For Want

Time. There is little of it. Seems, for some, better to do something without care, than nothing at all.

What does it mean to care for someone, to be cared for? How many ways to listen, or not? To say the same thing, saying nothing?

Nothing at all.

He's a man you don't meet every day

This morning my brother called. He called to tell me that I'm a good mother, that he'd watched my interactions with my daughter for a couple of hours during our recent visit to Utah and that yes indeed, I'm a good mother, despite and perhaps because of comments about my daughter being a book s-l-u-t (of course I always spell it, what kind of a mother do you think I am?). Book s-l-u-t because of the way in which she sidles up to ANYBODY, ANYWHERE who is reading a book aloud. He was sincerely touched by Aidan's intense desire to be present, right next to him, while he read with his theatrical flair Manners Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf, a book that my grandmother read to us in childhood. If you haven't read it I recommend getting yourself to the nearest computer (perhaps the one in front of you) and ordering up a copy if only for the section on "whineys" and "me firsts," and to see the large lump in the whiney's throat and the sad state of the "me first" who "wore his arms off grabbing things first and wore his legs off pushing in every place first..." Smash, Rip and Ruin, Touchey The Snoopers, and Yawner are also very funny and worth the $15 the book might cost.

This call may not sound like a big deal, but it is and here's why. I never know what my brother is going to do until he does it--which--in spite of my love for whims--is not a joy. I've spent too much not-well-spent time waiting for a return call to one of 10 that I've made, or for him to show up for a lunch date or a wedding. I've wondered, more often than I thought possible, whether he's alive or dead. And most of the early morning calls I receive from him are desperate pleas to be plucked from misery--so that talking to him for 45 minutes this morning, delightfully lucid, about parenting, Mormon homophobia, and the Netherlands’s Black Peter celebrations, made my day. It fucking made my holiday, my Kwanzaa, my Hanukkah, my winter solstice, my Christmas, my New Year's and all of the holidays that come before, after and in between.

Bananas, death and love

At 6:40 this morning Cole climbed onto my bed and pressed his cheek to mine and said, "Wake up sleepyhead." After a minute or two of snuggling and love he said, "Do you want a "manna"?; translation--banana or Amanda. I took it to mean banana because for a few weeks now I've been eating one banana before I get up to try to quell nausea resulting from, um, pregnancy (the first time that I've said this here). I answered, "yes" and "please" and then Cole walked downstairs to find a banana, climbed upstairs and onto the bed with the banana and asked, "Mama, you die?"; translation--Are you dying? Aidan, now in the room and listening said, "Honey, she's not dying, she's just sick because she's going to have a baby." Cole said, "oh" and that was the end of it.

I have a couple of questions here: First, how does a two-year-old know, without prompting, to ask his nauseated mother if she wants a banana? Second, how does a four-year-old know to explain to her two-year-old brother that his mother is not dying--that she's having a baby, though I've hardly talked with her about it? And how does my two-year-old know what dying is? No one he knows has died, except Henry and he slept through that. And I haven't killed anything in his presence, on purpose, yet.

Last, and aware that I've asked more than two questions: How does a mother keep from crying uncontrollably over beautiful, perfect moments such as these? How does she? Not even the screaming and fighting over a raw, wagon-wheel pasta necklace a few minutes later can stop it--the emotion, the fiercest of motherly respect, and the not-oft-enough realization that these little beings are wise and loving in a way that a mother may never understand no matter how many questions she asks.

Anyone need an apartment?

Hyper

I wish that I could describe smell. Pleasant aroma or foul odor. It changes, depending on time of day and mood. Wet soap after Tad's shower or coffee grounds in trash or eucalyptus when I go for acupuncture. Fish from Vito's. Lemon drops from Walgreens and peppermint Altoids. Sautéing onions or garlic for soup or chili for dinner or no dinner. Peppers on a Mike's or Mikes' pizza. Poop, nonspecific. Wet towels that need washing. Sheets that have been slept upon and in and around. Cole's blankets. Someone else's laundry, the soap, I think. Newspaper, pulp. My mother in law's perfume. Smoke wreaths. Babies. Pine. Exhaust. Outside. The smell of outside.

Letting Go

Sometimes people need to let go, a little. And it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Oh Henry

Swimming, swimming in your tank
blue and green
like water
following your reflection
fighting with your reflection
you ate
you swam
you pooped
you died
and we will miss you.

created by Aidan Elise and Jane no-middle-name to be recited at the ceremonious toilet flushing on the occasion of the death of one Henry Betta blue fish arrived beginning of May, 2004, died December 7, 2005

Last Year

Last year I
learned to look
beneath her bed
for dust
to watch it
dance
with the sweep
of a bedskirt
and settle itself
differently
every time.

