The smog
Maybe it was the week of haze, the sun a bright disk behind clouds of diffuse smoke, the smell of fire hanging in the air. Or I could be homesick, tired of a landscape of bungalows, thirsty for brick and marble.
That's it. I want to go home. Not to DC (though I wouldn't mind just a taste of that city), but back to my grandparents' house in Hollywood Beach, before it was ruined by death, back to some sweet summer when my grandmother was alive.
We'd drink sugary Coca-Cola over ice, hang out in her freezing bedroom. She had a perpetual supply of Cheez-Its (it was a land of hyphenated foods, tasty concoctions of flavored chemicals with catchy, meaningless names), and I'd jam handfuls into my mouth while we watched The Price is RIght. Sometimes I would listen to the sound of her sewing machine humming along as she worked on another outfit or colorful muumuu.
After lunch, I would walk down to the river, step in the soft tar by the side of the road, sink into its soothing warmth. Somebody's grandparent was always sitting on one of the benches overlooking the beach, smoking a cigarette, keeping an eye on the young swimmers. With a running leap, I'd arc into the water, trying to avoid the muddy river bottom, several inches of sludge and leaves. I was heading for the raft or for water deep enough for an underwater handstand, ready to emerge with handfuls of muck and dirty fingernails. When a container ship came through the channel on its way to or from the C & D Canal, swimmers fought the pull of its engines and treaded water until the ship passed.
I'd swim until the skin on my fingers and toes wrinkled in protest, until I was covered in a thin film of mud, sometimes until I was shivering. Then it was time for the walk up the road, a towel wrapped around my waist, looking forward to farm-fresh corn on the cob and summer tomatoes.
Nostalgic memories are free of pain. They do come with an ache, however, a longing for simplicity. I'm sure it wasn't so simple, but my grandmother's house was a safe place, a place where I could be a kid. As I've been working on the stillbirth story again, I've been thinking of the dramatic event as the final nail in the coffin of childhood. That it happened in the one place where I had truly been able to be a child, where I was safe for a short time, seems especially sad to me. The happy memories will always be tinged with loss.
So maybe this funk has been a little burst of mourning, more grief experienced years after the fact. Let's hope that getting it out will allow me to let it go. I'm tired of the mental smog. I want to enjoy the sun, revel in the blue sky freed after a week behind smoke.
Dashboard confessional
That's right: I don't drive. Yes, even though I possess a driver's license, I have not been behind the wheel of a car since 1996. That was back in Columbus, Ohio, where I took driving lessons and passed the test -- in a stick shift, no less -- only to continue with my non-driving, pro-walking lifestyle.
The Ohio license was my ticket to a Washington, DC license, which in its turn practically guaranteed me a California license, both sans driving test. California required that I take a written exam, which I passed by the skin of my teeth, with a score just good enough to get my golden pass to the highways. But, don't worry. If you are driving the roads of our fine state this summer, or any time in the near future, you will be relieved to know that I will either be safely ensconced in the passenger's seat or hoofing it.
Though I am a big supporter of public transportation (how could I not be?) and I am happy not to have to plunk down an extra car payment, my decision not to drive has nothing to do with a political stance or with economics.
I am afraid.
Five people from my high school were killed in car accidents in the space of a year and a half. When I was fifteen, I was in an accident on the very same winding Delaware back road where two upperclassman had been killed a month before, though I got off lucky, with a few stitches near my right eye.
I concluded early on that cars are big, heavy, and fast and can cause a lot of damage. The possibility of killing someone with a two-ton, gasoline-powered weapon is terrifying. I can't suspend disbelief, act as if there is no danger involved. Everyone shuttles around in these shuddering heaps of metal and plastic as though it is the most normal thing in the world. And I guess I do, too, as a passenger, though I'm not exactly a relaxed passenger.
It's a phobia, one that was relatively easy to live with when we were in the middle of convenience, in a fantastic DC neighborhood where everything was within walking distance and if it wasn't, I could hop on the Metro to get there. No one even needed to know that I didn't drive, which was wonderful, because I'm embarrassed by it, this dependency on my husband, this weird fear of mine.
