Spencer's Birthday at Santa Anita Racetrack (Part One)

A couple of years ago, Pat and I held Spencer’s Birthday Party at the Santa Anita Racetrack. This I that story:

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 can afford, Pat announces one evening from his station at the computer, is, “The Santa Anita Racetrack. Children get in free.”

“That’s because they are in the business of creating lifelong gambling addicts,” I say, folding laundry on the dining room table.

“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.”

“Ring toss?”

“Kids love ring toss,” he says.

            “I hated ring toss.”

            “That’s because you never won.”

            “Ring toss is a set up for failure,” I say, dumping loose socks onto the table. “The odds are with the house.”

            “Of course the odds are with the house. Otherwise the house would never make any money.”

            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?”

            I start with the white socks.

            “So we would make it clear on the invitation that there won’t be any gambling?” I say.

            “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.”

            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.

            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.

            “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.”

            “We aren’t ‘other parents’,” Pat said.

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.

I don’t want to find out.

          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.

            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.

            “You stay with Giovanni,” I yell to Pat, hightailing it to the entrance.

            I catch up to Max who has dragged Murphy along to the turnstiles, “Guys, wait with me here. Where’s Kevin Wu?”

            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.

            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.

            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.

            Pat waves to me as he approaches, “All accounted for.”

            “Great,” I say. I look down at the boys and say in my best, most warm, mommy voice. “This is going to be fun!”

            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.”

            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.

            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?”

            “What?” I say, before I can stop myself. “We’re not buying anything.”

            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.”

            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.”

            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.

            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?

            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.”

            This is it, I think? Where are the horses? Why are we so far away from the rest of the people?

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.

            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.

            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.

            “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?

            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.”

            My new agey friend whose son was a holy terror, simply smiled and said, “It’s what they do. They must fight.”

            Then she lit up a joint.

            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.

            “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.

            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.

The crowd roars in the distance and I glare at Pat. We’re nowhere close.

          He points to the fence and yells to us all, “Run!”

          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.

            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.

We keep our eyes on the horses until they turn the bend. The crowd gets even louder. The announcer amps up his patter.

Atta Boy. Dora’s Prize, One Fine Morning.

We hang on the fence waiting. Listening. Gasping.

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.

Announcer. Pounding hooves. Crowd.

And it’s over.

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.

You cannot buy moments like this. Or, yes, you can buy them for little more than the price of two adult admissions.

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.

The Dance-off

“I’m going to make up score sheets for Daddy and me,” Spencer says. “We’ll judge you in different categories.”

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?

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 –  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.

Except Murphy.

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 his 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.

There’s a word for that.

Predictable.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“No peeking,” Spencer says, snatching the paper out of my hand.

Behind me, Murphy pushes chairs around to clear our stage.

“I just wanted to make sure that you included ‘originality’,” I say.

“Don’t worry,” says Pat. “The judging will be fair. We’ve covered all the bases.”

“Then why can’t I see the categories? The contestants should know how you are breaking everything down.”

“You just worry about the dancing,” says Pat.

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?

“OK. First song,” says Murphy, standing in the middle of the cleared floor. “It’s ‘Midnight Cruiser’ by Steely Dan.”

He walks over to the ITunes.

“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?”

“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.”

“OK,” I say, shrugging. “Sounds like someone is going to get more time. But if that’s the way you want to play it.”

“Decided.” Pat interjects. “Start the music.”

Murphy hits the tunes and gestures to me to lead off.

Felonious, my old friend

Step on in and let me shake your hand.

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.

So glad that you’re here again for one more time

Let your madness run with mine

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?

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.

Tell me where are you driving Midnight Cruiser

Where is your bounty of fortune and fame?

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.

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.

Tell me where are you driving Midnight Cruiser

Where is your bounty of fortune and fame?

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.

Tell me where are you driving Midnight Cruiser

Where is your bounty of fortune and fame?

I am another gentleman loser

Drive me to Harlem or somewhere the same

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.

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.

“No looking at each other’s scores,” Pat says, while Murphy and I pant.

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.

“All right,” announces Pat. “We’re done with that round. Moving on.”

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.

Murphy stands on a chair and announces that the next to selections are ‘Earth Wind and Fire’s’ “Gratitude” and “Thriller”.

“‘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?

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’.

In the middle of ‘Thriller’ I pull a glut.

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.

“Nice work,” I say between gasps.

“You really shouldn’t try to kick, Mom,” he says.

“I didn’t know that until I tried,” I say.

“The rest was pretty good though,” he says.

“Thanks.”

I’m still breathing heavily when the judges return. They take their places on the couch and arrange themselves while Murphy and I wait.

“It was very close,” says Pat.

“Very,” says Spencer. “In fact…” He pauses for effect. “Mom only won by two points.”

