Maternally Challenged

Best Christmas Gift Ever

It's Christmas Eve, the kids are in bed, and David and I are about 45 minutes from collapse ourselves...but for some reason tonight I was thinking about a Christmas that happened when I was somewhere between eight and 11, on the cusp between childhood and adolescence.

My mom was big on Santa Claus. At Christmas she did all kinds of things to encourage our belief in him: she would ring bells in the hall outside our doors on Christmas Eve to convince us the elves were there; she talked to Santa on the phone; she helped us write letters to Santa; she encouraged us to look at a map of North America and figure out his progress over the course of Christmas Eve (since of course he came straight to our neighborhood; how he made it everywhere else was not an issue I bothered much about). One memorable year, she even got some boots, rubbed the soles in ashes from the fireplace, and made ashy footprints all over the carpet in the living room as proof that Santa had indeed come down the chimney.

Some people may say that this was a dangerous thing, that no parent should have gone to such lengths to perpetrate a myth, that when the truth came out the child would be disappointed and angry. Not true, at least not for me. At some point, of course, I figured out there was no Santa, and I was disappointed. But mostly I was impressed with the lengths my mom had gone to while the magic had lasted.

The Christmas I'm speaking of happened one year when I had pretty much reached the conclusion there was no Santa, but I had not actually said so out loud. I wanted there to be a Santa so much that giving him up was painful, and I enjoyed the mystery. On this particular Christmas Eve, I remember sitting with my mother on my parents' bed in their darkened bedroom, looking out the window over the neighborhood, and "seeing" Santa visit all the other houses.  I saw him  go to Jimmy Blacks' house, and Brenda Culverson's house, and Jimmy and Leanne  Pitts' house,  and then to my grandparents' house next door.  And then he flew away--because, my mother suggested, he realized I was at the window watching him. He would be back later, after I was asleep. I wasn't seeing anything, of course, but the pretense was magical. And it was a moment we shared, just the two of us.

The next year I was too old for such nonsense, and for years after that I thought of that incident as just an example of my mom's silly side. I think I had to become a mother myself to truly appreciate what she did for me that night. My mother never went to college; she was orphaned during the Depression and I am reasonably sure that there was never a moment in her own childhood when she enjoyed a similar moment of magic. Her childhood was so deprived that at one point she and her sister ate out of garbage cans to stay alive. But somehow this woman who had been given so little in life found a piece of imagination and creativity to pass along to me, along with the unspoken message that imagination and creativity were qualities that could create new realities in a humdrum world. It was a kind of faith that there was a reality beyond what our senses can tell us. Where she got this insight I do not know, but she gave it to me, and it's a gift I'll never forget.

Merry Christmas, all you moms out there.

And Why Should You Escape?

So today we are sending out the last of the Christmas cards, some of them with a letter enclosed, and it occurred to me that all four or five of my readers out there might be interested in our Yearly Recap, too. Hell, it took  me a WHOLE DAY to write:

At this house, our motto for Christmas letters is “All the news that fits, we print,” but we still pledge to keep it relatively short. For 2007, this will be no problem because, frankly, there are a few stretches of 2007 you wouldn’t want to hear a lot about. 

The bad news first. Tracy underwent some ECT treatments last winter for a severe depressive episode and we’ll spare you the details because, actually, we don’t remember them. ECT is known for doing a number on one’s memory of recent events, so it’s been a year of surprises: outfits we don’t remember buying, e-mail correspondents we don’t remember having met… On the plus side, it also wiped out the memory of several really bad Disney movies, and it helped Tracy recover. ECT is very effective that way—but then, amputation is effective on gangrene, too, and there are good reasons why neither treatment has ever really caught on. Still, while humans can’t sprout grow new limbs, they can and do grow new brain cells. It was a long haul, but we are pleased to report that things are now back to what passes for normal around here. Work-wise, Tracy has several projects going: you’ll see her in the Civil War Times soon, she’s working on something for the NYU Law Journal which will involve traveling to The Hague to interview an eminent judge who sits on the World Court, the paperback edition of her book came out this summer, and there may be another book idea out there somewhere. Life goes on.

