Crime Scene

It's nearly eight in the morning. On a Saturday. And the whole house is still.

This never happens.



Ever.

Everywhere I look..., every room I wander..., there's this lonely, ghostly, ethereal..., hush.

It's so quiet. It's disturbing.

Like a crime scene.

The big kids, Sunshine and Hollywood, are away for the weekend. A Speech and Debate tournament. They spent nine hours in a van yesterday. A teacher I've never even met at the wheel. My babies' lives in his hands.

But who am I kidding? They're off to argue complicated political topics, things I can't even tell you about, because I'm not learned enough to completely understand. They'll bring home medals. Or disappointment that they'll keep to themselves. They're babies, no more.

Only The Storm is home. It's been another big week. A lot of growing.

So still she sleeps.

Like the dog, she'll use this Saturday morning.

And Balthazar is out with his morning exercises. He'll ride miles, hit some golf balls then come home to me, kiss my head, where I tap away at the keys.

Writing.

Because it's quiet this morning, I can.

Because my heart hurts this morning, I can.

This morning is a premonition.

Our future. Mine and Balthazar's.

Our beautiful, lonely, wonderful, happy and sad, perfect, perfect future.

Grandkids might visit. Fill Saturday mornings, again. Sometimes.

Wedding Truths

I didn't sleep well on the night before this day, nineteen years ago. The room temperature in my parents' home was warmer than I was used to and I was excited. I was also a bundle of nerves: The next day was my wedding day and I wanted everything to be perfect.

So, "Skip the up-doo," I said, in the hairdresser's chair when the style felt a bit much for me. "Leave it down," I said.

Then, once the make-up artist had spent an hour pancaking my face and outlining my my eyes, I wet a cloth to wash it all off.  I wasn't happy with my elaborate bouquet, either. I'd wanted a handful of daisies tied with a satin ribbon.

When the photography session ran long because I'd opted for three separate shoot locations, I was annoyed because I missed the harpist entirely.  And when Balthazar stepped, with his shiny shoes, on the large bow fastened to the small of my back and cascading the length of my train, causing it to rip off altogether, I became annoyed with him, too.

"The camera sees that you're angry," said the photographer.

The truth is I didn't much enjoy my wedding day.

I was young and stupid and concentrating on all the wrong things and, on some level, I think I knew this. Hence, the last minute hair and make-up changes. Subconsciously, I must have been trying to tone it all down.

Anyway, here we are a full nineteen years later and, finally, I get it. Finally, I understand that it's the little truths that matter most. The simplest things.

Like the way my hand fits perfectly into Balthazar's; the light of his touch at the small of my back, where that pompous bow had no business being. Like the smell of fresh cut grass and the gift of rain. Honey on toast. My babies' hugs.

If I had the chance to do it all again, yes, I'd choose bunched daisies, but more than this, I'd pay attention to the things that really mattered.

Like the complicated love in my mother's face while we ate cereal that morning; the wetness in my dad's eyes when we danced, the importance of the tear he wouldn't let go even as he spoke his blessing in my ear; the meaningful embraces of lifelong friends; and Balthazar's kiss at the altar; the passion and promise in it; the joy in his eyes; and the wedding-sex glint that must have played there all day.

Of course, I can't do it all again, but at least I can fix it for the next nineteen years.

So, Balthazar, hurry home. Kiss me, again.

The Google Map Perspective

Once again, Hollywood and I are hanging out in LA. For the last four years, occasionally and sometimes routinely, we've taken the long drive south through the desert in pursuit of his acting career. Sometimes, like this weekend, it's acting classes. Other times it's auditions and callbacks.

It used to be that we came out fairly regularly, several times a week even, but for various reasons we've pulled back from it all and haven't made the trip in a while. Hence, this weekend is really one of analysis: Is this really something Hollywood wants to do? Is it worth the effort? Is he willing to put in the time? Does he even enjoy acting, anymore? Or has he outgrown it all?

His agent in Vegas warned me, a year or two ago, that teenage boys tend to drop out of the business. Peer pressures and stigmas and the daunting task of fitting in, etc. When she said this, I found myself both hopeful and sad. Hopeful because the child acting business is really taxing on a parent--in a way that soccer and ballet never have been for me--and even more so when you live four hours outside of LA. And sad because I'd hate for peer pressure to rob him of his dream when middle-school bullying has already stolen whole chunks of him. (Although, I'm thrilled to say, he's grabbed a lot of it back. And he's ever stronger for it all!)

Anyway, so here we are. Again. In LA.

The class he's taking is right smack in Hollywood, on Hollywood Boulevard, but since we booked late our hotel is in Sherman Oaks, which I want to say is north of Hollywood, but I'm not entirely sure, and that is just the point of this post:

We've been driving to and fro along the I15, for years, our destinations varying all over greater LA, from Hollywood to Van Nuys to Santa Monica and more. For pleasure, we've also visited Manhattan Beach and Malibu, and, of course, Disney Land. And always, always we've had a navigator in the car to get us where we were going. So, never once, have I had to look at a map of the city that wasn't a Google map--a small square of perspective no more informative than the minute-by-minute instructions of the navigator telling me to turn, turn, turn, until finally, "Destination on the right."

This morning, having plugged in McDonald's (Hollywood had a hankering for hotcakes) I found myself recognizing my surroundings.

"Hey," I said to Hollywood. "We know this area. That's the spot we ate at that time."

"Oh, ya," he said.

But, until then, we really had no idea where we were. LA isn't a place we've lived. We don't know it the way the locals do. Not well enough to take short cuts or avoid traffic. We are at the mercy of that automated voice of instruction and the small map on the dash-screen.

