#Imnotcrying

I'm up too late, but I've been playing around with this post in my head all day, wondering whether and if I'd write it and how. Tomorrow is the big day -- I'm driving with Oliver to Tucson and dropping him off at the University of Arizona. I'm not exactly dropping him off but will, of course, be helping him to move into his dorm and get settled and then perhaps I'll leave his dorm and give him a casual hug and a kiss and go straight to a realtor's office and rent myself an apartment nearby and WAIT! I don't want to live in Arizona because it's too far from the ocean, but I don't want my baby to leave home and yes, I'm excited for him, and he's ready for all of it and it's the way of the world and you have to let them fly and yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

I am sad.

 I made the three of them pose together today for pictures. How did the entire summer go by without me taking a single picture of them all together?

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE TIME?

It's all good, right?

It's all good.

Burn It All Down

Rage.

That's what we feel.

Rage.

I wish I could find a photo of my eighteen year old self, the innocent self that attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who pledged a sorority, who attended fraternity parties, who got drunk only a few times, but one time in particular at a party and afterward when a boy whose family name emblazoned a dormitory took me back to his dorm room and when I felt woozy (I had never been drunk) and said so, he told me to sit down on the bed lie down you'll feel better and then with lie simultaneously put his very large hand at the top of my stomach, just below my chest I think it's called the solar plexus and pushed me backward but I knew in that moment, I knew his hand, and even as I looked up into his nostrils so wide, so long I knew what was happening and my head cleared and I struggled up his hand there and sat up and stood up and walked out the door and ran down the stairs and out of the dorm and on to mine. I don't remember if I told anyone about that, then. I was a little bit drunk. Maybe he really wanted to help me. 

I went to college with lots of Kavanaughs. 1981-1985. The parties, the garbage cans filled with Hawaiian Punch and grain alcohol. The ancient black man who tended bar, at the "cocktail" parties and called every girl Miss and her date's last name, his voice soft as he handed out gin and tonics. The rumor of girls pulling trains. Girls who woke up and had forgotten what happened the night before. The smell of piss and stale beer in the hallways of the fraternity houses in the morning. The boys in one fraternity who hung tampons from their Christmas tree in the entrance of their "house," just at the bottom of the winding staircase where girls and boys far wilder than I disappeared. The secret societies where the most privileged boys belonged, along with professors and alumni, the Castle and the Lodge, their arcane rituals. The parties there where lines of cocaine were sniffed up with dollar bills, where girls' boyfriends had nicknames like "The Doctor," the wink wink of dealers, the wall-crawling thumping of music and ecstasy-fueled camaraderie. The teeth grinding afterward. I knew all of it, participated in little of it, was usually sober, my own boyfriend and his friends drinkers but never all that. There are always choices to be made. I watched it. All rich. All white. The Daddies. The privilege. The entitlement. The racism. Yes, the racism. Antebellum parties with blackface. The laughter. No integration in the sororities and fraternities despite attempts. My grandmama would never pay for my membership if we let black girls in, I read on a slip of paper when we canvassed for reactions. I could never live in the same room with a black girl, another.

I don't think the men on either side really get it, do they. And the women on one side, yes there are sides, yes there are tribes and that is not the real danger. The women on that side who just don't can't won't get it. So much hurt and darkness and once they were little boys and yet, still.

As much as we've been taught otherwise, I say burn the whole thing down. 

I've run away and found my dream house

Who knew that it would be in Spokane, Washington?

My new home is named Gilda, which happens to be my beautiful, now-deceased aunt's name. She gave me a copy of The Hobbit when I was seven years old and made my first holy communion, which I promptly read and -- well -- you know the rest of my history of reading. I tell you this because I have always loved the idea of hobbit residences, small cosy cottages, and this is exactly my dream house.

In all honesty, I am up in Spokane helping to move Henry into his new dorm room. I didn't think he wanted me to come up with him this year, but when I asked him what day he needed a plane ticket and he said, Aren't you coming with me? and I said, Oh, do you want me to come with you? and he said, Yes! I want you to help me and also meet my roommate! and I said, Well, I guess. Ha ha ha ha ha. Do you want to?