Now that we're in a less convenient place, I am feeling the effects of life without driving. I know what I need to do, but I don't know if I can do it. Hey, if Sarah Vowell can survive without driving, why can't I? (But then again, if Katha Pollitt finally did learn to drive, what's my excuse?)
The first time
It's the first time I've been paid to write something that has been published. And it's totally different from what I do here.
Yay!
Don't worry. I'll be back to my regularly scheduled angst soon. Perhaps as early as tomorrow.
Reality
True, I am happy not to be in the working world. I can't imagine anyone else taking care of the boy on a full-time basis. I am a worrier and a control freak and I would miss him. There is no job waiting interesting enough to pull me away and I'm a poor juggler. The rush to work, the rush home, the mad dinner dash -- I didn't like it when I was childless. Mix in a needy little one and I would be a raving lunatic, in a less fun way than I am now. A full-time care situation would also be less than optimal for my total homebody, somewhat mommy-obsessed son.
(Note: There are many reasons to be a working parent. My mother was a working parent. Most of my friends are working parents. I love them all and admire their ability to have a working life and a home life. Their kids are generally happy and well-adjusted. I have nothing against mothers who work.)
Then there is reality: money. Farting around with my fascinating life story isn't going to bring in the cold, cold cash. My husband bears the burden of supporting us in a very expensive part of the U.S. I haven't contributed to Social Security in almost four years (yes, I still cling to the quaint idea that Social Security will exist when my time comes to cash in). And I miss having an outside focus.
To make money writing salable stuff takes concentrated effort. A plan. It takes time to implement a plan. And seven hours a week of childcare isn't a lot of time.
My solution: stop sleeping.
Though I don't sleep much as it is.
Seven songs: another meme
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.
Although I can't say that there are seven songs that are shaping my summer season, I can list seven songs that I've listened to lately, almost all while dancing around with the kid. And we don't listen to a lot of current stuff, apparently, so I apologize in advance to the youngins.
Belle & Sebastian: The State I Am In
Reminds me of a different summer, but I still listen to it and the kid has been listening to Belle & Sebastian since birth.
Robyn Hitchcock: Belltown Ramble
My husband and I recently attended a Nick Lowe/Robyn Hitchcock show at the Fillmore. Robyn played this tune, H bought the CD, and we are now hooked. My son asks for the Bell song, and we move around the room, swaying our arms.
White Stripes: Seven Nation Army
Good stomping music.
Sonic Youth: Bull in the Heather
Don't know how to explain this one, but we likes distortion.
Prince: Dance, Music, Sex, Romance
We had a morning of dance. I was thinking of my old college roommate, who was a Prince fan, and there you have it.
Kenny Loggins: House at Pooh Corner
I wrote about this recently. Now the kid sings it, too, though he doesn't catch all the words. It's cute.
Cassandra Wilson: Children of the Night
This song brings me back to a different time in my life, in a bittersweet way.
Instead of passing this on to seven bloggers, I invite anyone who would like to participate to post their own seven songs.
Dead on arrival
There on the fading photocopy of an autopsy authorization form is my signature. It's the writing of a teenager, rounded and totally legible, unlike the scrawled signature I have today. Then, the autopsy. They cut him open, weighed and measured his organs. Everything was for the most part normal, or "unremarkable" in autopsy parlance, with the critical exceptions of his lungs. The causes of death are listed as prematurity and bilateral pulmonary atelectasis.
Even now when I read it I feel a moment of panic: was he born alive? It did seem to me like he was moving initially, but my mother says otherwise. If we had been at a hospital or closer to emergency care, would he have lived? But the record is titled "Record of Fetal Death (Stillbirth)."
Does that leave me off the hook?
About two months after his death, I got a call from a parent running a bereavement group. The hospital had passed on my number and he was inviting me to their next meeting. As we talked, he mentioned that his stillborn child was a Christmas baby.
"That must have been so hard for you, right around Christmas," I said stupidly.
"Well, it's hard no matter what the season."
He was so kind, as if we were in this together.