I shoot a look over to Murphy. The thought occurring, maybe this win matters to him. He is smiling. Face a little soft.

It does matter. It does, I can tell.  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.

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.

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.”

I draw him to my chest.  

“I bet you can win, too,” I say. “I bet you can.”

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.   

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.

I pull him onto my lap.

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.

A dancing queen and so much more.

Murphy's Teeth and the Insurance (Part Two)

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.

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.

It’s hopeless.

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.  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.”

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.

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.

I pick up the phone and call the dentist.

“Oh, yes. We completely understand,” says the receptionist. “And we wouldn’t want to make the Dr. Olsen sick.”

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.

“I don’t suppose we can reschedule the Murphy’s appointment for the end of the week?” I say, trying not to sound desperate.

“Oh, no,” she says brightly. “There won’t be anything open until next month.”

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.”

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.

“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?”

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.”

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.”

“I know,” she says. “Times are hard. And you can pay us a little bit each  month like you have been. We know you will.”

“Thank you. Thank you,” I say, like I’m kissing the hem of her skirt.

I put down the phone and walk into the bathroom to grab tissues and honk into them. Looking up, I catch my reflection.

I look like Mickey Rourke.

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.

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.

And I have discovered a seemingly endless well of compassion inside me for anyone who is broken or helpless or lost.

Which is all of us at some point or another.

            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. “

            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.

            If this cosmically tiny domestic challenge had stood in front of me two years ago, I would not have been able to scale it.

            I put my hand on Pat’s stubbled cheek.

            This is my husband.

The cat is at my feet.

It is sunny outside.

Spencer is at school and Murphy is on the couch.

There is food in cupboard.

There is work to be done.

Murphy's Teeth and the Insurance (Part One)

              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.

Which isn’t to say I don’t love him. But I don’t have time for that now.

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.

I breathe in.

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.

A gate across the road swings open and a man in a business suit shuts it behind him.

$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.

She said, “Forget cancer. What if one of you breaks a leg in three places? That adds up fast.”

Now I have to worry about our legs being broken in three places.

I breathe in again to soften my belly, which is tightening.

The lady with the dog across the street unlocks the gate that the businessman just passed through.

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.

Except the bills and the car.

And the bathrooms.

I haven’t done a bathroom in twenty-one years. My girlfriends want to know if Pat has a brother.

A truck drives by.

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.

“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?”

The receptionist smiled vaguely and consulted the schedule, “I don’t think an eight-year-old can sit in the chair that long.”

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.

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.

“Spence,” I whisper, “time for school.”

“OK,” he croaks. “Is Murphy all right?”

“What do you mean?”

“He threw up last night.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” I hear Murphy say from the dark on his side of the room.

I wheel around, “You threw up? When?”

“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.

“Spence, why don’t you go into the living room and start getting ready,” I say, without turning to him.

“Ummmmph”, he says, which is a preteen affirmative.

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!!!”

“Honey, can you move to the couch?” I ask Murphy as gently as I can. “You will need to have some medicine.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.
Part 2 will be posted next week.

Murphy, when he isn't sick

On Finding Relief at Ragdale

             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.

            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.

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.

            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.

            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?

            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.

            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.

            I have my failings, for sure. But I am not a shirker, a flake, or a no-show.

            And I am bankrupt.

            Self-reckonings. Do I deserve a tomorrow?

            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.

            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.

            “Everybody needs relief,” Stephanie said on Skype. I could see an unusually sunny afternoon in London outside the window behind her.

            “But it’s crazy,” I said. “I should stay here and get a job in a furniture store.”

            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 like 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. 

            “But you said, yourself, you’re depleted,” Stephanie said.

            “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.”

            Stephanie smoothed her hair back from her forehead, “You’ve always said that you sell the things that you’re passionate about.”

            “I could be passionate about furniture. I could be super-passionate about a red leather club chair and hand-crafted knotty pine bookshelves.”

            “Listen. You’re not going to make that much money at that furniture store but you could 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.”

            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.

            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.”

            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.

            There are different kinds of relief.

            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.

            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.

            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.

            Take it. Use it. And then give it to someone else.

Where I sleep

Where I write

Where I sit and think

Out of Helplessness

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.

            Because I’m lousy at it.

            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?”

            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.

So how is it that someone like me has made it through the last couple of years? 

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.  Most of the time, however, feeling helpless was simply boring.

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.

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.

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.

What, I wonder, are the little joys that you could double up on? Or triple up on?

As long as it’s not vodka. It might be worth considering.

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.

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.)

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.

And blaming had to go because blaming is the battle song of helplessness.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Which is, “Am I going to keep lying here or am I going to get up and participate?”

Mary Oliver ends one of her famous poems like this:

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder

If I have made of my life something particular, and real

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened

Or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

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.

So far, the decision has been easy. Easier than I would have thought.