Unlike the way
paint dries
to bristles stiff
and unwilling
to bend even
for art's sake
or push into
that
which cannot
be, the dust
resolved
to dull
the brightness ever
for want.

Making it Mine

Memory crawls in like a scorpion, tail flicking, whispering. This place is the same but with a condo instead of a parking lot. And without the box of wine, or whatever we could find. It is close to the mountain, cool of autumn, dry heat of summer and nearly colorless brush that the neighbor boy set on fire, half a dozen helicopters to douse the dry flames. Later, I smoked my first cigarette. Her backyard, stolen from the secret pack of a quiet smoker, few knew until he quit.

A drive around the block, from here, reveals slick pavement on bicycle at age six, yellow and banana-seated with basket. I hear screaming and see blood and a woman whose face I do not recall collecting me like a postage stamp, crumpled and running to a house, any house, telephoning my mum, a scar for remembering.

Now it's our old house, new folks there. Paint. Making it theirs, slowly, but unable to remove memory. Mine. The hole in the bathroom ceiling in the basement. My basement. Upstairs oblivious to what went down. Stairs. Creaky, but not creaky enough. A hideaway beneath the landing. For siblings and such. Girlfriends. A boy balancing on a railing. Falling. Falling in love. Or thinking about falling in love.

In the car again this time to Indian Hills Elementary School. New, but same name. With Aidan. "That's where Mommy went to school, like you'll do next year." She wanted to know about the playground, the slightly ominous building now squatting where we once ran ourselves to pieces, boys chasing girls. Girls screaming. Jungle gym and monkey bars. Metal, not plastic.

Breakfast to George's with sisters, niece and daughter--George's was Nick's now it's Demetri's. Waitress wanted to know what language "they" speak in New England. Didn't order a roundhouse--hash browns that Susan cannot find in Massachusetts, eggs then cheese, then meat. A pool of grease, a school day's hangover cure. Wood-paneled walls, no smoking now. Seems like these walls should ooze stale, high school smoke and grease, but they don't. Used to be once a week with the boys--one's in Texas now. One's in Colorado, as far as I know, with a wife and a couple of kids, devout. One married an ex-Mormon girl and started painting and sculpting--enough art for both of them. One went on to meet his wife at a Dead concert, happily married? And my boy, railing boy, the second of six boys and with a mother still breathing, ex-Mormon, now National Guard boy--wondering if he and his wife are in Iraq, but too scared to ask. For a roundhouse or a roundhouse and a half. And today, it's the girls. My four-year-old girl.

"This is the place," Brigham Young said while retching over the side of his wagon as he gazed upon the Salt Lake Valley--or so I've been told.

This is the place. My place. Whether I want it or not. Returning proves that I want it, that I want to own it. Returning is figuring out how to own it, to make it mine. It is making the voices mine. The air. The leaves. The foothills. The snow. The smog. The hymns. Church and religion. Winter sunlight. The whispers. All mine. Returning is the settling of the scorpion tail after its sting, the flow of memory. Paralysis, then ownership, but not death. In this case, there is no death. Temporary paralysis, maybe, but no death.

Now I Get It?

Virago comes from Latin virago, "a man-like woman, a female
warrior, a heroine" from vir, "a man."

Is there a word like 'virago' for men? I'd like to know.

Virago

Should I be surprised by these differing definitions? The inner feminist says no. Who comes up with these words, anyway? Must be viragos. Male viragos.


Word of the Day for Wednesday October 26, 2005

virago \vuh-RAH-go; vuh-RAY-go\, noun:
1. A woman of extraordinary stature, strength, and courage.
2. A woman regarded as loud, scolding, ill-tempered,
quarrelsome, or overbearing.

In Honor Of

This and That

Occasionally,
if you ask me,
a lie is better
than this.

Send flowers
I'd have told you
if you'd asked
because that
is what people do.

They lie and lay.
They ask of love.
They this
until
there is that.

What is it?

To the Editor

If you live in Gloucester you might be familiar with a couple of articles written recently. See front page Times October 19th and 20th. The reporting has been bothering me a bit, enough that I've been composing letters to the editor in my head. This is what came out. If it's weak please tell me--stewingham@hotmail.com. I'd like to know before I send it.