And it occurred to me as I dropped Hollywood off, this morning, two years of middle school later; and at least a foot taller than the last time I dropped him off to that class; peach fuzz on his upper lip; gangly arms; the caution in his eyes where once, only love and trust; the protective curve of his shoulders; but wisdom, too, and a well-earned strength..., and, well, it occurred to me that we live our lives in squares as small as those damn Google maps.

Eager to get where we need to go in our busy, busy lives, we take the first road, and the next road, but eventually and most certainly we hit upon a road jammed up by traffic, or stress, or economic worries; we're jammed up because our kids are being bullied at school, or because they aren't making great grades; we're jammed up with insecurities and false ambitions; we're jammed up for a million reasons. And we can't see where to go, because in the moment of it all, our perspectives our as limited as those God-damn Google maps.

Anyway, my point being that it's not a bad idea to sit back and take the time to look over the whole map, once in a while.

...you know, to help you to see where it is you're going.

...and to appreciate where you've been.

Mommy's Favorite

"Who's my favorite?" they all ask. They all want to know. They've always wanted to know.

I suppose the question started forming in their little minds sometime in preschool when these sort of questions started being put to them: What's your favorite color? What's your favorite food? Favorite number? Favorite friend? Until, eventually, each one of them came home to ask, "Mommy, who's your favorite?"

I handled it the way my own mother did: "You're my favorite girl," I said to Sunshine. "And you're my favorite boy," I told Hollywood.

And this worked for a time.

Then The Storm came along to make me revise my answer. I took another cue from my mother's book: "Sunshine's my favorite big girl. Hollywood's my favorite boy. And The Storm is my favorite little girl," I said.

And this, too, satisfied them for a time. Enough so that whenever one asked, another would answer for me: "Sunshine's her favorite big girl, Hollywood's her favorite boy, and The Storm is her favorite little girl."

I imagine it's a question that all mothers encounter at least as many times as they have children. It waits, posed to be posed, right there in the wings of a mother's life. It never goes away. And just like the children who ask it, the question grows more complicated. So that now that they are eleven and fifteen and seventeen years old, my loyalty-inspired strategy has grown weak, flawed and it's failing miserably.

"No, really," Sunshine said, a few months back, "You can tell me. I won't mind. Who's your favorite?"

She's sure that it's not her. She believes it's Hollywood, because he's the one I've worried for most in the past few years. And she's sure that Balthazar favors The Storm. "They have the soccer thing," she says.

Plus, for as long as she can remember, she's been on her own, like on family bike rides when Hollywood rode tandem with me and Balthazar pulled the toddler-trailer with The Storm buckled inside, while our big girl managed her own two-wheeler. I can't recall many other examples, but Sunshine could list off an earful if you asked her. She started to, one time, a couple of years back, when the question arose again.

As for Hollywood, he too feels left out, particularly when Balthazar travels for work and he's the only boy in a house full of girls. He doesn't ask about favorites anymore. He's a teenage boy, he doesn't ask about much, anymore. But, like his older sister, I'm pretty sure he doesn't believe he's made anyone's final cut.

The Storm still asks, though, and she does so with all the fresh enthusiasm of her age. Her eyes still grow bright, optimistic, while she waits for my answer. Her brow lifts. Maybe this time she'll tell me I'm her favorite, she's thinking. Hoping.

"You're my favorite little girl," I say, again.

"But...," she throws me a curve, "I'm not a little girl anymore. You've said it yourself."

"You're growing up fast, that's true. But you'll always be my little girl." Then I wrap my arms around her and squeeze, poor compensation for failing her, for my unwillingness to choose her above the others.

"But...," she says, again.

"There are no buts about it. I love you all. Equally," I say, a bit defensively.

But..., she's thinking (I'm sure of it, I can see it in her eyes,) but your favorite color is yellow; your favorite flower is the daisy; your favorite food is spaghetti; and your favorite man is Daddy. So, surely, you must have a favorite child.

How could she know? How could anyone who isn't a mother know how much I love each and every one of them? How could she know that I would die a thousand brutal deaths for each and every one of them? A thousand brutal deaths times three.

And how could they know that loving differently isn't necessarily loving more. Or less. Just differently.

Because I do love them differently. And the differences in the way I love them are as obvious and as subtle as the differences in each of them: Sunshine's infectious smile; her clever, clever wit; the curve of her baby finger; the surprising firmness of the cartilage that intertwines her delicate ears, ears that I loved to touch while she slept as an infant, before those first curls arrived to drape them; and the way Hollywood's eyes hold histories and worlds, histories of worlds; the irony of his jawline, still delicate and smooth but holding the strength and promise of all the man that he is growing into; the pitch of his sudden laugh; the softness of his heart; and the way The Storm wraps herself around you to hug with her whole being; and the way she loves with her whole heart, like her siblings, but differently, with more abandon, I think, I fear; the deep brown tone of her summer skin pulling taut across her slender back and shoulders; the deep dip of the cleft above her lip, below her nose, that's deeper still when she's just woken and her face is as cottony-full as her voice .

Yes, I love each of them differently. And differently everyday, still. They are complicated. I am complicated. It's complicated.

But The Storm's inability to comprehend this isn't really the issue. The real issue is that I'm failing her. Me. Her mother. That in trying to be fair to all my children, her included, I'm breaking her heart.

The issue is that hope, unfulfilled, eventually dies.

The issue is that those beautiful brown brows may not lift in optimism the next time she asks.

The issue is that Hollywood no longer asks at all; that, having endured enough heartbreak outside the home, he knows better than to come looking for it inside, from his mother.

