E is for Employed

I haven’t had a paycheck in over twenty years.  This was a choice, mostly.  I did a little freelance work when my first born was an infant but he was wildly unenthusiastic about napping on a schedule or taking a bottle so I settled in to the domestic engineer career ladder.  Stepstool. Milking stool.

I'd work for this guy

My youngest is starting high school in the fall and I am acutely aware of my lack of marketable skills. When I opted out of the workforce, the Internet wasn’t a thing yet.  I had a carphone that had to be installed, laptops hadn’t been invented, and to apply for a job you mailed out paper resumes and made phone calls. 

My last job official job was in an art gallery where among other things, I reviewed artist’s work by looking at sheets of slides that were mailed to the gallery.  I mailed press materials to newspaper and magazine editors.  I visited artists’ studios to select work or dropped off pieces at collector’s homes for consideration. People wrote checks and we had to wait 10 working days until they cleared.  Back then people smoked in galleries too, which seems bizarre now. 

In the twenty one years since I retired, the art gallery as a sales venue has been all but replaced with eBay and websites, but shows do still happen. I’ve been to a handful.  My money goes to other things, like graph paper, cleats, and iPads, so I’m not a patron of the arts and my gallery opening invitations dried up pretty quick. 

So how does one step back in?  A lot has been published about this lately, or maybe I’m just noticing it. I have zero marketable skills, at least compared to an unencumbered twentysomething with a relevant degree and practical experience.  How does navigating elementary school volunteer & carpool duties translate to a W-2? I am nowhere near hip enough to be a barista or bag groceries at Whole Foods.  I’m way too hormonal to be a crossing guard.  I might be too hormonal to be around other people, or their dogs. 

I’m open to suggestions.

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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Q is for Quest

The prize table was laden with huge colorful water bazookas, the only thing that mattered. That damned race.  On vacation at a resort in Oregon, a kid’s triathalon!  So fun! 

boys

As soon as the kids started the swimming leg, it was immediately obvious who wasn’t a swim team kid. I wanted to pull him out of the pool and wrap him in his towel, but my son pushed me away roughly as he hurried to put on his shoes, one of the last out of the pool, and he began to run.  He ran and rode his bike and crossed that finish line well in the middle but never quitting.  But I wanted to die for him as he struggled with the swimming and saw how far back he was. I wanted to pull him into a hug and sneak off into the pine trees. He would have none of it.  We walked past the prize table featuring the huge cartoon water gun after the race, not really looking this time.

I admired his perseverance and dealt with my own maternal guilt

by putting both my boys into swim team as soon as we returned.  Not to win races, but I felt I had overlooked some fundamental basic childhood necessity. They had swim lessons, I felt confident they could swim, but lanes and strokes and laps were not in their playbook, and it seemed every other kid but mine was on a swimteam.  I felt like I’d accidentally forgotten to teach them how to use a fork.  Actually that might still be some peoples opinion. 

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Fire Storm

15 is such an adorable age

Our boys hosted a garage concert on the last day of school. Three bands were slated to play and kids had been invited representing several Bay Area high schools.  I don’t recall ever fully signing on for this, and was silently panicking at the thought of 700 moshing metalheads. I demanded a guest list and again went over the house rules of no booze - no drugs – no disrespectful behavior. Only one mom phoned to make sure parents would be home and I confessed that this was uncharted water for us too. 

As the bands warmed up, our driveway resembled the scene in Bambi when the forest is on fire and all the bunnies and skunks are evacuating in a wild panic.  All wildlife in a 2-mile radius had scampered or flown away.  The sheriff that arrived moments later helpfully suggested closing the garage door. He gave me his card in case I ran into any trouble. I gave him my name and number for my pissed neighbors to call so he didn’t have to drive back. 

The first two bands were lite punk if such a thing could exist.  They were loud for sure but I could still watch Colbert Report without a problem.  Then the hosting headliner band came on, with corpse paint and a plastic skull goblet with homemade corn syrup blood for the full effect.  As their mother I can honestly say it was horrible.  Like a fissure had opened at the end of our driveway and drums as loud as a Hell’s Angels memorial ride and vocals like gargled nails.  My garden wilted.  Paint peeled from the walls. The mosh pit was at full tilt when the garage door opened just a few inches and a kid literally rolled out and the door shut behind him.  I was refilling a bowl with chips and asked him if he was ok. He was holding a broom. He said, “I’m fine.” I went back inside and waited for the phone to ring. 

The first call was from a man who asked if they could please take it inside.  I told him it was in the garage. He asked if they could close the door.  I told him that, sadly the door was closed. When I told him the sheriff had already come by he then claimed to be from the Sheriff’s dispatch office.  I thought it was curious that he had a English accent but told him I’d have the band turn down the amps.  He lightened up and admitted to having been in a band and I told him it was their first real gig with girls.  Those poor girls.

The next neighbor was civil and politely asked if we could please never do it again.  She asked if it were perhaps Satanic Jazz. No, not Satanic, but in that Back Metal tradition of Norse mythology, the earth based pre Christian…… never mind I’ll be pulling the plug soon.  She told me I was a good mother for letting them flex their creative wings and hopefully for all our sakes it was a phase they’d quickly outgrow.  I gave the band a 5-minute warning.

In the end only twenty or so kids showed and the bands were disappointed at that, but clearly they’d earned their stripes by the sheriff coming and pissing off the neighbors.  We earned major kudos from the other parent roadies who had opted to go out to dinner during the concert and were now loading amps and guitars into their sensible hybrids. 

While my older son was dutifully washing the corn syrup blood off the garage floor I heard a rustle in the tree and a mourning dove coo.  One of our cats squeezed back under the fence and reclaimed her perch in the garage. 

2008

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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