I gave him my address and got off the phone as quickly as I could. What right did I have to grieve? The child I never wanted, who I was going to give up for adoption, was dead. Perhaps I even willed it, or brought it on with dark feelings and too many Budweisers. I wasn't a parent. I didn't deserve to feel anything.
For many years, I had a recurring dream. The baby had arrived. I wasn't prepared: no clothes, no diapers, no place to sleep. And somehow, the infant would slip my mind. He languished in a cold room, too weak to cry, his stomach knotted with hunger, a soaking diaper clinging to his skin.
By the time I remembered, it was too late.
In six words: a meme
OK. I am up for the challenge.
Who would have
thought: me, here?
There have been a few surprising
turns in my life. Spending five years in the midwest?
Never would have anticipated it. Cooking school in
New York? No way. Being a stay-at-home-mom in
Berkeley, California? Oh, but I would never leave the
East Coast again ...
And most surprising of all: tell my secrets to the
world (well, to a small group of loyal readers) on a
"blog"? You must be joking.
So now I pass it along to the following bloggers, if
they wish to participate:
Clinically
Clueless
The Pitfalls of
Life
Geoffrey's
Farrago
Shiv's Brain
The Essence of
Bobness
"Tell me a story"
Then my son started asking for stories before bed. Yes, my internal editor even made an appearance here. I had to thaw my mind, to stop caring about being bad at storytelling. Of course, he is a very receptive audience, a three-year-old with a love of the surreal. He throws out an idea and I run with it, with a little input when necessary (fun fact: did you know that monsters eat pears?).
It's freeing and satisfying, this flow of connected silliness with just a touch of plot. Good practice for writing.
If only he would fall asleep after the story. Perhaps I should be more boring.
All that jazz, Part II
I’m sure it was an oversight when Dieter neglected to give us an invitation to his jazz party. We had been out of town the previous week. Perhaps a strong wind had blown the slip of paper off our porch. Maybe Dieter, Jr. had inadvertently skipped our mailbox.
I watched from our upstairs bedroom as a small tent went up. Thinking back to Angelica’s mention of the party, I imagined flinging open the gate between the two yards. The hordes would spill in, clutching Coronas and Aquafinas, swaying to saxophone solos and smashing our sepia grass into the dirt.
Our landlord and Dieter were tight, friends from when
she lived in our house. The fence contains two
remnants of their relationship: a double-doored gate
connecting the yards and a 2x2-foot window. The
thick, beveled glass offers a view of birch and
bamboo, visual access to the back corner of Dieter’s
world. It's a sideways glance, no eye contact
necessary, thank goodness. The gate came with a shiny
new padlock. We’ve never bothered to remove the key,
so there it dangles, a symbol of hope gone sour, of
potentials never realized.
I was thinking about our poor neighborly relations --
where did we go wrong? -- when the dog nosed me in
the thigh. Oh yeah. Time for a walk. I put my son in
the back carrier, leashed Nora, and walked out into
frenetic Birdland preparations. The Neighbornator
family was bringing in more foodstuffs. I put on my
friendly face.
“You’re coming tomorrow?” Dieter asked, his tone
light. As we passed his dog, Nora growled and lunged,
putting on her vicious cur act. She’s insecure and
totally harmless, though you’d never know from her
bark. I pulled on the leash. "Nora! No!" My son
buried his face in my back. Dieter observed our
little drama with a poker face.
With Nora subdued, I got back to the conversation.
“Coming?” I asked blankly.
He seemed surprised. “I gave you an invitation! Are
you sure? Didn’t we talk about this? It must have
been your husband. Ja, that’s it! I talked to your
husband about it a few weeks ago.”
I shook my head. Nein.
“I am sure I talked to him about it. Ja, I remember
... Oh," he interrupted himself, realizing the
futility of this line of thought. "Ja. There will be
music of all kinds! It starts at 1:00 and goes on all
day. Invite all your friends!” Dieter was a little
flustered.
I tried to be nice about it, to muster up a smile or
some polite enthusiasm. We had just gotten back from
a trip to the East Coast. Everyone was jet-lagged and
sleep-deprived. My husband and I were in the middle
of a marital mess. Given I could hear this man’s
dinner conversation, what would an all-day jazz party
sound like? An all-day jazz party that started at my
son's nap time?
