Month: January 2007

Gold hoops

When I was ten years old, my mother took me to a jewelery store on Colby Avenue in Everett to have my ears pierced.  Ever since all the cool girls in fourth grade had their ears pierced, I dreamed of wearing dangling earrings.  Who wouldn’t after seeing Ginger Herring wearing that pair of earrings that were tiny bottles containing little dried flowers?

I can’t remember the sting of the actual piercing, nor can I tell you much about the earrings I wore until college when I seemed to have a colorful pair of earrings to match each pair of socks which matched each shirt I owned.  (What?  You didn’t match your socks to every shirt you owned in the 80s?) 

As time went on, I realized I was not much good at accessorizing.  When I was newly married, I met a young woman at church named Anne who was the Queen of Accessories.  She had beautiful necklaces, carefully chosen earrings, pretty bracelets.  I admired her style, but always felt like a child playing with her mother’s jewelry box whenever I added a necklace to my outfit.  I generally wore only my wedding band and my engagement ring. 

The last four months of my dad’s life, my husband and I lived with him.  We’d intended to share housing, never dreaming that my dad would be diagnosed with fatal cancer right before we moved in.  Sometimes my dad would receive phone calls at 10:00 p.m. and leave quietly, returning after midnight.  I never knew who called or where he went, but he had no curfew and he was an adult, so I pretended not to notice.  I always wondered, though.  

One of his friends was a gray-haired woman named Helen.  I’m not sure how they became friends, but I think he was like a son to her.  He told me about the hot-fudge sundaes Helen served him and sometimes, he brought home leftovers.  I met her a time or two, but knew virtually nothing about her or about any of my dad’s friends.  

He died a few weeks after he turned 47.  Soon after his death, a card arrived for me from Helen.  In it, she enclosed a hundred dollar bill with instructions that I spend it on myself in memory of my dad.

I kept that money for a long time, pondering what a hundred dollars would buy, should buy.  I thought that clothes would fade.  I didn’t want to buy something mundane.  Flowers die.  Plants wither.  What should I buy?

I was at a department store when I saw that gold jewelry was fifty percent off. 

I spent my hundred dollars on a pair of gold hoop earrings.  They are almost an inch in diameter and they’ve been in my earlobes ever since, minus a fancy occasion from time to time when I’d match earrings to an outfit.

When I take the earrings off, I notice how often I reach up and finger those gold hoops.  That habitual gesture–touching the earrings, feeling the earrings, twisting them back into place–reminds me of my dad and his friend.  I wear them in memory of him.  My fingers reach for them without permission or knowledge of my brain. 

Fashion trends come and go, but I wear my gold earrings much as I wear my wedding rings.  They are a symbol to me of love and honor and remembrance.  Even when I don’t consciously think of what they mean to me–the rings or the earrings–they are a physical reminder of commitment and memory.

When I put on a necklace, I usually say “Oh, too much,” and then take it right back off.  But the gold hoop earrings?  They’re here to stay.    

Cold Swimming

Before lunchtime, my daughter and her friend were outside playing in the backyard.  She came rushing in, breathless, demanding her swimsuit.  I refused her at first, then finally gave in, figuring the natural consequences would convince her that it was too cold for swimsuits outside. 

She changed into her swimsuit and went back outside where she filled up the sandbox lid with water and attempted to swim.  A bit later, I went outside to check on them and found her friend complaining of cold hands while my daughter stood shivering with visible goosebumps covering her pale body. 

She said, “I’m trying to swim, but it’s too cold!”  Yeah, that’s what happens when it’s forty degrees outside.  Next time, listen to your mother! 

*  *  *

Tuesday night turns out to be the perfect time to shop at Costco.  One day I will be a regular housewife who can run errands during the day.  In the meantime, I’m some sort of errand-vampire, able to leave the house only under cover of darkness lest I shrivel and die in the light of the sun. 

Tomorrow is a half-day of school, which means I just might be able to answer the one hundred and eighty-three emails in my box before my afternoon baby arrives to monopolize my arms.  (I remember now that it’s virtually impossible to type while holding a wobbly 4-month old.)  If you are waiting to hear from me, do not despair.  One day, I’ll catch up.

Commentary on the News

A few hours ago, I heard a news story on the television which reminded me that I wanted to write about it. Then, I got all distracted by trying to find a link to the local story. I failed and then my attention was diverted by:

A) Fixing lunch.

