that long.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I had to stop myself from yelling, “Don’t you have a fucking drug that can knock him out?” Instead, I waited anxiously while she squeezed three appointments into my inexplicably rigid time frame, all of which involved pulling Murphy out of school. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I turn away from the window, breathe again, and walk to the door of the kids’ bedroom. I twist the knob as noiselessly as possible so as not to wake Murphy who can sleep until it’s time to go to the dentist. I reach up to the top bunk and grope around for Spencer’s shoulder. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Spence,” I whisper, “time for school.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“OK,” he croaks. “Is Murphy all right?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“What do you mean?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“He threw up last night.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“What?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Yeah,” I hear Murphy say from the dark on his side of the room.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I wheel around, “You threw up? When?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“It wasn’t a big deal,” says Murphy. I can just make out his blonde curls glowing faintly in the streetlight sliding in through the window. Spencer inches down the ladder behind me.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Spence, why don’t you go into the living room and start getting ready,” I say, without turning to him. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Ummmmph”, he says, which is a preteen affirmative. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I lean down and touch Murphy’s forehead. It is hot. Very hot. Unmistakably hot. He coughs. It is a phlegmy, chesty alarm that trumpets in my brain, “NO DENTIST TODAY!!! Now you are going to have to pay thousands of dollars for dental work because you wanted to test Pat to see if he really was going to be more responsible after the last time he disappointed you!!!”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Honey, can you move to the couch?” I ask Murphy as gently as I can. “You will need to have some medicine.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What am I doing? Why don’t I let him fall back asleep? Because I am still hoping that I can bring down his fever and mask his cough in time for him to see the damn dentist so that I can prove to myself that I am not the most selfish bitch-mother on the planet for making my kids’ health a wedge issue in my marriage. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy sits up, pulls his blanket around him, and swings his legs off the bed. I trail him out the door, his blanket dragging like the cloak of a boy king. A sick boy king. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spencer has already gotten himself some cereal. My throat tightens. I usually do that for him. I quickly remind myself that I need to start letting him do things for himself anyway. He’s a remarkably responsible kid who could probably run a country more efficiently than I manage my writing career. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy crawls onto the couch, adjusting his blanket as I grab medicine from the bathroom cabinet and sit on the coffee table. He watches me pour the gelatinous, cherry flavored elixir up to the right line on the measuring cup. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Hold on, I’ll get you some juice,” I say. He always needs a juice chaser to erase the taste of the medicine as fast as possible. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I jump up and head to the kitchen, hoping that my dark purpose is isn’t showing itself in the quickness of my gait or the sharpness of my speech. My sole mission is to get Murphy well enough to see the dentist today.<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Part 2 will be posted next week.</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBz38j41d_ZAB7Y2kS-cyDcSryXlONNYO29O3h2Pktxx1wX633wC6eNowcop2aLYZ5_-KXFdZIIwThAp3ZGSEO53WtOuCrZZ_nDmIzB1ZFvnY0u1pd3IFU96CeYgxiyFLLbV8qPb558LP/s1600/murhpy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBz38j41d_ZAB7Y2kS-cyDcSryXlONNYO29O3h2Pktxx1wX633wC6eNowcop2aLYZ5_-KXFdZIIwThAp3ZGSEO53WtOuCrZZ_nDmIzB1ZFvnY0u1pd3IFU96CeYgxiyFLLbV8qPb558LP/s400/murhpy.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Murphy, when he isn't sick</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></b></div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-13980992571690362982012-04-10T10:15:00.001-07:002012-04-16T21:25:22.602-07:00On Finding Relief at Ragdale<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Last week I lost my unemployment insurance. Last week, I lost health insurance for my whole family. And, last week, Pat and I declared bankruptcy. Believe me when I tell you that I know that many people have had far worse weeks. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The day of my bankruptcy hearing, I finally allowed my feet to hit the floor at four in the morning. I had been flinging the covers on and off, forcing Pat to roll over, readjusting my pillow, and picking up my glasses to look at the clock for what seemed like hours. The clicking of the analog clock’s seconds evoked images from science fiction movies – the painful slowing down of time before the dreadful, predetermined hour when life as we knew it would be completely destroyed. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It might be worth noting, here, that Pat was clearly going to sleep trough my apocalypse. In fairness, this might be because he’d already been through nights like this with me before. And we had – so far – arisen those following mornings with hearts still beating and no sign that our bodies had been claimed as hosts for a galactic showdown that was not of our making. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Four in the morning is the hour for reckonings. Three o’clock still belongs to the night before. It is a post-party hour or the hour that one wakes up on the couch with the TV still on. But by four you have been to bed. You’ve attempted sleep and failed. You are up alone with no one to lie to. It is pre-dawn and the day is coming whether you like it or not. Four o’clock in the morning most assuredly belongs to tomorrow. Unless there is no tomorrow. In which case, you’ve got a whole host of new problems you haven’t even gotten to yet. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I walked over to the clothes that I had set aside for the bankruptcy hearing. I was hoping to look respectful but not too upscale. The second part of that description would excuse the run-down pumps that I had picked up at a garage sale. Would the judge be looking at my pumps? Or at my sad, worried eyes?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> To be accurate, bankruptcy proceedings aren’t “hearings” or “trials”. By the time you sit in front of a Trustee, you’ve pretty much proved that you haven’t got a thing left but your second hand pumps and a prayer. The trustee takes control of your non-existent assets and BOOM… you’re discharged. With a credit score that looks like the circumference of a single cell organism and, if you’re me, a lot of self-reckoning. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I am a woman who expects to pay her debts. I am a woman who likes to work hard. You can call me in the middle of the night and I will spend an hour listening. I will lend you money if I have it. I will watch your kids at the last minute. I am good for a favor, a pep talk, and a lengthy analysis of which pair of earrings you should buy even if the conversation bores me to distraction. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I have my failings, for sure. But I am not a shirker, a flake, or a no-show. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> And I am bankrupt. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Self-reckonings. Do I deserve a tomorrow?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> A suitcase was next to my worn pumps and the business slacks that I had only worn once before to a funeral. Yes. That afternoon, after my bankruptcy proceedings, I would grab that suitcase and hop on a flight to Chicago, Illinois. I was going to be spending an entire month at a writers’ residency called Ragdale in Lake Forest, Illinois. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Was I running away? From my family? From the bankruptcy and my responsibility for it? That’s what it had felt like days before when I talked to one of my closest friends. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Everybody needs relief,” Stephanie said on Skype. I could see an unusually sunny afternoon in London outside the window behind her. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “But it’s crazy,” I said. “I should stay here and get a job in a furniture store.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Lately, whenever I fantasize about getting a ‘real’ job, it’s always in a furniture store. Part of the reason is because the furniture in our apartment is falling apart and I believe I’ll get some good deals. But it goes deeper than that. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i> furniture. It’s solid. It’s uncomplicated. It’s utilitarian. Furniture is the opposite of a poem. And, because being a writer is a small part of what landed me in bankruptcy, working in a furniture store feels solid. Like a cure. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “But you said, yourself, you’re depleted,” Stephanie said.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “True. But any sane person would tell me to get a job, not run to an artists’ colony to write something that may or may not sell.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Stephanie smoothed her hair back from her forehead, “You’ve always said that you sell the things that you’re passionate about.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I could be passionate about furniture. I could be super-passionate about a red leather club chair and hand-crafted knotty pine bookshelves.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Listen. You’re not going to make that much money at that furniture store but you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could </i>make a lot of money selling a book. I could make the argument that taking the residency is the most fiscally responsible choice you have made in the past ten years.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I loved where this was going. Not only was I being fiscally responsible but I was also getting to spend a month living in a pretty room that looked out onto a prairie, reading novels, and eating gorgeous food that was prepared for me every day. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Stephanie looked skype-straight into my pixeled eyes, “Trust yourself. You know that you need this. You’ll be better in every way. It’s healthy to look for relief.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I have thought a lot about that conversation since I arrived at Ragdale two days ago, relief suffusing my bloodstream like oxygen as soon as I stepped over the threshold of my room. I set up a picture of my two sons on my desk. I look at it whenever I doubt myself. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> There are different kinds of relief. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I came here for artistic mooring. Time and space to listen to my inner voice. Room to distance myself from the expectations of others. I came here to be gentle with myself. To nourish my body and breathe crisp country air. But the main reason I came here, in spite of every practical reason to stay at home, was to save my own life. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> That sounds dramatic, I know. But I believe that our lives need saving over and over and over again. We all get lost. We all fuck up. We fuck up really, really badly. And when I look at that picture of my sons on my desk, I know that I owe it to them to find my way again. And, sadly, I wouldn’t have found it in a furniture store. Although I’d be happy to work there, once I’ve reclaimed what I lost. Or more accurately --- claim who I am now. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Stephanie was right. We all need relief every now and then. And it is our duty to admit when we need it and to accept it when it’s offered. My relief is singularly luxurious and that is why I know – I REALLY KNOW – that people have had far worse weeks than the one I just had. I only hope that their relief comes quickly. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Take it. Use it. And then give it to someone else. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in center 3.0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl4bUZ5BX_p0FsfWzjCSWlEzOuCKUdaISXTuLq6UWbR6gZB4yi7IgxWMIAdSFfiRYPNzQTENic1eSGInprTKP_UTg9x07xnxzXejtnCTHKW0sVcf8FHDoN-KqFYVDUIKdq1R1Ee0OSLCjW/s1600/IMG_1379.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl4bUZ5BX_p0FsfWzjCSWlEzOuCKUdaISXTuLq6UWbR6gZB4yi7IgxWMIAdSFfiRYPNzQTENic1eSGInprTKP_UTg9x07xnxzXejtnCTHKW0sVcf8FHDoN-KqFYVDUIKdq1R1Ee0OSLCjW/s400/IMG_1379.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where I sleep</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JgnIAXjt8K9ed_xJ6Sz4mCHQ6ei7MdwEUHJp2LAlon_H7lcChhHxMzwRVK_NTPb94QHmaex8w-qHr0e-bscKcygsxeSgY39A40v9hq6Q0eMkpxBW3pheiOvFHwYDXrvtDQ2WMUBHgI3Z/s1600/IMG_1378.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JgnIAXjt8K9ed_xJ6Sz4mCHQ6ei7MdwEUHJp2LAlon_H7lcChhHxMzwRVK_NTPb94QHmaex8w-qHr0e-bscKcygsxeSgY39A40v9hq6Q0eMkpxBW3pheiOvFHwYDXrvtDQ2WMUBHgI3Z/s400/IMG_1378.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where I write</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYs8j7C3MfPuCCjD4m0p5QMN-PoRjTuury1j3YbD8sV3kTeWzJJHfUnKQZrDiZaK97vRuqioPaBSOwBKm9Z5JDsEoxpB0-zJLx45dS1DOHSZh5vj9IP_CPm7UR3w8RWakNsgXRK90aYp4D/s1600/IMG_1385.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYs8j7C3MfPuCCjD4m0p5QMN-PoRjTuury1j3YbD8sV3kTeWzJJHfUnKQZrDiZaK97vRuqioPaBSOwBKm9Z5JDsEoxpB0-zJLx45dS1DOHSZh5vj9IP_CPm7UR3w8RWakNsgXRK90aYp4D/s400/IMG_1385.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where I sit and think</td></tr>
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</div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-52058578322453293572012-03-30T10:57:00.000-07:002012-03-30T10:57:59.919-07:00Out of Helplessness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>1297</o:Words> <o:Characters>7394</o:Characters> <o:Company>Mommies Who Drink</o:Company> <o:Lines>61</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>14</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>9080</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I have always been drawn to philosophies and spiritual teachings that emphasize the importance of balance in our lives. Striving for personal equanimity makes perfect sense to me. We should be industrious, but also know when to relax. We should exercise our bodies as well as our minds. We should seek balance between art and science, giving and taking, our heads and our hearts. The Aristotelian ideal of finding the golden mean – the desirable middle between two extremes – is enormously compelling to me. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Because I’m lousy at it. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I can swing between moments of euphoria and total despondency within seconds. Just like my eight-year-old, Murphy. One minute he’s declaring that his new light-up YoYo is “the best invention ever” and the next he’s crumpled on the floor, the broken toy in his hand, howling, “Why? Why? Why?” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes, apparently I have the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old. A couple of Christmases ago, my father asked the whole family to close our eyes and hold hands around the table while we listened to a gorgeous aria that he loved. After a minute or two of reverent, head bowing around the pot roast, I got antsy and felt trapped. I started to giggle and then to sputter and cough when I tried to rein it in. Afterwards, in the kitchen, my mother said through a clenched jaw that she wasn’t surprised at my behavior: “We all know what you’re like Brett.” And she was right. Everyone who knows me knows how hopeless I am at marshalling my emotions. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So how is it that someone like me has made it through the last couple of years?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">After the economic crash, my husband’s and my income has dwindled down to a quarter of what it was. Which meant that we had to drain all of our accounts. We are in the process of declaring bankruptcy, losing our health insurance, and struggling daily to create a sense of normalcy for our two sons. Last summer when the IRS put a lien on our checking account, freezing any remaining money we had, I screamed at my husband that I hated him and I wanted a divorce. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Our economic woes, by the way, are not solely his fault. We both have under-earned and mismanaged our money. But I don’t want to talk about economic foolishness right now. Even though I can. I’m an expert. What I want to talk about is helplessness – that feeling that we cannot control anything, not even the basics, and that we cannot prevent a catastrophe from slamming us into oblivion. How do you prevail over the debilitating feeling of helplessness? And if you’re someone like me, who gets knocked around by their own emotions on a regular day, how do you uncurl yourself from the metaphoric ball you have pulled yourself into under the covers? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">First, you start at the bottom. Since you are there anyway. You remind yourself of what actually DOES work in your life. You’re not going to divorce your husband because despite the stress of the past few years, he still makes you laugh, is a good kisser, and loves you even though he, like your mother, “knows what you’re like.” Your kids are healthy and happy. You enjoy your work (in this case, you’re a writer) and your friends still like you even though they, too, know what you’re like. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Once you’ve remembered that some of your life has worked out pretty damned nicely, you start to make choices. Because I have come to believe that the road from feeling helpless to resourceful, even happy, is made one choice at a time. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When I found myself at my lowest point, I first had to choose to choose. You see, feeling helpless can be very comforting, even luxurious. After all, no one requires anything from someone who is truly helpless. No one asks a newborn to make dinner. There is an abdication of responsibility in adult helplessness that I found deeply attractive and kind of sexy. At times, I had felt like the French Lieutenant’s woman, staring out to sea – the wind flapping my long cape around -- waiting patiently, sexily, for someone to save me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the time, however, feeling helpless was simply boring. