The Banshees, from last Halloween.
The ever-precocious Original Banshee said, “Look! She’s my matey!”
Smush. Squeeze. I love this photo.
Please note the scrumptious thigh fold on Baby Banshee. And the beanie is killing me.
dad on my mind
This is a re-post of something I wrote in 2005. I’ve reworked it slightly because it was originally part of a meme someone tagged me with containing a series of questions about my life. I think this was in response to the question: What was your life like 5 years ago?
I post it again now. My dad is on my mind.
*******************
Five years ago …..
Oh, no. Must I remember?
Having undergone some past fertility treatments, we began a brand new series, certain that these, finally, would work. They did not. Each month felt like a death that kept on dying. Hope and crushing, hope and crushing. I don’t even know the person I was then. I felt utterly lost to myself. My family never spoke of it to me; to them, it was too shameful to mention, so they simply didn’t. And the heavy, lingering sorrow that had stolen my hopes seemed to have taken my voice with it. I could not bring it up. I could not give voice to the shame, breathe out what was being carefully ignored. It’s inexplicable and probably unhealthy, this dynamic, but it’s there. MB and I were bereft and crazy and hopeless.
In the midst of these failed treatments, my sister got pregnant. She had two boys and had always longed for a girl. So had I, secretly.
And … a girl it was.
I remember the day my sister called to tell me she was having a girl. I heard her voice on the answering machine and somehow knew exactly why she was calling, exactly what she was going to say, and I could not bring myself to pick up the phone. I stood inches from it, my hand dutifully out, but paused in midair. From where I was, far from her, I could see her joy; I could see it. The very air swirled pink and perfect with the news of a girl. And I, with my selfish sorrow and small heart, sunk to the floor and cried and cried, the ugly cry that no one but God ever sees you cry.
Around this time, my longtime bachelor brother finally got engaged. There were echoing choruses of “Hallelujah!” all around at this news. Even I could manage that one. My family fairly exploded with the sheer elation of it all. A new baby girl, a wedding in the works. It was like a year of Christmas where every gift is perfect; a year of parties with everyone you like and no one you don’t.
But MB and I still went, quietly, to our treatments. And still, quietly, they failed. I was breaking in two from the overwhelming weight of joy and sorrow.
One day that year, my dad called to invite me to lunch. We met at Marie Callendar’s because he likes Marie Callendar’s and when he’s at Marie Callendar’s, he likes to order soup, which he did.
As we chitchatted about this and that, I was growing more and more nervous. He was working up to say something, I could tell, but I hadn’t the faintest idea what it would be. He’s not the demonstrative type. Emotions are private, you see.
He cleared his throat several times, in that compulsive way he has. I knew then he was nervous, too. Finally, he looked at me with those dark blue-grey eyes and said:
“I know your brother’s and sister’s happiness must be breaking your heart.â€
I couldn’t breathe. I had ordered soup, too, in silent solidarity, and I saw my tears dropping onto its surface. Then with a choked voice I’d never quite heard before, he whispered:
“I’m so sorry, honey.â€
And I was gone. Tears streamed onto the table; heads around us turned. I was quiet, but I was just gone. My father, who had never, ever spoken to me about it, understood.
He understood.
And he had said all he could. He mentioned it once and then never again. Still, in that singular moment, I felt no longer invisible; I was seen. I felt warm and alive and understood by someone I was sure did not, could not, understand.
I know they were just two sentences spoken softly over bowls of steaming soup, but they were among the best things my dad has ever said to me.
I was less broken for hearing them.
the well of sighs
And one dawn, before she is born, he takes her to a high emerald hill. Scattered across the hilltop are wells of stone, white stones, grey stones, mossy stones. He leads her by the hand, stops to point to one, and says, This. This one is yours.
He motions her to lean in. She does, but sees only darkness.
Listen, he says.
Then she hears them. The sighs. A woman’s sighs. Breathy and full of sorrow.