In extraterrestrial news, David’s working on a NASA project that would, if funded by the Powers that Be, map the universe’s distribution of Dark Energy. What is Dark Energy? you ask, to which the brightest minds at NASA would answer: We dunno. All scientists know is that it is a mysterious force which accounts for about 25 percent of the energy in the universe, and it is, like, totally awesome, dude: it sends stars careening around galaxies, it can bend space and time, and it keeps that donkey kid in back of you kicking your seat for the entire duration of a trans-Atlantic flight. The official name for the project is ADEPT (Advanced Dark Energy Physics Telescope), but around here we just call it The Map of Where Is, Is. 

On the kid front: Rebecca is now 11, making her officially a ‘Tween, and so we have been introduced to the Great Big Honkin’ Attitude years. Not that Rebecca has ever lacked an Attitude, but up to now she had not brought it to bear on clothing. All that changed when she and Tracy went shopping for back-to-school clothes this year, and Tracy’s idea of fashion (subdued things with interchangeable components) fell victim to Rebecca’s fashion vision (spangles, sparkles, sequins and drapey things cut on the bias, all in hues unknown to nature).  Compared to this kid, Porter Waggoner would have looked like a funeral director. Well, okay, maybe that’s exaggerating a bit, but still: you see the potential for conflict. Rebecca is also deeply into the Cat Warriors books, and can diagram all the cat clans and interconnections thereof for anybody who displays the faintest interest, as well as for lots of people who don’t. (Our advice: don’t.) She has also caught the Horse Virus from her Aunt Nonny, and as any parent knows, “adolescent girl” + “horse” = “second mortgage,” so thanks a lot, sis. Rebecca takes riding lessons once a week at a nearby stable, where, besides learning how to ride, she is also learning to work with an implement known as a “pitchfork.” Our hope is that not only will she learn some horsemanship but that her expertise may someday transfer to using implements known as a “yard rake,” a “mop” and a “broom.”

Suzanne started first grade this year and has already won two professions of love from little boys in her class, which puts her one up on mommy at the same age. But then, Suzanne has these adorable freckles, which gives her an unfair advantage. She is a bundle of spontaneous bursts of enthusiasm (told for the fourth time to get out of the bathtub one night, she replied, “Okay, Mommy, but first I have to DO THE WET NAKED DANCE YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! BABY!!”—and there went another 10 minutes) and non-stop creative energy. At home, this means piles of paper, markers, paint, clay and other art projects in various stages of completion all over the place. At school, this recently resulted in a phone call from the vice principal informing Tracy that Suzanne and an unnamed male co-conspirator had been thwarted in their plan to tie each other up during recess. Suzanne has been banned from even touching a jump rope until after the first of the year; fortunately, the school supply list does not include "whips" or "chains." Otherwise, she keeps us busy with Inscrutable Questions (“Who invented broccoli?” and “How dark is pink?”are a sample) and creative manglings of common expressions (notably, “Fruit of the Loo,” which Tracy is thinking of marketing in the U.K. as a new brand of toilet paper).

No exotic vacations this year; we spent ours this summer a whole 100 miles from the house, at a mountain cabin in the Shenandoah Valley, where we went to a county fair (lots of fun, and who knew pigs could be so squeaky clean?), spent the day at a water park, did a bit of hiking (which prompted another Inscrutable Question, this from Rebecca: “Why is the Appalachian Trail so steep?”), and learned that a tiny little mountain chalet is way too small for three high-maintenance females and one outnumbered husband/father about two millimeters from the end of his rope. The kids had a blast; Tracy and David survived.

So that’s the year. And now that we think about it, it hasn’t been dull at all. Really: how many people get to map the universe? Or get paid for putting words on paper, for pete’s sake? So, as usual, once we look at the big picture we realize the good vastly outweighs the bad, and that goes triple since the recent pathology report came back marked "benign." (See previous posts.) Compared to 99 percent of the world, we are filthy rich; by any measure, we are incredibly blessed. We hope this finds all of you similarly situated. Merry Christmas.

