Thursday, May 29, 2014

And then the scar rips off



I was talking with my friend V recently about some experiences we have in common. Both she and I know about restraining orders, control freaks, liars, losing ourselves, finding our way back, healing. For me, we’re talking ancient history, padded shoulders and puffy hair days. Her story is more recent, within this century. 

Hours before our talk, something had come up that triggered reminders of the duplicity and danger V had survived. As she spoke about this to me, V’s voice veered from even to anxious to shrill. She started gesticulating wildly. Her eyes got teary. I, on the other hand, was calm, reserved even. I nodded as she spoke about what we both know to be true, that there are some scary dangerous nutcases out there, that the court system is flawed, that keeping yourself and your kids safe takes guts and that some of your worst enemies are the friends in whom you confide, who come back at you with, “How could you allow this to happen?” and never look at you the same again, though if you’re healthy you’ve realized by then that it wasn’t really friendship and so you haven’t lost much. 

I watched my friend as the anger took over.  Her eyes were wide. Her hands, hatchets almost, slashed the air. We talked, well I talked while she sort of yelled, about how those false friends usually find out the hard way that the world is full of sociopath spouses and other damaged supposed loved ones who will lie, cheat, break hearts and sometimes other body parts in order to get what their narcissistic brains and bodies crave.  

At one point I said that I understood her emotions. I said that for about ten years I was much like her. That full out response, the fury, followed by guilt, destructive self-talk, nightmares for days, would get set off at the oddest times: the tone of a radio voice, a headline in the news, conversation snippets over heard in the supermarket. There are still certain movies I can’t watch, I said. Certain kinds of reading matter I have to avoid.  I assured her that things will just keep getting better. Each day is easier than the next. 

As I drove home, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much I’d changed since the early ‘90s.  How much I’d accomplished. How stronger, wiser, more compassionate I’d become. How detached I was able to be. How happy I’d become. 

I had a medical procedure scheduled for this morning. The doctor went over some last minute details then asked me about my running. She’s a half-marathoner so she semi gets me. I told her I’d just become a Marathon Maniac, and talked about the two marathons I ran in two weeks that got me qualified. She was impressed, and complimented me on my strength, then told me I was a nut. 

I laughed back at her and told her she was only half crazy because she only ran half marathons.  We bantered back and forth like this for a bit. I was feeling a little more relaxed about the procedure, which was going to be uncomfortable but nothing, the doc assured me, I wouldn’t be able to handle. 

As she began, I tried to focus my attention on the medical student who stood at my right side. The doc had said the student would hold my hand if I wanted. 

“I just ran two marathons in two weeks. I can handle this,” I said. I smiled at the student.

The doc began and I felt myself tense at her touch.

“Relax,” she said. She continued working.

I tried some deep breaths, but just froze up more.

“You need to relax,” she said.

I yelled I can’t, and jumped up screaming for her to stop, stop right now.  She did. I could tell she was startled by my reaction. I was too.

I wiped my nose and eyes with my arm. The student handed me a box of tissues. The doc told me to calm down. I blew my nose and told her to stop saying that because it was just making me angrier. She nodded and talked about what to do next. She said we’d reschedule the procedure in the hospital, with me under anesthesia.

I said I felt like an idiot, like a weakling, because I couldn’t handle what should have been an uncomfortable but fairly simple procedure. She reminded me I was a Marathon Maniac and could handle anything.  

“Not this,” I said.

It wasn’t until I was in the car that it hit me.  It was the way she touched combined with a slight switch in tone when she told me to relax, a word I’d heard so many times earlier in my life, as I was being lied to, dismissed, redirected, controlled.  One minute I was fine. The next, all that scar tissue had ripped right off, and I was back in a time when my life was hell. 

I’d told the truth when I told my friend that things do get better. I wrote this to remind myself and others that sometimes we still fall apart too. And that’s okay. It’s all part of the process. 

Fall seven. Rise eight. Time for a run. Life is good. It truly is. I hope it’s good for you too.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Go gray? No way.



Dear friends,   

I’m sorry but it’s time for us to say good-bye. This relationship is simply not working for me.  I’ve said it before, I know. Attempted to cut the cord umpteen times and counting. But today, right now, I mean it. I’ve got the proof here at my fingertips, in my appointment book: 3:30, Friday, Sylvie B. See? This is really happening. 

I know what you’re thinking.  You’ve heard this sad song a thousand times already for crying out loud. I’ve scheduled so many, many appointments, and never followed through:  too cheap, lazy, needed to read one more silly story on cracked.com, whatever.  

None of that wishy-washy stuff this time. I’m ready. I’m not backing out like I did last year when I set a day and time, then let my daughter talk me out of it.  She’s out of state. Has no idea what I’m planning.  Or maybe you’re thinking of four years ago, right before that big date, when I canceled both the appointment and the guy, and bought myself some outrageous earrings and a sweet bottle of cabernet instead. 

Nope. I’ve cleared my schedule. Got the jewelry and wine shopping done, too.  

