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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C is for Can

Si se puede.

Last night I had the honor of meeting the author of the book Migrant Daughter.  Our book club selection of the month, and one member had worked with the author when she was a teacher in the Mission District in San Francisco in the late 60's.  Frances Equibel Tywoniak celebrated her 82nd birthday with us last night at our book club.  We had a great time getting to know her and question her about her experiences as a migrant farmer's daughter during the depression and attending UC Berkeley in the 1949 as one of the few Mexican Americans on campus, much less a woman.

Born in 1931 in New Mexico, her family had lived on their land for several generations before being forced to move to California to work as migrant labor.  She navigated her parents culture with Spanish only spoken at home, her school culture with Anglos being assigned to a very different academic tract based solely on ethnicity, and society's ever changing view of who she was based on her last name, her neighborhood and her language.

Fran persevered and made choices, sometimes heartbreaking ones like when she broke up with a boy she really cared about because she knew he'd settle for living in the barrio his whole life and she wanted more.  She graduated from UC Berkeley, taught school in San Francisco and ultimately was principal of a high school in the Mission.  She had a fire in the belly and was always questioning her world.





She signed my book, 'Si se puede'   Yes, we can.

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B is for Beach

I grew up in the desert, so I am never able to go to the beach without being in complete awe.  For twenty years now I have lived within a 20 minute drive of the beach, and each time I go I can’t believe how I’ve taken it for granted.  The waves never stop. I go about my week, or maybe two, before I go back and the waves have never stopped.

I like a fairly deserted weekday beach, with some fog.  I like a beach that requires fleece.  Tropical sunburn bikini beaches are just for wimps.  If I had the opportunity to hang out in Maui I would, but I really like the Marin beaches just fine.  Body surfing in San Diego is fun but if your feet don’t get a bit numb, it just isn’t the same. 

I collect sand dollars and sea glass, throw sticks for the dog,  find weird dead or rusted things at low tide. Mostly I appreciate that  it’s always there.  All that churning salt water and briny wind is cleansing.

I found myself drawn to the beach the morning of 9/11.  Just sat on a log and watched the ocean do its thing.  Last December I took my dog to the beach threw sticks and a found ball for most of an hour, then sat on the log while I waited to hear the outcome of my son’s arraignment in Seattle.  I let the beach remind me that I’m not in control. 

The waves never stop. The hiss and roar have been continual, since before any of us and will keep rolling long after us.  Oblivious of us.  When we are gone the sand dollars and sea glass will just pile up.  

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A is for Appetite

 A is for Appetite

My oldest son was hungry from the moment he emerged from my body. He weaned himself from the breast when he was first able to hold a spoon and navigate it to his mouth. I was wistful but relieved as he preferred to nurse around the clock. He was a typical red headed firecracker and I was exhausted.

 His brother entered the world and immediately took a nap. He was mildly interested in eating, but his first priority was to watch his brother pinball round the room. He sustained life for years on goldfish crackers.

This patterned continued, with the older inhaling his meals and the younger making a marathon out of a single slice of pizza. When my daughter graced us with her presence, she ate like a normal human, favoring fruit, but with little fuss. As they grew, stocking the fridge and pantry has always been a considered thoughtful endeavor. Price, value, quantities and quality all factor in. Costco bulk for the cheap price. Farmers market for quality. Trader Joes for price, quirkiness and convenient, as it’s nearby.

All this escalated enormously when both my boys were in high school. Giant drums of cream cheese, four gallons of milk. Two dozen bagels. Costco became my weekly market. My kids work at the farmer’s market on Sundays, so I was glad to have vendors load us up with freebies on occasion.

 But when my eldest left for college and the dust settled, I found myself throwing out food. Milk would linger, crowding the fridge. Hummus went bad. I stopped shopping at Costco altogether and let my membership expire. Turns out it was just him eating almost everything, his younger brother just a grazer, and his eleven year old sister eats like an eleven year old girl.

I no longer knew how to grocery shop for my family. It felt odd to only buy a half dozen bagels and a normal brick of cream cheese, a half gallon of milk. With my eldest living out of the house, a muffin can sit on the counter for an hour or two, untouched. My daughter almost never has to leave a ‘Do Not Eat’ note on her plate when she leaves the room for a moment.

 She still needs to hide chips from her other brother, that will never change.


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A to Z challenge begins tomorrow

Tomorrow begins the Blogging from A to Z challenge, which I am trying to do individually AND as a contributer to my Write On, Mamas! group challenge. With the opening of baseball season (Go Giants!) Spring is in the air and a huge distraction, so wish us all well.

The good news: Only one more middle school dance on the calendar and it coincides with the opening of the new Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, and is on my DD's 13th birthday, so obviously she's NOT going to the dance.

More good news: DS applied to one college and by some miracle was accepted and by the second miracle agreed to go. So, despite the discovery of our first born's newest tattoo, a turkey vulture, whose wingspan covers his entire chest, things are looking up considerably.  As my friend DJ commented, 'not as emo as a crow'.  Yes, thank god my boys aren't emo. That would be unbearable.

Play Ball!

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Training Day

My first bra was a hand-me-down.  I have three older female cousins and I’ll never know with whom this one originated, but I do know that it didn’t fit.  My Auntie Jo told me that it was inappropriate for a girl my age to not wear a bra and since I was under her care deep in the heart of Texas for the summer of 1977,  my time had come.  My mother didn’t wear one, so what did I know?

The bra was white cotton, originally. Now grayish with lumpy cups from too many washings.  It felt like cardboard under my t-shirt and the straps pulled on my sunburn. And it itched.

Riding a bicycle barefoot on the country roads in Texas in the summer had been a liberating feeling.  But with this new-to-me recycled bra I felt constricted.  I couldn’t lift my arms without it riding up and then I had to stop the bike and tug it down.  I was always tugging and adjusting and now I was completely self-conscious.  Did it show through my shirt?  The easy freedom of summer had hit a lumpy cotton wall.

Once I was back home, my bra went missing the morning after a birthday sleepover.  The birthday girl was a pain in the ass and had taken it out of my overnight bag.  She told me she was going to hang it on the door of our classroom at school on Monday morning. Never underestimate the psychological torture of being a seventh grade girl. I got to school early to stake out the door.  She didn’t make good on the threat, but she never returned the bra.

I had done some research by this point and I had found that Danskin made a bra that I wanted. Sold in dance stores, this was the precursor to today’s jog-bra. No hooks. No lumpy cups or pinchy straps - I could move!  

With the exception of a brief tawdry fling with Victoria’s Secret in the 1980’s, (I was living in LA, and thus, defenseless.  I even got a membership to Trashy Lingerie with a friend who I will not name, but she knows who she is),  I stayed loyal to the same pullover style until the Mom years.  After breastfeeding three ravenous babies, I self promoted to underwire with strategic padding, and was professionally fitted by one of the blessed Nordstrom bra wizards.  These women are amazing.  They tricked me out with bras that actually fit and were pretty.  And expensive. 

2008

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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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