Benign

The call came while I was negotiating the parking lot with a balky six-year-old and an arm full of packages, and I knew instantly it was The Call. I let my kid wander around unsupervised while I dropped everything--literally--and opened my cellphone.

"I have some good news for you," said the doctor, and that's really about all I remember his saying, other than the words "benign cyst" and "no malignancy" and "not until next year."

So I am left with a very bruised breast, unspeakable relief, and a new understanding of fear--and the human connections that can heal fear. Because the fear was the worst. I was pretty sure--reasonably sure--that even if the lump did turn out to be cancer, that it wasn't going to be a very big cancer (my own doctor hadn't felt it, two weeks ago) and I know that very early cancers are pretty curable these days. I knew this even though the word "cancer" tends to put me in full panic mode, since I watched my father die an agonizing death from it 26 years ago, which was way, way too soon. Breast cancer would not be anybody's choice, certainly, but I live in a country with some amazing medical technology, just down the road from some of the nation's premier health care institutions, and I have faced some pretty bad things before now. Cancer--at least, very early very curable breast cancer--there was at least a tiny chance I could handle. At least,  with a lot of help.

What I couldn't handle was the fear. The fear was what laid me low--specifically, fear of dying before my children were grown. Everybody fears death, but I feel fairly confident in speaking for a large majority of the planet's mothers when I say that there is a fear worse than the ordinary human fear of death, and that's the fear mothers have, the fear of leaving their children too soon. On that first day I said to the cosmos: "I'll deal with cancer, but you'll have to handle the fear." And you know what? From the anonymous cancer hotline counselor who listened to me sob for awhile, to the people who e-mailed me with words of encouragement, to the good friends who distracted me--the universe seemed to come together as if it had been planning for just this emergency, and with only me in mind. I was taken care of, and I felt it. After, I dunno, four hours of being completely and totally freaked out, I slowly began to feel calm again, and at night I went to sleep feeling as if I was wrapped in a silk cocoon of other peoples' love. I joked to one friend that I could practically see the good vibes, and it wasn't entirely a joke. Not to sound all New Age-y and all, but there is some kind of cosmic energy out there that I don't understand and I'll say no more about it except: I'm glad it's there. And I'm glad all you other humans are out there too.

Not Me. Couldn't Be.

This week I learned that an old friend has cancer. Her kids are about the age of mine, and so this news--after the initial shock of envisioning this person with a life-threatening illness-inevitably put my mind onto the unspeakable fear that every mother has: what if I die before my kids are grown? Because I know that's what my friend is thinking. That's one thing that comes with motherhood: the fear of your own death actually becomes secondary--to the fear of losing your children before it is time. It's a cliche, but it's true: you love your children more than life itself.

So when the call came from the mammogram folks, the ones I'd seen earlier this week for my usual yearly visit, I was primed for a freakout. The test has gone smoothly; I'd left thinking I'd gotten the all clear. Not so. "We saw something unusual," the lady said. "The doctor wants you to come back to another picture." Which I did. And then: "We still can't see it very well; we want to do a sonogram." And then, in a moment in which I felt myself disassociating from my body, I heard the words, "We want to do a biopsy."

I hit the internet the minute I walked in the door, before I dropped my coat. From it I learned that 80 percent of biopsies turn out to be of benign breast conditions. I learn that the survival rate for cancer is very high, especially if it's caught early. And it doesn't matter, because then the fear descends--the fear that something bad is about to happen, that I will have to leave my kids before I want to.

I spent some time this afternoon on the kitchen floor, sobbing. Now that freakout is over, and I am keeping it together, with the help of one or two good friends. Something here is getting me through, I don't know what, but I'm grateful for it. Somehow or other, it's gonna be okay--and by that I don't mean I'm confident I don't have cancer. I just mean that, cancer or not, it's going to be okay. At least, that's where I am at this moment. There's a 90 percent chance of another freakout in the next few days, but: one day at a time. Which is what I hope my friend is thinking, too.

If you are sending out good vibes, send some to her. And while you're at it, send some to me, too.

Sisterhood is....Toxic. Sometimes.