So here we are. Unlike Dream House Gilda, Henry's new dorm room is named The Ugliest Dorm Room in the Disunited States of America.

Notice the blue PLASTIC curtains. I won't share the picture of the communal bathroom out in the hallway. I snuck inside to use it and was barely able to sit down on the toilet without my knees hitting the door. I was literally about one inch from reading the Potty Talk Newspaper that was taped on the door, educating me about social justice issues. Today we will be shaping up the ship, visiting Target. I'll post an "after" shot, but in the meantime, know that the two guys living there will lend it a degree of beauty that it might never have seen.

Fun fact: Henry's roommate has several siblings with special needs and is, according to Henry, the nicest person he's ever met. 

That's either completely wild and random or, there are no accidents, as my friend Carrie says.

Open Heart Flame

Things were all mixed up yesterday. I was showered with birthday love yet had to say good-bye to my beloved son Henry who is beginning his freshman year in college. The busy weekend came to a close at a beautiful morning mass for several thousand freshmen students and parents in the school's gym, called The Kennel because the school's mascot is the bulldog. It's also Jesuit, not the bulldog, but the school.  I watched the line of priests file in behind the huge gold cross and felt a familiar annoyance that it's only men -- ok, more than annoyance --  yet I wondered why it's so difficult to shed Catholicism, its liturgy moving like syrup through my head, the words spilling out of my mouth from some dark recess. I've often wished there were a sacrament of Egress -- some formal marking of leaving the Church behind. I nearly fainted at one point during the mass. I was thinking too hard, I think (!), like I did as a girl in church on Sunday. I think it's from boredom -- the lassitude, the combination of priest drone, empty gesture and saint-fantasy. Or maybe it was my throbbing elbow, smashed accidentally by the seat when I stood up. The pain was obliterating. I saw spots in front of my eyes, felt a wave of nausea, told Henry I needed to sit while everyone else stood. I put my head in my hands, bent over my legs, closed my eyes. By the time the priest asked the students to stand in the aisles and us to lift our hands over them in a blessing, I was openly crying. 

I am overwhelmed.

It was always easy with Henry. All of it. It wasn't hard, ever, and I mean that, really. How lucky I was to raise him from shining baby and boy to young manhood. It's so hard to let him go.

My friend Doug said that missing someone is a good kind of pain, that it means the flame of love is burning, like a pilot light. We want that love on, a love that our sons and daughters will spread to new friends, new places and new experiences. 

To be open-hearted, to be free with tears and joy, is everything. 

I have everything.

Hamilton

I know, I know, I know! So much has happened since I last posted! I got a surprise birthday gift from the Bird Photographer, I was blocked on Facebook by another high school classmate whom I dared to challenge (surprise, surprise!), there was a total eclipse of the sun, the POSOTUS held a rally in Arizona, part of which I watched, open-mouthed, on the teevee before grabbing my rosary beads and whimpering pray that I die, pray that I die, over and over like my Italian grandmother did in her senior years, and I'm currently helping MY SON to pack for college. We're leaving tomorrow, so I just kept the black dress and rosary beads and am praying to the Virgin Mary to sustain me through the transition.

But, Hamilton! Let's just dwell a bit on Hamilton! Anyone who knows me is aware of my curmudgeonly dislike of musicals (admitting that is akin to admitting that one hates animals or something, so I rarely voice it except here, for the world). But, Hamilton! Given all the hoopla, I admit to being curious about it and maybe even wishing, a teensy tinesy bit, that I could go.  Carl is to musicals as I am to musicals, but he surprised me with an early birthday present (I will be flying back from dropping off my son and will be wearing my black dress and rosary beads on my actual birthday this Sunday). I opened the card on Saturday night and gasped.