The issue is Sunshine's recent approach to the question. Her bravery: "You can tell me." And the desperation beneath it. Please, tell me. Please, tell me it's me.

The issue is that my unbending loyalty to all of them is failing all of them, individually.

The real issue is that each and every one of them wants desperately to hear that they are special, the most special. They want me to love them the most. And, of course, I do! Love them the most. Each of them. The most.

So, why not say it? "I love you the most!"

Because it's absolutely true: "I love you the most! And I love you the most! And I love you the most!"

So, I'm revising my answer, again. Staunch loyalty isn't working. Loyalty that twists and reaches and bends over backwards; loyalty as flexible, all encompassing, strong and complicated as a mother's love, that's the loyalty needed to answer this most serious and delicate of questions.

"You, yes, you are Mommy's favorite!" I'm going to say, the very next time I'm asked. And the time after that, and the time after that, and the time after that.

Because they need to hear it.

And because it's so very, very true.

Some Thoughts from Baby

A Post by Special Guest Blogger, The Storm

Today was Take Your Child To Work Day, so The Storm put in her share of writing. She also did some pitching and she even submitted her short story (which was pretty good!) to a handful of publications. Fingers crossed! Her final assignment of the day was to write a nonfiction piece about being the youngest in our clan. Here it is: 

I am the youngest of three in my family. There are some really cool things about being the youngest but, then again, there are some not so cool things. Yes, I am the baby and everyone thinks that I get what I want. But you should meet my mother—she likes to get things her way, too. That’s the problem my mother is like me, so that is why we don’t get along so well. We kind a of argue a lot!

   

Some good things about being the youngest is that I am the baby, so I get to act like one. When my brother and I are fighting, I can just yell really loud at him and my mom will scream at him to get his butt downstairs. Also, because I am the youngest I have an older sister and an older brother, so I know thing I should not know (because of the shows they watch, which I watch with them.) It isn’t just them: my mom says bad words sometimes. (She is getting better, though.) Ya, so being the youngest is fantastic!

Some BAD things about being the youngest is that my opinion doesn’t really matter. Also when I want to record MY TV shows, everybody else’s shows come before mine. Being the youngest, I can’t go to the R-rated movies with the rest of my family. Also, I feel left out sometime because the older kids do things I can’t do because I am to young. So, ya, being the youngest sucks!

These are some pro and cons about being the youngest in my family.

A note on Mom's bad language habits: What can I say? I love words! All of them!   

As for whose opinions matter:

The Storm wanted not one, not two, but three birthday parties this year. She got'em.

The Storm wanted to go to Disneyland over spring break.

And the beach.

And the zoo.

And she wanted to rent a funky bike.

And she wanted to rent a kayak, and have pizza for lunch, and visit the chocolate shop, and sit in the backseat, and watch Batman instead of "Anything else, please, anything else," and she wanted to ride Splash mountain three times, even though the sun had gone down and it was really cold --so we did all of this. And she didn't want to walk, ever, so we didn't. 

But, if you ask her about the week, she'll tell you that she wanted to go surfing and we didn't. So, her opinions don't really matter. Sigh. I'll say this for her: She knows what she wants, and she wants it all!

Girl / Woman

When she was little, the rules were pretty obvious, the boundary lines clear: You can ride your bike on the sidewalk only; hold my hand to cross the road; always swim with buddy. These things, and a thousand others, I told her to keep her safe.

As Sunshine became older, she insisted I loosen the grip at her wrist.

"Trust me," she said, and I did and she grew to be this smart, strong, confident, beautiful and kind sixteen-year-old (almost seventeen-year-old!) girl/woman. (That little diagonal line separating those two words holds a world.)

I trust her. And she talks to me. And she has convinced me that the teenager stereotype, full of angst and rebellion, is a myth brought upon by a lack of understanding, communication, tolerance and patience.

And she is good, and she values the trust between us as much as I do, and here is where it gets complicated:

Last night, after a lengthy explanation about the proficiency testing going on at school, from which she is exempt, and assurances that most of her teachers will be moderating said testing, leaving her with substitutes and hours upon hours of classroom videos, make-work and general do-nothingness, she asked if she could skip school to have fun with her friends.

"I can't give you permission to skip school," I said, even as I recalled some of my favorite high school memories:

We called them day parties, these shining occasions when twenty or thirty of us would spontaneously skip off to his house, her house, the beach, a dirt road and just have the most spectacular fun in these few stolen hours. In fact, whenever I meet up with old friends, even thirty years later, these day parties take center stage under the yellow lights of our reminiscing.

So, "I can't give you permission to skip school," I said, again, "but, I won't punish you, either."

"And if you get caught, it's on you. I won't have your back."

But, this morning, as she slung her school bag over her shoulder, on her way out the door, it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't know exactly where she was going, and I'd created a situation whereby she couldn't tell me.

"I obviously don't want to know where you are going," I said, all sternness. "But, I absolutely want to know where you are going." A panic bubbled up inside me.

She laughed at me, at my ridiculous logic which grew, of course, from my desire to keep her by the hand, keep a firm grip, keep her little and home with me.

"I'll make good choices," she said, "and I'll let you know if I go anywhere different from the usual spots."

"Or if you do anything unusual."

"Okay."

"Unusual for you, not me."

"Okay, Mom."

"And be home at the usual time."

"Right."

"And make good choices."

"We're getting repetitive."

"Just go," I said.

I cried a little when she left.

Life is Hard

"It shouldn't be this hard," I said to my friend.

Balthazar and I had hit our roughest patch on life's road. We were, more or less, living apart, he in Vegas, and I with the kids, in Iowa--since Vegas had a job for him and we couldn't sell our house in the Midwest.

