The home of permanent in between
When my grandmother started to show, her parents sent her to the city. They dropped her off at the Florence Crittenton Home for Unwed Mothers. I imagine her emerging from the black car alone, tattered suitcase in hand, looking nervously up the set of granite steps. Inside, somnolent girls in the late, leaden months of pregnancy, inward, deliberate, walk slowly through the gray halls.
It is the home of permanent in between; the suppressed energy of smothered potential thickens the air. The girls, all going by pseudonyms, make very little small talk. In the nursery, rows of bundled babies silent as dolls wait, neatly packaged in individual bassinets. Once retrieved, the babies seek out their mothers’ faces, liquid newborn eyes encountering guarded glances. Both mother and child have learned not to waste energy on tears or outward displays of emotion. The bonding and the break are inevitable.
This is how I picture my mother’s birth: hazy trauma of labor, discovery delivered as flat fact – “it’s a girl.” They undo the straps, let the drugs wear off. Hours later, my biological grandmother holds her swaddled daughter, names her Lois. Lois is tiny – less than five pounds – too little to be released to her adoptive family. Over the next six weeks the pair are entangled in the monotony of new life, the seemingly endless cycle of feeding, diapering, and sleep. They calm to one another’s warm, familiar scent. Their gazes become intimate. Bone-deep.
When the six weeks are up, Aunt Ruth,
a go-between, my adoptive grandmother’s sister, comes
to take the baby. Waiting in the home's entrance, the
young mother frantically bounces her silent infant,
dreading the break. Finally, Aunt Ruth appears, says
her hello, and waits.
“It’s time.”
The mother hands over the baby. It is as clean as a
guillotine strike.
Before she has time to reconsider, she races inside to
the central staircase and runs up two flights of stairs
to her room. Her breathing is contained, shallow, a
precaution against tears. She’s been trying to memorize
every inch of her daughter, the moon face framed by
white-blonde hair, her blues eyes, dainty toes and
impossibly tiny hands, but already the image is fading.
She reaches her room and slips inside, leans against
the closed door taking short, sharp breaths. A glass
baby bottle sits on the bedside table, a remnant from
the final feeding. The girl eyes it, finally reaching
out. Then, the satisfying sound of glass irrevocably
broken, the implied threat of jagged shards.
Taking several deep breaths, the young woman calms. She
begins to push the glass into a pile with her shoe and
decides to find a broom and dustpan.
There will be no tears.
Thanks, HaloScan and ... ominous piano practice?
Unfortunately, my elation at the retrieval of the missing comments has been tempered by the sound of one of the Neighbornator's offspring practicing the piano. Yes, it's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," though it's much improved from last year's attempts.
I am afraid that the annual jazz party preparations have begun. We have our bags packed in case we have to leave on short notice.
Missing comments
Thanks for being such a supportive, thoughtful group of readers. Your input is vital and has helped take this blog to places I never anticipated.
Jailbreak
It was the end of an incredible, challenging half-year. I’d spent June through October in New York, studying culinary arts at the Natural Gourmet Institute, living in a studio sublet in Chelsea. By day I’d take notes on “health supportive” food and create vegetarian gourmet fare with my fellow classmates. Evenings were for wandering Manhattan. The Hudson River was a few blocks away from my apartment, and the West Village was an easy, entertaining stroll. Sometimes I’d go the distance to Midtown where the streets were hopping with humanity and the buildings were a mix of architecture spanning three centuries, old brick storefronts intermingling with structures of concrete and glass.
The streets of Manhattan were overwhelming to me: too much stimulation, every block packed with shops and restaurants, with signs and graffiti (“Mama Loves Neckface”?), every address crying out for attention. Night subdued the signs, softened the calls. So I walked and watched, sometimes talked on the phone with my husband, who was back in DC. We’d go over the days humiliations and occasional triumphs. A few late nights in Brooklyn with my friend Jennifer – drinking, talking, attempting karaoke (never, never again) -- sealed the New York experience.
I went back to DC for six weeks before my internship at Greens Restaurant and spent the time preparing to start a personal chef business. During this break I appeared on a local television news program cooking contest, which led to a later on-air meeting with Anthony Bourdain. My world was opening up into something completely new. It was shiny and scary, anxiety-producing and freeing, a chance to create a business and change my life.
So. November 29, 2004. I was in my favorite city, San Francisco, about to work at Greens, my favorite restaurant. But something was distracting me from restaurant job panic. The day I started my internship, I also had to track down a drugstore. No matter how many tests I tried, the results were always the same. I was pregnant.
