All drenched in milk and holy water

There have been some rough days. We are at vastly different developmental stages which seem to be conflicting. Some of us are growing teeth; some of us are trying to become Legitimate Business People. We are not all sleeping. We are trying to assert ourselves -- assert our independence from one another -- claiming or reclaiming identities we haven't quite sorted out yet. There are carts being put before horses, careening around the house, toward the door, only to pause at the threshold to notice the weather and head ruefully back inside.

I do a thing when it becomes too much. When I want to scream and slap and say horrible things (because these feelings happen; nobody says so, because it's taboo to feel ill will toward one's own children, but every moment does not feel like the blessing it is marketed). I finger through the records until I find the one. I take it out of the sleeve and put it on the turntable. I don't tell anyone where I was when I first heard it; I don't invite anyone to dance; I don't ask for approval; I don't apologize for it's cliché as it relates to people my age. I put the needle in the groove and I sing. I know every word.

And this is the room one afternoon I knew I could love you

They leave me alone without being asked. I am not a good singer, but I am especially bad at matching these notes though I know them all by heart. Every inflection. I don't care. I don't try. I belt it out.

The earth looks better from a star that's right above from where you are

As the trumpet swells from devotional to apology, I spin in the middle of the living room while my children busy themselves or look on. I wonder what they think, if they'll remember this record.

I will float until I learn how to swim

If they'll think of it as sacred, as the one mama put on without explanation. As the one that signaled and diverted impending collapse. What words will stick in their minds. If they'll inherit the significance of this or any of "my" records, requiring (as I do) silence while they play, judging people's character by their ability to talk over the best parts. I wonder how it's understood that this is mine and not theirs, not ours. It's the only space they give me. I would never do it in front of anyone else; I treat it as alone time, as something privy only to the people who have inhabited my body.

Ghost, ghost, I know you live within me

And when it's done, I take it off the turntable, put it back in its sleeve and slide it into the middle of the shelf. Invulnerable to attack as the ends are prone, as close to a secret one can keep in plain sight. Hoarse and sweaty, I resume life, no questions asked except the occasional "do you feel better?" Calmer, myself, feeling understood by that black disc if no one else. Buffered and bolstered by familiarity when the familial is too much.

disappointment

With the holidays approaching (and with them, the birthdays of most of George's little friends), I've been waist-deep in production and all the stuff that comes with it. Trying to figure out what to make. Pick fabric. Choose trims. Do it right. And once it's made, hope the recipient likes what I've done. Anyone who handmakes gifts has made something that was poorly received. My own favorite story -- the word 'favorite' being a relatively recent development, as the multi-level bummer finally wore off -- is of making something for someone who probably thought she was being tactful by tasking someone else with the chore of asking me for the gift's receipt. Whether I should've taken the fact that the thing passed for storebought is the only possible positive of the whole deal, because when the middle-woman asked for the receipt, she turned what may have otherwise been a somewhat laughable oh-haha-err-awkward! situation into a fight. "It's HOMEMADE?! What were you thinking? You should've just gotten her NOTHING. Can you at least get her a real present now?" Seriously. If you will, dear reader, please imagine my response and make it as -- ahem -- colorful as you'd like.

Regardless of how shitty that lady was, the sting of disappointment is harsh when you've worked hard on something that isn't well received. It can feel like a personal affront; your choices and efforts are entrenched much deeper in a handmade present than one bought in a store. And sometimes that fact falls on deaf ears...or into unappreciative hands.



When I was pregnant with George, I told my mother -- a longtime smoker -- that she could not continue to smoke and have a relationship with my child. As a child myself, my parents' smoking was a constant embarrassment and nuisance. Like when you give someone a homemade gift (George is, afterall, about as homemade as gifts get), the gift my mom got in her grandson was not customizable after-the-fact or exchangeable for another size or color. But the gift she got was good. The only appropriate reaction, in my book, is akin to mine when I was given my first, beautiful handknitted wool sweater: what do I have to do to keep this gift as perfect as it was the day I got it?