I don’t understand, she says.
Listen, he repeats.
For a moment, there is only a black silence. Then come the sobs, the shrieks, the wails. She holds her ears against them all.
She is yours, he says simply, and you are hers.
I don’t understand, she says again.
He turns to her and searches her face for a long moment. When he is done, she knows, without knowing how she knows, what he means.
And her heart quakes. Falters.
No, she says in a panic, glancing around at the other wells. I want a different one.
She runs to the next well and leans in, straining. Silence. The next one. Silence. A third. More silence.
But these are quiet. These are still. I want one of these. Please. Please ….
He takes her trembling hand, leads her back to the first well.
You can’t hear them because they’re not for you.
As they stand gazing in, he tells her all the things that have fallen into that well. Dark things and jagged things and cold things. As he speaks she sees each one. Things that make her shiver and weep. Things that make her blood run cold.
He holds her close and says, Can’t you see? She needs you to love her. Can you try to love her?
She nods, face wet in her hands.
Come. It’s her time. She’s ready for you to be born.
notes on sunday
A family get-together at my brother’s (aka The Banshees’ dad).
~ First, and most important, I made my Mocha Chip cupcakes. Whenever I excel in the kitchen — you know, based on my own impartial estimation — I think of Jayne. I want her to be proud of me. I’m needy. It’s embarrassing. I mean, I talk to Jayne in my kitchen. Out loud. I tell her what I’m doing. “Jayne, look at the espresso beans I’m using for these cupcakes.” “Jayne, check out my mushroom cream sauce.” Stuff like that. So, uhm, also: I’m insane and possibly hallucinatory.
~ Original Banshee and Baby Banshee wore matching dresses. They looked adorable and yummy so I gobbled them up whole. Kind of a bummer, really. They didn’t get to have any Mocha Chip cupcakes, but on the upside, they were just as tasty as I always imagined.
~ So to my many outstanding attributes, add: cannibalism. It’s a real flaw.
~ And you probably wouldn’t think an outing involving cannibalism could be fun, but you’d be wrong, peaches. You’d be so very wrong.
~ Older Nephew handed me his iPod and let me listen to some tracks he’s recorded. Uhm, the kid’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.
~ Younger Nephew was forced to show me his abs. Meaning, I forced him, naturally. As his aunt, I feel I need to be kept up to date on their status. Current status: Six-pack, maybe even seven.
~ Within 15 minutes of his arrival, Younger Nephew plopped himself on top of his mom and me on the sofa. You know, we’re just hanging out, having some semi-private sister time and a nearly 15-year-old kid who is taller than both of us throws himself across our laps all because he knows I will rub his head. And I did.
~ Later, an impromptu volleyball-with-a-beach ball game broke out in the backyard. Baby Banshee was in charge of “serving” the ball over the net. Since she’s only 14 months old, this involved her cousin, Younger Nephew, lifting her up above the net with the beach ball in her chubby hands while she squealed and plopped it over the net. So cute. Younger Nephew is so good with little kids. Gets me all choked up.
~ When the Doritos and chips were brought out and we all began munching, Original Banshee started running over from the volleyball game about every two minutes — breathless from standing there in her dress — and saying, “Oh! I need more energy!” while stuffing a Dorito in her mouth. It was hilarious. The way she said “Oh!” as if she had the vapuhs and needed her smellin’ salts.