One new world slipped away as another one appeared. This was an alien planet created with an equal mix of worry, sacrifice and love. What would it be like to have a little creature totally dependent upon me? Was I up for the task? Was the pain I carried around hereditary, something involuntarily slipped in through the genes, a burden to be shared? I was terrified.
The 80-hour internship went by in a blur. I was a solitary, preoccupied figure, standing in place at the salad and dessert station as other employees, efficient in their clogs and hats, sharpened knives prepared for work, zipped around me. I would look at my slow, inexperienced hands as they grasped the serving spoon and tipped that night’s curry onto a plate. I methodically patted out tart dough as dinners were plated around me, carefully removed the skin and pith from scores of oranges in a haze of prep staff conversation, inexpertly mixed the ingredients for the filo pastry of the day in the cold of the isolated back kitchen.
It wasn’t enough time to even get my feet wet. My inexperience would never get the opportunity to disappear. I was going to be permanently interrupted.
But was I?
Since my son was born, I’ve been living as though all that was ever going to happen to me already had. I’ve let the experience of being a mother stop me from participating in the larger world. The stories I write here are about the past, about the life I had when I had a life outside of my house.
On the other hand, by writing these stories I am reentering the world, slowly emerging from my own head. And I find that my dreams have changed. That shiny new world of four years ago is no longer relevant.
I can’t wait to find out what happens next.
Glorious suffering
Like the Bay in November, the water looks thick, as though it’s huddling against itself for warmth. I insert a hand and quickly remove it. Too cold. I straighten up, circle the pool, and try dipping a toe in the water. I can’t do it. There will be no swimming today.
Off I go to the air-conditioned house to blog about my inability to leap.
I haven’t written anything substantial for weeks. Today was a lucky day. The kid is napping as I type, a rare occurrence. I took care of a few blogging tasks, ate lunch, and decided that today was the day I would take a look at my months old short story.
This was serious stuff. I set up the laptop at my new, improved writing space. Knowing how distracting the Internet can be, I disabled our wireless connection, told myself to be strong. I opened the file with anticipation.
Every word was questionable, every description hackneyed. I circled the edge of the story, but couldn’t submerge myself. And now I sit writing a blog entry about how damn hard it is to write fiction. Hard because what is in my mind is so difficult to get on the page. Hard because I want to write layered stuff and what I’m writing at the moment seems so simplistic and clichéd. I know that that writing takes practice, but I want to be good at it. RIGHT NOW!
I could look at the bright side. I’m writing more now that I ever have. Even when I am working on a blog entry, I am still writing. When my brain is unlocked, I am capable of just letting the words flow.
Writing blog entries is easy, relatively quick, and satisfying, with almost instant positive feedback. It gives me a chance to organize my thoughts, to mine the mysterious subconscious. Sometimes that puts distracting thoughts to rest so that I am able to write about things outside of my own experience. Writing fiction (or even creative nonfiction) is more plodding and risky. But, oh, for the chance to do it well, to create something that gets beyond the walls of my own skull. Surely the benefits are worth the pain? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to keep at it.
Beginning next week, the kid will be in school three mornings a week. I will have guaranteed, uninterrupted time to write in the daylight.
I expect mornings of glorious suffering and struggle.
That’s not too much to hope for, is it?
That was then, Part II
October 1972, Hollywood Beach, my 3rd birthday?
The above photo was taken at my grandparents’ house
during the John the
Murderer era.
Christmas 1976, Wilmington
Jim, the future and former
stepfather, took this holiday shot. Memories
of this apartment: no car; no money; asthma attacks;
three dead cats and one poisoned hamster; the bus
ride to a movie theater showing Star Wars; juicy
cherry tomatoes straight from the garden out back
(the garden that also contained a kitty graveyard
with little wooden crosses); iced chamomile tea; hot
carob instead of hot chocolate. For my mother, it
was a time without hope. A year later she returned
to college to complete her bachelors degree, thus
solving the hopelessness problem for a time. This is
now:
August 2008, Berkeley
My son and my mother, having a good time. We had a great visit. And yes, no one ever seems to look directly at the camera in this family. (That was then, Part I can be found here.)
Excellent Blog Award
Writing to survive has been
recognized by two wonderful bloggers this week.
Kathleen Maher of Diary of a Heretic
was the first one to
pass along the Excellent Blog Award. A warning: once
you visit Kathleen’s blog, you won’t be able to stop
reading! You can also find more of her fiction
in The View from
Here.
Then Bobbi of My Muse and Me passed the same award my way. I’ve
recently come upon Bobbi’s blog and have been
enjoying the mix of fiction, poetry, and discussions
of everyday life.