This lasted for two years. Funds, too, were tight and, playing the role of a single mom, I could barely find the time I needed to write my thesis. I'd committed to a very expensive, low-residency program, less than a month prior to Balthazar's job troubles. Oh, and our house was for sale throughout the ordeal, so I was frantic to keep it clean, lest we lose the one buyer we were desperate to find to make everything right, again. 

I was stressed out. Balthazar was stressed out. And the kids suffered, too, for our stress--which made us stress all the more.

"Why not?" my friend asked of my complaint about life.

"Because. Because. It just shouldn't."

"Why not?" she repeated.

"Because life is supposed to be fun. It's meant to be enjoyed." 

At least, that was what I had always believed and because, for me, life had, for the most part, been roses and lemonade. Even when things were difficult, which of course they sometimes were, there was wine to swirl in our glasses, once we'd clinked them together--"Here's to better days." Love to be made at night. Morning doves cooing outside our window, come sun up.

"But it's also hard," said my friend, candidly. 

I stopped being her friend that day. It was an act of defiance.

~
     

But life stayed hard for us, anyway, despite my protests. Really, really hard. 

At first it was little things: A freaky flood in our basement in Iowa to scare off our first real prospect; a scorpion infestation in the new house in Vegas. One thing after another to keep our foreheads perpetually wrinkled: the constant vomiting of the dog who was allergic to the Vegas heat; a car accident; another car accident; an infestation of  lice that lasted forever; bad teachers; bullies at school; and always there were the bills we were expecting; plus the ones we weren't. 

And these were in the years when things were supposed to be getting better: Balthazar and I were working desperately to put things back in order. I'd graduated from school, we'd sold the house, found another in Vegas and we'd begun the long slow climb out of the debt that the previous years had set us in. 

"We have a roof over our head, food on the table. We have our health and we have each other." I encouraged Balthazar. 

But the roof wasn't ours, really; it was rented. And the food was bland, or takeout, because, I really didn't feel like cooking much, anymore. This led to wider waistbands, less energy, less will. It led to less each other. Less of ourselves. More stress. 

But, we are fighters, Balthazar and I, so we got up each day and did what needed to be done, tackled whatever new challenge showed up at our door. Then, at the end of the day, we squeezed the kids, as if to soak in some of their youth and optimism, to replenish ours--which was vastly diminishing. 

We hugged each other, in consolation. 

"It has to get better," we both said. Over. And over. And over again.

Then, "Are you fucking kidding me?" when the next blow would arrive. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I railed at our rented ceiling.  

And the blows were knock-you-on-your-ass mighty. Sometimes because we'd had yet to get up from the last. And sometimes because they came from left field. And sometimes because they just were.

"We still have our health," I said to Balthazar. "The kids are healthy. We're healthy. We're gold," I said, "As long as we have our health, we're gold."

It was, in all honesty, the one thing, I was desperately afraid to lose. I could battle the rest of it, as long as we stayed healthy, I thought.

~

"I'm sending you to a specialist," said my doctor, on a routine checkup. "It's your thyroid."

I didn't go. "Life is not supposed to be this hard!" 

~

Then, just over five years into our rough patch, five years living in a perpetual state of stress, a flu sent me to bed. For a full week. A week I couldn't afford. I missed four deadlines. My anxiety levels skyrocketed.

And then I gave in. I laid my head on the pillow and I slept. For days. 

When I finally awoke, recovered from the virus, a numbness took over my lips and face, my hands. And then my brain. I couldn't follow a simple movie plot. I certainly couldn't write. My hip joints ached. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I said, that first morning when it hurt to walk.

I suspected multiple sclerosis. My new doctor (naturally, I'd ditched the other) suspected multiple sclerosis, too. She scheduled tests. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Balthazar didn't say it. Instead, he poured over the bills.   

~

"Seriously?" I said, when the receptionist asked for an exorbitant co-pay upfront. 

"Forget it," I said. "I'm not sick. I'm only stressed out." 

I went home.

~

"I'm sorry," I said when Balthazar began complaining about bills, that week. "I'm sorry that you're stressed out. But I can't worry with you. If you have to worry, you'll have to worry alone. I won't worry anymore, not about money nor whatever shit should arrive on our doorstep tomorrow. I can't live like this. We can't live like this. It will kill us."

"I love you though," I said. "And I'd love to just go for a walk and hold your hand."

~

The blows still come, but less frequently, it seems. And, somehow, they land with less force. Even the big ones:

"Epilepsy," said the neurologist of Sunshine's episodes.

To her, he said, "Everyone has something."

"That's true," I said. "Think of Hollywood's allergies."  They arrived like a sucker punch, during our second spring in Vegas and have been hassling him ever since. 

"Chronic sinusitis," said his specialist, last month.

Balthazar's high blood pressure is genetic; he's careful about what he eats.

~

I'm careful about what I eat now, too. I'm cooking with enthusiasm, again. We exercise regularly.

We smile and laugh, a lot, as often as we can, really.

And these joyous occasions chip away at the pall that has hung over us for so long.

To make me smile all day long. And I value our good days more than ever. 

I'm smiling now, as I write this post.

And my symptoms have all but disappeared. And we bought our own house, and there are no scorpions, and the dog stopped vomiting....

Life is hard. A lot of the time. And it's bound to get harder still, but when it's not, Oh!

When it's not, it's pretty damned great!

~

I think I'll call my old friend. I owe her an apology. A drink. We'll swirl our wine in our cups, once we've clinked them together.       