~ At one point, we all trudged down the road to a nearby canyon to check out the rope swing. Now Piper, who ADORES her Uncle Beloved, wanted to walk with him and talk with him and hold his hand. Original Banshee, who ADORES her Cousin Piper, wanted some to walk with Piper and talk with Piper and hold her hand. Alas, these were conflicting desires, you see. Piper wanted Uncle Beloved all to herself. But I’ve discovered one can never underestimate Piper’s understanding of what makes people tick and one can never underestimate her perception into a given situation. It doesn’t matter that she’s only eight years old. She has an uncanny insight about people and she definitely knows what makes Original Banshee tick. So as she was holding Uncle Beloved’s hand, she said slyly to The Banshee, “Hey, Banshee. Our group needs a leader! We need someone to lead us there!” And — KAPOWW! Piper lands the knockout punch! What? A leader? The spotlight? Me?? The Banshee was GONE instantly in a puff of Banshee smoke. MB just looked down at his little niece holding his hand and said, in that kind of “you’re busted” voice, “Piperrrr ….. you’re a tricky one.” She just smiled up at him and said, “I know.” Hahahahahaha. I’m still laughing about this. You go, Peeps.
~ We were all treated to a performance of “Put on a Happy Face” by Original Banshee. Girl can sing. On key. And she’s very cute. But she IS a little performing monkey. She just craves that spotlight and will probably arrange to have one following her around for the rest of her life. (Why everyone seems to blame me for this tendency, I have NO idea. When I was five, I couldn’t put two words together, I was so cripplingly shy.) Piper sat on her mom’s lap and watched her little cousin sing, just agape. It was like she was thinking, “What is she DOING??” Piper’s energy is much more laid back and easygoing, so I think she wearies of her little cousin more quickly than The Banshee knows or would even suspect at this point. I literally had to stifle guffaws watching the performance because, just looking from one cousin to the other, their differences were so glaringly apparent: the Banshee performing as if no one but Piper was even in the room; Piper plainly astonished by the spectacle of it all. Those two just kill me.
~ The Mocha Chip cupcakes were devoured. In spite of what I said before, Baby Banshee did get to gobble a portion of cupcake and then, well, probably didn’t sleep that night because of the ground espresso in the cake.
~ As we left, both MB and I scored hugs AND kisses from Original Banshee, which is a decided step forward. She just has her way, you know. We drove away into the night feeling all high and victorious and warm inside.
dad, on the rocks
I was on the phone with my dad, chatting about this and that, and next thing I knew, we were talking about his rock balancing.
Oh, yeah. Dad knows how to balance rocks.
You know, like this:
(This is from the UK — not my dad’s work, but similar.)
For his work, my dad balances the fairly large rocks in my parents’ rather forested front yard. He balances rocks around their waterfall. He balances rocks around the pool. Anywhere. Everywhere. And I mean everywhere. He’s balanced rocks in Canada and Europe while on choir tours. You know, spreading the joy of the Lord and working rock miracles. That, especially, gives him a kick. Hee hee. What will these Germans think when they come home and see these rocks balanced in their yard? Hee hee. So Dad’s an art vandal basically. I trespass on your property for a larger mystical purpose. Haha. He’s been casually doing this off and on for several years now.
I remember the first time I saw Dad’s rock balancing. I was driving to my parents’ for a visit, pulling into the long driveway, and suddenly, there were mysterious rock shrines everywhere, rising out of nowhere. Small stone sentinels lining the drive. I was gobsmacked. Am I in Middle Earth? Did Hobbits do this? Nope. Just dad. Doing stuff. And they weren’t simply stacked. Oh, no. They were improbably, impossibly balanced, tip to tip. I almost drove off the road from staring, openmouthed; it was so incredible, so completely out of the blue. For a fleeting moment, I lost all sense of where I even was. I was in some kind of fantasy. Some science fiction, right? Somehow, I’d driven through a porthole into an alternate universe with a freaky gravity-defying landscape.
When asked about it, Dad was typically nonchalant:
“I dunno. I just figured out how to do it.”
“Dad, that’s pretty amazing.”
“Well. It’s fun.”
Yo dee doh. No big deal.
Of course, the grandkids went nuts. The boys, especially. “WOW! Pop-pop did THAT?? We want to do it too!!” Turns out, little boys don’t have the mental focus and patience to be a zen rock master. In the end, they were sidelined, left only with little piles of unruly rocks and bug-eyed admiration of their Pop-pop’s prowess.