Thank you both very much for the honor!
Early on, I decided that I wasn’t going to pass on
memes or awards. Initially, it was because I didn’t
want to trouble people with meme postings, and then it
became difficult to decide who to pass on awards to: so
many choices! The downside to my approach is that I
never spread the love. I’m trying to think of a way to
recognize some of the wonderful blogs I read on a
regular basis, maybe by writing the ocassional review
or by coming up with my own award.
Next week: a return to writing about writing? More
about my mother’s visit?
I won’t know until I start typing.
The pain that is invisible
In a conversation last night, she casually tossed out a line that I had to follow up with, because it indicated how bad things were for her at a couple points in my childhood. I’m sure she’s dropped this line with insouciance before, and I’ve just followed her laid-back lead. But it’s deadly serious. And frightening. And sad.
Of course, my mind is buzzing with thoughts, about secrets, about forgiveness and the pain that is invisible when you are growing up, the pain of the depressed, hopeless parent. Maybe not totally invisible. I was a sensitive kid, the little mother, always worried. Part of the worry, however, was about me: what was going to happen to me if something happened to her? Today I feel mainly empathy for her pain and sad that she’s felt so hopeless.
I’m sure she’s awake downstairs, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the New York Times. So, off I go to start the day ...
From the inside
Part of what unsettled me was the link back to my own words (which I’ve changed to better reflect my feelings). The “why” of writing to survive was initially a rather bleak description of what life was like for me for the first two years of my son’s existence. This was a difficult time with many struggles to maintain eveness. I lost a lot of myself, my marriage changed, and I’d have to say there was some depression tossed into the mix, too, though I was never treated.
So. I love my son. I am lucky to stay home with him. He makes me laugh. We dance and sing and talk and read together. He has also been an impetus for change, a reminder to slow down and enjoy. With him I am able to remake my own childhood, borrowing the good bits and discarding the bad. I am lucky to be able to do this AND write.
Which brings me to my husband, an amazing man who is my biggest supporter. When I need reassuring about my parenting skills, he is quick to soothe. He loves to read my work. He gets take-out when I am tired of cooking. He understands when I use naptime (when naptime happens) to write instead of clean. We are truly a team. I love you, H.
There are nuances to this angst, and as I’ve been writing here and privately, the angst shifts and dissipates. The words have saved me.
This is writing to survive.
Seven facts
Instead of passing it along, I offer it up to anyone who would like to participate.
7 FACTS about
Jennifer
1 - WORK: I was a reference librarian
for about ten years, first for a state legislative
agency, then for a Washington, DC-based think tank, and
finally for the U.S.
Senate.
Four years of working 40-50 hour weeks in a basement
paging through Congressional Records, locating
report language, and watching C-SPAN with my
colleagues for the laughs led to disillusionment and
burnout. (Note: There is really much more to being a
reference librarian at the Senate Library than that,
but an exhaustive listing of what we did would bore
most readers). I quit to go to culinary
school.
Took a detour to be a stay-at-home mother and freelance
writer. 2 - EDUCATION: After one false start, I
received a bachelors in philosophy, a masters in
library science, and a certificate from a culinary
school. My first college experience was about drinking;
my second, about thinking, my third, about getting a
job, and my fourth about taking a chance while I still
could.
3 - FRIENDSHIP: When I do make a friend, it is
generally for life (even when I am not good at keeping
in touch). I’m still figuring out how to make
connections as a reserved person without a traditional
working life in a place I don’t know very well, since
we’re still fairly new to Northern Californa. It isn’t
easy, but I am getting there. I don’t need a posse,
just a few confidants.
4 - RELATIONSHIPS: My second husband and I have been
married five years as of last Saturday, and have been
together for ten. After a tough 2007, we’re in a good
place now. Happy belated anniversary, honey!
5 - WWW: The Internet was just taking off when I was in
graduate school. I remember becoming quite engrossed in
the usenet groups. Gopher -- a kind of menu-driven WWW
-- was the hot technology during my first library job.
It’s a totally different world now. Completely
addictive, too, especially now that I am
blogging.
6 - FITNESS: Run 3x a week when I can, other exercise
on the off days, walk almost everywhere. I’ve been
mainly vegetarian (some fish) for 13 years and don’t
see going back to eating meat.
7 - DREAMS: One basic dream: that I make an authentic
life as a writer. A better way to put it: I am living
an authentic life as a writer, making the dream a
reality. (Thank you to The Fearless
Blog for cheerleading the idea
that we must think something to make it
so.)