The Crazy Mom

I spent most of the Labor Day weekend on the sidelines with the rest of the parents of The Storm's soccer team, while the girls competed in tournament. They're a good bunch of people and I was just reflecting on them, when an alarming thought occurred to me.

You know how there's always one crazy mom in every group? The one who is totally over the top? She either rides her kids too hard or talks them up too much. Or else she completely coddles them. She might have them set on twelve foot pedestals. Whatever it is, she's usually pretty easily identifiable because she goes on and on, completely oblivious to the fact that her behavior pretty much horrifies everyone else.

Anyway, it just occurred to me that we don't have one of these in our group. Which means....

Gulp.

Oh my God..., I must be her! 

Fighting Words

Yesterday found us at Target buying Hollywood some new school supplies. Weeks ago we purchased the girls' things but, just recently, Hollywood has also decided to return to public school.

He left middle school, last January, when the bullying became unbearable, and he's spent the last eight months doing an online homeschool curriculum that was terrific, in that it taught him academic independence:

While I was always around to help him, often I would need to research subjects for myself, before I was any good to him. Hollywood soon figured out that by removing the middleman, me, he could get his work done twice as quickly. He began looking things up on his own, rarely turning to me at all, in the last few months. He learned to teach himself and think for himself--a fabulous thing to be sure.

But, he's been lonely. A 14-year-old boy needs other 14-year-old kids around, friends who speak his adolescent language and like the things he likes, video games, Nerf guns, cannonballs. So, he's returning to the public school system, again--having grown older, stronger and wiser to the ways of the world and the treacherous terrain of middle school.

"Keep your head down this time," I've warned him several times. "Try to fit in," I've said, in spite of myself. In spite of him, too.

Two binders, two packs of college-ruled paper, 24 pencils, a protractor, a science calculator and three other large bags of Crayola and Mead supplies later, we met up with Balthazar and the girls for dinner and a late movie, grabbing as much last minute summer fun as we could before school starts up again.

We saw The Butler, a movie that caused some mid-film seat shuffling, in order that Balthazar and I might field the questions that continually arose. It was early in the movie that The Storm leaned over with her first.

"What does that mean?" she asked, referring to the N- word.

"You've never heard it before because it's a very bad word," I said back, before I explained to her, as best I could in brief and whispered theatre tones, the word in its historical context. 

Then, settling back into my seat and reaching for another handful of popcorn, it occurred to me that I certainly had heard the N- word, and quite regularly even, by the time I was ten, and what a great thing it was that she hadn't yet, and what that said about society's progress. It was a line of thinking that the movie, opening up in a cotton field and concluding with the election of President Obama, went on to confirm.

The best thing about art, the thing that makes me so passionate about literature, beyond the prose--I'm crazy for good prose!--is not the story so much as the conversation that the story inspires, the bigger thinking that culminates.

"You know," said Hollywood, on the way home. "I was just thinking about the word gay."

"Ya? " I said. It was just us in the car. The girls were riding with their dad.

"Well, kids should find another word to use as an insult. It's not right," he said. "Like, when they called me gay, even though I'm not, I was offended by it."

"Hmm," I said.

"It's because of the way they said it. They said it in a mean way. But I don't think there's anything wrong with being gay." He paused. "Still, I was offended. I don't think kids should use that word that way. Like when something is uncool, they call it gay. Like being gay is bad thing." Another pause. "I think a person's sexual preference should be up to them and nobody else should care."

"I agree."

Then he said, "I think maybe I should try to change the way kids use that word." And my alarm bells started clanging. 

Part of Hollywood's problem, in middle school, was his intolerance for bullying. He couldn't let it happen to anyone, without speaking up. I remember teaching him, years ago, that this was the right thing to do. Now, I realize, I set him up: In defending the bullied, he became the target.

"I think maybe I should say something when kids use that word, that way," he said, while I scrambled for the right response.

"Maybe," I finally said. "But remember, middle school is a rough place. Remember you were gonna keep your head down?"

I want him to do what's right. I want him to be true to his strong, always dead-on accurate, moral compass. But, more than this, I want him safe. I want him happy. I want him to fit in.

Because it's so much easier.

But..., this isn't my decision to make.

"You know how, in the movie, and in history, the people who stood up for what was right were persecuted? How they were beaten and jailed and even killed? How hard it was for them?" I said.

"Ya?"

"Well, you just have to know if you're gonna stand up for something, if you're gonna fight for something, well, you're gonna be in a fight. You've got to be ready for that. You've got to consider whether you want to take that on. And if now's the time," I said--because although he's bigger and stronger and wiser than he was eight months ago, and his confidence and self-esteem have been replenished, it was only eight months ago.

I didn't add, "For God's sake, please, keep your head down, my sweet baby boy."

Although, I desperately wanted to.

"I guess I need to think about it a little. Maybe there's something else I can do to make people stop using that word that way," he said.

"And remember, change doesn't happen over night."

"Right."

We were quiet, in our own thoughts, for the remainder of the ride. He, thinking seriously about how to best make the world change for the better. Me, wrestling with my own moral compass; with my desire to tame the good in him, to make him better fit in a not-so-good world.

~

When we were at home, later, while he played on the floor with our miniature schnauzer, he asked me another question. Although, I now suspect, he already knew the answer.

"Mom, what's a mutt, exactly?"

"It's a dog that isn't a purebred. It's a mix of different breeds."

"You called Shadow a mutt, once, when you were mad at her."

...Point taken, my wise young man. Point taken.

