Good night, Sleep tight

So I'm sitting here in bed, on my laptop, watching TMZ (huge confession), recording yoga tidbits on my other blog (Twisted Yogini) and reflecting on my day.

The kids and I began reading our next book this evening, "Moorchild". When you open a book dedicated to all children who have ever felt different, you know you're in for an elevating experience. This is a fantasy-like story, a departure from our usual historical fiction but a welcomed one. I'm so thrilled.

And, oh yeah, I did play that game I promised--Monopoly. We do a 30 minute version and just count the one with the most money the winner at the end of our time. I also sat with the kiddos at the table for dinner, when I finally cooked dinner. I REALLY wanted to zone to TV in the living room while I ate but I resisted the urge and sat with them. I mean, really. Aren't I blessed to have children who get excited when we have dinner together--it means so much to them and fills my heart too.

It's been a good day, all in all.

I'm still exhausted so I think I'll surrender to the call of sleep and write more tomorrow.

Do you know where your children are?

On the trampoline--out of my hair.

It's 8:30 at night and I have still not made dinner. I'm comforted by the late afternoon snack I prepared for them when I warned that dinner would be late--mama needed a nap.

Surprisingly, I have had zero energy today--even after beginning my day with a great yoga practice with one of my favorite teachers. I don't know what happened to me.

I promise myself, right now, that we will play a game together tonight as I make up for my lack of enthusiasm for life today.

Opting Out

I notice a 17.9% interest rate on my credit card statement, a jump of 8% from last month and the first such leap in, well, all of the 12 years I have had the card.

I call the bank frantically. Of course, the representatives I need to speak with are only there M-F but she notices I qualify for a lower rate. Really? Like, the one I had 6 days ago perhaps or another?

I call this morning, start of business day. Yes, he confirms, you do qualify. Apparently the rate hiked because I did not respond to a letter mailed to me in January allowing me to opt out of the rate hike but I needed to call or mail in my reply.

Ah.

Is that how we play?

Well, after much consideration, I suppose I've decided to opt out of the rate hike (moron).

Great, he says. He can do it over the phone.

Glad I won't have to build a sacrificial alter for one of my children for this such retro action.

However, he adds, subsequent purchases will thrust the card back to 17% permanently.

Let me get this straight. You're taking my rate back down to where it SHOULD BE, yet, if I use this card again, my rate will permanently hike to 17%.

Yes ma'am.

I see.

Then, he offers me a checking account with said bank.

That's laugh out loud funny!

See, he explains, more than one account often assures different treatments, different considerations because the relationship is expanded.

Well then (shit for brains) here's what I think:

Any such "relationship" we ever had or were promised to have, ended the second I made this phone call. I, how do you say? Opt-out.

So far from where I was...

I look back on me about 4 years ago and I was hustling through the Sociology graduate program with my eyes on the Ph.D.

Fast forward and I am STILL mid-way through a thesis, untouched in more than a year and I want only to wrap it up and be done. That is if I can even muster the will to wrap it up--I'd settle for just be done, degree or no degree.

I'm into yogic bliss now--deadlines don't exist in my world. The only hustling I do is back and forth to violin lessons, acting workshops and other such activities for my kids. I immerse myself in my own writing, not dead white guys formulating hypotheses on the social behaviors of humans.

But damn it all to hell, I'm going to do it. I've decided to finish the god damn thesis and be done with it--have the damn Masters degree because that's what I paid for some $50,000 in student loans later.

I've realized, however, that the student loans bought more than my education, they bought me time at home with my children when my jackass husband went AWOL. I'd do it again.

I needed a break after school, before my thesis, but rather than just allowing that, I pushed myself just as hard as I'd pushed all along and my burnout was palpable.

The time has come and I must finish what I started because I deserve the M.S. at the end of my name for all the nights I never went to bed, for all the hours I spent away from home, for all the papers I wrote (and well), for all the research I poured over, for all the books I read, for all the presentations and debates along the way.

Most of all, I just want it. I secretly long for the student life again--sociology became my love and I still revel in the social world, especially the individual level.

I want to come out of my closet and claim my prize.

Losing Place

The following is a fiction piece and I confess, I am NOT a fiction writer but I'm exploring a story and what you see here is a work in progress. I will update from week to week and see where it goes.

She had always looked to him--he was her gauge, her way of knowing if she was doing things right--showing her she mattered. Theirs was a partnership born out of necessity and availability--they needed each other and they were all they had.