There was an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about how friendship between women can go so very, very wrong. It was written by a woman who had pledged to a sorority in college, and then drank too much at a party one night and had a sexual misadventure (one which might even be called rape) For this she was branded a "slut" and drummed out of her sorority. Years later, when she was in a store with her two daughters, she ran into one of the women who had played a lead role in this unpleasant drama, who greeted her like the old friend she most definitely wasn't. While her former tormentor nattered on, the writer of the story stood there in shock, re-living the whole ordeal. Later, she asked: "How do we help our girls navigate the duplicitous female maze? How do we ensure that they behave authentically, respect humanity over fleeting alliances, and squash the nasty tribal instincts that can inflict lifelong distress? I don’t know. I’m afraid I never will."

It struck home with me--partly because I have two daughters, too, and partly because this kind of thing never seems to stop. If it's not some clique in middle school, it's the PTA clique at your daughter's middle school, or the nasty comment from the neighbor, or.....the list goes on. Anyway, I was moved to write an e-mail to the writer of this article, and here it is:

I have two daughters, too, and I've also been taught the hard way to be wary of other women--or, at least, other women in big groups. I learned this not so much by being the immediate victim, but by watching as my sister (two years older) became the victim. With her it began in the last part of elementary school and lasted throughout high school. You could say it lasted throughout life. I'm now 52; she's 54.

 

My daughters are ages 7 (almost) and 11. My oldest has ADD and is slightly chubby--two strikes right there. She's socially a bit clumsy, but she does have a few friends. She's now in middle school, and the other day I dropped her off at school late and watched her walk away from me. Another girl was walking towards me and I caught the look of disdain on the other girl's face as she glanced over my daughter's wet hair (she'd just gotten out of the shower) and the scruffy clothes she had on that day. I did two things. One: we went out that weekend and spent $300 on clothes (probably more than she really needed, but what the hell.) And two: we had a long talk (several actually) in which I told her that popularity was NOT to be sought. Period. That girls who desperately wanted popularity were either not going to get it, or were going to get it and were not going to be worth knowing. I told her, "All you need are two or three really good friends. In fact, all you really NEED is one good friend." And, of course, to have a friend, you have to be a friend. That's my solution to teaching her how to navigate the duplicitous female maze: don't go in the maze to begin with. Because the secret is, you don't have to.

 

Women (and girls) in groups can be vicious. One on one, and in smaller groups, they can be lifelines, and a whole different kind of emotional support than any man can offer. We're hard-wired that way, too--it's the flip side of the bitchiness. I have trouble trusting other women, too, but that's how it's always worked for me: a small, very select group of women I can be close to. One other thing: I've made an unshakable rule that I will not be friends with any woman who I can't be ruthlessly straight with. Now, nobody is ruthlessly honest all the time--but what I mean is, no pussyfooting around. No, "Oh, I LOVE it!" when you hate it. No big grins and pretending everything is hunky dory. No "be sweet" crap. No aggression in the guise of sisterhood. I strive to say what I mean and mean what I say. Sometimes it's gotten me into trouble; but mostly, I think, it's helped me meet like-minded women. They ARE out there. When I meet one, both of us tend to laugh in relief. They're not hard to recognize, after awhile.

 

So are the shrieking harpies. If I'd been you and met whatsherface in the store, I would have (after I recovered from my shock) said, "You know, Sherylee (or Bambi or whatever her name was), there's something I've been wanted to say all these years to you, and that's FUCK YOU, you miserable little hypocritical troll from hell." Then, I guess, I'd have to give my daughters a little talk about how nobody should use the F word except on extremely rare occasions, but that sometimes the rules have to be bent in order to stand up for yourself.

 

I hope you can see your way to having some women friends someday...if for no other reason to talk about how, ultimately, it's a society which values men over women which produces female  self-hatred, which in turn produces this kind of shitty behavior. Meanwhile, good luck with getting over this. I've seen my sister's experience, and I know it's hard. But you have daughters, and they need to learn how to pick people to trust, whatever gender they are.

 

All the best,

 

Tracy Thompson

I sent it off yesterday. Who knows? Maybe she'll reply. Maybe we'll get to be friends.