B) Moving laundry from washer to dryer, dryer to basket, and then folding that load from this morning.

C) Looking in vain for my daughter’s new Gameboy game which comes in one delightful size (“Easy to Lose”).

D) Pulling out Hide-A-Bed and scooting a pound of trash, crumbs and unpopped popcorn kernels from under the couch.

E) All of the above.

So, anyway. You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you that in this region, a baby was found abandoned yesterday morning on the steps of a church. The baby was said to be less than twenty-four hours old and a desperate search is on for the mother who abandoned this baby.

People appeared on camera to declare how wrong it was for this mother to abandon her baby on the steps of a church (sometime after 9:30 a.m. where the infant was found quite quickly when mass ended). The news reporters emphasized that police searched door to door, looking for someone who might have seen something. Where could the mother be?

I say, “Who cares where the mother is?” The baby has been abandoned. I know exactly what the Department of Health and Human Services will do next. They will try to reunite the mother and the baby. They always do. Even when a mother has repeatedly abused her children or abused drugs or neglected her children, the biological rights always come before what is best for the child.

In this case, what is best for the child is to be placed in an adoptive home. I am quite certain that the abandoned infant could be living with a new, permanent, adoptive family before nightfall, if only the insane governmental agencies didn’t give so many chances to biological parents.

If I were Queen of the World, parents would lose their parental rights forever in these cases:

1) Abandonment of baby immediately following birth.

2) Abuse or neglect of children or living with an unrelated person (“boyfriend”, etc.) who hurts the children.

3) Drug use, despite one chance at rehabilitation.

Parents should not have unlimited chances to ruin their children’s lives. And when a baby is abandoned, we should take that as a sign that the mother intended to relinquish her rights. Do not search for her. In this case, she left the baby where he would be found quickly. Good for her. I wish her well.

And I hope that baby is adopted immediately so he can begin to bond with his forever family.

An open letter to the lady using my right armrest

Dear Lady On My Right,

When you came into the movie theater and chose that seat right next to me, I thought, “Good for her.  She’s seeing a movie by herself,” because usually I’m the only single female in a movie theater.  I think women should claim their freedom and see movies by themselves and stop worrying what other people will think, so I applauded you, silently, in my head.  Silently, because we were in a movie theater, a rather crowded theater.

The movie was “The Queen,” and while the film has been nominated for a slew of Academy Awards, I hardly think it was the best movie of the year.  (My pick this year?  Babel.  Last year, I was right about “Crash,” you know or maybe you don’t know since we’ve never met.)  Helen Mirren may well win the Oscar, but the film was a bit of a snooze, if you ask me. 

Perhaps this is because I was distracted by your constant popcorn shuffling, Lady on My Right.  Did you not realize how much noise you were making by scooping and caressing your popcorn and then rattling the paper bag?  At times, I could hardly hear the dialogue and since the film was almost entirely comprised of talk-talk-talking, the noise you made was distressing.  And that snort of yours?  Do you have allergies?  And, honestly, the film was less than two hours long and you had to get up, scoot past everyone in our row and go to the bathroom.  Do you have a bladder infection?

I wish you well.  But next time, I hope you sit on the front row. 

Love,

Mel

*  *  *

Yesterday, a young man came by to install a new light fixture in place of the 1973 chandelier hanging in our dining room (in which we never, ever dine). 

My daughter chatted with him, or rather at him, non-stop.  I heard her say, “How many are you?” and he said, “How many what?”  She said, “How many?” and he said, “Oh, you mean how old?  I’m 23.”  She asked, “How old will you be at your next birthday?” and he said, “Twenty-four.”  Then she informed him that she will be five at her next birthday and I did some math in my head and realized that when she is twenty-four, he will be forty-three.  Life sprints on.  (I’ll be dead of old age.  Okay, not quite.)

Then she said to him, “Do you wear pajamas when you go to bed?” and he said, without hesitation, I might add, “I sure do,” and she said, “I wear pajamas, too.  But sometimes I wear a nightgown.”

To think that I used to believe she’d never speak to a stranger.  Those were the days.  Now, I hold my breath whenever I hear her chatting with anyone, in terror of what she might say. 

Back to the Present

I’ve been living in the future, hopelessly entangled in a story set in 2021 by author P.D. James.  I finished the novel last night and when I closed the book, I felt regret.  While I love finishing a book, often, I hate to reach the end of a well-written novel like Children of Men.