She wondered, out loud, if she had been enough--good enough, there enough, open enough. So much of their lives had been marred by uncertainty, heartache and deprivation. She felt, she continued, that her every waking moments were orchestrated outside of herself and often in spite of herself--it was stifling.

She rolled from her back to her side and looked over at where he lay and she wondered if he had even heard her words--these words, these confessions that she desperately needed him to hear.

The sun was warm on her skin--they had chosen a nice spot--sunny in the cooler morning hours and shaded in the afternoon. The landscape was beautiful and the flowers she bought from the florist this morning really livened up their spot. Sunflowers were his favorite. From the moment she showed him the seeds inside the center of a withered flower in the community garden, he had loved them. She remembered. He thought she was magic and she loved letting him think that.

She took a deep breath and rolled to her back again on the checkered cloth she had spread a few hours earlier. It was time. She finally told him about leaving. I have to, she explained. There was too much standing in her way here, "and besides, I think I've finally figured out how to live--you remember, I told you that once, that mama just couldn't figure out how to live and you looked at me all puzzled and big and with all the seriousness in your little heart you said but mama, you're doing it. I laughed at your sweetness but mama didn't get it then, you remember? Ah, but now, I got me some perspective and your mama, she's gonna be something."

She looked up, not sure what to expect or what she thought she might see and the smile never left his lips. "Well, say something" but she knew he wouldn't, he couldn't.

She felt a surprising anger welling up inside of her and bit her lip as the tears won out and made their way down her soft brown cheeks. She put her hand on the cold marble stone and surrendered to the moment that everyone told her would come. She allowed her fingers to trace the years of his life permanently etched as if sealing a deal, closing a book. She laid the photograph she had been staring at face down on the ground and tried to recall his face without the reminder, before the accident changed him forever in her mind. Submitting to her pain, finally, she spread her body across the ground.

"You were always the life within me" she whispered into the earth, willing the words to find their way to him. She began to read his favorite story, memorized from all of his 'one more time mamas'--the absence of his echoing voice on certain lines caused a sickening churning in her stomach but she didn't stop the story. She never stopped it then and she sure as hell wouldn't stop it now.

As she was walking away she turned once more to look over at where he lay--she wanted him to run to her, to grab her leg and hang on to her as she playfully pulled him along, just one more time. But now, his finality rose up as the only clarity in her mind as she looked back on the stone that marked where their life left off and she returned to a life without the only compass she had ever known.

Unraveling

Starts with a fluster before the internal raging--the nonsensical swirling, winding out of control.

No one. No thing. No fault.

Growing, building, consuming, un-doing composure, inflicting imbalance and disrupting peace.

Almost had it, almost did it. Not quite. Not this time. Not yet.

This I Believe: Scary Movies

I believe that if you introduce your children to scary movies in their own time and amid your supervision, they will fare well.

My own children had been, short of falling to their knees into a series of deep bows, begging to watch a scary movie with me. This is quite a different passage into the realm of scare flicks than I had taken with my own brother during our childhood. Ours were NEVER adult supervised--we watched WHATEVER we wanted in the wee hours of the weekends. Oftentimes, whatever we wanted was usually clad in a hockey mask wielding a machete, maiming dim-witted campers or jailed psychotic women, scantily clad, beating the crap out of each other until finally uniting against an equally psychotic warden.

So for my children, scare flicks have been off-limits...until now. They frequently check out scary tales from the library, with grand hopes of fear and spine tingles but have complained that they are not scary enough. Try as they may, and they've tried hard, they have not been scared.

This past weekend, it was just going to be the three of us and I suggested we get some scare flicks, kid friendly of course, and watch them together. They erupted into screams of joy and the path was set. My only concern was to avoid damaging their precious little minds in the process. Little did I know, my children are robots--their fear tolerance is pretty damn high, scary little bastards.

Before our weekend, we dropped into our local movie store and the helpful clerks, after laughing at the idea of kid-friendly horror, began scoping the aisles, making suggestions for my children. These guys were great and clearly, movie geeks--I trusted their recommendations completely. But I had some ground rules, after all, I have standards:

I didn't want killing for the sake of killing, no senseless violence, unless used necessarily against, say, the undead. Minimal blood, again, context was everything--blood rising in a haunted sink is categorically different from blood pulsing from a freshly chopped head. Preferably a movie whose central "evil" was a force wreaking havoc versus a crazed lunatic hacking limbs and other such appendages. And absolutely NO sexual violence.