A Haphazard Truths Manifesto

I haven't blogged in awhile--it was a conscious decision. The truth is I stopped blogging for several reasons, some of which were practical--I won't bore you with the details--but one of the reasons, the main reason that I stopped sharing here at Haphazard Truths is because of different things that some people have said to me. Small things. Hints, really. Judgment, most definitely. Words that spelled out their disapproval of my oversharing and questioned my ethics as a parent.

Sigh.

So, as I re-enter my Haphazard Truths practice (for it is a practice,) after a long sabbatical during which I ruminated and meditated often on this very thing, I've collected several counters to the accusations that, in  blogging, I am robbing my children of their right to privacy.

Here goes:

1. I'm not a private person. I never have been. When I pull myself up to any given table, I lay out all my cards and, as I do, my heart (and probably far too many other organs,) pinned there to my sleeve, flaps about for all to see.

I've never been very good with secrets, particularly my own. I'm more comfortable, I feel more secure when the truth, ugly and as uncomfortable as it might be, is laid bare, alongside all the cards, for everyone to contend with and dispute and, well, I believe, make truer still.

This isn't to say that I insist, or even believe, that my children should be the same. They certainly, like everyone else, have a right to the degree of privacy that they choose. I understand this.

2. While my readers know, or at least I hope they know, that I care deeply for them and that I do my very best to be as honest as I can, they also must recognize that my priority is my children--at least the content of my posts should point to this.

My three darlings give me an abundance of material to think about and write about all the time, but some of it, and some of the meatiest, frankly, is very personal to them and so, of course, I won't write about it.

Occasionally, some very personal thing or other that we are contending with does inspire blog post musings, in which instance I simply ask the darling in question, "Can I write about this?"

And for every Yes and Sure, there are also the shocked and emphatic No!'s. And I don't. Case closed.  

3. Writers write. It's what we do. And my family is by no means the first, nor will they be the last, casualties of an earnest writer. My God, just watch the rapid speed with which the memoir shelves multiply at your local library.

Still, I understand that there needs to be a balance between my needs as a writer and my obligations as a mother, and I make every effort to ensure that there is. (Revisit #2.)

4. While the truth is that I would prefer to be writing fiction, my life, as it is--regularly and predominantly consumed by my responsibilities as a mother--doesn't leave me the time that I would need to concentrate on my fiction (yet.) But still I must write, as others must run or cycle or climb. Or breathe.

I know this to be truer than ever, since my Haphazard Truths journey began--when, with that first post, I felt I'd gulped a huge breath of air for the first time in a long time. Writing completes me.

And the material available to me, the only material available to me for the last 15 years is the material available to a mother who's abandoned career and pretty much self to dedicate her world to her children and family. What else would you suggest I write about?

5. Finally, and this is a pleasant if unexpected benefit of blogging: Haphazard Truths makes me a better parent.

In writing about my children, my responsibilities to my children and my relationship with my children, I am forced to deeply consider all of this. And this deep rumination; the contemplation and sorting necessary to thoughtfully express in writing what they are experiencing, or what I am experiencing as a result of their experiences, or what we are experiencing together, leads me to have deeper understanding of it all, leading to more informed and, thus, better parenting. 

And taking time from our very busy schedule to observe my children, even if for the purpose of discovering blog material, has me, at least, taking a beat to observe my children from a different angle. And every now and then I'll notice something, I might not have noticed otherwise.

It's a little like snapping a selfie--because, of course, my self is inclusive of them.

 

Anyway, studying them forces me to consider things like why Sunshine might have snapped at me over breakfast, and inspires me to make sense of her behavior, when it would be so easy, during the busyness of our day, to let it go, knowing it will pass or to brush it off as the natural behavior of teenagers--which by the way, I don't take much stock in: Teenagers behave like teenagers, for the most part, because they're treated like teenagers..., but this is a whole other topic for a whole other post.

Anyway, all of this is to say: I'm back. Big hug. I missed you!

My Worry

My worry for Sunshine needles like a thorn underneath my rib. I can't reach it. I can't tend to it.

I must suffer it.

Each day, my teenager inches further into a world where I can't protect her. She's making her own decisions, setting her own standards, calling her own shots. And I'm afraid for her. I'm afraid she'll make mistakes..., of course, she'll make mistakes.

This realization pokes deeper still.



 

My worry for Hollywood is different. It is a wounded lamb I carry across my shoulders. All day. Everyday. For months on end. It lays atop my chest at night. In the dark, I listen anxiously for its every belabored breath.

Hollywood hit a rough patch in middle school....

That's an understatement. I'm not ready to get into it.

One word. Bullies.

At his guidance counselor's recommendation, Balthazar and I have removed him. He's homeschooled now, and the change in him feels near miraculous. Already, he's regained much of the confidence they took from him.

As if nothing more than a school lunch!

Sometimes, I lay down the lamb, in a patch of soft, cool grass, to sharpen my staff on the nearby rocks. I raise it above my head like a spear. I could kill with it.

Other times, I hold the stick, with one hand, by the hook, turning paranoid circles. My other hand gripped tight to the lamb's paws, at my shoulder.

I will not drop him.



 

I've not been worried for The Storm, this week. It's a welcome reprieve.

My baby is doing just fine. She's happy. She's healthy. Her grades are good. She's bonding well with her siblings. She's playing well and often with friends. She's smiling and laughing. Even in her sleep.

To make me smile, too.

And breathe, ah..., easier.

Yes, this week, The Storm is being easy on me.

...Except when she goes outside to ride her bike. The cars come fast up our street. And she's a little daredevil. When The Storm goes outside to ride her bike, my fret is a heart murmur.

Probably nothing to worry about. 

But, I will anyway.
   

Of Big Dogs and One Little Dog

Hollywood's growing up. He's two inches taller than he was six months ago--meaning he's already taller than I am, and he'll probably be taller than Sunshine next week. Maybe taller than Balthazar, next year.