Although my friend, Diane, has recommended the author P.D. James to me for years, this was the first novel by her that I’ve read.  (And it’s not even in the typical murder-mystery genre that James normally employs.  Now I look forward to reading one of the P.D. James books on my shelves.)  But I read this book because I saw the movie.  I saw the movie because I suspected it would be nominated for some awards.  (I was right.)

I was unsatisfied with the movie, however, and so I turned to the book.  As it turns out, the plot and happenings in the book have very little in common with the movie.  I wondered if P.D. James is disheartened when she sees her novel transformed into a story on the screen which is entirely unlike her book.  The book was so much better than the movie.  (They always are, aren’t they?)

(I found an interesting article in the New York Times which compares the two.)

Anyway, the book is over for me, but I offer it to you.  Leave a comment and I’ll choose a winner by random drawing on Monday.  If you win, you can Paypal me a couple of bucks for shipping or not.  It’s up to you.  (Sending books by media mail is cheap.)

[Oh, and let me just remind you to visit my other blog, The Amazing Shrinking Mom every day.  Even if you don’t read it all (not everyone cares about weight issues, I know), my bosses over there take note of ever click, if you know what I mean, and so I’d be very grateful for your support.]

You Couldn’t Pay Me Enough

Sometimes, while in the midst of wiping someone’s bottom or while using my thumbnail to scrape crusted food off a place, I contemplate careers. For a few months back in 1990 (or was it 1991?), I worked in an office supply store and I loved it. Sorting pens into their proper bins gave me great satisfaction. I spent almost all my paychecks on merchandise in the store that I bought with my employee discount. And back then, I treated myself to a cookie-cupcake with thick frosting on it during every break, which was a big bonus. Mmmm, the mall food-court!

I loved that job. Not because I earned any money, but because I had fun interacting with the public and organizing stuff in the store.

I worked for two years in customer service for an insurance company. I wrote letters to customers, explaining how I had solved their problems or why I couldn’t solve their problems. I liked the independent nature of the work and I liked writing the letters. But I worked in a windowless cubicle and I was so bored and unchallenged (after the first couple of months). I grew to hate that job. I hated having to go to an office every day. I felt like my creative soul was dying. At that time in my twenties, all I wanted was to become a mother and so, I hated going to work. (Those were the infertile days for me.)

When I was a new bride, I was a legal secretary, not that I had any training whatsoever. My boss had just opened her private practice and I did whatever she told me to do. I typed, I transcribed, I answered phones, I wrote long letters to my friends in other states while I tried to stay awake. I didn’t have enough work to do, plus the law she practiced was mostly real estate and it was boring. But the office was in the center of New Haven, right on the green and it was a lovely location. I felt very cosmopolitan and grown-up working in a city, spending lunch hours at museums or swerving on the sidewalks to avoid crazy homeless people.

All that to say that I’ve been thinking of a few jobs you couldn’t pay me enough to do. I’d rather starve and end up living in a cardboard box on the sidewalk that participate in the following activities:

1) Pedicurist, podiatrist or any job involving adult toes other than my own.

2) Dentist or any job which involves touching other people’s teeth.

3) Any medical profession involving the digestive system.

4) Massage therapist. I’m just not interested in touching people I don’t know.

5) Plumber. Unclogging people’s drains? No, thanks.

Huh. I thought I had a bigger list. What job would you decline under any circumstances? What job would you like to have, if salary or training were not an issue? (I, for one, think working in a bookstore would be delightful. And I’ve always wished I were a midwife, ever since I met a midwife in 1993.)

Well, now it’s time to work with the boys on composition, which is about the most aggravating experience possible. I used to think writing could be taught. Now, I’m convinced that it cannot be taught, anymore than you can teach someone without rhythm or talent how to dance. (I cannot dance.)

Untitled.

My hand feels better today. Yesterday, I woke up feeling as if I’d been bowling all night long. My palm ached. Welcome to middle-age.

Speaking of middle age, my birthday is coming on Sunday. I’ll be 42. When I was a girl, my parents divorced and after my father remarried, my mother married a man who was 42. I still remember the outrage and skepticism that my mother was marrying this “older” man. My dad could not stop mentioning that this other man was 42, and he said it as if 42 were a dirty word. (She was about 35 at the time, I think.) And now I’ll be 42.