To the Editor:

It is with regret that I read two recent articles detailing the arrest and subsequent arraignment of Gloucester resident Mac Bell. Aside from the basic facts detailing the arrest and a thorough account of Mr. Bell's police record, some personal information was included--cousin of the mayor, developer of the Gloucester Mill condominiums and Walgreen's Plaza, former city councilor, but other personal information, information that would have allowed readers to gain a more complete picture of Mr. Bell, was disappointingly left out.

I do not condone Mr. Bell's actions. I am saddened that people were injured as a result of such actions; Mr. Bell was definitely out of line. However, I am also saddened that the information was presented with such condemnation, "Children inside the school bus, going home from O'Maley Middle School, watched police handcuff Bell...", leaving many readers with an incomplete view of a person who has contributed positively to our community in many ways.

If a reporter is going to include any personal information, this information should allow the reader access to the full story, the one in which people are not characters in a Dickens novel, either very good or very bad. If the reporter is not going to tell the full and more complex story then he or she should leave arrests to the police notes, which as reported but with removal of all personal information aside from name, age and address, is where this story belonged.

99% Sure That He Ate It

The following is a conversation that took place between Cole (2) and me (35) at 7:30 a.m. on Friday morning.

"Something's wrong." (while whimpering)

"What's wrong?"

"I ate the bird. I ate it all up. It hurts."

"Honey, what did you eat?"

"Aidan's bird."

"What bird? Where is it?"

"Aidan's blue bird. I ate it all up. It hurts." (more whimpering)

"Is it in your throat?"

"In my throat. Mommy, will you hold me?" (crying, some panicking on my part, I pick him up)

"Are you sure that you ate Aidan's bird? Why did you eat the bird?"

"For some reason."

"What reason? Cole? Sweetie? What reason?"

"A raisin." (he seems a little more comfortable now, like maybe the piece was stuck and now it's on its way down to the belly parts)

"The bird is not a raisin. It's plastic and can hurt your belly."

"I can eat a peanut butter sandwich?"

"Yes!! That's food. A plastic Playmobil bird is not food."

"Yeah."

"Are you o.k.?"

"Yeah, I'm o.k."

After thorough evaluation of Cole (no bird in mouth or windpipe) leading to conclusion that Cole could and would continue to breathe and talk, and a few sips of whiskey, I mean tension tamer tea, I, Cole's mother and Aidan, Cole's sister (4), began looking around the house for the tiny (but big enough to cause worry), blue, plastic bird. We found one of the two birds from the set. We looked at the picture on the box (NOTE TO PARENTS: it is useful, very useful, to save these boxes so as to be able to consult detailed picture of pieces when determining which piece your child might have swallowed) and determined that Cole had eaten the bird that was sitting up and not the one with the pointy tailfeathers sticking up in the air and were relieved to know that this might mean a more comfortable passing of the bird.

I called Amanda (rang a bunch of times and I didn't want to wake her), Kim, my mother-in-law, dial-a-nurse, not Tad only because he is almost impossible to reach during the day and finally Dr. Tom. Dr. Tom said to feed Cole a sandwich and give him something to drink and if it all went down fine then not to worry. "But what about the semi-sharpness of the bird's feathers," I asked. "If it's pointed in the right direction, which feeding him will determine, then he'll be fine." "O.k," I said as I began to make Cole's sandwich. He ate it without incident and I took the kids to the park.

Four days later we are yet to see the blue, plastic bird. Seems like it would be obvious in a pile of poop, but then who wants to go through a pile of poop looking for a blue, plastic bird about the size of the tip of my finger?

I don't. Because my kid is o.k. And that is what matters. Even if, from time to time, I DO miss that blue, plastic bird sitting on the limb of the green plastic tree, the other blue bird forever alone, forever wondering where and why its mate has gone.

That was then this is now

Religion can be a frightening thing. For a 12-year-old. Or it can be a good thing? I'm not sure, except that I know that one religion, in particular, frightened me. And still does.

Lately. I've been thinking. And talking. Always talking. About baptism for the dead. The memory as clear as Jello. 12 years old and allowed to enter their hallowed temple for the first time. All white. Polyester again. Like eight-year-old baptism, but 12 now. If eight is the age at which I could know the difference between right and wrong, then what at 12? Or were we simply agents, blatant disregard for our lack of understanding? This time, instead of my name, dead names. Names read, names that I could not understand for their length and ancientness. An unheard language to a 12-year-old ear. Under. Water. Under water. Baptismal font with oxen round and bathtub water and nearly teenagers wondering why--the mussed up hair, these clothes, the ugliness. Why us? Why must we act as proxy for those dead and what do we have to do with their say in it, the honor and privilege propaganda making sense to some but not all.