So when our recent conversation turned to rock balancing, I had to finally ask him, “Dad, how did you ever start doing that?”
See, you can never ask Dad what animates him at the time. He’ll hedge. He’ll be mysterious. He might not know yet. Ask him later; then he’ll tell you. He needs time to figure out why he does stuff. Sometimes he never knows.
“Well, I saw a big display of balanced rocks down at The Embarcadero years ago. There was a sign there that said this guy was one of 5 in the world who could do it. So I thought I would try it. It worked out okay. I guess I’m the 6th.”
I laughed.
“It’s just physics,” he said.
I laughed again. “How come you don’t do it much anymore?”
“Oh. Well. Because I’ve mastered it, I guess.”
I could hear the simple shrug in his voice. He’s just that way. We said goodbye moments later and I had to smile, thinking about Dad and his rocks.
Yes, you’ve mastered it, Dad. You’re the 6th.
You’re much more than the 6th.
list
I stumbled across these words and phrases scratched as a weird list in my notebook, waiting, I guess, to be fleshed into something else. I just kind of free associated when I wrote them, as I remember. Anyway, I decided to post them as-is.
ice packs
neck
back
everywhere
healing magnets
masking tape
egg crate mattress
flopped on floor
wigs too blonde
bottles of pills
growing
growing
your glowing pain
red
yellow
constant
stained stale air
red planet
don’t breathe
burnt orange and
hot
beggared light of life
all right ….
Someone — a fellow Christian and reader of this blog — de-lurked to comment for the first time ever on this post, taking me to task for not “honoring my mother.” I’ve deleted the comment and I’m not going to address this reader personally here, but I will address the concept.
No. Actually, I’m too angry right now and not likely to say anything clear or useful, so I’ll come back later and finish this.
Okay. Somewhat calmed down. But here’s the deal, off the cuff:
I’ve agonized for a long time over whether to post anything about my mom. I’ve struggled myself with the notion of whether doing so honors her or not. In all honesty, I’m still not sure. BUT … but, I ask all of you, any of you, what does honoring mean? What does it look like? What does it say? What does it do? I’m not asking as a deflection; I’m asking because I genuinely wonder. I really do.
I look at it this way: I want to write from a place of honesty, a place of truth, even a place that’s sometimes harsh. I don’t want to hide. So much that I read from Christian writers — on blogs and elsewhere — sounds like answers from a beauty pageant contestant. Everything is so damned uplifting. So posed. So glossy. So “Ohh, heaven loves God!” The Christian life ends up being publicly portrayed as some kind of Disneyland that all Christians privately know it AIN’T — if they’re being honest. So why hide? Why? Because we feel guilty for our despairs? Because we need to believe in some Disneyland that is never promised in Scripture? Because we don’t want to frighten non-Christians by admitting that they’ll still struggle — even with Jesus? I’m sorry. But part of the glory of life IS the struggle and the Jesus I know is more interested in changing the landscape of my heart than changing the landscape of my life. So, again, why hide? Are we doing Christianity any great shakes by sounding like we’re all Miss America? By peddling some put-on happyhappyjoyjoy? Jesus never ever sounded like that. I’m reminded of a past reader who, when commenting on a post from last year about our looming financial disaster, quoted me this: The sun’ll come out tomorrow! Betcher bottom dollar that tomorrow blahblahBLAAAH!” Please. What good does that do? I remember I was so pissed off at that. I cannot stand it when Christians want to gloss over real issues and real pain with little bromides that do nothing but make them feel better about themselves by believing — wrongly — that they’ve offered something valuable to someone.
I don’t know if I’m even addressing the issue here — I’m bee-bopping and scatting all over the place. Sorry. I’m just really upset, so frustrated.
Okay.