Saturday, September 29th 2007 was a beautiful day. The sky
was cloudless and the air dry and warm. A light
breeze ruffled the leaves in the trees, a pleasant
sound, easy on the ears. At 10:30 a.m., in a yard
hemmed in on all sides by houses, in a yard of
perhaps 500 square feet, in a yard next door, it
started. “Testing, testing, 1-2-3.” Someone was
testing a microphone. Attached to an amplifier.
Attached to speakers.
We were doomed.
At 1:00 p.m. sharp the warm-up act started. Gospel.
This was followed by a traditional jazz quartet. At
some point a pianist pounded out some classical music
(was that Dieter's son? The one who kept on
butchering "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"? If so, he
had improved.) Then an R&B band took the stage,
followed by a nod to Thelonius Monk.
During the intermissions, my husband and I would look
at each other: was this it? But it kept on keeping
on. The pauses were just long enough for equipment
changes. We watched as vans pulled up and spilled out
musicians and instrument cases, the next group on the
marquee getting in line. We listened for the
appreciative applause at the end of each solo. We
looked up the Berkeley city code on amplified music.
Dieter was well over his four hour limit.
From our backyard, the music was loud. Very, very
loud. No wonder Dieter didn’t understand most of what
I said: he was probably half-deaf from years of noise
exposure, Pete Townshend without the guitar. The
animals were agitated. Nora paced back and forth
until she found refuge in the bathroom, while the
cats would scratch at the back door to be let out,
only to rush back into the house with flattened ears
and disgusted expressions. My son skipped his nap.
And the bands kept on coming.
Our last escape from the wall of sound was at 8:30
p.m.. Hoping to gain back sanity lost, hoping that
our son would finally fall asleep, we went for a
drive up in the hills. No one said a word as the car
wound up steep inclines, pushed through
eucalyptus-scented air to a quiet, dark place with a
view. It was a surprisingly clear night and we could
see San Francisco. We watched lines of cars snake
across the Bay Bridge, felt wonderfully insulated
from the sounds of engines and car horns, saxophones
and vocalists. Our son was asleep. Time to go home.
Surely the whole mess was over by now.
But it wasn't.
It seems funny now, funny that we came home to a
Mexican band singing La Bamba, complete with horn
section and what sounded like clog dancing. It was
the most raucous gig of the day. It was almost 11
p.m. When would the madness end?
And then it just ended. As the song wound down, the
crowd whistled and stomped, screamed for an encore.
Ten hours of incredible music, well-performed,
well-appreciated, and very loud, and they wanted
more. It was not to be. Jazz Fest 2007 was over.
The hordes slowly dispersed. We brushed our teeth and
went to bed.
For several months, we barely looked at Dieter, whom
we christened The Neighbornator. We didn't confront
and he didn't apologize. There were no arguments
about the event or the noise level, just bitten
tongues and imagined amusing scenarios, all with the
self-centered surgeon as an object of ridicule, his
accent exaggerated and his mannerisms cartoonish.
We've gotten some good laughs out of it.
For Jazz Fest 2008, we'll be out of town.
Flim flan
This weekend's project: a low-calorie flan. It's the most difficult. I've been playing with different combinations of ingredients, trying to keep things simple and natural. Flan is not normally on my list of desserts. And now I am tired of it.
The good news is that I think I've created a very tasty, relatively good for you flan. The bad news is that I haven't been able to write Part II of "All that jazz."
Until tomorrow ...
All that jazz, Part I
Yes, our wayward next-door neighbor is originally from Germany, though his accent has been softened by thirty years in the U.S. “Dieter” is in his mid-50s, of medium build, tall, with white hair and sky-blue eyes. He’s a neonatalogist with a specialty in prenatal surgery. Maybe it takes his kind of arrogance, of surety, to operate on the not yet born. The hand must be steady and the conscience clear before you make the cut. You don’t toss that self-confidence aside upon leaving the operating room. Dieter prides himself on being a regular guy who does his own home and car repairs. He rides a sleek black motorcycle to the hospital. He blasts classic jazz tunes and world music while doing yard work. But these are not crimes.
