G is for Grace

In my motherhood journey, like all parenting journeys, there is a moment I am pained to speak about. I was merging onto the freeway, taking my daughter to karate, when chunks of the sky started falling.  That’s when the robocall call came through the car’s Bluetooth from the King County Jail, then paused for my son’s recorded voice speaking his name, then continued to inform me of the 800 number I had to call to bank time with a private phone service so I could speak to my incarcerated son the next time they allowed him to call.

That moment is a splinter I can’t grasp,  It is like a canker sore that hurts more when I press it with my tongue and yet I continue to press, to see if it still hurts.  It does.  Then it fades, and I press again. Still there.

The panic I felt, the complete lack of control, the ensuing lessons I learned about the Seattle court system, my son and myself led to, of all things, Grace.  All parenting concerns become meaningless after your son has been arrested, in another state.  Really the only thing left to be concerned about are the parenting biggies: sickness and death.  When you let everything else go, you get Grace. 

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D is for Direction

seventeen NOLS Alaska

My son was an early walker, and would lunge like a two foot tall Frankenstein's monster at any dog, arms outstretched bellowing 'Daw! Daw!'. Leaning forward, the weight of his giant ginger baby head nearly toppling him, gaining speed, he lurched forward until he was face to face with the Daw. 

 Dogs loved this. He was clearly their new chew toy. He also had an uncanny talent for impaling his forehead on all coffee table corners. In hindsight, nicknaming him Danger Boy was a bad omen.

A logical adult knows it takes at least couple months before any real respect for your parents grips the conscious mind of a child. Screeching 'No!' as my lumbering infant went on Daw patrol was not effective. I had read in one of my useless baby behavior books, that I needed to redirect his impulses, so that 'No!' would not become another meaningless mom noise, like 'Wear a Helmet!' This was months before he gave up on crawling and started running with the dogs.

ten

I nursed him in the beautiful oak rocker I'd bought long before I was pregnant, so beautiful it needed several cushions and a blanket to be comfortable. It was because of his teensy crab claw infant fingernails that I first wanted to yell at my gorgeous sweet baby. They grew as he slept, Nosferatu style, and as he nursed into a milk orgy he would take a miniscule bit of tortured breast and pinch the bejesus out of me. I would take his fat dough baby hand and nibble off the nails with tears of pain in my eyes and he would pass out like a drunk frat boy, milk running down his chin.

Throughout his school years it was much the same. He lurched forward towards the most exciting thing, skirting disaster, right on the razor's edge. Direction Danger, full steam ahead. My attempts at redirection have been mostly about health and safety, and largely ignored. From sunscreen, helmets, drugs, condoms, hitchhiking to the latest tattoo, I say my piece and hope for the best. Sometimes I tell him to call his aunt or Gramma, and miraculously he does.

This morning I texted him for the forth day in a row, Check in please, with no response. Because we're on the same phone plan I can see that he read the message. So I know he's alive. I have sketchy second hand knowledge that he's headed to New Orleans via Mexico, hitchhiking with two other young men. I am doing my Lamaze Breathing and hoping the universe has a plan for Danger Boy.

nineteen    photo by one of his tribe

He called while I was writing this. I had turned my phone off and he left a voice message. 'I'm in Reno. I'm fine. Well Reno isn't, this place is bad. My phone got wet but it's working now. We're hitchhiking to Salt Lake City today. Bye.' His Direction, for today, is East. That's all I've got, but for today it's enough.


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ring of fire

After nineteen loops around the sun, my parenting journey has included a lot of firsts.  Especially in these last few weeks, and while a better mother might never admit that she has a favorite child, an honest mother would snort at such bullshit, and top off my Pinot Noir.  For firsts like these they don’t make scrapbook pages. 

My daughter turned twelve.  She’s my youngest, so I have met twelve before. Twelve is heart breakingly tender and sweet and funny. Twelve has a foot in childhood and a foot in adolescence. Twelve is ready for anything.  Twelve thinks mom can’t possibly know or won’t check.  With a questionable ensemble stuffed in her backpack, she attended her first middle school dance last week. 

Seventeen moved into his college bound brother’s basement lair as soon as it was abandoned.  Seventeen is a militant locavore, unless he finds perfectly good bananas in the dumpster behind Mill Valley Market.  Seventeen is occasionally a vegan, or a vegetarian, depending upon whether rennet free parmesan is available. Seventeen cycles all over the Bay Area, not wanting to contribute to the burning of fossil fuels, and guerilla camps all over Mount Tam, not wanting to be associated with the family unit. Seventeen is a talented artist and musician and is currently in  his awkward social-protester-eco-terrorist phase. Seventeen is such an adorable age.  He stayed out all night last week for the first time, eventually texting at 1:43 AM to say where he was sleeping. 

Nineteen is currently my least favorite. Nineteen leapt from the nest and was insulted that I had bought a desk lamp, sheets & towels for his dorm room. We don’t have a shared world view. Nineteen rode his bicycle 960 miles up to Olympia to start college, which made me crazy but proud when he successfully arrived.  When I heard Nineteen’s recorded voice saying his name after the King County Jail collect call prompt, my chest compressed like Scarlet O’Hara’s when Mammy cinches her corset.  I now know what it feels like when your heart stops.  Two weeks ago Nineteen spent his first night in jail.

In just a few weeks I’ve navigated middle school dress code, eleven o’clock curfew and posting bail.  Just in time for Mother’s Day.  I never got around to doing a birthday cake for twelve, so a nice thick layer of guilt to pair with the Pinot Noir. 

Twelve was at band practice, Seventeen on a ridge near Fairfax and Nineteen under a blanket of clouds in Olympia during the annular Solar Eclipse.  I sat on our deck and stared at the eclipsed sun through a double layer of  Twelve’s shoulder x-rays from years ago.  There’s a juicy metaphor in there somewhere, weighting the branch like a ripe plum.  If I weren’t so singed by my maternal ring of fire, I’d easily see it.

Mary Allison Tierney's essay The Gingerdreadman is included in the anthology Mamas Write, available at Amazon, or your local independent bookshop.

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