The birds have been raucous outdoors ever since the ice melted. Yesterday, I spotted the first Robin of the year, which is a sure sign of spring. I know! Spring! After Christmas ends, I am absolutely ready for spring to arrive and I don’t care that we still have to get through January. Sometime in February, the first green shoots of the crocuses will appear and I will start to imagine warmer breezes and sunny skies. False starts.

My day-to-day life has been very busy lately. I’m babysitting another baby, a 4-month old, during the afternoons. He is the sweetest baby ever with an easy-going temperament. All the kids are thrilled to have a new baby around here. Soon, I will no longer be watching the other two little ones, so the new baby will be our only extra kid around here, unless you count the parade of neighborhood kids who track Douglas fir needles through my house.

I finished “The Prince of Tides” and am deep in to P.D. James’ “Children of Men,” which is oh-so-much better than the movie.

I spent Saturday scrapbooking and finished up my album of pictures from 2002. I had a baby in 2002 and my life, as I knew it, came screeching to a halt. Although she is a delight, my daughter required me to hold and carry her close for the first two years of her life. I am only now regaining my equilibrium and saying to myself, “Okay, now where was I?”

Speaking of that daughter, she whistles now. Wherever she goes, she whistles a jaunty little non-tune, which is endearing and amusing.

I’m registered to go to a writer’s conference at the end of March. I am struggling with the decision to go, though, because it costs quite a lot of money, lasts for five days and it seems silly for me to invest that kind of time and money in something that very well may amount to nothing. On the other hand, why not me? Why not invest some time and money and see what comes of it? I’m so ambivalent . . . and I’m on the verge of talking myself out of going. I don’t know what I’ll do.

Meanwhile, I’m going to finish reading this novel.

What are you reading?

Graffiti

From the time I was ten years old, I was the one and only, officially designated and paid nursery “helper” at church.  I received a dollar for my work during each church service.  Mrs. Wilson, an older woman, was the official nursery attendant and I was her only employee.  She never missed a Sunday or Wednesday night for years and years.  The two of us handled ten or twenty babies under the age of two each Sunday morning, faithfully passing out Ritz crackers and changing diapers and distracting babies from their distress at being abandoned by their grateful mothers in the church nursery for two hours.

The nursery was located in the back of the church in those days.  A window separated us from the sanctuary.  I imagine that window was just regular glass, but in my memory, it has turned into one of those mirrored windows where you see only your reflection on one side while the people on the other side have a clear view inside.  As we tended babies, I felt like we could see out, but people could not see in, despite that window.  Perhaps we had a curtain obscuring our view.  But the feeling of being on display, in a fishbowl of sorts lingers somewhere deep inside my psyche.

From time to time, I feel like I’m inside this blog, toiling behind a glass, seeing only my reflection when I peer through the window . . . yet suspecting that I’m being studied by a critical group of people on the other side who have a crystal clear view.  Now that people I see face-to-face read my words here, I feel like they’re looking at me, even though I can’t see them.

Obviously, I have delusions of grandeur and think that I am the center of the universe.  I am sane enough to realize that this is simply not so. 

My 4-year old daughter developed a dread of people when she was three months old.  I took her to my mother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner when she was a three-month old baby.  I expected to nurse her and put her down for her regular nap on my mother’s bed.  My baby shrieked and cried inconsolable tears until I gave up and returned home.  She immediately quieted once in the safety of familiar surroundings and went to sleep.  She’s hated friendly people ever since.  I try to explain that she is slow to warm up and by “slow,” I mean at the speed of a glacier and not one of those melty ones that worry Al Gore so much.

Although she is coming out of her shell and occasionally smiles and chats with random adults and visiting kids, mostly, she is reluctant to interact with people she doesn’t know well.  When I dress her on Sunday mornings (or, more accurately, watch her get dressed herself because she is a big girl who not only can do buttons, but who can also whistle), she says, “Mom, will they look at me?  Don’t let anyone look at me.”  She would like to stroll through life without attracting any attention whatsoever, an invisible girl who appears only to safe people who don’t scare her. 

I understand.  On one hand, I want my voice to be heard.  I want my viewpoint to be valued and my perspective to be validated.  I want to feel as if I belong, as if I count, as if I am as valid as the next woman, mother, human being.

Inside, though, I am the girl who knows that people are watching me through the window and I pretend not to notice that I’m being noticed . . . and then, I wonder if anyone’s looking at all, but I don’t want them to catch me peering out.  Smile, you’re on Candid Camera! 