If I had the imagination, the creativity that he did, I would have been able to believe. To see the spiritual connect, a thin glowing line between death and life, the lasso to Purgatory (I forget the proper name for the spirit place). I would have felt something. But then. Back then. I felt nothing. Consternation. Annoyance? Simple-minded disgruntlement. Not knowing then what I know now about the questions that I should have asked.

Now is not then. Then is not now. I'm thirty five and I should know this. I want to know this.

I do know this. Sometimes it is difficult to remember.

Not Still

Call it escape
if you want
But for me
it's the closest thing
to real
without being real

Finally

Lately I have been thinking about Katrina, the gulf coast. A lot. The images, the stories, the poverty, the unseen America--by most--until now. I've been wanting to do something--with my money or my time--but haven't found the right thing, the right organization. Like most I've spoken with about the disaster, I want my money to go to those who truly need it, the people with nothing who've had everything taken away. It wasn't until today, in reading some of the political blogs that I read, that I noticed this, a thoughtful, moving, anger-provoking, loving account--images and words--of the effect of the tragedy on a community in Mississippi where the author's (Clayton James Cubitt) mother and brother lived. And after reading and viewing I have decided to purchase two of his images depicting the Katrina aftermath because I think that the stories that these images tell are important. Also, my money is going directly to someone who is working to tell the story of the other America, working to make anger--or sense--or realness--of it all, which--and I hope I'm calculating correctly--is the best I can do. For now.

Overview of Operation Eden
Direct link to images of the Katrina disaster

Somebody Else with a Birthday

The "I hate you" bit has passed. For now. All that was needed, for now, was a time out and a "We don't say that to people, especially people we love" speech so that today I feel gushy and sappy and giddily in love with my four-year-old.

For one, even if she continues to have whiney, screamy, sassy moments, she has entered that stage of life at which it is a pleasure (for both of us) for her to be helpful. This translates to, "Sweetie, Would you please get Cole a sip of water?" Or "Would you mind bringing me a napkin?" Or "Do you think that you could help me clean the toilet? Scrub the floor? Cook? (counting the days until I can safely set her free with kitchen appliances)" Each request met with, "Sure Mommy." Or "O.k. Mommy." Or "I can do it, Mommy." And it might seem obvious to say and as if I am relying on child labor perhaps a little more often than I should be, but I LOVE the help--my child, too, of course.

Two, Aidan loves books. I don't know if it will last and how to make it last, but there is almost nothing that she and I enjoy doing more than reading together, our most recently read book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. As most geeky former English teachers probably would, I decided to show her the movie AFTER reading the book so that we could discuss whether the director's decisions "obscure or reflect the author's intent" (to borrow a phrase from KT). About ten minutes into the movie Aidan said, "I'm not watching this." "Why," I asked, not having considered that she might find displeasure with television. "Dorothy is too old. She wasn't that old in the book. And I don't like her voice. And the lion that has a man's face scares me." She refused to watch it. "Maybe when I'm older," she added. And that was the end of it.

Three, the other night she hid plastic bugs, one under my pillow and one under Tad's pillow, to surprise us and just for the fun of it.

Four, when I finally agreed to delve into a plastic tub in basement filled with toys stashed one night in a fit of motherly anger because Aidan wouldn't help pick up toys, she told me that I was "the best mommy ever" even after I told her that she must 'swap out' some of the toys that don't get played with for these 'new' toys. She did so willingly, agreeably, and then acted like it was Christmas for the next few hours.

And because I've gushed enough already and written enough already and said enough already, I'll end with Aidan's words, a dream she had a couple of nights ago that she insisted that I write down with obvious references to The Wizard of Oz and Tina and Tony, a couple of characters invented long ago at bedtime by her grandfather for his own children and now beloved by Aidan and Cole.

"The horse carries Tina and Tony through a little door in the castle. And then they get to Tina and Tony's house. Their house is yellow and green. And then they get to the Scarecrow's island where the winged monkeys carry them. They go to the monkey's castle. It's green and blue and the king monkey sits in his chamber and the horses jump off of the wall with Tina and Tony on their backs but they land safely on their feet. Tina and Tony then meet a fox with the horses. The fox carries the horses and Tina and Tony--still on the backs of the horses--to the woods and they see a big, brown bear outside without his cave. They go to find a birthday somebody with the fox. They find somebody, at last. Wolf eats Fox's nose. Then Fox eats Wolf's nose. Wolf eats Fox. Fox eats Wolf. The trees in the forest slowly blow, blow, blow. And the horses decide to go back home galloping, galloping, galloping with Tina and Tony to have breakfast. After breakfast they go outside to find somebody else with a birthday."