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.)
Kick-Ass Blogger Award
According to Angel, A Kick-Ass Blogger is a blogger who can grab your attention and give you something to chew over for the rest of the day and in doing so, entices you back for more. A Kick-Ass Blogger is someone who is witty, articulate, and informative. I was introduced to Here and Now via Entrecard, and I am continually impressed at how direct Angel is in dealing with some difficult issues, sometimes through poetry, other times by just writing out her thoughts for the day. Thank you, Angel. I am honored.
The dammed
And I’ve been trying to figure it out: why?
I am filled with untapped ideas and complex emotions. They are waiting in my mind, rapping at the walls of my skull, tugging at my brain: Give us life! Make us real! They are desperate for description, for a life on the page.
But I don’t have the language. The words aren’t coming. My subconscious is hog-tied.
If I knew the why of it all, then maybe I could fix it. So I try to feel whatever it is that I’m feeling, try not to beat myself up with what I should be doing or how I should be spending my precious moments of free time. What is the emotional component to this word clog? Which key will open the box?
One clue: I’ve been struggling with the never-ending stillbirth story. What felt complete looks like it will need a rethink, mainly based on the suggestions of a couple of shrewd readers. Their comments weren’t critical, but instead showed other paths I could take, the way it could expand even within its strict confines of time and place.
Aha. The key. My subconscious isn’t hog-tied. It’s working.
I was sixteen and living in an unheated two-room summer cottage adjacent to my grandfather's house when I became pregnant. We called the cottage the "Little House," or the "Upper Room," names taken from a children's story and the bible, symbols before the fact, names repeated in an irony-free world. This was where I lost my virginity, where I got pregnant, and where I later gave birth to a preterm baby who never took a breath.
My life in the Little House was free from supervision. It was full of lies and neglect, tears and isolation. The events leading up to and directly after the stillbirth, combined with other emotional scars from childhood, have defined how I feel about myself, have colored my interactions. I know how to keep a safe distance.
As I keep on writing that particular story, it changes. Not the facts, but the feelings. I find other ways of telling, understand how the experience that separated me can also connect. The distance falls away, I uncross my arms, open my heart and mind.
I sometimes, however, ignore the darker emotions of neglect and anger associated with that event, wash them away in a wave of sympathy for my under-equipped parents. I don't know how to feel the feelings, to give them voice, without directing blame. Is it possible to forgive but still be angry? My writing turns into a mincing dance around the unspeakable.
The story is worth the work. But I also want it out of my head, done.
The feelings need time. They will out.
The harvest
Now we’re clutched close, lost in a kiss, tender lip to darting tongue. His calloused carpenter’s hands stroke my hair, wrap me tighter. I think over and over: “This is what is happening right now, this is what is happening right now.”
Then, a fast drive through shuddering cornfields, car windows open, my hair whipping around in a pre-knot frenzy. The stalks are taller than I am, still green, with the threat of decay around the edges.
One morning, the fields will be brown. The next week, empty.
I won’t be seventeen forever.
Would you like bloodworms with that?
He sold the whirligig mallards and Canada geese at a produce stand on Route 213. They were solid moneymakers, big sellers with the weekenders who clogged the roads every Friday and Sunday night. Lined up outside the stand, a bank of lures staked to the ground against a backdrop of cantaloupe and corn, the birds would be set off by the breeze, wings turning frantically in a frustrated pantomime of flight.
Wing tracing was not enough to keep sixteen-year-old me occupied for two months, however. That’s how I ended up, after a lot of maternal arm-twisting, as the sole employee at Eastern Shore Marine, a small marine supply store in Chesapeake City.
Eastern Shore Marine was a muddle of motors and Docksiders, winches and water-skis. It didn’t know exactly what kind of store it wanted to be: hardcore marine supplies (motor oil, pumps, pulleys) or day on the water store (skis, shoes, inner tubes). For the fishermen, we had a refrigerator full of packaged live bloodworms. If you wanted to toss some cash at an Evinrude motor, we could get you one. And towards the end, Eastern Shore Marine became the local dealer for Motorola car phones, exotic objects with a limited range, toys for the gadget aficionado.
Every day at the shop offered me a new opportunity to feel stupid. I knew nothing about boating. People would question me about sailing pulleys, or what weight motor oil they would need, would quiz me on outboard motor horsepower and I would stammer through a non-answer, look dumbly at the shelves, hope for an epiphany.
The store’s owner, John Jackson, wasn’t much help. When he was there, it was mainly to down beers in the back with his buddies, an off-duty Maryland state cop and the rug cleaning guy from the shop next door. From the clenched jaw, one-sided phone conversations I overheard, I could tell that John’s marriage was disintegrating along with his business. Maybe the responsibility for both was too much for him, too many things to juggle.
Over the two summers I worked for him, John became more and more erratic. Though he hardly ever showed up during my shifts, my boyfriend Derek and I would sometimes run into him at Bennett's Liquors or at the Canal House, the local boater's watering hole. He'd greet us with a high-pitched hello and a tight grin, insist upon giving us ice or a drink. "Want some iiice?!" became our catchphrase for him, a reference to the night he filled Derek's cooler with an intensity beyond the task.
John was a no show for my last week of work, the week before I left for my freshman year in college. Even his wife was calling, trying to track him down. Then another call would come in on the line, John's distant voice over car phone static. He'd be at the store by noon. It never worked out that way.
Alone, I’d pace the aisles, line my white MIA shoes heel to pointy toe in a circuitous route around boating supplies. The occasional customer would show, hopefully with a simple request. I waited for business, drank diet Dr. Pepper, ran my finger along the bottles of teak oil. The sailing equipment fascinated me and I would finger the pulleys, try to figure out the knot chart.
When Dan, one of our suppliers, dropped by with beer for a farewell visit on my last day, I didn’t see a problem with cracking one open. We sat in the office and talked over a couple of Coors, had a meandering goodbye conversation about John, my college plans. At the end of my shift, I emptied the cash register, doled out my weekly salary. I locked up and delivered the keys to the rug cleaner, then hopped into my grandfather's waiting car.
Within six months, Eastern Shore Marine was closed. I never saw John again.
Arte y Pico Award
Marlene of The Fearless Blog
has presented me
with the Arte y Pico award, which is given to
bloggers who inspire others with their writing or
artwork. If you need inspiration and a dose of
motivation, Marlene's blog is a good place to
start. For a wonderful example of her work, take a
look at Straddling Between Two
Worlds on the PublicLiterature.Org
website.
Thank you, Marlene! I am honored.