The movie geeks moved agilely within my restraints and we settled on Stephen King's "It" and "The Omen". I had seen them both in my youth and been given a good helping of fear from each, so I talked them up to the kiddos. They were busting at the seams with excitement and I too was thrilled to be sharing this with my kids. I still love a good scary movie and had, in my own childhood, completely tortured myself with them.

I suggested we watch them during the day so as to not exacerbate the fear in darkness and further suggested we split them up over our weekend to avoid saturating ourselves in fear. I was on unusual ground here--I could rob them of their innocence. I was taking a huge risk and I knew it. In hindsight, I was quite unfair to myself for my children are of the corn.

They thought the boy in Omen was a tad spooky and the tale of his shenanigans certainly interesting but they were more disturbed by the death of the mother, the injustice of the father's early demise and interruption of their marriage bliss. Further noting that they would never be parents, all they ever wanted was a child, they would've made great parents. Alright. But did you see his eyes? What about that nanny and the way she ran out of the room at the father? And the boy, he was born from a jackal you know? My children missed the horror in the horror and got caught up in thinking too damn much.

So, against my initial plan, we popped "It" right into the DVD player and I told them to brace themselves. I talked it up. I closed the shades and turned off the lights to puff up the effect. This was going to be the one. We each found our place in the living room, hugged into our bodies and braced for fear.

Nada.

The credits were rolling and I even found my own self disappointed because, as an adult, it wasn't as disturbing as I remembered and the 'special' effects weren't so special now 20 years later.

I felt dejected. I had failed to horrify my children when they wanted to be horrified so desperately. I needed bigger guns. I rummaged through our own movie collection and, lacking any real choice of 'horror', settled on "The Village"--it certainly spooked me the first time I saw it, before I realized that the village and it's beast were a fabrication. The key difference is, my children already knew it was a fabrication. I shared it with them in my retelling of the movie several months back.

Long story short, my son fell asleep and my daughter said, "I was a little scared when she saw the beast in the woods" but again, was more saddened by the skinning of the animals and intrigued by the fabricated community.

Damn.

All three movies in one day and nothing. Not so much as a jolt or a gasp.

Determined to spook their pants off, I stopped into the movie store the next day and rented "The Ring"--this had to be the one. I couldn't go to sleep after watching it a few years ago, it played with my mind, kept me on the edge of the sofa and made my heart race--I LOVED it! And bottom line, they wanted ALL of this--they wanted the chill, the racing heart, breath held and fists clenched--and I wanted to give this to them. Now more than ever and at this point, I was hell bent on freaking this kids out, in a mother's love sort of way.

I hadn't given anything away on this, hadn't disclosed the slightest detail except to say--you asked for it so here it is. They were charged man--totally unable to contain their nervous excitement and I was freakishly stoked to rattle their cage.

We had a little better luck with this one, they were on the edge of their seats but still no absolute terror. And you know, I guess that's good. I didn't want to scar them but I also love that we're crossing into new territory as parents and children. Just like first steps, toilet training success, buckling themselves into the car seat and taking their own bath--we've reached a milestone.

For this I believe, I'm glad they want to watch these movies with me. Horror movies for me, at their age, were always watched with my brother and that's cool too but I'm more into family time as a mom myself. Furthermore, it's super-cool that now, not all movie nights have to be in separate rooms divided by our age.

I guess above all else, this proves that my children have a pretty firm grasp on reality and I like that.

The fog is lifting

Wow--being sick for two weeks really takes a toll on one's life! I've been a slug, just creeping along, barely making it through days--overall blah.

Not to mention that I had two weeks between my yoga trainings for Feb. and March--the Monday after the Feb. training I came down with a crud, just made it out of the crud to go tent camping on the weekend in 40 degree weather, to find myself sick again on Monday--this one had staying power. I just now feel back to normal.

Had a GREAT yoga training weekend--I know myself how far I've come during this training, with yoga and with myself. The teaching part feels so natural and second nature for me, perhaps because it's what I do all day with my children, I teach.

Today was our 75 minute teach and it was a class that we were able to design ourselves. I designed a class that looked a lot like my personal practice and created a centering to lead into the practice. The feedback I got was AMAZING--I was totally taken back. I had the yoga instructor in my class, no pressure right? I used my own centering to calm my nerves--my hands were shaking! But I, ultimately, found my groove.