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So, for me, there was a point when it became untenable. Unsustainable. And I didn’t have a long cape. What I did have were children who needed me and a marriage that required tending. So the first choice I made was to actually start making choices – which lead to choosing to eat better, exercise, and get more sleep. That made me feel a little more capable, but not that much more. Because nothing had fundamentally shifted. My financial situation certainly hadn’t. The only difference I could point to was being able to fit back into my skinny jeans. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It was clear that what needed to change was my mindset. Surely, if I were a happier, I would be more adept at handling life’s challenges. So I started small and simply. I decided to consciously fill my life with things that I enjoyed and I endeavored to let go of things that made me miserable. Knowing that on a pragmatic level, I couldn’t just let go of paying bills, for example. Which definitely made me miserable. But you get the point. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">When I thought about what made me happy, the list was quite long and very doable. “Breathing” was at the top. I really like to breathe and so I decided to do a lot of breathing in pretty places. In fact, I decided to slow down in a number of ways. Which may sound like helplessness, but is quite the opposite. This was not inertia, but focus. It was attention. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What, I wonder, are the little joys that you could double up on? Or triple up on? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">As long as it’s not vodka. It might be worth considering. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">During this period of time, I also thought about joyful activities that had somehow dropped away when I was pulled into the tide of helplessness. One of those had been reading novels. Somewhere along the line, I had forgotten to read. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I also reclaimed the joy of crying. In my darkest days, I started to believe that if I cried, I might never stop. But you do stop. In fact, in my experience, you stop much faster if you fully invest. Once I started crying again, I felt better. More connected and, strangely enough, more able to feel joy. Sounds a lot like balance. (If you need more crying in your life, I highly recommend seeing bad romantic comedies in the middle of the day. Almost no one is in the theater and you can bawl your eyes out. Anything starring Drew Barrymore or Sarah Jessica Parker will do the trick.)<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And while you’re in the business of choosing to fill up on activities that make you happy, you might choose to let go of some stuff too. I let go of a couple of unsupportive friendships, which was painful but necessary. But I also tried to let go of complaining and blaming. That was even harder. Because complaining can be fun and it’s a group sport. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And blaming had to go because blaming is the battle song of helplessness. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Let me pause here to say that there were days when I was more successful at making these choices than others. But on the days when I slipped up, choosing to forgive myself was awfully powerful. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And here is an almost counterintuitive choice that I made in the midst of making all kinds of choices: When I felt at my worst. When I was spent and felt that I had nothing left to give. I decided to give more. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A friend of mine is a runner and he once told me that when he feels tired and is convinced that he can’t go on, he runs harder. He runs faster. And it gives him more energy to finish his run.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I believe that it’s the same with giving. When you’ve got nothing, give more. It feels good. It connects you to the world. And you find that you have more than you thought you did. Call a friend who is having a hard time. Volunteer. Help someone carry their groceries up the steps. Giving made me feel resourceful. Which is the opposite of helpless. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Your choices might be very different than mine. I know that mine don’t tend to be pragmatic in a worldly sense. And, to that end, my outward circumstances haven’t shifted that dramatically. But I don’t feel helpless anymore. In fact, I feel quite capable. And I certainly feel more balanced than I have in the past – either in good times or in bad. Because making active choices means consciousness. It means refusing to wait passively for fate or an intemperate god to put up a roadblock or toss you a bone. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And what I have discovered is that all of my choices fall under the umbrella of the big question I ask myself every morning when I wake up. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Which is, “Am I going to keep lying here or am I going to get up and participate?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Mary Oliver ends one of her famous poems like this:<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">When it is over, I don’t want to wonder<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If I have made of my life something particular, and real<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Or full of argument.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So for me, the choice – the big choice – is always whether to continue lying on that bed or to get up and walk out the door. To be a part of the world and not just a visitor. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So far, the decision has been easy. Easier than I would have thought.<o:p></o:p></b></div><!--EndFragment--></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-66994877674685512772012-03-08T13:01:00.000-08:002012-03-08T13:01:04.105-08:00Grace in the ICU<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>549</o:Words> <o:Characters>3133</o:Characters> <o:Company>Mommies Who Drink</o:Company> <o:Lines>26</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>6</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>3847</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I spent last week looking for grace in the ICU. I flew out to Denver to sit with my friend, Sarah, while her husband was in critical care following an aortic aneurism. A lot of praying happens in ICU but many of those prayers go unanswered or aren’t answered the way that was hoped. As I sat next to my terrified friend – terrified myself – I listened to a woman beg her father to let her mother go from life support. Across the hall, a woman wailed with anguish when given bad news about her mother. When Sarah was told that her husband’s heart had stopped, I held her shaking body, heaving with grief. Later, when her husband rallied, I felt relief, not grace. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My own definition of grace has changed throughout the years. When I was in my twenties, I thought that I had confirmed the existence of God in a New York City parking lot. Staring out over the rows of cars I allowed myself to imagine a godless world and I felt immediately bereft. The thought was so unbearable that I re-embraced my former God within seconds, and that was that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the spiritual equivalent to finding lost keys – “Oh there He is. Right where I left Him. Good. Life can go on like normal now.” At the time, I thought my parking lot reclamation of God was a moment of revelation and grace. Today I consider it simply a return to habit. A return to what was comfortable. I don’t think that grace is chicken soup for the soul. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now that I’m older, I believe that grace reveals more often to those who are open to it and to those who actively seek it. I have been inspired by friends who look for it through mindfulness and practice. They experience it all the time. The past two years have been very difficult ones for my family and me. As a result, I have had to train myself to wake up every morning and choose hope over despair and grace over cynicism. Sometimes I don’t succeed and I find myself sniping at Pat that we’re huge failures who will never dig ourselves out of our financial mess. Last summer, the IRS put a lien on our bank accounts and I screamed at him, “I hate you. I want a divorce.” Clearly, it wasn’t going to be a good day for grace and me. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But on the days that I manage to actively choose it, I find grace everywhere. Most notably at my dinner table when Pat and I listen to our sons tell stories about their day and the sky outside our living room window turns orange as the sun sinks behind the mountains. This is grace for me, pure and simple. Food and laughter and beauty and love. And Stevie Wonder playing in the background. It is those moments when I am not looking back or looking forward. When I am consciously in the room, connected to everyone there and to the world outside. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have also, by the way, experienced moments of grace and connection when I am completely alone. I recently decided that I was going to learn how to poach an egg and I failed for several days in a row. Then one unremarkable morning, I succeeded and felt completely in tune with the universe. Practice and consciousness had brought me there. That and a capful of white vinegar. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I did finally find grace in the ICU last week -- it wasn’t when Sarah’s husband got his mortal reprieve, although that kind of soaring hope is oxygen for the soul --and I had to look for it. I was sitting in a chair watching my Sarah stroke Rob’s hair. “I love you so, so much,” she said to him. I breathed deep and loosened my fingers that had curled into fists. I felt the back of the chair supporting me. I listened to Sarah say over and over again, “I love you so, so much.” I breathed again and then there was grace. For a moment I felt no separation from Sarah and Rob. In fact, there was no separation between me and the chair and the sun streaming through the window. There was no future and no past. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Just this. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">** <i>Much love and many prayers to Sarah and Rob. </i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><!--EndFragment--></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-91555897071091055442012-03-01T11:32:00.004-08:002012-03-01T11:35:11.061-08:00Free Lunch (Part 2)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><b>After having lunch with my old high school chum and finding out that I was wrong about every prediction I made about her, I came home to process it all with Pat:</b></i><br />
<b><i><br />
</i></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> <b> “She cured AIDS and now she’s going to cure cancer,” I tell Pat, after putting Spence to bed.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> “I thought she was a softball player,” he says.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> “No. That was what I predicted. I predicted that she played softball on the weekends. But she doesn’t. On weekends, she flies to D.C. to fuck a judge.” </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> “Are you leaving something out?” Pat says. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> Pat accuses me of leaving out huge gaps of information when I tell a story. I disagree. My brain just works differently than his. He has a brain that can’t leap over things. My brain jumps around, but in a logical fashion. The things I leave out are the connectors – vital to Pat’s understanding of any narrative. Connectors are boring. They slow me down. Connectors prevent me from leaping over the left lobe, grabbing a thought, and winding up with an epiphany. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> “She’s a lobbyist who works in DC sometimes and her boyfriend is a judge,” I say. The edge in my voice is a sure sign of my annoyance at having to slow down. Now I have to stop and give information. This isn’t what I want to talk about.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> “Ah,” says Pat, “I thought she was gay.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> “Obviously not. Since she has a boyfriend.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> Pat gives me a look I know well. He’s deciding how much further he wants to go with this. He can tell I’m annoyed about something and he’s hoping it has nothing to do with him. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> I flop on the couch, look out our smudged window, and sigh, “I have done absolutely nothing with my life.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> Pat responds with a non-committal, “Ah.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> The window needs to be cleaned. I only notice it at this time of day, when the setting sun hits it at the right angle. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“I can’t even clean my windows,” I say. “I’ve lived here two years and I’ve cleaned them only once.” </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“I see,” says Pat dubiously. I know he doesn’t see. I know he wants to ask what dirty windows have to do with having achieved nothing in my life. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“Do you think I’m completely self-centered?” I ask.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>Pat doesn’t answer. Time passes. I hear the traffic outside and the drip of our leaky faucet in the bathroom. I listen to the drip, drip, drip – as if it’s marking time. All the time I’ve wasted. Drip, drip, drip. Time leaking through the loose seal of my best intentions. Drip, drip, drip.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>Pat’s chair squeaks. I had forgotten, in the vortex of time wasted, that he was here. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“I don’t think you’re any more self-involved than anyone else,” he says carefully.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“Oh God,” I say, “That means ‘yes’. You think I’m completely self-involved.” </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>Pat pushes his chair away from the desk, “I didn’t say that. This is what you do. You twist what I say. I send the words out…” He mimes words floating out of his mouth, “and then you twist them.” He grabs the invisible words with his fists and twists them, like he’s unscrewing something. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“OK. OK,” I say. “Everyone’s self-involved. But shouldn’t I want to be a better person than that?”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“So far, I’ve got that better people cure cancer and have clean windows,” he says.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“I should be doing something,” I say, jumping off the couch. “I should be making something, giving time to a shelter. I should adopt someone” </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“Great,” says Pat, “Go do it. If it’s adopting we may need more of a conference.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>I pace, “I should call a soup kitchen.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“If this means so much to you, why haven’t you done it before?”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“You remember. I’d make a phone call or go to a meeting and then, something would get in the way. I’d get a job. Or, hell, I’d leave the country. I could never stay focused.” I drop to the couch again. “Most of the time, I just forgot. I’d get all geared up and then I’d forget.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“You’d forget to save the world?”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“Right,” I say, feeling the familiar creep of defeat seeping into my bones.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>Pat scoots his desk chair back up the computer and turns on the monitor again, “Sounds like you’ve got a ton of stuff to get through before you save the world.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>I hate Pat. </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b> </b></div><div class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in;"><b> </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-18011084560384476212012-02-22T12:44:00.000-08:002012-02-22T12:50:19.013-08:00Free Lunch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <i>The following is a piece I wrote for More magazine a few years ago about meeting a high school friend for lunch and comparing our post-high school lives...</i> </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I watch people walk through the swinging doors of the restaurant, wondering if I’ll recognize her. I haven’t seen Tracy in twenty-five years so it’s mostly guesswork. What I do remember is her unusually deep voice. I also remember how she peered over the rim of her glasses with a withering stare. And I remember that Tracy seemed comfortable in her own skin which is rare for any high school senior, let alone a man-ish African American lesbian with a ‘fro that added a foot to her height. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> As each person enters, I strain to catch a telling detail in the dark human form that blocks the noon sun. I’ve mistakenly raised my hand twice. Once at a man who turned out to be white. And then at a bearded man who was black, but not Tracy. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat is at home watching our baby, while I sit here in a booth tearing apart a damp beverage napkin. Tracy and I have not spoken or written to each other in two and a half decades, excluding the short e-mail exchange that set our lunch date. A high school friend of mine ran into her at an AIDS benefit and gave me her info. I’m looking forward to seeing Tracy because I love seeing people from my past. I’m infinitely curious about all people. At parties I can sit in a corner with a wallflower for two hours, drawing her out. Occasionally, I’ll get a gem of a story – the wallflower was a homeless junkie, for example, in the 70s. And her face was slashed in a street fight over a quart of orange juice. Her entire face, she’ll say, was reconstructed by a famous surgeon who did pro-bono work on indigents. That was before she met Jerry, she’ll say, pointing to a doughy accountant type. And, she’ll add, her hair is actually a wig because she has that disease that compels her to pull out her hair obsessively strand by strand. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Even more fascinating than the stories of strangers, are the stories of people I once knew. I love to predict how old friends will have changed (or not) before I see them again. I go through my predictions with Pat before the meeting. After the meeting, I run home to Pat to compare my predictions with the real thing. I have lots of time to do this, since I’m largely an at-home mom who’s recently started writing stories in her spare time. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> This morning, I told Pat my predictions about Tracy. I decided that she is probably a science teacher (or doing something sciency, she was a whiz at Chemistry). She probably plays softball on the weekends with twelve women she’s known for twenty years. I predicted that the highlight of her week is the Saturday BBQ/kegger she and her girlfriends attend at a bar with a name that’s something like “Suzie Q”. I predicted that she’s still smart and a little bit eccentric. And I bet Pat that she’ll order the chicken burger.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">More often than not, my predictions are pretty accurate. Though I defy anyone to have known that Dana Havelstrom would become a Mormon. She was a total pothead at school.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So I am driven by curiosity and my love for prognostication. But when I meet people from my past, I also tend to find absolution. Everyone’s bumbling along. It’s possible the old friend has figured out one area of their life, but another quadrant is in shambles. Cherry Simonsen looked like she had the whole package: The successful genius husband, two gifted kids with straight teeth, a side-line repping a graphic artist – and her hair was still glossy and bouncy. After an hour and two martinis, however, she told me that her husband’s addicted to porn and one of her legs is shorter than the other. A fact I never knew about in college. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tracy’s late. I look through dancing dust particles at the shapes of people walking past. I’m pretty sure I’m not looking for a foot-high Afro anymore. But I am looking for a guy-type girl with a bulky plaid shirt and ill-fitting jeans. Which is why I’m confused when a sleek African American woman in a pencil skirt and pumps appears in front of me. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Brett,” she says, in a low drawn-out voice like Tibetan chant.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Tracy,” I say and start to rise before the table slices into my thighs, knocking me back into the banquet. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Don’t’ get up,” she intones, slipping into the other side.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> As she settles, I get a better look at her. It’s Tracy all right. Her hair pressed into a neat bob, no glasses, starched white shirt brilliant against her dark skin. She is now a stunning lipstick lesbian. I wonder if she came directly from a makeover show. Which is somewhat possible since we’re in Hollywood, a stone’s throw from where all the talk shows are shot. As she puts her sunglasses into a stylish case, I glance around for cameras. Maybe we’re being taped for a show called, “High School Buddies, I’m Hot and You’re Not.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I reach up to smooth my hair. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I’m sorry I’m late,” says Tracy. “I’m not used to things on this side of town.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Of course,” I say, wondering what side of town she is used to.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We pick up the menus, exchanging idle chat while we scan. She tells me that she just came from a Saturday morning meeting. I tell her that my son and husband are at home. I wonder what her meeting was for but am afraid that it might be some twelve-steppy thing, so I don’t ask. Recently I asked a new friend what meeting she was coming from and she said, “Narcotics Anonymous.” Feeling the need to be polite about such an admission, I asked a series of invasive questions that ended with, “I heard that crystal meth eats away at the cartilage in your face. How did you manage to keep yours?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“What are you working on now?” I ask Tracy. I figure that this phrasing of the question lends itself to answers that range from “A report for my boss” to “sobriety.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I’m a lobbyist,” she says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “A lobbyist. Wow.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I wonder what she lobbies for? I look at the suit. She’s awfully put-together. Maybe she’s in some really conservative field. It’s not a twelve-steppy meeting she’s coming from; it’s a religious one. She’s repressed her lesbianism and has become a religious-righter or a scientologist or a pro-life zealot who meets on Saturdays to plan abortion clinic bombings. She could be anything. I haven’t seen the woman in a quarter of a century. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I lobby for women’s health issues, especially for more government funding for breast cancer research,” Tracy says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Wow,” I say. “That’s very…important.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Good Lord, I think, here’s someone who’s doing something significant with her life. What’s she going to think when I tell her that I don’t do much of anything? I quickly review all the small donations I’ve made to charity in the last year. Maybe I should bring up the five dinners I buy for the Homeless Shelter downtown every Thanksgiving. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I moved over to Breast Cancer after raising two billion dollars for AIDS research seven years ago. Since that funding significantly led to the creation of several drug cocktails that are proving effective, I thought it would be time to do for breast cancer what I did for AIDS.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Why not?” I say. “When you have a talent…”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I trail off. I stare at my watery Diet Coke. What have a done with my life? I flash on yesterday afternoon when I helped an older woman get up after taking a nasty spill on the sidewalk. I could bring up being a Rape Victim Advocate, but that was ten years ago. I wish I had cured something or gone to Africa to feed a village. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “What have you been doing the last twenty years?” Tracy asks, seeming to be genuinely interested. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Well,” I say, pulling out a standard response that most often connects with your average asker, “I got married and traveled around with a show called ‘The Real Live Brady Bunch’ for a few years.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “’The Brady Bunch?’”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “We re-enacted episodes of the show.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I remember that show.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Right. Well, I played Carol the mom. So, my husband and I did that for a few years,” I say, thinking of something redeeming I can throw in. “I also became a member of the ACLU.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Do you work on any committees?” She asks.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <i>They have committees? I thought they just had a newsletter, which is pretty damn dry. <o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The server appears at our table, “Brett, what a treat to see you during the daytime.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I look up at Claudine who’s been working at this restaurant as long as I’ve been coming. Claudine likes to regale anyone who will listen with her dating disasters. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “You know that guy who was waiting for me at the bar last night?” she asks.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I smile weakly at Tracy who smiles back enigmatically. Either she truly finds slumming it with out-of-work actors charming, or she’s biding her time before she can return home to her life partner (who’s probably an attorney for poverty law) to complain about the shallow, purposeless lives most folks lead. <i> </i><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i> </i>“Um, I’m not sure I saw that guy,” I say to Claudine.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Sure you did. He was the one who was asking all the True or False questions about American Idol.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Oh, him,” I say. “I didn’t notice because I don’t watch reality TV,” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> This is true. I don’t watch that kind of TV. I look to Tracy to see if I’ve scored a point here.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Bo got robbed,” says Tracy.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “No shit,” Claudine says to her. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I watch them dive into an exchange about American Idol. The conversation is animated, and as they prattle on I take this last bit of information about Tracy and try to slide it in with all the rest. Tracy is a high-powered, pump wearing lesbian lobbyist who watches American Idol.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I could still be right about the softball on the weekends. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> After placing orders with Claudine (Tracy orders the Tai wrap instead of the Chicken Burger), we return to our conversation.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “So you did that Brady Bunch show and then you did what?” asks Tracy.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> See here’s the problem with meeting old friends – they invariably ask about you. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And while I’ve been a loving friend, a devoted wife, and good conversationalist, I can’t claim to have accomplished much in my life. The only tangible things I seem to have produced are a child and debt. When I graduated from high school, I intended to change the world. I remember ordering the application for the Peace Corps, but I never got around to filling it out. I started a feminist theatre collective in New York, but after two plays we lost steam. I never had too much interest in making money, so I grabbed enough work to pay the bills and usually quit to travel around Europe for a bit. And I married someone exactly like me. Pat and I haven’t contributed much to the world, but lately I’ve consoled myself with the idea that all that lack of industry means our carbon emissions are low. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I tell Tracy the only thing that I can tell her. I got married, worked around Hollywood for a bit, and had a baby. I resist the urge to flip out one of the twelve pictures of him I carry around. I know that baby pictures bore most sane adults senseless. Also, I have found that showing pictures of your children to childless people invariably leads to them showing you pictures of their dog. Whenever anyone does this to me, I can’t think of anything more interesting to say than, “That’s quite a dog.” To which they almost always say something like, “Doesn’t it look like he’s smiling?” And I never see it. I never see the dog’s smile, or the air of contempt, or wisdom, or sweetness the owner claims to see. I only see a dog. Just a dog. Which is why I know that people who look at my kid pictures see just a kid. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Children sound like a lot of fun,” says Tracy without a trace of irony. “Being a parent gets such a bad rap among my college friends, who are still the women I spend my time with.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “A bad rap?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I don’t think it’s fair really. If you want children I think you should have them.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Thanks,” I say. Although I’m not sure what I’m thanking her for. I’m surprised to find that I’m not remotely offended by any of this. I’m fascinated. Tracy lives in such a different world – one so far removed from nap schedules and play dates -- that I feel like I’ve been given a backstage pass to <i>The People Who Run the Country Show. </i><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Most of my women friends see marriage and parenthood as compromising our promise,” she says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “You made a promise?” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Does she belong to some black lesbianic sorority that extracts the promise from its members that they won’t procreate? That’s so hardcore. I think about all the groups I’ve turned down because of the most benign of rules. Recently, I couldn’t attend the second meeting of a mom group that required bringing snack for the snack table. I was too afraid I’d forget one day and get snubbed. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Our ‘intellectual’ promise. Our ‘creative’ promise,” says Tracy. “We didn’t make and actual promise.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Right,” I say, relieved. “Because that might be illegal.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “What?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Requiring someone to promise that they won’t have kids. It’s a little…” I want to say that it’s a “little Nazi-ish” but I stop myself in the nick of time. Because I do realize that I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about here. I’m sounding like an idiot. I search for an end to my thought, “…to promise that you won’t have kids is a little…a little…”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Tracy jumps in with, “No one’s promised anything, Brett. It’s simply that we were a group of black women at Yale University who were determined to make our mark. Politically and Socially. Most of us have high powered careers now that give us an opportunity to shape the future.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “That’s great,” I say. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “And children,” she says, “family – gets in the way of all that.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Yeah. Kids get in the way of shaping the future. That’s true.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I register the contradiction, but don’t press. She’s talking about something different. I might be shaping the future through my child – by proxy – but what am I doing now? I re-promise myself to sign more e-petitions. <br />
We pause to poke at our food and I mentally scramble for a subject that would change the course of this conversation. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I think I might be writing a book,” I say.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “That’s great, “ says Tracy, putting down her Tai wrap. “I wrote a book a couple of years ago. And I’m thinking of writing another one.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Wow. You wrote a book? Was it published?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Oh, yes,” says Tracy. “And my publisher keeps hounding me for a second.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I’m afraid to ask the title of the book. It’s probably something like <i>Tracy Majors’ Master Work on Curing Cancer, Poverty, the Ozone, and the Common Cold. </i>I hope Tracy doesn’t ask me what my book is about.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “What’s your book about?” she asks.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Oh it’s a nothing little thing,” I say. “It’s just a bitty little project that’s been cooking in my little head about moms and kids. It’s really nothing. I can’t believe I brought it up.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Sounds fun,” She says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Not really,” I say, reflexively, trying to make my work smaller, more minuscule, than the most insignificant thing. Thereby, of course, making myself smaller, more insignificant. It strikes me that Tracy has not pronounced judgment on anything I’ve offered. It’s only been me -- damning myself with every comparison. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Tracy smiles, “In case you want to look up my book, it’s called <i>Lord Hammersmith and the Stranger.”<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I’m sorry. ‘Lord Hammersmith’? Did he discover or cure something?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Tracy laughs, “I don’t think so. I made him up. The book’s a bodice-ripper.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “A bodice-ripper?” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “A historical romance.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Right. Right. A bodice-ripper. I know what that is.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Relief floods me. Tracy wrote a bodice-ripper. She may be curing breast cancer but she wrote a bodice-ripper and she watches American Idol. Tracy is all things. She is a cancer curer, but she also watches bad TV and writes bad books. This is the chink I’ve been looking for, like Cherry’s porn addicted husband. Finding that chink restores my faith in the inherent imperfection of each individual. Thereby making it OK to be me. The wildly imperfect me. I feel equilibrium descend like a benediction. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Later, much later, I will see this scene entirely differently. I will recognize my search for the chink -- my search for absolution -- to be a sedative. A sedative that dulls the desire to carve out a place for myself in the continuum. I will start to understand that finding the chink in someone else’s life, in no way mends my own. I’ll also note that watching bad TV and writing bad books isn’t much of a chink. But self-awareness is a gift time gives us. And right now I’m mourning the loss of time, rather than embracing its benefits.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The sun has moved and no longer pours through the doors as they swing open. In the fading light of the restaurant, in the glow of mutual imperfection, I am grateful hit an easy conversational rhythm with my old friend. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I tell her that Spencer’s fourth tooth just came in. She tells me that she’s meeting with Hilary Clinton about thermal imaging. I tell her that I’ve started taking yoga. She tells me about a new job offer that would require her overseeing fourteen AIDS vaccine-testing sites in Africa. I tell her that we still go to the Midwest at Christmas. She says that molecular science supports the possibility that we will eventually beam ourselves to another location like Captain Kirk. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> She glances at her watch and I think that we’ve been here a long time and she probably has to get back to her girlfriend. Maybe they have a softball game this afternoon. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Tracy glances up from her watch, “I’ve got a flight to DC at four.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I roll my eyes like I know, “Yeah. All that traveling in the lobbying biz.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Not this time,” she says. “This is pleasure. My man and I are going to the Adirondacks for three days.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “You’ve got a man?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “The same one for thirteen years. He’s a judge.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Wow. A judge,” I say, as I watch Tracy give a gold credit card to Claudine. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I’ll get it,” she says. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I don’t fight her for the check. Usually I would, but things have been tight. And Pat will be happy it’s a free lunch. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Next week -- I process the lunch with Pat. </i></b></div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-12153739470617838952012-02-07T14:22:00.001-08:002012-03-16T16:32:38.829-07:00When an Egg Wants to be Poached<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Several years ago, I faced the truth. I was a hopeless failure at cooking. Perhaps I was too lazy. Maybe I lacked native talent. But what really sealed my fate was my inability to follow directions. When faced with instructions or applications of any kind, I melt down. I start to hyperventilate when the cashier at the grocery store hands me a rewards card application to fill out. I’ve been known to giggle and cry over a simple schematic of a battery charger. I perceive instructions as a test that I have already failed before I even begin. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So imagine my delight when I got a book called, <u>An Everlasting Meal</u> by Tamar Adler from a friend this Christmas. Instead of giving tons of recipes with ingredients I’ve never heard of, the book shares a global philosophy of cooking – one in which every bit of food is used for something (don’t throw out those broccoli ends, they want to be boiled in soup!) and anyone can cook a meal if they can boil water. In fact, the first chapter is titled “How to Boil Water”. Finally! A book that doesn’t presuppose that I know how to boil water. Because I don’t. Didn’t – before I read the book, that is. How, for example, was I to know that water always wants to be salted? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In the book, the food is always telling Tamar what it wants. Most often it wants to be drizzled in olive oil. Which I consider a bit of a no brainer, since I could probably wolf down a bottle cap if it was drizzled in olive oil, especially if it was nestled on a cracker and topped with shaved cheese. Tamar likes to shave a “hard cheese” over things that are already drizzled. That said, she does seem to get more surprising demands from her food. And, quite often, the food tells her that it wants to be the center of attention. Especially Mayonnaise who, apparently, has felt much maligned for years. Also – who knew – eggs confess that they love turning light fare into an entire meal. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Tamar’s enchanting prose and her anthropomorphization of food makes me feel like I’ve fallen down Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole. Now, instead of the kitchen seeming like scorched earth where nothing survives, it’s a magical place where food talks and boiling water is an art form. AND I don’t need instructions, just common sense and sensitivity toward my food.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">First off, I boiled and salted water for a few days tasting it at different temperatures. Tamar writes that Julia Child recommended that cooks do this to get used to the different tastes of water. I couldn’t tell any difference in taste really, but I did develop a love for boiling. For days, I boiled, salted, and tasted while wearing a cute checkered apron that I bought just for the purpose. I felt very continental. The kids would implore me to help with their homework, and I would have to tell them, “Not now, sweeties, I’m boiling water and you know that it doesn’t want to be left alone.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Once I mastered the boiling, I advanced to slipping the vegetables into the water – not plopping them violently, because they don’t want that. According to Tamar, most vegetables don’t want to sit in each other’s water either, but you should still save it for your pasta. I boiled some carrots and then used the carrot water for spaghetti. I couldn’t taste the carrots on the spaghetti but simply knowing that there was a tinge of carrot essence on my pasta made me feel like a roaring success. Already, I was blending different tastes from different food families. Without, I remind you, following a single recipe. I simply boiled, salted, gently eased the carrots into the water, removed them with a slotted spoon and then added spaghetti to the carrot water. Tamar loves the slotted spoon, by the way. It’s gentle on your vegetables and it doesn’t waste any pre-boiled salted and flavored water. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The second chapter is on eggs and I was surprised to discover how much I’ve underestimated them all these years. Place an egg drizzled in oil on top of anything and you have jazz. This excited me to no end because in all of my domestic endeavors, I am searching for that little detail that will make something look fantastic but will require virtually no effort on my part. Tamar claims that a hard-boiled egg can do the trick. But I wanted something a little fancier. Something that could fool potential dinner guests into thinking that I know what I’m doing. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Enter the elegant, deceptively simple poached egg. My pulse quickened as Tamar described easing a poached egg on the top of an ordinary salad (drizzling it, of course) and it then becoming part of the salad dressing when the yolk was broken. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Genius. Fucking genius. I could throw (not “throw”, sorry “rest”)…I could <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rest</i> a poached egg on top of pretty much anything and make it sing. According to Tamar, poaching an egg was simple. All I had to do was simmer my salted water in a pot, add some vinegar, and slide my egg into it from a cup. In about four minutes, the egg would be done and it would want to come out. I would ease my slotted spoon under it, raise it from the simmering water, and rest it on my salad or rice or pasta or toast. I envisioned myself mastering the poached egg so well that I could spontaneously invite someone over for lunch. No matter how slim the available fare in my refrigerator might be, I would add that poached egg and dazzle my friend. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I tied my apron around my waist, turned the dial on the radio to a classical station, and set to work. I laid out the pan, the vinegar, the salt, two eggs, drizzling oil, the slotted spoon, and the paper towel that would absorb water from the perfect eggs before they enhanced my prepared arugula salad. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Ten minutes later, the kitchen looked like I had tried to poach my egg in the eye of a tornado. Pools of water had collected all over the linoleum floor. Pans were strewn over the counter and even the floor. Salad fixings had scattered. The window that I had opened when the smoke detector went off let in a cold wind that rustled the unfurled roll of paper towels festooning the disaster area. The radio emitted only static and I could hear my children yelling from the living room – was it safe to move around the apartment now?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Leaning against the sink, I brushed my vinegar soaked bangs out of my eyes with the back of my hand. Even two weeks later, I would be unable to piece together the sequence of events that led to the devastation. I do know that very early on my eggs didn’t want to float; instead they wanted to adhere to the bottom of the pan like it was their only safe haven. No amount of nudging, prodding, or finally chipping, could pry them loose. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">This setback did not, however, dissuade me from my poached egg fantasy. For several mornings in a row, I would shuffle the children off to school and return to my kitchen (The boys had made it clear that they didn’t want to be around during future attempts to poach). Like Kierkegaard’s Knight of Infinite Faith, I went through the same steps, believing that today would be the day. And every failure only stiffened my resolve. On the third day, I had to throw out my best pan when I couldn’t remove the layer of burnt egg whites hardened on the bottom of it. I bought more scouring powder and moved onto another pan, then another. I reread the egg chapter and looked up poaching eggs on Youtube. Again, the Youtube man made it look so simple. He promised that if I did everything the way he did, I’d have a goddamned poached fucking egg. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A week and a half in, I bought a non-stick pan and turned a corner. The egg still wanted desperately to stick – but it couldn’t. VICTORY! <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Small </i>victory. I still broke the yolk sending a ribbon of hardening yellow goo into my simmering vinegar water. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The day that I poached my first egg started out just like the others. There was nothing overtly remarkable about it. Certainly nothing that portended my greatest domestic achievement ever -- even besting that golden week in August of 1997 when I replaced a plug on the hall lamp, patched a pair of Pat’s jeans, and harvested basil from the plant I had grown from seedlings. The sky outside the kitchen window was overcast without rainbows or shafts of light touching the earth. When I retrieved the egg from the refrigerator it was as cold to the touch as those that had gone before. The classical station on the radio played at the same volume as it had for weeks. And the music was not interrupted by news of a mysterious meteor whizzing past us in space. Yes, it was a day like all the others.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Except for the result of my solitary endeavor. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Perhaps I let the water simmer longer than I had before. Maybe I added more vinegar. Or maybe, just maybe, it was simply my turn in the long line of seekers yearning for greatness. We know many of their names: Marie Curie, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Mike Nesmith’s mother. But there are others in that line whose names we don’t know. I was one of those. A domestic warrior who had finally, finally, finally had her day. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I eased the poached egg onto my salad, drizzled it with just the right amount of olive oil, and sat down to eat. <o:p></o:p></b></div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-39632292242484927562012-01-26T10:06:00.000-08:002012-02-01T09:44:56.799-08:00Mom Goes to Sex Ed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> A fellow parent at the school bus stop had me worried. He told me that he was ridiculed when he was in sixth grade because he didn’t know much about sex and that he never got over the humiliation. Pat had imparted the basics to our then ten year old, Spencer, earlier that year on a vision quest type of camping trip that Spencer thought was perfect except for that conversation Daddy insisted on having. A conversation that, he contended, they could have easily had at home, leaving the camping experience unsullied by words like “erection” and “insert”. Words and concepts that embarrassed him deeply. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Walking home from the bus stop that morning, I thought about how sensitive Spencer was and about how much he still didn’t know. Such ignorance would make him vulnerable to the same teasing that haunted my bus stop friend. Spencer had a sharp mind but the heart of an innocent who still rotated which stuffed animal he slept with so that none of their feelings got hurt. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What was an interfering, over-protective, over-identifying with her son’s every wince, parent like me supposed to do? Hand him dry tracts from the doctor’s office and quiz him later? Press him into more mortifying conversations with Daddy and Mommy about blowjobs and wet dreams? Write him a detailed letter? Come on, I told myself, I might be over-protective but I was also worldly and hip. There had to be a worldly and hip solution. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> As it turns out, there was. My lefty-you-can-even-be-an-atheist-and-feel-connected-to-each-other-and-the-universe Unitarian Church was offering a ten-week everything-is-natural-and-we-should-love-our-bodies sexuality course to fifth graders. Feeling very progressive, I signed Spencer up at the Education table at church. Grasping the enrollment materials to my chest, I felt not only hip, but excited about sharing this journey with Spencer. I imagined soulful talks about his feelings for girls – or boys, who knew? He would be able to confide in me and I would tell him reassuring stories about my own adolescence. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What struck me the most at the parents’ orientation meeting was how important it was for the teachers to tell us about how much they had already heard and seen. I suspect that they simply wanted to reassure us that our children were in capable hands. But their protestations only made me wonder, what on earth had they heard and seen that compelled them to repeat it so often? And was there, perhaps, something I could learn here?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Our kids were meeting in another room while the adults sat on folding chairs facing Sue, a tall round woman with no make-up and an aggressive manner that evinced a “scared straight” team leader or a charmless Dr. Phil. She was of indeterminate gender persuasion and she went on to display not a scintilla of irony whatsoever throughout the entire afternoon. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “A lot of the stuff we’re going to be talking about with your kids in these classes is UNCOMFORABLE people. You better get used to it. Because TRUST ME these kids have ALREADY heard and seen it ALL,” she said, parking a big pad of paper on an easel next to her. She picked up a sharpie and wrote, ‘Twat’ on the pad then turned to eyeball us each individually. “Does this make any of you UNCOMFORTABLE?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I looked around at my fellow parents. It was a mixed bunch of touchy feely liberals who routinely protested about education cuts, about half of whom probably still smoked pot. We all shook our heads, no. The written word ‘twat’ didn’t make us feel remotely uncomfortable. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “How about this word?” Sue said, turning her back to us and obscuring the pad for a second. Then she stood back dramatically to reveal the word, ‘Schlong’. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Nah. That didn’t seem to make anyone uncomfortable either.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “It’s OK to feel UNCOMFORTABLE,” Sue went on. “When I first started teaching this stuff, I was uncomfortable. But now, nothing surprises me. Because I HAVE HEARD AND SEEN IT ALL. Any questions?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Nope. No questions. It all seemed perfectly clear. She’d seen a lot and she was going to teach it to our children. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “OK, people,” she said after an awkward pause -- the lack of response was like that moment when the entire table of dinner guests refuses seconds, clearly indicating the presence of a culinary bomb. “We’re gonna learn something here. I’m splitting you up into three groups.” She expertly had us count off. “The first group is ‘vagina’. You’re over here,” she pointed. “Group 2 is ‘penis’. You’re over here. And ‘sexual intercourse’ is over here.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> She quickly explained that each group was to devise a list of slang words for their assigned correct sexual term. I was excited about landing in the vagina group because I could already think of nine slang terms without even straining. We started slowly, but picked up speed, yelling out profanities to an Asian woman who had remarkably neat handwriting. By the time we had exhausted the biggies, we were reduced to ‘na na’,’cha cha’, and ‘vajayjay’. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Finally the ‘vagina’ group paused and the Asian woman said, “Anything else?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Tool!” I heard from the ‘penis’ group. The ‘sexual intercourse’ group looked finished. No pun intended.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The vaginas looked at each other. “Meatwallet?” offered a young mom in braids.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Meatwallet,” repeated the Asian woman, neatly writing it at the end of the list.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> When we were satisfied with our lists, Sue gathered us together and asked each group to chant the words on the list. I wasn’t sure where this was all going, but I’ve always liked chanting. The vaginas took a breath and started, “Pussy, clit, snatch…” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> After which the other groups dutifully chanted their obscenities. The penises seemed the most boisterous lot, possibly because they had more men. And I was glad that I hadn’t been stuck with sexual intercourse. They only had about five predictable words, which made you wonder what kind of company they would be at a cocktail party. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “NOW,” said Sue, winding it all up. “Did any of THAT make you feel uncomfortable?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We all looked at each other and shrugged. No. Not really. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Then a sandy-haired woman raised her hand.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “YUP. YOU,” Sue barked.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The sandy-haired woman lowered her hand and said, “I wish I hadn’t heard ‘meat wallet’.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Typical, I thought. She was ‘sexual intercourse’ and obviously hadn’t even heard of ‘give it the business’. Come on.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The sandy haired woman continued, “’Meat wallet’. I mean it doesn’t even make sense.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Well, GET USED TO IT,” Sue said to the sandy-haired woman. “Because your kids…” She trailed off and scanned the room to bring it all home, “HAVE HEARD IT ALL, PEOPLE! And now that you’ve heard it here, you’ll be able to talk to your kid without being UNCOMFORTABLE.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Ah hah, I thought. That was all a desensitizing exercise. Now, if Spencer came home and talked about a meat wallet, I would be able to maintain a placid demeanor, rather than saying, “What the hell is a meat wallet?” and derailing any more constructive conversation I could be having with my preteen. This was good – all paving the way for those soulful connections that Spencer and I would be making.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Having made her macro point, Sue quickly wound up with some housekeeping about forms and attendance. She encouraged us to help ourselves to some cookies before joining our kids, who had been going through similar exercises, downstairs. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Spencer was bouncing around like nothing was new when I walked in. Chairs were arranged in a big circle and it looked like the kids had just finished up a session with a man who looked a lot like Sue, but wasn’t. He quickly yielded the floor to Sue who created a gap in the circle for her easel and planted it. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Parents, I want you to find a seat next to your kid!” she yelled over the din of unfocussed preteen excitement. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I claimed a chair, eyeballed Spencer, and patted the chair next to me. Spence whapped a kid companionably on the shoulder as if to say, “OK, gotta do this thing,” and settled next to me. I resisted the urge to pat his knee, but settled back in my chair enjoying the familiar feel of him next to me. Even without looking at him, I knew it was him and no one else. After all, he was mine. Mine from birth. Mine and no one else’s in this room. And now we were about to share something profound together. I shifted in the chair, excited to do whatever exercise Sue threw at us. I happen to love manufactured bonding moments. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “OK,” said Sue, “Parents sit this one out.” My chest deflated somewhat, but I was still thrilled to be sitting at this important event with my son. Sue flipped her pad of paper to a clean sheet. “So kids. You’ve already heard that we’re going to be sharing a lot of personal stuff in this course. Stuff that might even make you feel UNCOMFORTABLE. Can any of you think of any reasons why you might NOT want to share stuff with your group of peers?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Spencer’s hand shot up. I smiled reflexively. He was engaged already. Clearly, he was going to flourish in this environment. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “You might feel embarrassed,” he offered.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “RIGHT,” barked Sue. She wrote ‘EMBARRASSED’ on the page. You might feel embarrassed to share your feelings. Adults – have any of you ever felt embarrassed?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I threw my hand up. God yes. I felt embarrassed daily. Was she going to ask me to tell a story? Sue scanned the room and I followed her gaze. Every parent had a hand raised. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “See, kids. Everyone has felt embarrassed,” Sue said, circling the word. “Even adults. You can put your hands down now.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I put my hand down. Was that it? No one was going to share more? Surely it would help Spencer, and the rest of the kids, to hear my story of getting a period stain on my white jeans in seventh grade.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Now kids. What’s another reason you might not want to share your personal feelings in a group like this?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> A girl raised her hand tentatively, “We might be nervous.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Of course,” affirmed Sue, writing it down. “You might be nervous.” Then she asked the parents if they had ever felt nervous. We all raised our hands. Oooh. I could tell countless stories of nerve-wracking job interviews, but Sue didn’t ask any of us to elaborate. I get it, I grumped to myself, it’s not about the parents; it’s about the kids.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Sue petitioned the kids again, “Anyone have another reason why you might not want to share your feelings with this whole group?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I looked around. No hands. Seriously? That was all they had?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Adults and kids looked at each other. Were we done here?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Finally a kid raised his hand and Sue pointed, “YOU. What’s another reason you might not be able to share your feelings here?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The kid shifted and said quietly, “Physical injury?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> What? I glanced at Spencer who smiled slightly and shrugged.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Sue repeated to the boy, “Physical injury?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Yeah,” said the kid like it was perfectly obvious.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Sue stood staring at the kid, betraying that she hadn’t exactly seen and heard everything. This was a new one. Did he mean that someone in a wheelchair, for example, might not be able to get into the room to share? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I shot a look at Spencer again. He pressed his knee against my thigh. I pressed back. We both looked at Sue but kept knee and thigh pressed tight against each other, sharing the beautiful, comic awkwardness of the moment. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “All right. Physical injury,” Sue finally said. Spencer and I released the tension in our legs. Sue wrote “Physical Injury” down on her pad. “Let’s review. Reasons why you might not be able to share your feelings with each other in this room.” She pointed to the first. “Embarrassment.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I smiled at Spencer’s word being the first. Sue pointed to the second, “You might be ‘nervous’.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I glanced at the timid girl.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Or,” said Sue, pointing to ‘Physical Injury’ and staring for a moment. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Or,” she repeated, then rallied: “Your mouth might not work.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Involuntarily, I turned to look at Spencer. Had he heard, what I heard? Sue hilariously wanting to make the suggestion work? Even though she didn’t understand it? A moment so incredibly absurd and beautiful at the same time?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Spencer’s expression answered mine. Yes. He had heard it too. Yes it was absurd. Yes it was sweet and true. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Later, on the walk home, we reviewed the scene and laughed about the awkwardness hanging in the room. Every parent so eager and proud. The kids all wanting to belong and impress. Sue handling it all, I saw now, with such bravura that the children immediately trusted her. And the boy, so sure of his enigmatic answer. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I grabbed Spencer’s hand to cross a street. We might not have shared what I had hoped, I thought. We hadn’t imparted meaningful confidences about this prepubescent rite of passage, his beginning and mine long over. But we had shared a compatible view of the world as both ridiculous and achingly lovely. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We got to the curb on the other side and I let go of his hand.<o:p></o:p></b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg41SVuyLAb8MG3PJ1l0NYBeabruPwdTgT_KyLs9Jt8LU3GizrM4RZ5H7nZv7OVn_YY9xlw_vTTXUYzB8FQfKtTz-3WVZgXRnZYgx1PsMnbLi2iEc4Ng_uqc6m-t8RrsDj171ou2aePMGp/s1600/Spencer+and+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg41SVuyLAb8MG3PJ1l0NYBeabruPwdTgT_KyLs9Jt8LU3GizrM4RZ5H7nZv7OVn_YY9xlw_vTTXUYzB8FQfKtTz-3WVZgXRnZYgx1PsMnbLi2iEc4Ng_uqc6m-t8RrsDj171ou2aePMGp/s640/Spencer+and+me.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Cathy Mathews</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
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</div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-61650856173717613972012-01-17T13:58:00.000-08:002012-01-17T13:58:47.416-08:00Brett Paesel writes a Fictional Blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_126a25df-08c2-4ff1-92a1-359904f0ff14"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_31210fd9-d63f-45a6-8866-475805a06b33"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_7bbd8fd3-7941-44e2-97f3-b822198f4b2e"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_5634e024-8d35-48a3-a4e1-107d4697cde1"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><div id="AOLMsgPart_1_e9eea333-676b-41d1-afd6-08cd99bf07a8"><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Meagan McPhee is a fictional character, created by Brett Paesel. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Meagan will be posting on her site every Monday from her desk at First Lutheran Church in Evanston, Ill. Join her every week as she creates a new life for herself and her son after her divorce</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13pt;"></span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #0024f4;"><a href="http://meaganmcpheead.wordpress.com/" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13pt; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">http://meaganmcpheead.wordpress.com/</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">)</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">The first blog starts out:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">"The upside of being divorced at age thirty-seven and supporting yourself and a kid is that you hardly give a crap about anything anymore. The word “hardly” is important here. Because just when you’re sure you’ve abandoned all feeling about what people think about you or say about you or promise-and-don’t-deliver to you, a teenage grocery store checker says you look tired on a Saturday morning and you burst into tears, drop the bottle of vodka you were buying for Bloody Mary’s and run out to the parking lot, choking on snot and obscenities until your best friend, Diane, pulls the car around to load you in like a wounded dog. We’ve all had moments like that. But, really (apart from these lapses) once you’re divorced and on your own, you care a whole lot less than you did before."</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Read more at Meagan McPhee AD (After Divorce): </span></i></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://meaganmcpheead.wordpress.com/" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0024f4; font-size: 13pt;">http://meaganmcpheead.wordpress.com/</span></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 26pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;">Sign up on Meagan's site, to receive weekly e-mail alerts when Meagan has posted a new blog. And share, share, share. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
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</span></b></div></span></div></div></span></div></div></span></div></div></span></div></div></span></div></div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-52562945365819685062012-01-12T11:40:00.000-08:002012-01-13T06:14:50.831-08:00The Christmas Loan -- Part Three (After the Loan)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b><i>It was January of 2010. Over our Christmas vacation in Madison, my parents lent us a thousand dollars to float us through the New Year. With that, we managed to pay our rent and some bills. Then, we returned to Los Angeles and waited for a large check that was due to me for work I had completed a couple of months before. </i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">As soon as the door to our apartment swings open, the boys race past us into their bedroom. Pat and I yank our suitcases into the hallway, making adjustments around each other on the slippery area rug. My suitcase falls over and I pick it up again, leaning it against a broken chair that is still waiting to be hauled down to its final resting place next to the trash bins in the basement. The chair is only one of the mocking markers of unaccomplished domestic tasks that litter our abode like vandalized tombstones. There is the vacuum cleaner without a handle, another chair with stuffing hanging out of its seat, the broken laptop under the desk, and the large rug (dotted with worn beige patches) that never lived up to its indoor/outdoor promise. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Before we left for Madison, we hired a kid downstairs to watch the cat for twenty-five dollars. At the time it seemed like a steal for two-weeks worth of feeding and litter-cleaning. Now that I survey the soft white hair that floats over everything like a spun sugar confection, I think that I should have gotten more bang for my buck. Would it have hurt the kid to have brushed the dining table a few times? Didn’t he notice that the living room was beginning to look like a scene from a gothic novel? I wouldn’t be surprised to find a skeleton lying in our bedroom next to a withered rose. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My scan of the room stops at the tree next to our entertainment center. It has been in critical condition for years, dropping big brown leaves to the floor at regular intervals. But every time I have given up hope, a green shoot has peeked out from the dry soil in its pot or a leaf will raise itself up when I toss it a dram of water from my glass. This time, however, its mortality is not in question. I cannot discern a speck of green, fallen brown leaves surround the pot, and it lists to one side at a forty-five degree angle. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I hear the kids pulling toys from their places of temporary retirement in their bedroom.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Whatever you take out, you will have to put back,” I yell to them, my voice betraying more irritation than I intended. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat grabs our stack of mail from the dresser, swipes dust and fluff off the top envelope, and plops down on the couch. I watch the debris swirl in the sunlight that streams through a gap in our closed blinds. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“You’re going to have cat hair on your ass,” I say to Pat.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I’ll live,” he says, tossing a couple of envelopes on the coffee table. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My stomach is tight, but I shrug like I don’t care. I am struggling to resist the urge to start cleaning and then scream at the children and Pat that they aren’t doing enough. This is my pattern and Pat knows it. The impulse is born from my need to control the uncontrollable. Cleaning the house won’t make my check from the studio come any faster. Vacuuming the fur off the rugs won’t pay my parents back their loan any more efficiently. But creating the illusion of domestic order will calm my spirit. At least that’s what I think. Pat disagrees. He claims that the impulse is born from a need to make everyone else to feel my discomfort and resentment as keenly as I do. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat throws the rest of the stack of mail on the coffee table.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Let’s go out to dinner,” He says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A slight gasp escapes me. We have barely a hundred dollars left in the bank. Dinner would clean us out. Usually Pat is the one to point out the fiscal impossibility of any proposed venture outside the home, not me. I glance at him. He smiles back at me innocently. I feel a flutter in my chest. I like the way Pat’s hair is flopped over one eye. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“We don’t have the money,” I say because it should be said. But I want to go out to dinner. I really, really do. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Your check will come in a couple of days,” Pat says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I guess…” I say, playacting now. This is my opportunity to abdicate responsibility for a foolish choice. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Dinner?” Spencer’s head pokes out of his bedroom doorway.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“We’re talking about it,” I say.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“We’re going out to dinner,” Pat says and stands up. He looks tall to me -- standing there, making decisions. I feel an unbidden smile steal across my face. I’m sure that my eyes are sparkling.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Kids,” Pat yells over his shoulder, “grab your sweatshirts, we’re going to Fiddler’s.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I can hear the kids whoop like they’ve won something. Drawers are being opened and slammed shut in their room. Fiddler’s is a family friendly restaurant down the street and they know that they will be given free gumi bears after our meal. The boys run into the living room, pulling sweatshirts over their heads. I grab my jacket. Pat strides to the door with a white fluff of hair on his ass. We tumble into the hallway, giggling like kids ditching school. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Outside the air is crisp but nothing like the cold in Madison. I breathe it in, fill up my lungs, and skip to keep up with Pat. The boys jog ahead of us. I no longer feel like the penniless mother with a cat haired living room to clean and a skeleton in my bed. I am free from domestic constraints, free from the judgment of my family in Madison, and free from self-punishing thoughts about how we got into this mess in the first place. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I grab Pat’s hand at the crosswalk and glance at him sideways. His hand is alive in mine, tightening and relaxing. He feels it too, I think. This is rebellion plain and simple. We’ll regret having spent the money tomorrow. But today? Today we’re living fast and dying young. Spencer reaches the door of the restaurant first and flings it open. Murphy slips in behind him. I squeeze Pat’s hand. We have shared moments like this before, watching our children filled with such confidence and complete surety that the world cares about them. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Inside Fiddler’s there is nothing to indicate that the boys’ confidence is misplaced. The staff clucks over them, asking about their Christmas vacation and Pat and I slide into our favorite spot on a banquette. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I’m going to eat all the green ones first,” Murphy says about the gumi bears.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“The red ones are sweeter,” Spencer says, pulling out his chair opposite Pat and me. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“That’s why I like the green ones. I like some sour in mine,” says Murphy.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The waitress comes over to our table. She’s been working at Fiddler’s since I started coming here six years ago. Her accent sounds Eastern European and she always seems to be in a good mood. I wonder if this is because she’s continually grateful that she’s not back where she came from. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“We’re talking about our gumi bears,” Murphy tells her.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“What gumi bears?” the waitress asks in a teasing tone, her eyes mock wide with innocence.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“The ones you always give us,” says Spencer.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Oh those,” she says. “We don’t give those any more. Now we give out green beans.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Murphy’s face drops, but Spencer says, “OK. Then show us the green beans.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“They’re in the kitchen,” she says. “I only bring them out after you’ve eaten your dinner.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“That doesn’t make sense,” says Spencer. “It’s not like green beans are a reward.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Right,” says Murphy. I’m not sure if he’s following Spencer’s logic, but he has infinite faith in Spencer’s brain. Spencer speaks with such a tone of academic authority that younger and impressionable kids simply assume that he’s right. I wish I had this gift. My voice betrays my every emotion and I rarely run on empty. I worry that the quaver of passion in my lower register is sometimes scary. I’ve sensed hesitance from even casual listeners.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Well, we’ll see,” says the waitress, rolling her l’s and her eyes.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“That’s right,” says Spencer. “We’ll see.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">He and the waitress smile at each other, the game played out.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Two chocolate milks, a diet coke, and wine, right?” she says, turning to Pat and me, anticipating our order.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I nod, “Red wine, please. It’s chilly out.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“This?!” she says. “It’s California. Please. It’s never cold.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I feel my face flush, imagining her frozen tundra of a homeland. She is, of course, right. California is always warm compared to any spot that experiences an actual winter. What is more, I tell myself, any family who can skip down the street for dinner is living large in comparison to the vast majority of the global population. I know this to be true. I’ve always known it. But I know it in abstraction. I know that I know it in abstraction. How, I wonder, do I make that abstraction, concrete? How do I tunnel through my fear to find gratitude? Not the kind of gratitude you find expressed on greeting cards but the kind that is transformative and indelible. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pat’s shoulder is warm against mine as I look out the window at the orange sun dipping behind our apartment building. <o:p></o:p></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH49TTJpbStQRSzLFlb5ivU3gypvd6pJOK9YpusotFvE-tMSnedbv-VPi-8jc9STZy4Kbxtd5GDpQ6MhBeZEraD8OT2O6c5-V56uqOYjhlah2T18AyDNpiVZhZ-4Kvl-Feuz8-Qw7EW8SM/s1600/IMG_0609.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH49TTJpbStQRSzLFlb5ivU3gypvd6pJOK9YpusotFvE-tMSnedbv-VPi-8jc9STZy4Kbxtd5GDpQ6MhBeZEraD8OT2O6c5-V56uqOYjhlah2T18AyDNpiVZhZ-4Kvl-Feuz8-Qw7EW8SM/s640/IMG_0609.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sun over our apartment complex</td></tr>