So did that post honor my mother? I don’t know. Really, I don’t. That’s the best answer I can give and I realize it sounds lame. But would a pretty facade be more honoring? Or just not talking about it? You know, not airing the dirty family laundry, shoving it under the bed? Was I just an indiscreet ass in this whole scenario? I’m always willing to consider that as a possiblity. But in some ways, the very act of writing — of trying to write anything with a ring of truth — is, at its core, an indiscretion. And I guess I wonder — how did I dishonor her? No one here knows her. Or knows her name. Or would recognize her on the street. So then did I just dishonor the idea of her? The idea being that mothers and fathers are always and only thought to be all that is good and right and lovely? In which case, not being a mom is an even bigger gyp than I’ve always thought.
Look. I posted that piece because I hoped it was truthful and because in writing about it, I helped myself process it, helped myself clarify it. Sorta. I posted it because I needed to. And yes, I suppose that’s selfish. Writing is selfish in certain ways. But I had hoped, too, that it might strike a chord with others who read it. Maybe someone would feel less alone in their own relational struggles. I don’t know. I described — to the best of my ability — an incident that happened to me, to her, to both of us. It was not pretty or glossy or nice, I know, but that wasn’t the point. Any reader who expects me to be some cookie-cutter Christian spewing platitudes and niceties is reading the wrong blog. I am a Christian, yes. And I struggle. And I struggle with being a Christian. And things happen to us in our lives that are not pretty or glossy or nice and those are things that writers should write about because they have meaning and truth and speak to what it means to be human. It can be a raw and ugly deal — life — almost incomprehensible sometimes and I am not going to Pollyanna it up because it may be someone else’s idea of what Jesus would do. Blogs and writers who do that hold no interest for me; there’s nothing there — or whatever IS there is trapped under a deep unwillingness to delve into what’s there.
I’m sorry. I’m just … ugh.
What’s my bottom-line response here? Well, I’m going to try to write as truthfully and as nakedly as I can. I don’t know how to do otherwise, really; it’s not in me. How to honor my mother, how that plays out in real life, is something that comes from God. It’s between Him and me and maybe, just maybe, it’s different from one family or one relationship to the next. I just know my ultimate accountability is to Him and I don’t say that blithely, believe me. I write that with a little shudder down my spine. I’m sorry this particular reader feels disappointed in me, but I have to admit, I’m not likely to change my approach to this blog for one reader. I guess maybe, rightly or wrongly, I like to hope there’s some kind of honor in even the attempt at truth.
friday night boredom
Friday night boredom and my crappy cell phone camera are a heady mix for sure.
Witness this intoxicating horror — a bad picture of a bad picture.
Our black-and-white wedding invitation, framed. A friend of ours who’s the Art Director for a local theatre took this back in — apparently — our salad-and-mushroom days. I mean, look at our hair! I remember my sweater was peach and had buttons down the front and that I wore it backwards a lot so the buttons went down my back because that made me cool. Right? RIGHT??
But look at our hair ‘shrooms! Seriously. Gah.
A real salad bowl of unsightliness.
piper’s mom
A couple of my favorite pictures of my older sister, S.
My dad’s inscription on the back of this one: “(My mom) made herself a mohair jacket and with the leftover material, she made this one for S and trimmed it with rabbit fur.”
(Good job on all those details, dad. I’m impressed.)
I’m between giggles and tears on this one; it’s just precious to me. She’s the perfect little girl in her perfect party dress:
No in-between on this one. Just flat-out hysterics. Mom had this hair dryer from the Middle Ages or something that she used to torture our hair to girlie perfection. From a practical standpoint, I do believe it was also a vacuum cleaner.
It always seemed so rickety to me, with that huge hose flopping around aimlessly. But, man, once it was plugged in, that thing roared like an airplane engine, sucking your entire head into that blistering floral bag. As a bonus — I think mainly to keep us calm about our brains being sucked away — mom would always make us some nice Jiffy Pop. Which is a hilarious parallel image, if you think about it. Look at S’s face. She’s deaf at this moment, of course, from the din of the hair vacuum. And look at the droop of the bag at the bottom, as if her brain’s just plopped out into it. Hahahaha — I can’t write anymore. I’m dying, looking at this.
make me feel good
Our niece Button Baby — or Banshee Baby, as I like to call her now — is 2 1/2 and there are some seriously unappealing personal issues going on with her. I babysat her a few Saturdays ago and, frankly, I am still traumatized.