In truth, I knew I wouldn’t back out the second I heard Sylvie suggest it. First, there was her sharp intake of breath immediately followed by the flash of a grimace. Then her voice, low but firm, as she combed out the tangled layers and prepared for the cutting: “Maureen, it’s time.”

She was right. I knew it instinctively. Understood it the way I know deep in my gut each time I find that perfect wine-cake-frosting combination. I knew it was time to cover you up. I’d seen it coming. Truth is I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now. You’ve gotten way too spirally, wiry, and worst of all, dull. Dull is not who I want to be. 

It’s not that I don’t appreciate you. Haven’t I been your biggest supporter these last few years? As you’ve grown and multiplied I’ve worn you with a cut-the-crap none-of-that-nonsense-for-me 'tude. I’ve always loved you, my gray ones, as much as I love all the evidence that proves I’ve lived a solid, rich life for oh so many marvelous, precious decades.   

My laugh lines show the world I love to smile. My blistered feet? Trophies from miles of marathons. And you, my ashen doves, each one of you holds a precious nay, distinctive memory of a hurdle I’ve vaulted, a challenge I’ve crushed: raising two kiddos all alone, teaching thousands of hormone-addled not-so-innocents how to fill in test bubbles; surviving multitudes of cats, most of them ridiculously long-haired and insufferably cute; vacuuming a couple of times a year every few years.

It’s not that I’m ungrateful that I’ve passed the half century mark. It’s just that I’m looking for a change. I've got a yen for adventure that you're just not satisfying. I'm yearning for something new. Perhaps a more daring me? Though Sylvie suggested I start conservatively, and maybe think a little longer before I go for the eggplant hue I’ve been craving. Ditto blue-black, or orange with magenta highlights, though I think they’re all excellent options. 
  
It’s time to bid adieu my pale, frail friends. Please don’t despair. I am sure this is just a temporary farewell.  You know I have commitment issues. Remember the Sun-In summer of  ’81? The copper Captain and Tennille helmet I swore I’d keep forever? That lasted what? Six months?  And what about my almost-mid-life-crisis a decade ago, my year of living blondishly? Remember how that turned out?  How you grays, browns, doves, salts, all came out to play within days of my third canceled hair salon appointment?

You know as well as I do that this isn’t au revoir in any permanent sense whatsoever. This is see ya later.  I know you'll always be there for me, ready, waiting, willing to enter back into the fray, at least until I hit my 80s. After that, I know all bets are off. I've seen how my forbears have aged. Eesh. 
  
Until we meet again,
Me

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Mother's Day: It's complicated



We are not big holiday people. I think I need to start by saying that so you understand where I’m coming from with this take on Mother’s Day.

“We” here meaning me, my mom, dad, and sister.  We were a pretty tiny family, as far as things went back then. Most of my friends and cousins came from large broods with even larger extended families. Having seven or eight kids was the norm. A family of two was freakish.  

We celebrated the big cultural holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, with as much gusto as anyone else I knew. We did the same stuff as everyone else too, but on a smaller scale: big dinners, presents from Santa, baskets filled with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps. But we never did the other days, the ones my mother always referred to as “Hallmark Holidays” -- Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day. So maybe that’s one reason I used to take such a blasé view of them. I don’t have a lot of memories of these unholidays, at least from childhood. 

I remember making cards for my parents when I was little. I remember going to the drug store and buying those thin boxes filled with perforated valentines, and punching them out and giving them to all my classmates and my teacher. But I don’t remember anything specific at all. On the Hallmark holidays, we didn’t do special barbecues or visit special places. 

The first Mother’s day I remember with even the remotest bit of clarity is when I was eight months pregnant with my first child. I was on my way to my mom’s house just to say hi. I stopped at a roadside vendor to get her a three-buck bouquet of carnations, which I knew she’d accept dripping sarcasm, “Ah. I thank you SO much. You know how much I LOVE this holiday.” Or maybe honestly, “You spent too much. Really. Don’t waste your money.”

I remember it was a busy road, just around the corner and down the hill from my mom’s.  It was a warm day. Cars zoomed by, blaring music, honking at my rusty Datsun pulled tight against the curb, as I chose from the bouquets in the white plastic buckets in the shade under the vendor’s umbrella. I probably bought my mom a yellow or white bunch, colors she’d find less sentimentally offensive than pink. I paid and thanked the guy and he wished me a happy Mother’s Day.  

I probably pointed to my big belly as I said, “Not Mother’s Day for me yet. Next year.” In truth, I’d woken up that morning thinking that my husband would be giving me a gift, or at least wish me a happy day. But he hadn’t.  All he’d said about the day was that we needed to be at his parent’s house that afternoon for the traditional family barbecue. 

I didn't grow up in a barbecue family. We had a little Hibachi by the side of the house but that was it. My parents weren’t into eating outside, plus my dad was a golf addict and wasn’t around much on weekends. On Sundays from March to November and sometimes for longer if the weather allowed, my dad was awake by seven and already into his first game of the day well before the rest of us woke up. He’d come home just as my mom was starting supper, usually carrying a goody or two from the bakery down the street. 