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</b></div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-45212441968218912992012-01-04T10:37:00.000-08:002012-01-05T19:08:58.250-08:00The Christmas Loan -- Part Two (To Take is to Give)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">My mother’s father quit school after sixth grade to support his family after his father and brother drowned in a lake. Later, he married a beautiful Swedish girl, started a family, and moved into a small two-bedroom apartment on the south side of Chicago. He was a streetcar conductor who woke up at four in the morning, six days a week, to head to work downtown. My mother slept in the living room on a pullout couch that she shared with her sister until she left for college. Her other sister shared a bed and bedroom with her aunt who sang hymns almost constantly and was dying a slow death from untreated breast cancer. All three sisters grew up knowing the price of everything and distrusting credit or a deal that sounded too good to be true. I doubt that any of them ever bought a lottery ticket. No one, they firmly believed, ever got anything for nothing. Frugality was inbred, carved into their DNA. Born in America, their faces were cast by the land their grandparents came from. Cheekbones like bluffs and ice blue eyes. Andersens, Johnsens, Lundquists. The sisters grew up knowing that having enough money meant that they would never have to ask for anything. And if a Swede can die without ever having asked for one goddamned thing, that’s one successful Swede. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The house in Madison is always cold. My mother says that heat makes you soft, which may be what she’s thinking when she says that I have become, “so California.” It is true. I am soft, softer than my mother. Although her core radiates heat and love so fierce that it embarrasses her. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> She sits at the table in the kitchen, with her calendar. For as long as I can remember, my mother has filled in the squares of a monthly calendar with family comings and goings, along with deadlines for art contests she wants to enter. In the morning, she consults her calendar, adds anything that’s new, and then writes down a schedule for that day, even scheduling her breaks. She does this, she says, to give shape to her day. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I grab a coffee mug from the cabinet and walk behind her to get a tea bag from the shelf next to the oven. I look over her shoulder to glance at her schedule. Aha. She’s having coffee until she dusts the living room at ten. My pulse quickens. This might be the best moment to ask her. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Where are Erik and Shona?” I ask. If my brother and sister-in-law are around and might interrupt, I should put it off. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “They took Kiran to the lake. They wanted to get pictures of him in the snow.” She lifts her head from her calendar and looks out at the lake, “Where did Spencer and Murph go?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Pat took them to the library.” I fill my mug with water and pop it in the microwave, “Where’s Du?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “He’s not upstairs?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I set the timer and the microwave hums, “I didn’t see him.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> My mother shrugs, “I don’t know where he is.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> My father’s comings and goings are puzzling to us all. He disappears and appears without announcing his departure or arrival. Later this afternoon, he will materialize in his rocking chair, reading the newspaper without a word said.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The microwave bings and I open the door to retrieve my mug of tea. My mind scrambles for something to talk about. I don’t want to simply blurt out a request for a loan. If it leaps out with no preamble, I’ll seem desperate. Of course, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">am </i>desperate. I shuffle though our usual topics: politics; the children; books; clothes, my father; her painting; my writing; my father. Nothing catches. I put my tea on the table, slide out a chair, and sit down. Just ask her, I tell myself. She’s never said no. She won’t yell or cry or recriminate. She’ll simply pull back. How bad is that? My shoulders ache. My throat is tight, like it’s trying to prevent the request from being voiced at all. Jesus, I’m going to have to write it down on paper and slide it to her like I’m holding up a bank.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> My mother looks at me, her eyes misty; her fine, high cheekbones evincing her younger self. My throat tightens even more. I don’t dare try to sip my tea. I might choke.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I’m worried about Muriel,” she says. I hear her, but don’t take it in. It’s a reprieve. This much I know. A change of subject. A shift in the game plan. My shoulders soften. I pull in a breath.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“What’s wrong with Muriel?” I ask stupidly, because everything’s wrong with Muriel. My mother’s oldest sister has been in the hospital for over two years. After caring for her husband with advanced Alzheimer’s for a decade before his death and enduring a crippling case of rheumatoid arthritis, my aunt barely eats. She sleeps most of the day hoping for death to come soon and lift her up, her corporal self almost ether now, to meet her husband in a world beyond pain. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “It’s so sad,” my mother says. Her jaw goes slack. She looks past me to the lake. I want to reach out and hold her hand. My reason for coming into the kitchen has evaporated. Now it seems that my only reason was to sit with her like this. Unable to reach for her because she would not be able to bear it. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“I know,” I say. This is all I ever say, because there is nothing else. And because this is all that my mother wants to hear. She simply needs to know that I know. Until recently, my mother wouldn’t have shared her sorrow at all. Traditionally, she has suffered losses in virtual silence. In this, I am not my mother’s daughter. I am a chest thumper and a copious weeper who can’t get through the opening credits of ET without wailing. At bedtime, my sons try to avoid books that will make me cry and extract promises that they will never leave their mother. With the exception of Pat, everyone in my family hates my inability to marshal my emotions. I have even been told that my emotional displays are intimidating. My mother, on the other hand, was once referred to by Erik as “six feet of Nordic ice”. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">She is not six feet tall, nor is she that removed. Neither am I an emotional terrorist. These, however, are the labels we have both borne for years. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I remember my mother’s habitual remove two years ago, when she called to tell me that her sister, Muriel, had taken to her bed and that her daughter, my cousin, Rachel had said that she believed that Muriel would die very soon. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“How soon can you get down to see her?” I asked her then. Muriel was in Kentucky.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> There was a pause on the line before my mother said tightly, “I don’t think I’ll be going.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Of course you have to go,” I said. “You’ll regret it if you don’t see her.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Brett, I can’t go. She wouldn’t…” my mother took a long pause. “She wouldn’t want me to see her like that.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Another pause. That was it. Final. She had made the decision. I could hear it in her voice. There was nothing for me to say. I knew the Lundquist women. My mother would be immovable in her belief that Muriel wouldn’t want her baby sister to see her vulnerable, helpless, needy. Any appeals from me would meet with steely resistance and the conviction that I simply didn’t understand.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> But I did understand. As soon as I hung up the phone that morning, I called my cousin, Rachel. Our exchange was pragmatic, but kind. We spent more time together when we were younger and while there wasn’t much that bound us together these days, we were connected through these staid sisters.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I want you to invite my mother down to see Muriel,” I said. “She won’t go unless you ask her.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Rachel sighed, “I bet Mom would love to see her.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I know. But my mother thinks that Muriel will be embarrassed.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “That’s true. She would be,” said Rachel. And so unbeknownst to her mother, Rachel crafted an e-mail to mine, inviting her to see her dying sister. It was an invitation my mother could not turn down because the Lundquist code had always been clear: refusing a request was worse than making one. This was the kind of circular logic Rachel and I had lived with all of our lives. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Upon her return from Kentucky, my mother said that seeing her sister was good. Muriel’s hand was lighter than paper, my mother said. The soup my mother fed her was too hot for her. But the spoon, Muriel told my mother was too cold. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Were you glad you went?” I asked her over the phone.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Oh yes,” she said, as if the answer was obvious. “Oh, yes.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Muriel didn’t die then and in the months that have followed my mother’s habit of restraint has slightly diminished. She doles her sadness out in small amounts that she thinks I can handle, often by simply evoking Muriel’s name. And each time she gives it to me, I take it. Because I know that sometimes to take is to give. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The emotional landscape in the kitchen with my mother and her calendar and her grief is a topography of stinted impulses. Mine to reach for her hand and weep with her. My mother’s to harden her face into a smile of acceptance, get up from the chair, and apply herself to a domestic task. Hers is the harder job because she has had thirty more years of inculcation. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I wait and she pushes her calendar to the middle of the table. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Will you give me pictures of the boys on their sleds yesterday?” she asks. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Of course,” I say, lifting the mug of tea to my lips. My mother has been sending Muriel a package every week. Sometimes it’s an envelope of pictures and sometimes she sends cookies, books for Rachel to read to her, or articles that I have written. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Good,” my mother says, with a wistful smile. “I’ll send them to her on Monday.” She stands up, walks over to the sink, and looks out the high window there. Her back tells me nothing. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?” she asks. “Do you need something?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I put the tea down, fighting every synaptic urge to deflect. Instead I hold myself to the chair. She has asked if I need something and I do. It is within her power to help me. She cannot help Muriel but she can help me. And I can help her. To take is to give.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Yes, Mom, “ I say, my throat catching. “As a matter of fact, I do.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> This is how the request is made and granted. The mother at the sink and the daughter at the table, her hand resting on a mug of cooled tea. Their words are not important because they do not tell the story of what each of them had to give up to be there.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-51980496512950286292011-12-28T10:21:00.000-08:002011-12-29T20:55:12.938-08:00The Christmas Loan (Part one)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For the two Christmases after the financial crisis (2008 and 2009) Pat and I had to borrow money from my parents simply to afford gifts and January rent. This year, we are visiting my parents again and our circumstances are slightly better. But for those who still feel the financial grip of fear along with their Christmas cheer, I offer the following story – along with profound thanks to my parents who have always, always been there when I needed them:<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Happy, middle class families in America are very much alike. Most of them gather at the family seat at Christmas to share meals, tell old stories, compliment each other’s children, and exchange presents, many of which will be returned to Gap and J Crew the following day. Sometimes the adult children drink too much and go outside at midnight to build a pornographic snowwoman. Or maybe that’s just mine. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Our family seat is my parents’ two-bedroom house on Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. The winter winds blow so bitterly there that Murphy, a California boy and three at the time, once screamed through a scarf tied so high that only his eyes showed, that he wanted to go back to America. On the rare Christmas that all of us can make it, my parents’ compact retirement house can host eight adults and four children. This means that the ordinary recriminating and bargaining that marks every good marriage must take place in furtive, rushed tones behind any available closed door, including the communal bathroom. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> That is, when the happy couple actually remembers to close the door. I once walked by my younger brother, Keir’s encampment, a mattress on the floor of my mother’s art studio, and heard him impeach his wife’s angry back, “It’s always the same. Every year. Vacation after vacation after vacation after vacation.” The tone was familiar, if not the specifics. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">There were a few years when my other brother, the middle child, had no door at all. Erik slept alone on the couch feeling, he later told me, like a failure for being unmarried, childless, and stuck at a meaningless job. Living room couches all across America can give leathery testimony to the ache of such children, now older, yearning for their lives to begin. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> It is the Christmas of 2009. Keir and his family have opted to travel to Thailand instead of joining us and Erik has come home a victor. Within three years he has fallen in love, married, bought a house, and sired a male child – riches and reason enough to lay claim to the guest bedroom. My parents are squatting in Mom’s art studio and my family is staying in the master bedroom. My mother has awarded us their room ever since we first brought Spencer to Madison at ten-months-old. When Pat and I moved his pack-n-play into the walk-in closet, my mother was thrilled that we could close the closet door and create two rooms out of one. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The children are too big for the closet now and share a blow-up mattress that takes up most of the available floor space. That means that when Pat and I talk behind the closed door, we have a very narrow pathway in which to move around. This is a liability mostly to Pat who needs to move when tackling life’s biggest problems, like the fact that the check we have been waiting for – the one that will pay our rent in January, pay our credit card bills before they globally increase their interest rates, pay for our expenses here in Madison, and pay for groceries when we get back to Los Angeles – has been held up due to an accounting error and cannot be issued until the new year when the accountants are back from their vacations with their families and doors and couches. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> We have no money to see us through until that twelve thousand dollar check arrives in mid-January. And since we voluntarily closed all of our credit cards over two years ago to negotiate lower APRs, we don’t have credit to lean on. The recession has hit us hard too. We used to fill in financial gaps with odd jobs that simply aren’t there anymore. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Can we ask your parents for a lona?” Pat asks me. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Proving that drops of blood can be squeezed from stones, his own mother is so strapped that she often depends on us to help her out.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“We did that last year,” I close my eyes, wincing at the prospect of going to my mother, hat in hand, yet another Christmas. Pat and I have done all right, financially. But because I am a freelance writer and he is a freelance actor, Christmas is always tight, not just because our cash flow isn’t steady, but because the institutions that pay us are buried in paperwork at year’s end and then close down for a couple of weeks.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “We’ll pay them back,” Pat says, stepping on the edge of the leaky mattress, which hisses air. I can hear the boys sledding down the stairs on a piece of cardboard. They should really be outside but I lack the energy to bundle them up with plastic bags stuck into their boots and over their jeans, only to have to peel off their wet clothes twenty minutes later when they’ve tumbled into some snow bank and have had enough.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “We didn’t pay them back last year,” I say with a tense jaw. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “We didn’t?” Pat says.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “You know we didn’t.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I thought we did.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “No. We didn’t. Mom said not to worry about it,” I say, sitting on the edge of my parents’ bed. My mother is very proud of this new bed that is so high she has to climb up into it. My feet dangle like a child’s.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Then why are we worrying about it now?” says Pat, walking into a pile of Spencer’s books, which scatter. I resist the urge to jump down from the bed and stack them again. Pat hates it when I clean during a tense discussion. Which is invariably what I want to do. At least if my life is going to shit, my living quarters can look ordered.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “We’re worrying about it because when Mom says not to worry about it, she doesn’t really mean it,” I say. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Maybe she does.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I jump down from the bed and gather Spencer’s books while Pat glares at me, “What Mom means is, ‘don’t worry about it this time. But I will remember. I will remember how much you borrowed from me and I will worry that you can’t make enough money to care for yourselves. Every time you borrow money, I will stay awake for nights agonizing about how you are going to survive.’ That’s what she means, Pat.” I place the pile of books on the dresser where they will be safer, “And if I worry my mother into an early grave, I’ll never forgive myself.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “She’s already eighty, Brett. That doesn’t qualify her for an early grave. And I’ll tell you something else. If you’re so worried about worrying her, then let her help.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I climb back up onto the bed and sit, pulling my knees up to my chin. Pat swipes a pile of the kids’ clean underwear off of the desk chair and sits. We’ve been married for eighteen years. We know what to say and what not to say. Although we’ve said the unsayable and withheld compassionate reassurance plenty of times, with painful results. The thought that visits me now is one that I’ve suppressed for years. Why is it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my </i>family that bails us out? How come Pat got to marry a woman whose parents have modest teacher’s retirements, but can manage the occasional thousand-dollar bailout? While I married a man whose parents met in a children’s home, divorced when he was one, and struggled to cover basic living costs most of their lives? How come he got to marry the woman who might inherit a third of her parents’ house while I got to marry a man whose mother might be so poor she might have to move into our two-bedroom apartment for the rest of her life? Tears sting the inside corners of my eyes. I feel ungenerous. Unloving. Unyielding. Stiff. Why did Pat just shove the underwear off of the chair? Couldn’t he have picked it up and moved it to the suitcase? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Look,” says Pat on a slow breath that means he’s going to use the reasonable, officious tone that I hate, “if you have a better plan, let’s hear it.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I recently attended a wedding where the minister gave a cute little speech extolling the joys of marriage while allowing that “sometimes you will be angry with each other.” My immediate thought then was, “what about loathing?” What about looking across the room at your husband and being filled so high with the black bile of resentment that it threatens to blow you apart, spewing its poisonous ooze all over the room and your man? As far as I’m concerned, you aren’t truly, happily married until you’ve lived through hundreds of moments like this.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I dip my chin behind my knees, swallowing bile, frantically thinking of options. Even as my mind races, I know the exercise is futile. We’ve explored financial options before and we already know that there are none except emptying my puny IRA or raiding the kids’ college funds.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I unfold my legs and breathe out slowly, “I’ll think about it.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Thank you,” says Pat like I’ve finally come to my senses. He stands, scoops the kids’ underwear from the floor and replaces it on the chair. Damn him. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> He walks over and gives me a kiss on the top of my head before leaving and closing the door. I hear him saying something to the boys and the pounding on the stairs ceases to be replaced by animated chatter in the kitchen. The clanking of pans tells me that Pat is making them grilled cheese sandwiches. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I am a better person than this and, even though I’ve loathed my husband many times, I will not live without him. No one understands and forgives me more. He makes me laugh until my insides hurt. He is uncomplicated in the best sense. To say that I love him seems trite because it’s voicing the obvious, although I do tell him this every day.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> So I will go to my mother, as we both knew that I would before the conversation even started. The reason why I will go to her instead of my father is that, like many marriages forged in the 50’s, my mother is my father’s Lieutenant. She protects him from the unpleasant ditherings of daily life. She will hear my case and then make her recommendation to him. I can’t think of a time when my parents have turned down a request for a loan or an outright bailout, but there are always emotional consequences. My mother will confess her deep concern about our solvency and even about our ability to negotiate the adult world at all. And my father will mentally tally how much money we owe them, in order to subtract it from my share of the estate, “Just to make things fair.” And, in the end, we all know that their resources are limited. They are incapable of saving us entirely. Were we to find ourselves completely and hopelessly broke, our only recourse would be to move in into the guestroom that Erik and his family are occupying right now. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> This, of course, won’t happen because my twelve thousand dollar check will arrive and I am still finishing two pilot scripts that the networks love and owe me money for. Pat will return to his job as a background extra on a popular TV show and we will muddle through, as we always have. We might even flourish. If one of my shows airs, if one of Pat’s commercials takes off, if Pat does a couple of guest spots, if I sell a big magazine article, if Pat gets cast in an equity play, if that play goes to Broadway, if I get staffed on a TV show, if I get a book deal, if Pat lands a recurring spot on television – if any of these things happen as many of them have and all are possible -- we won’t simply survive the economic crash that is pounding the rest of the country, we will prevail. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Next week: Part 2 -- asking for the loan</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FVDYnQuQb_4-tOahnMmR3NCwDa0pHT_gihKIImlEE-IEzcOiG1M8e7sHgzQAjXEjkuwDuUyC-ndZy-Ic_lkSeypxQopQ-vqc3sZECkT9wkUIIrdmNb-fndeJAXggbBZPYLSUjs9XExG-/s1600/boyz+in+snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_FVDYnQuQb_4-tOahnMmR3NCwDa0pHT_gihKIImlEE-IEzcOiG1M8e7sHgzQAjXEjkuwDuUyC-ndZy-Ic_lkSeypxQopQ-vqc3sZECkT9wkUIIrdmNb-fndeJAXggbBZPYLSUjs9XExG-/s640/boyz+in+snow.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boyz in Madison (2009)</td></tr>
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</div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-88778385645290649172011-11-16T11:37:00.000-08:002011-11-16T11:37:56.497-08:00Our Family Occupies Los Angeles for a Night (Part Two)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>771</o:Words> <o:Characters>4400</o:Characters> <o:Company>Mommies Who Drink</o:Company> <o:Lines>36</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>8</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>5403</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"> <b>The main event of every evening at Occupy LA is the general assembly meeting, and we didn’t want to miss it so we hustled the kids with their t-shirts back to the tent for some dinner. That’s where we were planning to meet our friends who had brought their son for the overnight as well. Striding down the sidewalk, past the humpy landscape of canvas abodes, I congratulated myself for turning a civics lesson into a fun sleepover as well. Of course, looking around, I was reminded that I wasn’t the first person to think of it.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As we waited for the big meeting and our friends, Pat and I talked to the kids about why we were spending the night there. They had certainly heard talk about the 99% from the radio shows we listened to. We had also talked to them about the financial crisis and the fact that the two parties governing our nation had widely disparate views on how to solve it. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sitting on canvas chairs in front of our tent, we attempted to give this particular action a context that they could understand.</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“So, because the two parties can’t agree, they can’t get anything done about the financial crisis,” Pat said, ripping off a hunk of French bread I had bought especially for that evening. Even though we were at a bare-bones populist action, there was no reason to eat like it.</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“So that’s why we’re here? Because the government can’t fix it?” asked Spencer, sipping on his box of chocolate milk. I know what contributes to a successful sleepover.</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Well, we think that the government can fix a lot of things. Like a plumber fixes the toilet. Daddy and I can’t fix the toilet. That’s why we need a plumber.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pat and the boys stared blankly at me. Why, I wondered? The metaphor was solid. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pat leaned forward to catch the boys’ attention, “Don’t think about the plumber. What mom is saying is that we believe that there are some things the government should handle and that’s one of the reasons we’re here. When the government isn’t paying attention to what the people want, the people have to get their attention in creative ways.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pat tends to have more confidence in the children’s ability to grasp big concepts than I do, and I probably lowball their ability to comprehend because my own is a bit shaky. But as we heard the noise of folks gathering on the other side of the building, Pat and I persisted in telling the kids about taxation, privatization, unnecessary wars, entitlements, and social safety nets. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And what’s happening now,” Pat said, “is that money being taken away from the poor and the middle class; from our schools and from agencies that protect our environment because the banks and corporations don’t think it’s important to pay their fair share of taxes.”</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“And,” I piped in, “because some people think that paying for wars is more important than helping to create jobs so we can feed our families.” I threw a look to Pat.<span style="color: red;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Better than the plumber?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“That’s not fair,” said Spencer. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bingo, I thought. If he hadn’t understood the specifics, at least he had grasped the inequities.</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What do you think, Murphy?” I turned to my baby. At seven, Murphy already has a sharp mind and a sophisticated sense of empathy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>“Can I play with Daddy’s phone?” he replied.</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“No” Pat and I both replied in unison. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fortunately, our friends arrived so the phone became a non-issue. The boys happily engaged their pal and we poured his parents a cup of wine, offered them some cheese, and leaned back in our chairs to look at the sky. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By seven-thirty it was totally dark and we walked over the General Assembly. About two-hundred people had gathered. They sat on the ground or stood at the back in groups listening to committee leaders who stood on the steps, talking through a microphone. Speakers went through housekeeping issues, security concerns, and the all important hand gestures that occupiers would use to vote on pretty much everything. The kids flopped around, enjoying the hand-gestures, particularly the one for “I don’t understand” – a circular motion in front of the face like you’re washing a window. I foresaw months of the kids using this gesture whenever I asked them to clean their room. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Much of the rest of the meeting was spent connecting Los Angeles to other occupy movements nationwide. We voted on sending money to Oakland and a bus of occupiers to San Diego. Organizers also took some time announcing specific upcoming marches and actions. The boys would watch for a while, then chase each other around.</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Later, as I lay in our tent, I wondered what my sons would take away from this venture. Certainly, I hoped that they grasped some of the deep concerns that were propelling people – citizens -- to camp in the middle of our city. But more than that, I hoped that they felt connected those citizens. I didn’t want them to grow up thinking that it was someone else’s job to fix things. </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And, in the end, if none of those messages had sunk in – even if Spence and Murph had been more preoccupied with the tent and their friend – I hoped that the cumulative effect of attending marches and rallies would start to make participation a habit. As I told them when I tucked them into their sleeping bags that night, “The first and most important thing you can do is to show up.” </b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b>It turns out that this is as true for peaceful revolution as it is for getting free donuts. </b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeYHiKTycF-pCEke-on9EXnbDMg93J0S5Vap_tFFK8dA8sq3y4c-mv-J7rtEAllzk5VVgC3orwelTbzt9k3y5-xv3RPtMmrBBk7g-7b3yraNHr1vpZ1XGzDNBmIBn3Ok39J3GPqNqVEfpc/s1600/IMG_0739.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeYHiKTycF-pCEke-on9EXnbDMg93J0S5Vap_tFFK8dA8sq3y4c-mv-J7rtEAllzk5VVgC3orwelTbzt9k3y5-xv3RPtMmrBBk7g-7b3yraNHr1vpZ1XGzDNBmIBn3Ok39J3GPqNqVEfpc/s640/IMG_0739.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boyz listen to Pat's explanation of why we were there</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the General Assembly</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sending messages of support to Oakland</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih1aAF_A_lQh-GkLSitZ1ZNlrAyAGAJISGuMnLgFEVZphEByGemjKAFoTjjyGEWzVhv9wyD8sawQoRCFAAku8ecYmuCNmNBIEzLTLau_T58XWM-ReNuUt47uwMAG5W3qsvTRzm9IYEy0fF/s1600/IMG_0767.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih1aAF_A_lQh-GkLSitZ1ZNlrAyAGAJISGuMnLgFEVZphEByGemjKAFoTjjyGEWzVhv9wyD8sawQoRCFAAku8ecYmuCNmNBIEzLTLau_T58XWM-ReNuUt47uwMAG5W3qsvTRzm9IYEy0fF/s640/IMG_0767.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waking up in the tent the next morning</td></tr>