When I closed my class and the facilitation began, my instructor began her feedback by saying that I am ready to teach! She said I could take the class I had just delivered and teach at a local studio that is a perfect fit for my 'brand' of yoga--she even offered to make the call to the studio owner! She said my yoga class and aura bred self-love and peace and acceptance, that I was nurturing and in touch with my students and that my voice is my gift.

Imagine. My voice! All along that has been the biggest challenge for me, perhaps all my life really, on some level--finding my voice, using my voice, relying on my voice. In yoga, it's been a challenge for me to speak the postures, to speak to the experience with authenticity but today, I just spoke from my heart and I spoke to what I find in yoga and, apparently, a connection was made.

I think I floated out of there.

It was also so interesting for me when she said that my yoga bred self-love. I shared with her that, 10 years ago, that's what brought me to the practice--desperately needing to love myself. To love myself deeply and to connect all facets of my being and for me, that's what my practice is EVERY TIME, a tribute to me, an honoring of me.

This has been a great day--who knew that when the fog lifted, I would have my head in the clouds!

Feeling like ca-ca

I'm so blah this week.

Post-camping sickness, strep maybe?

Fatigued, sluggish, heavy, menstruating, achy.

Too tired to make it to doctor.

Too tired to do yoga.

Trying to bake bread but it's just not rising.

Oh yeah, saved money on monthly car insurance. I officially have an agent. Now I pay half of what I was paying. He's my new god.

The kiddos can have music lessons now.

All must be well.

Me. Roughing it.

I just returned home from a weekend of camping.

I've never camped before in my life--tent camped that is, which apparently is different from RV camping--DRASTICALLY different, I found.

Sure, my parents took me tent camping once as a child to which my body responded with spasms of diarrhea and vomiting. Obviously, I was developing an aversion that I would carry into adulthood.

Of late, I had thought I might like to camp, in a tent. I feel very alive outside--more and more as I age, and thought it would be a great way to connect with my primitive side, to nature.

So, below is a list of what I learned about and while camping:

1. Instant coffee might be overkill, because, I was informed, coffee is one of the easiest things to prepare in the rugged outdoors but overkill or not, it was a more than adequate replacement for what almost became my deal breaker.

2. Connecting with one's primitive side, does not, at least for me, have to involve sleeping on a sparsely padded tent floor subjecting the body to unnecessary bouts of pain and stiffness. My feet were just as dirty and my hair just as nappy on an air mattress loaned to me by a dear friend (who just rose ranks in my friend book when she offered this on my second night of camping.)

3. Some of the funniest things you will ever say happen immediately before, during and after a stint to the bathhouse at 3:00 in the morning when the entire family must rise, for safety, and make the journey together in service to your bladder.

4. My bladder is wretchedly small...and now my family knows.

5. There are not enough blankets in the world to cut the cold of sleeping outdoors.

6. We didn't mind sleeping 4 to a 3 person tent when we realized the necessity of body heat moving between us.

7. Tents do not come with automatic pulls or air pumps to inflate them. There is some effort involved in bringing them to being. Thank god for the Canadians at the neighboring campsite for saving us from our ignorance as we curiously studied the pile of nylon at our feet in our attempt to understand the method evading us.

8. Gnats just might be the Antichrist scattered into trillions of minions.

9. Monopoly is NOT a great camp site game. As if.

10. I don't mind an excuse to skip a shower...or two.

11. I didn't, not one time, miss the television.

12. My feet were the dirtiest they've ever been--once home, it took a round of body wash, another of apricot scrub and a pumice stone scrub to remove the dirt from the wrinkles of my feet and return them to their fleshy pink state.

And now that we are home and have been for a few days, I have loved the warmth of my bed and a toilet only a few feet away.

Breakfast at almost lunch

We're slow starters around here--rise when we want to, on most days, and fall when we fall.

This morning I made a yummy breakfast-at-almost-lunch. We had scrambled eggs with feta cheese, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella and red onions and free-range, antibiotic free chicken sausage. Well, my son and I had that. My daughter had a leftover warm pasta salad with feta, tomatoes, black olives and spinach. We all had coffee.

Lovely start to a lovely day...I love this life of mine.

Living My Life Like it's Golden

I am so full tonight, so content. Life is going my way lately and the results are beautiful.