If you didn't already know it by now, The Bird Photographer is -- well -- the man, my person, my love, my friend, and now he's given me another gift that moved me to tears. Because this musical quite literally moved me to tears. The music, set, choreography -- all of that -- is fantastic, but to tell you the truth, that wasn't what really moved me. I kept sitting there thinking that someone had conceived of this, that someone had put this cast of beautifully diverse human beings into roles that would ordinarily have gone to white men, and that in doing so had quite literally brought America -- its very conception -- to life. I know that I'm not going to be able to do it justice, and I know that many people already have done so, but I was moved in a way that I have never been before as an American citizen. It was beyond radical and even sublime. To watch it now, given the shitshow that is Dear Leader et al,  is to be moved to tears. That's all I can say, and I hope so much that you get a chance to go, that young people get a chance to go, that young people of color get a chance to go, that the spineless of Amerikkka will wake the fuck up, that Dear Leader will disappear and that we can begin to heal from the national nightmare and make this place a truly equal country with liberty and justice for all.

That's my update. I need to continue with the mad packing, rosary bead chanting and existential dread.















P.S. I watched the partial eclipse at my friend Rain's house with her and Carl, and it was fantastic, but not as fantastic as seeing Hamilton. It was certainly as existential as having to drop my son off at college and the rest of his life, though.

Weather Empathy

Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles

Around five o'clock this afternoon, it got really quiet and still and I said to Henry that I thought something was going to happen. I texted The Bird Photographer, too. It feels weird. Something is going to happen. We thought earthquake. Everything was quiet. The only thing I heard was the air-conditioner kicking on. No birds, no cars, no horns, no ambulances or helicopters. What would I do if there were an earthquake and I was in the backyard? Henry asked on his way into the house from the backyard where he'd been hitting a lacrosse ball. I was lying on my bed reading. I figured it was a rhetorical question and didn't answer. Henry is feeling anxious about college. My schedule! My future! What will I do? What if I don't do well? I reassured him that no one knows the answers to those questions when they go to college, and if they do, they will probably change their minds once they get there. I told him that it'll all become incredibly clear one day. Ha. I said no such thing. He has no idea that it was only yesterday that I was walking through the Arboretum near midnight with my books on my hip, quickly, back to my dorm where I'd join my Jesus freak room-mate in our Carolina blue room. I'd go down the hallway, take a shower and wrap my hair in a wet towel, go back to the room and sit in front of the window, the fan blowing high, cooling the drops of sweat already beading on my skin.












It rained. Actually, it drizzled. Still! It's August! Well, it was more like a few drops. The sky got dark, there were a few rumbles of thunder and I saw a picture online of a lightning strike in Orange County. So that's what happened. At least for now.

Denial and the College Road Trip

I took that picture on a road trip last weekend in Washington and Colorado where I was visiting colleges with Henry.

Did ya'll know that my boy is graduating from high school next month?

I'm blocking it out and will say no more.

Here we are in Spokane, Washington, on the campus of Gonzaga University.

We might have a basketball rivalry thing going on next year.


Hmmmmm. Just saying.

March Madness

The Department of Motor Vehicles, Los Angeles. CA 2017

My understanding of what's going on in this country is shrinking, and I find myself opening up articles, reading a few sentences and then sighing in exasperation or grimacing in disgust or taking in breaths to allay anxiety or rolling my eyes heaven-ward in bewilderment.

Are we supposed to understand what's going on?

I hate to say it, but I rely almost exclusively now on acronyms to express myself in this area. WTF?

I remember this quote by the great 18th century satirist, Jonathan Swift:

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

and

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed. 

We're all Gullivers here, methinks.

Sophie went back to school today for the first time in weeks, other than the day I brought her in for her birthday. I don't feel like going over what's been going on because, frankly, I'm so tired of the whole shebang, and I imagine you are, too. Suffice it to say that she's trending better even as we slowly wean her from the hideous benzodiazepine and supplement more aggressively with THC. I'm trending better right along with her because you know where she stops, I begin or where I stop, she begins and it's a fine, fine line. I also got acupuncture from our beloved Dr. Jin.

Yes. THC, baby. The psychoactive stuff that I myself have not partaken of since the halcyon days of college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. If I'd had any idea that I'd be administering a pale green gold oily version of it to my seizing and drug-addled daughter thirty-plus years later, I would have smoked more and studied less. Hell, I would have joined in with something more than tolerance when my boyfriend and his housemates watched the Tar Heels play basketball with the sound turned down and the bootleg Grateful Dead tapes turned up.