The trick is to carry on, to speak without considering popular opinion, to think without censoring myself, to frame my world in a way that pleases me, t focus on what seems vital to me and, perhaps, only me.  Audience or no audience, the show goes on . . . this is no dress rehearsal, either, but the real thing, the only performance I’m ever going to give.  

No one lives this particular life but me.  No one can describe this exact moment but me.  No one inhabits this sphere and orbits this trajectory but me.  This life is unique.  That alone makes my story worth recording.  When I am gone, no one will slide into this place.  I alone occupy this body, this moment, this place in time and space, regardless of whether or not I’m noticed or ignored.  

So I write, even when nothing happens of note.  I’m leaving footprints, broken twigs along the path, wisps of torn spiderwebs to mark my path.  

I wish I’d taken photographs of my father during his last hospital stay.  Those last eleven days haunt my thoughts, fragments of images in my memory, but not a single photograph of him in a hospital gown, propped up on pillows, an IV tube snaking into his hand.  The trauma burned moments of those final days into my brain; the way his bloated hand clung to the armrest like a pale starfish, his slow-blinking eyes blind to the room full of those who loved him–I have no photographs of anything.  No pictures of the funeral, of the people who attended, of the flowers on his grave. 

As much as I long for pictures of that long ago week and a half, I wish more that he’d left a trail of words I could follow.  I wish I could see the world through his eyes, even the mundane parts, the insignificant details, his private thoughts about matters big and small.  He’s a stranger to me, a man who scarcely mentioned his childhood, who never explained his behavior, who hid behind silences and moods for reasons I never knew.

I wish he’d left a trail.

I wish he’d scrawled thoughts into journals.  I wish he left a record of his day-to-day existence.  I wish I had from him what I leave here . . . footprints left by an ordinary person, living an ordinary life.  Whether or not people are watching, life slips and slides away, one moment at a time, until it finally runs out like it did for my dad, only twenty-one days after he turned forty-seven.

And so I leave words to mark my path, a paltry trail of breadcrumbs to show that once I rambled along this path, I went this way, I was here.  I was here. 

I was here.

Looks Like We Made It

Whew.  We made it through another week.  This was quite eventful in a completely boring yet strangely stressful way.  Let’s review, shall we?

Last week, Tuesday-Friday:  Snow messes with us.

Saturday:  Husband has meeting.  I spend day at home with kids, just like the previous six days. 

Saturday night:  I grocery shop.  Woo-hoo.

Sunday:  Teach Sunday School.  Return immediately home to sick 13-year old.  Husband works all day.  

Sunday night:  Vomit-fest interferes with “24” viewing.

Monday:  Holiday!  I anticipate a possible outing, the salvation of my sanity!  Husband is sick.  I go nowhere.  Again.

Tuesday:  SNOW DAY!  Again!  Enough already!  I spend afternoon sorting scrapbook paper and stickers.  Various neighborhood kids let out all the heat from my house.  “CLOSE THE DOOR!”

Wednesday:  SNOW DAY AGAIN!  STOP WITH THE SNOW!  In addition to my usual babysittees, a 2-year old and a 4-year old, I add an almost-4 month old baby boy to my responsibilities, noon to 5 p.m., weekdays, until further notice.

Thursday:  Back to school and school-at-home and babysitting and cooking dinner and laundry and . . . oh, I take the kids to see “Night at the Museum.”  Woo.  Hoo.  I think I’m doing a good job, holding things together pretty well until my husband remarks that maybe soon I can hire someone to help me with the housework.  Oh.  Ouch.

Friday:  Tonight, when the day ends, I go to Trader Joe’s because I have been out of chocolate all week.  I’ve spent the day tidying the house, cleaning the kitchen, doing load after load of laundry and cleaning off the tops of the dressers which are magnets for all manner of household items, including scissors, newspapers, books, hangers, coins, little-girl fancy high heels, Mr. Potato-Head parts, and a stack of books I mean to give away.  

Tomorrow I am going to the church to work on my photo scrapbooks all day.  I’ve been meaning to do this since last February.  

I am desperate to get out of this house without children.  I will not wash any laundry tomorrow and if I’m really lucky, I will prepare no meals.  And I’ll wear make-up and shoes all day.  

Maybe I’ll even come home when I’m done.