Wednesday, June 5, 2013

On Living an Episode of "The Californians"



Sophie, Oliver and I just lived an episode of The Californians, with the added bonus of a huge tonic clonic seizure on Pico Boulevard where Oliver scrambled from the front seat to the back seat to help support Sophie as she jerked and strained against the seat-belt while I called out orders and stayed in the second lane, avoiding the usual wild swerves of impatient BMWs. Oliver clicked open Sophie's seat belt and let her fall onto his lap where she lay, still jerking, while he patted her and I glanced in the rear-view mirror and told him to make sure her airway is open there (which it was) and he told me she's fine, Mom, just keep driving, so that's what I did, although driving on Pico Boulevard from the west side to the east side is not really driving, it's just inching along, avoiding the aggressors, inch by inch, block by block, and at some point Sophie just lay spent in Oliver's lap and I said that I felt like crying, and Oliver said you should, Mom, you should just let it out, Mom. So I did cry, a little, and I told Oliver it was the traffic, it was the seizure, it was Pico Blvd and the BMWs, it was him having to do what he did and when he asked me what I would have done if he'd not been there, I told him I'd have swerved like a BMW and gotten over to the right lane and pulled over there on Pico Blvd or maybe taken a right? But you were here and you did as good a job as one could do and I am proud of you. The inimitable Los Angeles skyline rose up in front of us -- the people stacked in cars on Pico Blvd. -- and I noted it in my mind, its stark beauty against a mountain backdrop, ridiculous clouds floating by, a bit of haze, a sliver of paradise that you can drive toward and never reach because it drops -- right -- there -- and then it's just cars ahead of you.

19 comments:

  1. Oh man, Elizabeth. This is gorgeous.

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  2. We just watched all the episodes on youtube the other night. So freaking funny.

    This, not so much.

    You know that thing your father says. That beautiful italian comment you left for me on FB. Well, I am sending it right back at you. Sending it with love and light.

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  3. Hugs to you three from the other coast...

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  4. You are a wonderful mother, Elizabeth. His wisdom and open-heartedness are testament to that, as well as to his own sterling character. xoxo

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  5. You are a magnificent human being, Elizabeth...and I watch you handle this shitty deck you guys have been dealt every single day with a grace and dignity that astounds me. Thank you for sharing with us...you're my hero. (And Oliver too. What an astute young man. And so full of love.)

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  6. As hard as it is- and I'm not saying I know how hard it is- you are in the moment, and that is all you can do, and you are doing is beautifully. Your relationship with your son is love.

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  7. That Oliver is such a good kid. I love your relationship with your children.

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  8. I love how you can capture such a difficult, frustrating, painful moment and describe it to us in a way that makes it seem like sunlight on a clear day in Southern California, beautiful and crystalline.

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  9. Your words - so striking. You are like Ms. Moon in the way you an tell us all about something and always always always hit us right in the heart in the process. Beautiful words and true to what I just described, a beautiful interaction with two of your children.

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  10. What struck me so hard about this beautiful, incredibly beautiful post, after I got over being gobsmacked by the way Oliver jumped in and did what he did, is how all of this life is going on around you and all the cars and it's CALIFORNIA and there, in your car, in your own tiny world in the midst of this huge world of traffic made up of the worlds of other people in their cars, surrounded by a whole other world of CALIFORNIA, all of this is going on. The realization of the beginning of the seizure, your calmness, Oliver's calmness in action, Sophie's straining and seizing, all of it, all of it going on and then, you still being part of the whole flow of it and who knows ever what is going on in someone else's world? Even with the windows untinted, even as you pass close enough to each other to reach out and hold hands. Oh, Elizabeth.

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  11. Katie used to paint with poop. One night when my son was sixteen years old and my husband was away, I went upstairs to check on Katie and there was shit everywhere, carpets, walls, bed, bedding and she was covered head to toe as well. I just burst into tears because this happened usually once a week, sometimes more often, and I was just so tired of it. My son looked at me and took his little sister, covered in shit and he bathed her while I cleaned and cried. I've never forgotten that, his kindness with his sister and with me.

    Oliver will be a better person because of his family and he's right, it is okay to cry.

    Sending hugs.

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  12. That made my hair stand up and my eyes fill. But it also made my heart sing.

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  13. No fair.. this is how we do it roman numeral something, something. I almost missed it because it wasn't titled appropriately. Save this one for the book - it is one of your best yet if the comments above are any indication.

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  14. Oliver makes me cry happy tears. He is amazing. Your writing is amazing too. Sophie is so well loved and looked after that I can't say how beautiful it is, or how poignant this episode set against the daily grind of the commute is either. You are a marvel.
    xo

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  15. I have tears streaming down my face. It's the heights of everything. To me this is just all the swells of joy and despair, loneliness and love, all the stuff of life in one moment--Sophie and Oliver and you. Dear God. Dear God, Elizabeth. Take all the This Is How We Do It posts. Add conducting the symphony at that awful woman and shooting the dog food can. Put the sheets together in any order or none at all, and that is your book. Send a sample to some agents. Maybe this very one. You don't need to fill in any pieces. You say everything in a single post.

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  16. Brutal. Hope there is one of those screw it all drinks waiting for you at home after that.

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  17. so glad you have oliver. an amazing boy. wish i could meet your family. xoxo

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  18. When I read things like this the urge to secret myself away in my house rises up inside me like a tidal wave. I don't know how you ever get past the PTSD from episodes like this to decide to leave the house again, in case Oliver isn't with you, or in case one of those BMWs doesn't get out of your way or in case....

    But the triumph of your spirit is so much more tangible and present than that "inimitable LA skyline" and it buoys me every single day to know that you and Carrie and Michelle and Alicia and so many others like you are out there living your lives every day with grace and love and mouths full of foul language ready to spew creatively when you need to. It raises me up to know that Oliver showed you and Sophie both such compassion, that he feels instinctively what to do and say. It coaxes me out of the shadows of my own room to open a little wider and send you love and light, love and light.

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