Anywho.

If you hear Old Racist Alabama Elf-Man Sessions or Old Up Big Pharma's Ass Georgia Cracker Price make any cracks about medical marijuana being a joke, tell them I'm going to beat the crap out of them in my mind. My tiny little mother mind™ knows few boundaries, is exasperated, disgusted, anxious and bewildered and would love a good red neck upon which to project its conflicts. Just a little March Madness.

Speaking of conflicts and the Tar Heels, did ya'll watch that game yesterday? It was a nail-biter that I watched with my sons and Sophie. March Madness for sure. This is a picture of when we had fallen behind Arizona after an early 17-point lead. I have quite effectively brainwashed my sons to be ardent Carolina basketball fans, and they were nervous wrecks.

Here's a video of the action when things got really tense at the end, right before I began to fold the boys' clean socks into balls, a task that I turned over to them when they were about five and seven years old. So many boring white socks I thought I'd go mad, wrote Virginia Woolf. I thought I was going to have a stroke or a heart attack watching the last few minutes of the game and even folded The Brother's laundry and smoked a few cigarettes in between bong hits.*

Between the not smoking too much THC in college, giving Sophie enough THC to help her brain today and parenting my boys to cheer ardently for a team that I love despite not knowing a damn thing about the sport -- well -- I'm going to humble brag here about my parenting skills. I am bewildered, to say the least.















* Just kidding. Virginia Woolf did not write that.

Steel Magnolia, Circa 1983

Back in the day, I was a little bitty thing and I had no idea about anything at all. My melancholy was rooted, I imagine, in books, in a prodigious imagination, in the romance of not being known. Jane Eyre was the type thing I fantasized about -- the allure of truly being an outcast. That photo, unearthed in my purge, was taken in August of 1983, right before my junior year in college. Or maybe it was 1984, right before my senior year. I was a little bitty thing and I had no idea about anything at all. I don't remember the names of either of those men -- the older one was the professor who led me and a group of young people through a part of the Adirondacks that summer in a quasi-survival trip. We carried 70 lb packs on our backs and hiked about fifty miles in, I recall, and it was incredibly difficult. It rained a lot, and there were days when I focused only on the boots in front of me, hauling my own up and out of mud. I didn't sign up for this trip because I was destitute or a former heroin addict or because I was grieving a dead parent. Remember, I was a little bitty thing and I had no idea about anything at all. I signed up like I do a lot of things -- impulsively, and when I made my way to Syracuse and then on a Greyhound bus to Potsdam and then to meet this group of strangers, all of whom were experienced hikers -- well -- let's just say it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. I had never been hiking and the only camping I had done was probably in my back yard as a child. At the end of the ten days, I was awarded a Steel Magnolia award, and I remember how proud I felt. In fact, I might have just gotten the award when this photo was snapped. I came down out of the Adirondacks dirty and tired and grateful. I checked into a hotel by myself, ordered a steak and baked potato, took a long bath and got on with the rest of my life.

On Your Bedside Table

I had a book buying bonanza the other day with a forgotten-about Amazon giftcard. Last night, I poured myself a cold beer in a frozen mug and lay on my bed with books and magazines all around me. I then proceeded to watch three episodes in a row of the new season of Call the Midwife. Have ya'll watched that show? It's fantastic -- and the perfect antidote to a day spent in Placentia as well as my recent binge of the last season of House of Cards which, though compelling, is repellent enough that I felt almost dirty when I finished it. After Call the Midwife, I read some more of Life After Life (which I'm still enjoying, overjoyed to learn that I can indeed get through a gigantic novel).

So here's what's on my bedside table, along with the beer:

Begley's new biography of John Updike, Updike (I'm not a big biography reader -- I think the last one I read was probably about the poet Anne Sexton --  but am looking forward to this one)

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (an uncharacteristic YA purchase -- I generally can't abide YA -- that I made on the recommendation of one of my favorite bloggers, The Diamond in the Window)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez' short stories Strange Pilgrims (that I bought on the recommendation of another amazing blogger who is also a butcher.   Stay tuned, because I have An Idea that has to do with a salon and food and cake and books and me as a moderator who makes a bit of money).