Maybe we weren’t receptive to friendship. Perhaps we have nothing in common. There was talk of a barbecue that never materialized. He and his wife made a welcome to the neighborhood visit that ended at the front gate. Dieter didn’t seem to approve of our dog training or of our slow to smile toddler and most of our conversations left me feeling vaguely insulted. The relationship became one of brief smiles and half-hearted waves from car windows.
But we became very familiar with the patterns of Dieter’s life. We had no choice. The houses in our West Berkeley neighborhood are built tightly together. They tell the secrets of the lives held within: whose marriage is in jeopardy, who drinks too much, who cries before leaving the house every morning.
This knowledge of our neighbors' lives is forced, impossible to avoid. Unscreened windows let in fresh air and leak out unsolicited information. We hear the arguments, the sex, the banal exchanges on what is needed at the store. Glasses clink and sobs are suppressed into pillows. People curse during arguments and berate their teenagers for sullen attitudes. (As I type this from the deck, I hear a mother and daughter fighting. The daughter is screaming “I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! “ over her mother's tirade. Closer, shoes crunch on gravel. Someone clears their throat as they open a back door. There. The door slammed behind them. Silence.)
When Dieter spent all of last August sprucing up the yard and power washing his house, I knew something was up. He was on the cordless phone all the time, speaking enthusiastically, making arrangments, using "Ja, ja" instead of yes. We’d heard about his annual shindig. “I told him that you’d be great friends, hanging out together, opening up the yard for his annual jazz party,” said Angelica, our landlord, naively before she took off for Arizona. Now I watched a small tent go up, saw the stacks of chairs and tables, observed as Mr. And Mrs. Dieter ferried cases of water and beer from the car.
My heart sank when the deliveries started. A medium-sized truck with ‘PIANO MOVERS’ in huge black letters on the sides was the first to pull up. Three burly men gently moved a wrapped baby grand to the backyard as Dieter supervised with pride. Over the course of the day, more trucks lined up, delivering equipment, microphones, lights and other mysterious things. The big event appeared to be imminent.
No one had said a word to us.
Continued ...
Schlump
Am I the only person in the world who needs time, real time to exist and think and be by myself, to write? Extemporaneous writing just doesn't do it for me. Just sit down and write ... but what if I have nothing to say? Sometimes I need to sift through my thoughts, to make sure everything is all clear, before words come out.
Write about what you know. Hmmm. Maybe I need to get out more. I don't particularly feel like writing Mom-lit. I love the little guy and find practically everything he does worthy of mention (did I tell you about his pteronadon song? "you are my friend pteronandon, you make me smile ..."). To write about him, however, would box me into this life. I need an escape hatch or, at the very least, a window to open to let in the breeze.
Just keep writing, 1000 - 2000 words a day, wrote a commenter here recently. I admit, I got defensive. It isn't so easy to just sit down and write so many words for me, partially because of the nature of my life (and I probably wouldn't be writing at all if I had a job outside the house) and partially because I've never written like that. I think too much, maybe, and the thoughts get tangled up in each other. My internal editor tries to sort things out, to make sure all is nice and neat before letting the words loose from my mind.
I have a friend (are you reading, Bob?) who shows up periodically in my in-box, long e-mails about his life, writing, academia, and philosophy. If he were working on the 2000 words a day quota, one e-mail would practically take care of it. Bob has always been this way -- the words flow. They're not always the most well-crafted, but he is a good writer and he gets there eventually. I'm jealous.
When I decided to start writing, Bob -- who has 3 children and teaches and writes for a living -- told me that he didn't know any writers who sit down for blocks of time and just write. Everybody fits it into the odd moment, writing ideas on a scrap of paper here, tapping away at a laptop there.
I'm creatively bereft at the moment. No ideas, no tapping. This is a theme here lately, but just writing about it makes me feel like I am getting back into the swing.
Say, how many words is this???
The lost weekend
Reminder to self: be more careful. Read the manual. Back everything up. Test out the web page in different browsers.
And pay more attention to Timethief. She knows what she’s talking about.
Next week: more recipe development for Vegetarian Times.