I had dinner tonight with a dear friend. Her kids hung with us for the afternoon and she joined later. We had risotto, chocolate chip cookies and coffee. It was so cool, so sublime.

I used to have nights like this, years ago, with another dear friend of mine and it wasn't until I was living the moment tonight that I realized how much I had missed this sort of female connection. The talking, the laughing, the sharing.

I was blissed out.

Having such a full life, as I feel I do right now, means I'm a better person, a better mom, a better partner, a better friend, because then I'm operating from a state of balance, a state of peace and fulfillment.

So much has changed in the years since my divorce--it's like, there's my life pre-divorce and post-divorce now. The divorce is the center mark in my timeline. During that time, I emptied myself--I fell to pieces and in the rebuilding, I kept what worked and I discarded the rest. I reordered and came further into my being.

It was a blessing. I hate that the children have lost their father but that was his choice--I didn't cause it. We lost our marriage, it didn't have to mean his place in their lives.

One day, I'll explore it all here but not tonight. There are dark twists and turns that I'm not sure I'm prepared to explore right now. Soon. Life is good right now. That is the 'it' of it all.

Couldn't sleep...and other matters of anxiety

Fretting over what to prepare for a picnic between a play at the downtown theater and an afternoon at the community art center, when there is minimal picnic-type food in the house.

Good payday coming this week--LONG overdue bonus. But it's not here yet.

Saw my dear friend today, the one from my other life--6 years ago. It's odd to have your life abbreviated into a 45 minute conversation--perspective. I'm sure there are more conversations to come where we relive what we've done, where we've been and what we've gone through. I regret that we didn't live it together but regret is counterproductive because we're here now.

Gave my daughter a half-ass goodnight hug/kiss session because I felt her attitude rising (long story and irrelevant). Wish now I would've called her back to me--if I've learned anything today, it's to NOT leave things undone. Perspective.

My pager sits beside me tonight like a grenade with the pin pulled--will it go off?

I'm tired of the cat climbing over my face to get to the one she loves best on the other side of the bed.

So unprepared for camping this weekend--can't do anything about it until payday.

I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO need a haircut.

Hmmm. Perspective?

I will let them see me

I have had an epiphany of sorts since my last column--the one where I recorded an instance of losing my shit over a Styrofoam vegetable tray.

I am the best damn' example of a human being. I'm good material. I am open, honest, raw, exposed--I don't build walls, don't know how. I don't create facades--I've worked too hard to be me.

I have moments, instances, where the context of my young life determines how I will react. Those pesky little neuron pathways have yet to be rerouted, completely. But more often than not, I'm deciding the next mom move. More often than not, I'm acting within and because of my love for my children and my desire to rock motherhood.

A wise friend of mine shared something with me under the last full moon. She said at least you can go back. At first, I was thinking, did she just hear what I read to her? Go back? How so--cuz if you've got some sort of mothering time machine... And then, as if in response to my inner-sarcasm she finished with, "you can catch yourself and admit that the way you responded is not how you want to continue--it's not how you meant to act, not what you meant to say."

Something about that made sense to me. I couldn't very well always stop the trains but perhaps I could jump from them for my children.

I could let them see me, see the struggle that is me, the struggles that are my insides.

The Tao of Parenting--yeah that's great for sealing failure and breeding inadequacy, sometimes. Where's the Tao for mama standing with her insides exposed or the Tao for mama with foot in mouth? The Tao is full of many contrasting verses but you never hear 'if you want your children to be calm show them how to be a raging lunatic.'

So here is my Tao, if you ever in a million years want your children to have a strong sense of self and place, show them your struggle and your path so they don't think for one second that living is easy.

I said in my last column, I've been better but I've been worse. I want to edit that statement. I've been worse than I ever planned on being but I've also been better than I've ever known. I have a way of focusing on what I don't do as their mom, on what I don't provide, on how I fuck up. What I lack in forethought and patience, I make up for in honesty, humility and humanness.

And, I can go back says my friend under the full moon. I can let them see me. The view's not so bad.