Chinesy: The New Way to Read Chinese by Shaolan (Have I ever told you that I studied Chinese for two years in college? At the time, I had the insane idea that I would learn the language and read the poetry of Tu Fu and Li Po. HA! HA! HA! I learned about four hundred characters and have since  forgotten them. In fact, the only thing I remember is the expression Ni hao ma? I don't think I've ever told you, either, that I got myself a job teaching English in Taiwan for the year after I graduated but was convinced by The Boy I Loved to blow that off and stay in Chapel Hill while he finished his master's degree. HA! HA! HA! Some of you know how that all turned out!).

Yes, we all have pasts, don't we?

Anywho.

Reader, what is on your bedside table, including drinking beverages?

Masticating

Colleges are eschewing their very purpose — to educate people — so they can attempt to become finishing schools for yuppies or discount degree mills.

Matthew Saccaro 

 

As I continue to whack weeds and forge a new path for Oliver, I am constantly mulling over the state of education, too, for Henry -- will he stay motivated and interested (hopefully), will he be able to go to the college of his choice (probably not), will we be able to afford it (definitely not)? I'm at once suckered in and repelled by the planning that most of my friends have to do with their kids as they move closer toward high school graduation, and when I read this article today, I felt the substantiation (is that a word) of my gut feelings which are really just swirling about, not fully formed. But like the proverbial cow chewing her cud, I'll be thinking about all of this for a while.

Reader, what do you think?

Moo.

Dear You

Dumbfounded.

Stumped.

Speechless.

Overwhelmed.

Blown Away.

My Socks Knocked Off.

Floored.

Filled Up.

Graced.

Happy.

(that would be me, and much like the photo above, taken nearly thirty years ago with some of the beautiful women who orchestrated the whole beautiful project, I can't do anything but say thank you, my hands to my face with a big, giant grin)

Thank you, Chez Werndorf, Neuro-Chick Kid Doc, Carrie, Brittany, Gay, Gina, Jill, Liv, elizabeth, Beth, Buck, Mitzi Ann, Janet, Bob, Emma, Owen, Missy Slick, Bluegal, Susan, Carol, Gail, Sheila, John, Susan, Moye, Doug, Claire, Teddy, Margaret, Anderson, Anna, William, Lucas, The Freemans, The Sullivans, the Banksons, Vic, Mary Grady, Helenie, The Mermaid Union, The Martins, Jennie, George, Will, Allen, Jack, Mary Campbell, Peter, Henry, George, Ella, Sloat, Ginna, Carson, Clara, Grace, Roy, Carlton, Monster Max, Heather, Logan, Diana, Len, Annabelle, John, Jane, Phil, Fish, Johanna, Daisy, Dash, Carolyn, Hartley, Grace, Anne, Dave, Sarah, Anne-Hope, Laura, Charlotte, Dean, Jessica, Hazel, Grace, Nora, Willa, Julia, Billy, Emily, Grant, Sarah, Antoine, Mattieu, Blanche, Alix, Melissa, Mark, Linda, Rod, Ethan, Parker, Peter, Shannon, Suzanne, Kevin, Allyson, Frank, Elizabeth, FOS (friends of Sophie), Chamberlins and a gazillion Anonymous people.

Thank you.

The Long Distance Casserole Brigade: A Guest Post

So, I was loathe to post anything about this amazing thing going on behind the scenes of my very active life, but I'm going to do it here in a lame attempt to accept grace -- well -- hopefully -- gracefully. Here's a guest post written by one of my oldest and dearest college friends, Missy B. 