All this growing he's doing makes it hard for a mama to keep up:

"I need new running shoes," he said, about a month ago.

"Ok," I said. Then I stored it in that corner of my brain where I was keeping The Storm's request for science project breads. He didn't get them.

"I need new running shoes," he said, again, when I asked him to join me for a jog around the block, a week or so later.

"Can you wear your old ones?"

"I guess."

This sort of thing went on all month. Then, last week, when I suggested, once again, that he wear his old shoes, he said, "I can't. They really hurt my feet."

We hit the mall.

"What size are your old shoes?" I asked, in the shoe department.

"Six."

"We'll need a size seven," I told the salesman.

Too small.

"Seven and a half," I said.

Too small.

"Wow, Hollywood, you're really growing! Sorry," I said to the salesman, while the boxes piled up around us. "Can we try an eight?"

Too small.

"I'm a really sorry to bother you, again," I said to the salesman, who was doing his best to avoid us by then. "We'll need an eight and a half."

Too flipping small!

No wonder his feet hurt! He's been squishing his size nine dogs into shoes three whole sizes too small him, for over a month.

Speaking of dogs, Shadow's also giddy for the new shoes.

 

 

Since, they mean hand-me-downs for her: "New chew shoes! Arff!"

 

A Failed Science Project

The data collection portion of The Storm's fourth grade science project is due tomorrow. The objective of her project is to determine which bread molds the fastest. She has predicted that the pumpernickel loaf will mold more quickly than the others (rye, wheat, sour dough and white) because she believes that darker, denser breads mold more quickly.  She also means to test whether the breads mold at a different rate out in the sun, versus in a dark cupboard. And she is curious as to temperature's effect on mold, so the fridge will become a science lab, too.

Notice I said "will"?

In December, a week before Christmas, when The Storm chose her subject matter, I knew immediately that this could go wrong. You can't grow mold overnight. We would need to be prepared, start early.

I  remembered science projects of previous years: the time Balthazar and Hollywood stayed up all night making crystals to present to the class the very next day; and another time when Sunshine and I drew color wheels and mixed food coloring in egg cartons until long past her bedtime.

"Remind me to buy your breads as soon as the holidays are over," I told The Storm.

She did.

I didn't.

In fact she reminded me several times, and each time she did my heart skipped a beat with worry.

"Yes, shoot, we need to get on that." But each time it was early in the day, hours until my next grocery trip. Or late at night, when I would say, "I'll buy them first thing in the morning."

Then I would forget all over again.

Anyway, here it has arrived, the day before her data collection portion is due and I've yet to buy her breads to mold. I've screwed up.

"Don't worry," I said, to calm her tears this morning. "I'll write a note to your teacher. The actual project isn't due until February. We'll make it work."

Here is the note I would like to write:

Dear Ms. Fourth Grade Science Teacher,

Please excuse The Storm for not submitting her data collection today. I forgot to buy the bread. Or rather, I forgot to remember to buy the bread.  

It would seem a simple thing, the purchase of a few extra loaves of bread--for a woman who visits the grocery store almost daily, in order to feed her family nutritious  homemade meals. However, alas, I did not remember.

It seems odd, doesn't it, that I could continually forget to remember to purchase the bread to mold? When I never would forget the bread to eat? Nor the many tasks that needed to be done to earn the bread, to buy the bread to eat, or mold?

In fact, everyday, since the science project was assigned, I was able to remember the thousands of things necessary to manage the lives of the five of us in our family: the cupboards were filled; the laundry was done (the blue and black soccer uniform for Tuesdays, the orange and white for Thursdays, the white game jersey for weekends); the kids were always delivered and picked up from school and their various activities; there were presents under the tree at Christmas; and multiple feasts set at our table to accommodate our holiday guests; orthodontist and dentist appointments were kept; as were the dog's grooming appointments (although my own roots were let to grow); the kids received the help they needed with their daily homework; and the chastising they needed to ensure they themselves tended to this work; I read to them; I counseled them; I scrubbed behind their ears; I pulled countless ponytails through colored elastics; I kept the house clean enough to fend off mold (in hindsight, this was perhaps an error in judgement); I smiled pleasantly across the table for business associates; I bandaged knees; and served up spoonfuls of medicine this flu season; I wrote several articles; and edited just as many; I checked regularly for lice (a paranoid habit, perhaps); I flipped at least 360 pancakes since the science project was assigned (both wheat and white--I should have let these mold); poured juice; spilled juice; cleaned spilled juice; mopped floors; changed sheets; reminded them to cough into their elbows; I've cheered on the sidelines and cried on the sidelines of soccer fields; and life; I've pulled my son out of the middle school where he was being badly bullied to implement a new homeschooling curriculum (free of science projects, for now); I've had several serious conversations with my 15-year-old daughter about sex, and trust, and the dangers of peer pressure; I've made New Year's resolutions; new family budgets; new schedules for 2013; replaced four faulty appliances and a car; negotiated with two car salesmen; answered to six different editors; I've made countless lists (some even included "buy breads"); and reminded the kids to write lists, keep track, get done all that they needed to get done; "Do you have a sweater?"; "Where's your lunch?"; "Did you take your vitamins?"; "Make good choices out there,"; I've hugged them; stroked their heads; patted their backs; wiped their tears; and tucked them into their beds at each day's end; I've locked the doors and set the alarm; and I've lain awake making more lists. I've even cleaned cupboards and tossed into the trash molding breads (that had not been properly observed or recorded)--but for the life of me I could not remember to buy the damn breads to mold! 