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</div><!--EndFragment--></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-38141441193751131782011-11-01T10:42:00.000-07:002011-11-02T20:30:27.623-07:00Our Family Occupies Los Angeles for a Night (Part One)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Can I pitch my tent here?” I asked a young man whom I guessed to be an organizer by the benignly authoritative manner he used with a couple of campers. These campers were ‘occupiers’, who had been bedding down around Los Angeles’ city hall for close to a month.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Looks like we’re trying to keep the walkway clear here,” he said, indicating what looked like a thoroughfare for foot traffic, with domed tents, three deep, on one side and service tents on the other. On the service side I saw a signs for a library, meditation area, and a People’s Collective University. “But really you can set up anywhere.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I was told that this was the quieter side,” I said. “My husband and kids are going to be with me.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Oh great,” he said, his face brightening, “we really want to start getting families down here.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Well, here we are,” I said, stupidly, since I was only bringing my family and another for one night, not an army of families to occupy for as long as it took.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Great. Great,” he said. “Yeah, I guess you could say this is the quieter side. That’s how it’s turning out anyway. The general assembly starts at 7:30 on the south and that’s when it gets pretty crazy and noisy for a few hours.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I wanted to ask “how crazy?” but I didn’t, for fear of sounding uptight. He looked like a twenty-something hipster, I am a fifty-year-old woman who looks like she’s comfortable at an ice cream social even though I don’t know what one is.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Sounds like this is the right spot, then,” I said, resisting the urge to jazz up my language by calling it the right ‘hang’ or ‘hood’. “Thanks,” I touched my eyebrow in a solidarity inspired salute and flipped out my phone to call Pat, who was circling the block with the kids in our jeep. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> As I waited on the curb, I felt the last bit of my earlier irritation with Pat fade. When he had arrived home from work that afternoon he proceeded to check e-mails and methodically go through a mental packing list while I urged for speed and spontaneity. We only had a couple of hours to get downtown and pitch the tent before it got dark. I was starving and I already wanted to devour the salami sandwich I’d packed for that evening. The boys whapped each other with pillows while Pat returned a phone call. All this while my mother-in-law jabbered on about a movie she’d seen thirty years ago starring James Garner. My mother-in-law has been living with us for a month while she searches for an apartment to move into, closer to us. My motivations for dragging my family down to occupy Los Angeles for a night range from the personal to political to parental. But mixed in there is another ignoble factor. Why not occupy LA while my mother-in-law is occupying my living room?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat pulled up in the jeep and the boys tumbled out with our tent and gear. While Pat was parking, the kids and I dragged everything over to our hang. I was going to wait for Pat to return to start erecting the tent. I have managed to assemble it by myself, but Pat has a firmer grasp on mechanics and, frankly, this is an area where I have nothing to prove except my stunning ineptitude at following directions, especially ones with diagrams. Why oh why do the drawings never look anything like the real thing? <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Before Pat could join us, however, three young men descended, introduced themselves, and offered to help with the tent. Before I even managed an affirmative nod, they dragged it out of its box and started lining up the poles. Spencer and Murphy eagerly helped when the guys asked for assistance.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Before this, I had never put up a tent before,” a white guy with a tie-dye shirt said. “But now I’ve put up hundreds of them.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I think I’ve got the first pole in,” said a handsome African American guy with a wide grin. He pulled on the pole and the rose, sagging at either side. “Is this what it’s supposed to look like?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I shrugged, “Without the other poles in, I can’t tell.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Doesn’t matter,” he said, flashing white teeth, “if it’s wrong we can start over.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> This was the first time I would notice the universally generous attitude that I would find consistent throughout our stay. I understand why the left has consistently sought to distance the ‘occupy’ movement from its hippie element. There’s a fear that it lightens the movement, makes it less serious, more fringy. But at a time when “compassion is out of fashion” (as Paul Krugman recently wrote in a New York Times Op Ed), it was moving to see young people consistently opting to help us - and each other - out. I think that a return a core hippie belief that we are in this together and that we are all responsible for each other is one that the Left should embrace. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> By the time Pat appeared on the scene we had a saggy shelter, flapping precariously in the breeze. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat smiled, “Did anyone look at the directions?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Nah,” said tie-dye. “We knew we’d figure it out.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Proving that you all you need is love <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> a plan, Pat located the directions and significantly sped up the process so that the tent was up before sundown. Before taking off, our new pals gave us the lay of the land and offered to check in on us later.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> First we checked out the public tents. The boys were disappointed that the library didn’t have books for kids. But there were plenty of used books for older campers to grab. The People’s Collective University was an open-air tent where organizational meetings were being held as well as classes in social activism. Later that night, Pat noticed a circle of folks who also met there for purely recreational reasons. As we walked through the encampment, we were periodically offered bottles of water and baked goods. Free baked goods, I have now come to believe, are the very life’s blood of any decent rebellion. What decent mob won’t go the extra mile for glazed donuts?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The occupiers that I saw were diverse ethnically. There did appear to be some homeless folks and certainly some barefooted, bare-chested stoners, but the majority of the occupiers appeared to be twenty-something activists. Pat and I listened to a band of them hold an organizational meeting on the steps, itemizing what they would bring to the general assembly that evening at seven-thirty. Another significant group were Iraq veterans – I met one who managed the food truck and another who was working on media relations. I also met a lawyer who used her tent only during weekend days. Sprinkled throughout the camp were occupiers of every stripe – professionals, parents, artists, and a couple of older citizens (specifically an elegant grey haired woman, with her adult daughter, who asked me about camping overnight).<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> As we returned from our exploratory mission, a gentleman named Rahm sought us out, “My buddy is this rad artist who does these t-shirts…” he pointed to his own, “and we’d like to give all of you one. We really want to encourage families like you to come down here.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Cool, I thought. Revolution swag. We found Tony B Conscious on the east side of city hall spray-painting his Basquiat inspired t-shirts. He fist-bumped the kids and they bounced around picking out their very own wearable art. Mr. Conscious even spray-painted a fresh t-shirt for Pat. As it turned out the shirts weren’t as free as Rahm had led us to believe. But for a five dollar “paint donation” each, we would walk away from our overnight just a little hipper than we arrived. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><i>in Part 2 I attend the general meeting, camp overnight, and am asked by a young person if this was what it was like in the 60s!</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Murphy eyes the sweet bread in front of our tent</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boys next to the Library (the People's Collective University is behind them)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from our tent</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">T-shirts, courtesy of Tony B Conscious</td></tr>
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</div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3895166103239416414.post-12920003912835280102011-10-06T14:59:00.000-07:002011-10-06T15:02:22.397-07:00Us vs. Fleas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <b style="line-height: 32px;">The first thing I noticed was the debris that our cat, Taft, left when he vacated a spot. It looked like sand. How was he getting sand in his fur? He’s an indoor cat. Then Taft stopped sleeping in his usual hangs. He kept jumping on the bookshelves, seeming to want to be as high up as possible. He knocked over candlesticks and pencil holders in this pursuit.</b><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Taft has fleas, Mom,” my eleven-year-old Spencer said.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “He doesn’t have fleas,” I said. “He’s an indoor cat.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Seriously,” Spencer persisted. “I see fleas jumping all over the place.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Right,” I snorted. “This from the kid who freaked out every night for a week after we got back from camping because he was convinced he had ticks.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Mom, the fleas are biting my feet at night.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “And did you have ticks?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “No.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “There you go.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Taft couldn’t have fleas, but something was definitely amiss. He would race to his food bowl like he was being pursued, eat fast, then jump on something tall, leaving those damn piles of sand everywhere. What could it be?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> One morning, Spencer was pulling on a sock, “See Mom. Look at all my flea bites.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I looked and saw a small constellation of red dots on the top of his foot. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Maybe it’s a rash from your feet sweating,” I said.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “It’s fleas, Mom. One of them jumped on the book I was reading last night.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I sighed, “OK. I’ll check into it. Just to put an end to all of this.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> That night, I went on the Internet and searched for information about fleas. I figured that I’d print out a couple pages to put Spencer’s fears to rest. There were too many things that didn’t add up for me. Why was Spencer the only one who noticed these so-called fleas? Why was he the only one with bites? Spencer had been wrong about the ticks and he was simply indulging another swath of panic about parasites that might take over our home. And what about the piles of sand? What connection could they possibly have to the fleas?<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Within seconds on the Internet, I had my answer.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The piles of sand were piles of dead fleas and flea feces.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Flea feces? Are you fucking kidding me? I jumped up from my chair at the computer inspected a dresser top that Taft had recently been sitting on. There was some of the sand. I grabbed a spray cleaner and a paper towel and spritzed. When I ran the towel over the dresser top, a whole smear of red/brown filth clung to it. I knew what I had. Flea Feces. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Oh dear God. Really? Really? On top of our car falling apart, our computer on the fritz, no money in the bank, the boys going back to school with their crazy disparate schedules, and my mother-in-law driving cross-country to stay with us for two months, I had fleas? Everywhere? And worse, I had their feces all over everything.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Pat,” I said to my husband. “Taft has fleas. The whole house is infested.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “But Taft is an indoor cat, “ he said. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I don’t know how he got them, but they’re here and so are their feces.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I took Pat on a brief tour of the evidence. The smeared paper towel, the bites on Spencer’s foot, Taft perched on top of the television set like a sniper. Now, I realized, he was searching for ever higher roosts to avoid the army of fleas living in our carpets. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “So what do you say, we flea bomb the whole damn house tomorrow?” I said to Pat, while Spencer was putting his sock back on.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat rubbed his chin, “Mmmmm. Those bombs are so toxic.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Yeah. I know. They are toxic to the fleas. That’s the point. Let’s bomb them out of existence.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat sighed, “I know you hate this, but I really don’t want all those chemicals. Let’s spray a little with Cedarcide.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Cedarcide was a natural spray that Pat had bought for our trip to India. On the road, he would spray all our beds with it, each time extolling its effectiveness. And when I begged for deet in hotel room with more mosquitoes than usual, Pat turned from his spraying to hiss, “You never believed in the Cedarcide. Never.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> And he was right. When it comes to bugs, I’m a decisive first responder. Blow them up. Agent Orange the whole damn apartment. I don’t care if I get brain cancer twenty years from now. I can’t take any more flea feces on my furniture. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I knew better than to say any of this because Pat would insist on the non-toxic route first. And with kids and cat, I knew that he was mostly right. So we sprayed with Cedarcide until the apartment smelled like a hope chest. When that didn’t work (which I knew it wouldn’t) we got a flea collar and flea powder from the grocery store. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Pat was leaving the evening he came home with our grocery store arsenal of flea killers. He helped me fasten the flea collar around Taft’s neck before skipping out to play poker. The next day we planned on powdering the carpets.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Mom!” Spencer screamed from his room. “Come in here now! Taft is dying!”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I ran into the boys’ room to find them standing around Taft who was gasping, his tongue hanging out of his mouth like a Labrador retriever’s. His eyes were watery and I could hear him wheezing.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Do something!” Spencer screamed.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The only thing I could think was that Taft must be allergic to the collar. So I raced into the living room, grabbed scissors, raced back, snipped the collar, and threw it to the ground.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Taft lay on his side and panted.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Mommy!” yelled Murphy. “He’s still sick!”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Give it some time,” I said, in what I hoped was a calm tone. “Just watch him for a bit. I’m going to call Daddy.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I took the phone into the bathroom so I could close the door.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Pat, it’s me. Taft is panting and I think it was the collar but I’m not sure and the kids are frantic and I can’t let the cat die in front of them. They’ll never forgive me for ignoring the fleas. It’ll be all my fault. I’ve got to save the cat. What do I do?”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> On the other end of the line, I heard Pat say to his poker buddies, “I’ll take two.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Pat! What do I do?!!!”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Yeah. It’s probably the collar, “ he said to me, now that he had his damn cards. “I told you that stuff is toxic.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “I took the collar off but he’s still panting.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “The only other thing I can think of is dumping him in the bath.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Oh God,” I said, “I really don’t want to do that. He’ll fight me on it.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Well, that’s all I can think of. Give him a bath and then spray him with Cedarcide.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> Minutes later I was standing in the bath tub, my jeans wet up to my knees, holding a squirming, yowling cat under the faucet, while the kids held the towels and cried hysterically. After Taft was completely soaked I handed him to the children who swathed him in towels and tried to talk him down, “It’s OK, Tafty.” “You’re going to be fine.” “Mommy should have gotten the fleas off you sooner.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> The next day, Pat decided to powder each room’s carpet individually, then close the door so that toxins wouldn’t get to us. The children’s room was the most affected so we stripped the bedding and got everything off of the floor.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “We don’t have any facemasks do we?” said Pat, walking into our bedroom as I lay on the bed, exhausted.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Facemasks?” I lifted my head up to look at him. He was wearing yellow rubber gloves and surgical scrubs that he took from the hospital when I gave birth. He had tucked the mint green pants into his athletic socks and wound silver electrical tape around the tops of the socks and his waistband. He was wearing crocs on his feet and he had pulled a knit cap down over his ears. He was holding the canister of flea powder. I responded with all the love I could muster, “Facemasks are probably with the rest of our riot gear.” <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “Right,” he said, “I’ll just tie a bandana over my nose and mouth.”<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> That night, the children slept on our bedroom floor while the powder worked it’s fatal magic. And in the following nights we powdered and vacated the other rooms, each time moving to another overnight encampment like Bedouins. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> And still the fleas thrived, jumping on Spencer like he was their personal conveyance. Taft took near permanent refuge in his litter box so we moved his food and water into the bathroom. And on a Saturday morning, I woke to find Spencer sitting in our desk chair in the living room, his knees pulled up to his chin, clutching a canister of Cedarcide, while he read a book. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> “This is the only flea free spot in the house,” he said, then sprayed a spot on the floor close by. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I had had enough. Pat agreed. Damn the expense. We needed a professional. We lined a cardboard box with towel, gently lowered our embattled cat into it, and took him to the vet. I didn’t even care what the vet would infer from the label on the outside of the box. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Charles Shaw. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Vintner to bohemians and the underclass. <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqJOqq3utpTG4TRxSQA-XZRUNxTeV-745wBZBi0lcplcDf7vWFyy_paNbj1x4-jF1vfA4UmnfIFf48c3_pgLwhCWlUke2HonCkKcmily-E6lAg9giFQWUkTmuQynpAplWLbFJubEEjFYdK/s1600/131_2223.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqJOqq3utpTG4TRxSQA-XZRUNxTeV-745wBZBi0lcplcDf7vWFyy_paNbj1x4-jF1vfA4UmnfIFf48c3_pgLwhCWlUke2HonCkKcmily-E6lAg9giFQWUkTmuQynpAplWLbFJubEEjFYdK/s640/131_2223.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
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</div></div>Bretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13988650784407806301noreply@blogger.com1