On Mother’s Day, he’d bring home a box of Russell Stovers too. Though my mom always said that he shouldn’t have, she’d open that box right after dinner and made sure to take the best chocolates, the ones with fudge, marshmallow, pecans, walnuts, before handing the remains – the ones with neon interiors, to me and my sister and dad. 

I’m sure I was rubbing my tummy, while I was figuring what color flowers to buy my mom that day. Rubbing my tummy was my favorite thing to do when I was pregnant.  My first born was quite the gymnast in utero, always somersaulting and cart wheeling, and I was always cheering her on with love pats and whispers. She and I were connected from the day I found out I was pregnant. We were cemented at the first flutter, around the sixteen-week mark. I loved feeling my belly crest and dip. Was blown away by how she loved to respond to the sound of my voice.

I’d woken up that morning twenty-eight years ago thinking, “Happy Mother’s Day to me” because I already felt like a mom. I felt silly and somewhat ashamed, when it became apparent that I was the only one in our apartment who thought that way.  A part of me even thought, “What’s wrong with me, thinking I deserved anything today?” 

The man handed me my change. I don’t remember what he looked like, it’s been close to three decades now, but I imagine him as scruffy, unshaven, thin. I remember he was middle-aged, not young like my husband.  Before I could leave, he handed me a second bouquet. “Happy Mother’s Day,” he said again.
 
His kindness caught me off guard. I thanked him and blurted out that he was the first one to ever give me a Mother’s Day present. 

His response was a funny look then, then he nodded or waved. I don't remember much beyond that look.

Though my parent’s house was less than a mile away, it took about a half hour for me to get there. I took a longer route, through the next town and back, inhaling deeply, exhaling hard, cursing those hormones that kept wetting my eyes and nose.


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Practice with Flash Non-Fiction: My Blue Room



In my room I have azure walls, a textured rug that looks like sand and tickles my bare feet, a cerulean blue loveseat, and white bead board furniture that the LL Bean catalog assured me would evoke what I hope to own someday, a modest Maine cottage, perhaps one backing onto a vestigial marsh or fronting an unspoiled bay.  This is where I write, in summer every day and during the school year, once a week at least, though I wish it could be more. 

My desk is smooth and cool and faces an expanse of wall that could be ocean or summer sky. Sometimes, I take a break from typing and close my eyes. I rub my palms over the satin worktop and remember the silky edges of basinette blankets and this room’s former decorative incarnations:  In earlier years, a crib at the window, walls pasted with white and sprinkled with hearts, stars, rectangles, circles, all in primary colors; then later the paper ripped and faded, hidden behind Hansson posters, bumper stickers, postcards from our cross-country trips, snapshots from proms and graduations.   

My desk is just big enough to hold my laptop, some books, and a dotted porcelain lamp, the latter my only personal purchase on a two-shopping-cart college -supply trip to Ikea with my younger daughter.  My elbows meet desk meets forearms meet laptop in one sinuous slide, a natural extension of me, unlike my old working surface, which doesn't belong in this space, and was slightly higher and stung my wrists, a second hand dining table, Scandinavian-designed, golden teak. It was our first purchase, two weeks before the wedding. He didn’t want the table when things ended, or he asked for it too late. Or maybe the girls were using it for school projects. I don’t care to remember.  It sat in the cellar then. It’s still there today.  

I wrote downstairs on the teak for years, my news stories, graduate papers, letters to lawyers, child support departments, university financial aid offices, while the girls played at the other end of the room or watched their favorite show, or hung with friends, or ignored me from their rooms above. It was dusky down there, the paneled walls dark, the rug too. The lights in the low ceiling always flickered and buzzed, no matter how often I replaced the tubes.

The setting suited me, then eventually became too cold, too dark, too quiet.  The teak hasn’t moved in years, though my daughters have, many times. It sits at the edge of what was once the old playroom, slumber party venue, craft studio, but is now my oldest one’s makeshift studio apartment. The table top holds two obsolete printers, a cracked computer monitor, three crates of moldy paperbacks, the internet router, several families of dust bunnies, and occasionally a snoring cat. A jumble of kitchen supplies, and suitcases stuffed with shoes, sweaters, winter coats occupy the space underneath.  

Most nights we sit on the loveseat upstairs in my still blue room, my eldest and me, and watch Jeopardy or pat cats. We talk about futures, hers and mine.  On the floor next to my desk, encased in its original plastic, is a rolled up poster. It’s about the same size of the only decoration on the wall beyond my laptop, which is a framed souvenir from my first Boston Marathon. The names of all 15,000 of us runners are embossed in navy upon the marine blue backing. If I stand and squint, I can find my name inside the right curve of the second letter O in Boston. 

My newest poster, still taped tight, is a memory from this year’s run. I have yet to flatten and frame and figure where it needs to go. I have yet to find my name. I’m happy with my open walls. For now, that’s enough. That's all I want.