Parenting Tao

[Taken from The Parent's Tao Te Ching by William Martin]

Your Greatest Legacy

If you want your children to succeed,
show them how to fail.
If you want them to be happy,
show them how to be sad.
If you want them to be healthy,
show them how to be sick.
If you want them to have much,
show them how to enjoy little.
Parents who hide failure, deny loss,
and berate themselves for weakness,
have nothing to teach their children.
But parents who reveal themselves,
in all of their humanness,
become heroes.
For children look to these parents
and learn to love themselves.
========================================

Ahhh. I needed that. For all the love I have in my heart for my children and for all of my intentions of peace and bliss, I step outside the mother I want to be from time to time and when I admit my failure, express my sorrow and convey my love, they see the humanness in me. Perhaps that exposure softens the edges when I veer from my path.

Bread-Making Day

Waiting on the kiddos to wake up--it's 11:00 in the morning. Gotta love homeschooling!

We are making bread today. They're making monkey bread, a fun bread composed of ping-pong size bits of the rolled dough w/a raisin inside each bit and a yummy buttery, sweet glaze. I'm making my sunflower wheat bread--a new recipe I tried as my third yeast bread ever and from which I will probably never stray. I just like when bread goes my way.

Here's to rising dogh.

Ghosts

I was confronted with a ghost from my past--just when I was thinking about her. Isn't that how it happens anyway? I was in the grocery store and I thought I saw her. When I looked to see that it wasn't her after all, I wondered what I would do if I did see her. Would I just walk away in disgust? Would I glare? Would I pretend I didn't see her? Would I hold back from hugging her? Would I laugh nervously? Would I be able to speak at all?

So many questions. How have you been? How's your daughter? Your husband? Your mom, dad? What are your dreams now? How close are you to them? Do you remember when...

She was my heart at one time. The only dearness I had ever found in female companionship back then.

It's no secret, I went through some serious shit when my marriage fell apart. Times like that, you fall apart and piece yourself back together in various ways, finding a good fit. There were nights when I thought I was going to die--the pain in my chest was crushing. How was I going to raise my children alone? How would I financially support my family? How would I keep our house? It was terrifying.

She was there--frightened as she was entering motherhood, she was there. I knew she was scared of being a mother--who the hell isn't? It's not all kisses and snuggles when you're sleep deprived and your boobs ache from nursing and your identity is compromised by the new arrival. But she was there and I knew she loved me.

We were really close, almost too close, and because of that, we were probably the greatest weapons against each other. Unfortunately, we found out. We parted ways for a bit--it was crushing for me.

After 9/11, she called me--wanted to make peace because who wasn't scared and confused in that wake? So we did and continued where we left off, pacing ourselves this time. Tempering our relationship--it's like we both knew.

Then, I don't know what happened--nothing, anything, everything. Harsh words in an email and it was over.

I was left stunned and hurt--paralyzed for a bit toward friendship.

I have thought of her often--probably a few times a week. I have even thought that if we just had one more chance, we could do this thing. We are both strong women and we are both open to our own change, we just haven't always been open to each other's change.

We were each shaped by each other somewhere along the way and we were each hurt by each other somewhere along the way. It's been long enough and I think I'm ready to find out what I'd do if I saw her.

But the universe gave me a buffer and my family saw her first.

The *edit* of "The Styrofoam Vegetable Tray"

I have edited this submission following a review from the editor of the community column where I submit once a month (though I committed to weekly submissions).

She, rightfully, offered that the language, ie. f-bombs, at times, deteriorated the shock value--the necessary rawness that captured my downward spiral.

Thanks editor lady. I couldn't agree more.

BTW, thank you too for offering this:

"I LOVE this submission! Probably because I LIVED this submission in my own childhood. I think a lot of people will relate and I think it took a lot of guts to share!"

I felt a bit inadequate when I read this, like, someone else has survived a mom like me and now I write from the other side of that darkness to which she relates. Hmmmm.

Not sure how I feel about that--ah well. I own my demons, I suppose.

Yoga Bliss

Between the sweet release of all negative energy from my body and the sharing of words during a writer's circle under an eclipsing moon, I am in bliss.

Good night.

Here's to looking forward and wanting better.

The Styrofoam Vegetable Tray

This is probably one of the most honestly written pieces of my life, and I have had to write in stages in order to stay firm in my honesty and not sugarcoat or humor through the story I'm forcing my hand to tell. I refuse to let myself off the hook on this one. I will not cower behind self-created subterfuge.

It all began with a black Styrofoam vegetable tray. It probably came into our home under spears of asparagus or summer squash. I collect them afterwards to be paint trays for my kids; it's my way of dealing with having Styrofoam forced upon me. I like to find some other life for it between original intent and final destination (landfill).