I thought temporarily of helping The Storm to falsify data for submission, and would have had no problem doing this myself, as a young student in dire straights--it would be easy--but I'm a mother now, and my priorities are completely changed: 

Growing strong, healthy, good and honest children is my primary objective.  So, I won't be teaching The Storm to cheat, this week. 

Instead, all I can do is beg for your mercy, and an extension. How long does it take to grow mold anyway? That's how long we'll need..., assuming I remember to buy the breads this time.

Yours Truly,

The Storm's Mom 

But that isn't the letter I sent. Instead, I wrote this--

Dear Fourth Grade Science Teacher,

The Storm is still in the process of collecting her data on molding bread. We would be grateful for an extension of approximately two to three weeks.  

--with this quote, from J. D. Bernal (a well-known scientist of the last century), in mind:

"It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof." (Or mold!) (The Origin of Life, 1967)

I'm hoping The Storm's teacher is a percipient scientist!

           

A Lesson Called Angelica (Revisited)

Early into the new year, as I struggle with new schedules and all the 2013 resolutions I've set for myself--toward improving me, my life, the life of my family, and the world in general--it seems an ideal time to revisit this lesson I learned (and wrote about) a few years back:

  A Lesson Called Angelica  

This posting finds me running around Target on a Saturday, grabbing things I would have picked up weeks ago, if I was a more organized woman.  It’s been one of those days, so I haven’t showered; I’m wearing yesterday’s t-shirt—it was right there—and no make-up.   I’m hungry, because I didn’t get any breakfast, nor have I had any caffeine.  But, I’m so late that I don't have five minutes to grab a cup from Starbucks—which has me a wee bit cranky, on top of it all.  Oh, and it’s been one of those years, too, so I’m all but busting out of my fat jeans—to my own thorough disgust.

I’m having just this horrid sort of morning, when, low behold, I see her: The woman I would be, if I could just get it together.  I always see her when I’m having a bad day—although she arrives in various forms. 

Today, she’s tall in a pair of sleek black leather boots--to make me feel even shorter and dumpier than usual--when I step into the checkout line behind her.  She’s thin and fit; she could be a dancer.  Her jeans are the expensive kind, made to look old, except the elaborate stitching on the pockets assures me they aren't.  Her hair is long and dark and smoothed.  On her face--a very pretty face--there rests a serene, almost sleepy, expression—a hint of smile, when she begins to unload the items from her cart. 

There are no children with her, but, as well as Christmas decorations, she buys a pair of tennis shoes—a boy’s size six—and various other things to convince me that, despite her knockout body, she is the mother of at least a few children.  I imagine them at home with their father.  It’s a big, beautiful, clean house—organized a la Pottery Barn, and the children are dressed for the day, although it is only ten in morning.  Perhaps they’re decorating a gingerbread house, or playing a board game—of course, they all get along.  There would be a dog, too, a golden lab probably, resting lazily at their feet.  Classical music plays softly in the background.      

I watch the woman I would be—if I could just get it together—as she, almost in slow motion, sips coffee from a travel mug monogramed with a curvy swooping A.  And on this morning, standing behind her--feeling old, sloppy and inadequate--a thought that has never occurred to me, suddenly does: A is a much better letter than C—not only is it a much fancier letter, it’s the very first in the alphabet. 

This is an irrational thought, I know, but, nevertheless, here and now, on this miserable morning—when I just can’t seem to get it together—it does occur to me, for a split second. 

Then an announcement from the overhead speakers interrupts my thoughts:“If there is an Angelica in the store, could she please come to the customer service desk?  Angelica, please come to Customer Service.”

She looks like an Angelica—she looks like an Angelina!--she could be Angelica, I think.  I watch for her reaction.  There is none—except, maybe, yes, she blinked.  She definitely blinked; a slow controlled blink of registration.  Maybe?  Maybe not. 

I watch A load her bags into her cart.  They are the environmentally friendly canvas bags, the same ones that I have forgotten in the trunk of my car—again! 

Why, oh why, can’t I get it together? 

The announcement sounds again.  A doesn’t blink this time, doesn’t even seem to hear it. 

I'm still watching her when she leaves, curious to see if she’ll go to Customer Service.  Her strides are long, but her steps are patient and composed.  Her black boots sound off delicious clicking noises.     

When she passes the exterior doors to move towards the service desk, I am satisfied—I knew I saw her blink—Angelica is a suitable name for the woman I would be--if I could just get it together. 

I check my watch.  I'm really late.  My frenzied state returns.  I bite on my thumb nail, as if this might speed up the cashier who's working at a snail's pace.

“HURRY UP!” 

The voice is loud and guttural and mean.  And it isn't mine. 

It’s Angelica’s.

She’s marching, fast and furiously, now, out the door, screaming over her shoulder at a boy who is approximately eleven and rushing behind her. 

“Now!”  

He's flustered, panicked.  He wants to obey, needs to obey, but he keeps glancing behind him.

“C’mon,” he calls to another boy of about seven. 

There’s terror in his eyes.   

Angelica is outside now. 

“C’mon,” the boy calls again to his brother, and the younger brother moves more quickly.  But he, too, keeps watching over his shoulder.

Another boy appears. 

It's a toddler.  He's following about ten steps behind the seven-year-old, who is five steps behind the eleven-year-old, who is almost out the door—although still looking back with that pitiful and panicked expression. 

Angelica is long gone. 

Then so is the eleven-year-old.

Then so is the seven-year-old.

Then, after a few brief seconds when he is alone in the store, so is the two-year-old.

And so is my notion of the perfect women, the women I could be, if I could only get it together  

***