My mother's reaction was... not that. Over the past year and a half, she has lied about giving up smoking, told me the cigarettes in front of her weren't hers, insisted the smell on her clothes wasn't smoke, and snuck away during Thanksgiving festivities to light up in the bathroom, bringing with her upon her return a foul stench that required my entire family to bathe when we got home. Before we could collapse into bed with a tired infant whose sling also reeked of cigarettes, who was exposed to third-hand smoke for an entire day. And that was my last straw.

I love my mother. We have our issues, most of which revolve around situations just like this one, wherein she has sold me out in favor of someone or something more important to her. But there will be no selling out of my kid, and I didn't hesitate for one hot second when I called to say we'd made it home through the snow to add that until she stops smoking, she will not have the privilege of seeing George. Because she's setting a bad example. And even if you don't believe the studies about third-hand smoke, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that a baby should not smell like cigarettes.

I wish I could say that my mom's reaction was a hearty hey-whatever-it-takes-because-I-love-that-kid. But it wasn't. And my feeling was similar to the one you get as you watch your friend or family member's face go from I'm-opening-a-present-this-rules! to ummm, WTF? when they peel back the tissue paper on your homemade table runner and matching napkin rings. But, like I've had to do with people who felt my gifts missed the mark, I'm letting go of my mom's complete lack of appreciation for what she's been given. If she chooses to throw it out, that's entirely up to her.

unscathed...sort of

One of my greatest fears in raising my son and any future children we might have is passing on my (many) neuroses. I inherited so many of my parents' problems. So many undesirable familial traits that our blue eyes and thin wrists are, in the cafe of genetics, drowned out by the din of phobia, depression, addiction, walls built so high and thick that the few who tunnel in are usually sorry they did.
One of the things that's struck me about having a child is that my personal attachment to these neuroses is waning. I have identified, for better or worse, with my eccentricities for as long as I've had them. People could take me or leave me and I was always relatively unmoved by their decision. Dorkily, I realized this had changed while listening to Bjork's song Hyperballad, the lyrics of which I had never given much thought:

We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There's a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like:
Car parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around
...
I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

(lyrics posted entirely without permission)
Besides our fantastical, magical wardrobes, Bjork and I apparently have something in common. We psych ourselves up for the day with our kids. We shake off the nasties and pull ourselves up by the old bootstraps because nobody wants a crazy mama despite how appealing her craziness made her to boys at nineteen.
I feel that I usually do a pretty good job of this. The fact of the matter is: I am not one of those cooing, adorable moms who revels in playgroup and shopping at Gymboree. I hope George loves me for these characteristics and not in spite of them, but if he doesn't, you know, kind of oh well.
On the other hand, there are still problems I just can't get in front of. They outpace me or circumstance renders me somewhat helpless and I'm suddenly that crazy lady with a baby on a plane who's crying over the number of seats across the aisle and the fact that the customer service representative lied about KLM Royal Dutch Airlines because why the fuck would a European affiliate be flying from Dallas to Atlanta? Yeah. That was me.
post-freak out
I made it through a week of mother-in-love being all shifty-eyed at my hippy parenting and father-in-love pretending he wasn't going to AA meetings and sister-in-love getting unceremoniously dumped and sorta-neice eating nothing but shit carbs to my shock and horror and my stinking phobia fells me in the final seconds. True to form, you all might be amused to know, I was thinking for the entirety of the flight that when we crashed I would be vindicated. I just love being right, even hypothetically, posthumously. That's commitment to the cause.
This was our first Family Vacation. We flew in a plane, we had a destination where we stayed for a week. We saw people to whom George is related but with whom he has nothing else in common. I did not grow up going on these kinds of vacations. I was sent alone to see foreign family or was drug to conferences where I fell in love with hotel living, the fluffy robes, the over-chlorinated pools, the familiar strangers and the approximated comforts of home. All involved, primarily, time alone. Predictability. The things I used to thrive on. Those days are most definitely behind me. And I think that's okay.