There is an old tradition in the South (does this happen everywhere?) involving casseroles and frozen fruit salads.  This tradition demands that whenever there is a family crisis, a death, a hospitalization, a new baby, or an illness, friends line up at the door with food in disposable aluminum dishes that will hopefully bring some sort of comfort to the family in distress.  When my mother was run down by a hit-and-run driver in our lovely suburban neighborhood in the late eighties (she improbably survived with only a broken leg), my family received so many casseroles that my younger brother set up a ranking system where fantastic meals were rated a 10 and the not-so-yummy might even receive a 1 (green bean casserole with canned French fries on top anyone?).  When I improbably birthed twins at the age of 42 after years of infertility, we did not cook for a month because of the generosity of our friends who set up a meal brigade.  I will never forget the shit-kicking smile on the face of one friend as her family of four marched down our driveway, each person proudly holding a piece of their lovely meal: salad…casserole…crusty bread…dessert.

It is what we do to somehow participate in the joy or the sadness of our friends.  I mean, sometimes, what else can we do?  We can’t take the burden from our loved ones but by this symbolic act, we are saying: “Know that you are loved.  Know that we are thinking about you.  Know that we want to help in some way.”  It beats the hell out of handwringing and doing nothing, you know?

Those of you who love Elizabeth and her family from this blog might sometimes experience this feeling of desperation.  My God!  What can I do to help? Those of us who have known Elizabeth since college or even before and now live so far away join you, her new friends, in these feelings of inadequacy about our inability to somehow pitch in and help.  

Remember Elizabeth writing about her weekend reunion with her friends from college a few months ago? (read about it here) Well, we all decided during that weekend that we wanted to somehow create a long-distance casserole brigade because none of us live close enough to support her in the day-to-day of taking care of her beautiful Sophie.  We can’t bring her casseroles, give her respite, take her out for a drink, watch her in her plays, run a carpool one day or any of those things that we would be able to do if we lived around the corner.

So, instead of these things, we created a fundraiser page so Sophie can ride in style in a new Duet wheelchair bike.  You can visit the site here if you want to participate:  

https://www.youcaring.com/aduetforsophie

(nota bene: Elizabeth was reluctant to share this on her blog but we convinced her that you guys might like to join the fun!)

I am, as you can imagine, speechless. A rare thing, all around.

Cary Grant's Filing System, Chinese Doctors, and Chinese Waiters

via The B-Man Collective

Don't you just love that? If nothing is moving, run your mouse over the photo. I have so many papers that need filing and so many forms to fill out and a few grievances to take up with Anthem Blue Cross that some days I feel like whimpering. I also have a hacking cough, bestowed upon me, I guess, by Oliver, and it seems like I've been sick off and on for over a month. I made an appointment to see my Chinese doctor this afternoon. For some inane reason, I haven't been to see her in over six months which is probably the reason why I feel so utterly unbalanced and unhealthy. I'll lie on her little table and listen to her Chinese-inflected chatter while she sticks needles into me and tells me that I have too much spleen or too much heat and then I'll close my eyes when she walks out the door and start thinking about Jackson the Chinese waiter I worked with so long ago in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I'll remember how he permed his hair for me and how he thought I looked like a Bond girl and how much mileage I've gotten out of those two things for nearly thirty years.

Girls, the real ones, not the ones on television**

I am on a plane, again, when you read this and am heading back to the east coast to see some of my oldest and best friends from, probably, one of the happiest times in my life. Those were the four years I spent at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the above women, all ten of them plus one who is mysteriously NOT in that photo, will be together this weekend. We're celebrating fiftieth birthdays -- most of us are turning fifty this year and some -- sadly, some -- have already turned fifty.

Oh, my lord, I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! I know I'm going to cry when I see them, especially those  I haven't seen in nearly 25 years. And I know I'm going to laugh as hard as I've ever laughed over the next three days as we remember our time together and share memories about then and stories from now. I think we look about as cute in 1985 as we could have in the mid-eighties, and I'm certain that everyone will look more beautiful in our half-century year, given the lives we've all lived.

Like I said, I'm so excited that I can hardly stand it.

**And those girls on television? I just don't get what all the hubbub is about. I paid nearly $20 to download the first season and found it boring, superficial and not even remotely interesting. Maybe that's because I'm almost fifty and no longer a girl?