Before yesterday, it was a rather innocuous item, this Styrofoam tray, unnoticed in my daily life, unconsidered and relatively unimportant.

Yesterday, however, it became a pretense for my rage, a symbol for the beast that lurks in my motherhood, a reminder that I lost my shit.

As I write this, I can feel the sick churning in my gut – the feeling of guilt, remorse, of wanting to undo what cannot possibly be undone. Not only can yesterday NOT be undone, it will live on in how my daughter looks at me, what she thinks of me and how she recalls me from yesterday on.

She was painting a box in the den to use in her science experiment for viewing the phases of the moon. I was in the kitchen preparing lunch, and it is apparent to me now that I was under duress – why the hell I can't see this shit coming all these years later is beyond me, but there it came nonetheless.

I walked into the den, saw her work space and asked what the hell she thought she was doing – why hadn't she asked to use the vegetable tray she was using as her paint palette? She instantly lowered her head; her face morphed into shame. You know, I can't remember the birth weight of either of my children or their height in inches for that matter, but I'll never forget that look on her face.

I digress.

See, my daughter and I have battles over her asking to use items in the craft room – it’s a consistent struggle between two strong personalities and my asinine need to have order, to know what I have and to know how much, of nothing that matters at all really. As I write this and read my own words, I can hear my mother screaming, irrational with rage, over "her face mask," "her shampoo," "her hairbrush," blah, freakin’, blah. I can recall lowering my own head, masked in shame, feeling so deeply inadequate. Not understanding. Not getting it. Not realizing that there was nothing to get – that’s blind rage, man. My own seed of rage was incubating in all of those senseless moments strung together by her remorse and my forgiveness.

So I kept yelling at my own daughter, irrationally – the exact words I used are beyond me now or else it's that I don't want to know, don't want to remember. "Ask, could you just fucking' ask" was the theme of my shit-toss.

Feeling like her victim, like I'd never survive this stubborn girl with no care for permission to use these, apparently precious, Styrofoam trays but also knowing, on some level, that I was out of control, I forced myself back to my room. One foot. Then the next. And see, looking back, that was probably not the wisest choice I've ever made. In my room, my desk was littered with her crap from her morning studies and she had left the computer on – both of which are huge pet peeves of mine. The sane part of me beckoning from the small fraction of rational mind I was working with wanted to warn her. But before that thought got air time, I began yelling in this baritone voice, much more like the howl of a reluctantly-mounted elephant during a mating ritual than a mother who loves her child.

She rushed into my room, a servant of my ridiculous rage. She gathered her things from my desk and shut the computer down amid the torrent of expletives.

I shut myself in my bathroom, hell bent on curbing the progression of my anger, now well past anger and well into lunacy. I ran my fingers through my hair, gathered a clump in each hand and I stared at the maniac looking back at me in bathroom mirror, all wide eyed and shocked, as if she herself could not comprehend the derangement of her reflection.

I gave my body to the wall behind me and slid to the cold, tiled floor. I cried into my hands. I still felt like a victim yet all the while I knew I was creating one, in her.

I wounded my daughter yesterday, I changed who she was and worse, in the aftermath I felt like I wanted to die, like I needed to die to eradicate any further threat of me to her. It was a pseudo consideration really, a play on ideas, a sham, because I knew all too well that any erasure of my existence at this point would only mark me forever as the lunatic vegetable tray mom. No glory in that exit, man. No. I don't even want off that easy – I don't roll that way.

I've been better but I've been worse, and this life I lead will, if nothing else, be ripe with my own accountability. Unlike my mother, I will shoulder the blame, I will admit my weaknesses – I will own my dark side.

The black Styrofoam vegetable tray – could have been asparagus or summer squash that brought it into our home. It should have been nothing more than a vessel for the vegetables, yet it has become a tag for a moment I want to un-own, undo or at least redefine. But I exist within a fixed and finite realm of screw-ups and lasting impressions and I can't go back like I'd want to – I’d walk into that room and throw the freakin' vegetable tray away before I used it as an excuse to berate her. It was never really about the tray and I knew that.

I spent the next day cooking with my daughter and I got to be the mother I meant to be the day before. And I learned something. I'm not a monster. I'm a human being; once a child, I was shaped in a context I have not yet outgrown. But day by day, I peel back the layers, and I come closer to the essence of the mother I always wanted, the one I always needed, and now, the one I desire to be.