It started during lunch. She sat there, playing with her cup straw, waving it around, shoving the straw in and out, spilling milk, flinging milk, doing anything but drinking milk.
Ohhhh, no. Tee Tee don’t play that, Crackie.
“Button, you may drink it or not drink it. You may not play with it. I will take it away if you keep playing with it.”
She understands me quite well. She continues playing, spilling.
Second warning.
“Last chance, Button. I will take it away if you do it again.”
Continues.
“All right, Button. I’m sorry. I think you’re done with that.”
I take it away from her and she begins to waaaaiillll literally like a banshee. It is horrible. God-awful. The tone of it — the tone. It is a shiv gouging my eardrums. I wait for the spurt of blood signifying my head has exploded.
“NONONONONONOOOOONONONOOOOOOOONONONOOOOO!”
I hold my ground, put the cup in the sink. She is howling at me, hating me with her entire shaking little being.
I come back to the table, sit down.
“I’m sorry, Button. I told you what would happen.”
“NONONONONONONOOOOONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
A pause while she actually breathes and hiccups and then discovers heretofore untapped reserves of terrible. Her tone becomes desperate, like she needs a drink or a smoke or some crack.
“I NEED A WIPE! I NEEEEEED A WIIIIIIIIIIIIPE!!”
Um, what?
“I NEEEED A WIIIIIPE ‘CAUSE I’M CRYING!!! TEEEEE TEEEEEEEEE!!!”
I grab a napkin. Dab her cheeks, her eyes. I keep my movements even, unhurried. At this moment, I am her polar opposite. A goddess of calm confronted with a yowling demon.
But …… hullo. What’s this? This itchy feeling I’m having?
Yeah. What IS that?
Why, that’s just the palm of my Spankin’ Hand, itchin’ and twitchin’ and beggin’ me to use it!
Oh, I feel it, but I ignore it. I don’t spank my nieces and nephews, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t ever wanted to, like now. I make my voice smooth, but somewhat cool.
Goddess of calm:
“There you go, Button. I’m sorry you’re upset.”
“NONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOO!! THAT’S NOT A WIIIPE!! IT’S NOT A WIIIPE!! I NEEED A SPECIAL WIIIIIPE!!!
Huh?
A “special wipe”? What in tarnation is a “special wipe”? Who made her think there’s such a thing as a “special wipe”? I begin to question my brother’s parenting, start to inventory all the ways he bugs me. This could be one of them. Meanwhile, she is still flailing and screaming.
Sheesh. Look, Banshee, the fact that I’m wiping you at all during this gross unravelling of your entire personality is special enough.
I use the sleeve of my hoodie. I mean, it’s soft, right? And special enough. Cotton is comfort, you know. The fabric of our lives and all. Dab, dab, dabbity-dabb.
She cracks apart with renewed vigor.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
Well, that’s it. I have broken my niece. She is, quite simply, ruined. Maybe ruined forever — all because of my cotton sleeved hoodie.
Goddess of calm, Trace. Goddess of calm.
“All right, Button. Let’s get you down from your chair. I don’t know what a special wipe is. Why don’t you get down and show me?”
As I reach to lift her out, she declares, insane with blubbing:
“IF MOMMY AND DADDY WERE HERE, THEY WOULD HOL’ ME AND GIMME A SPECIAL WIPE AND MAKE ME FEEL GOOOOOD!!!”
Oh, no, she dihn’t. Ohhh, ho. I am agape. I understand that she’s 2 and all, but that, right there, that thing she said — it’s everything that’s wrong with the world and it came from the mouth of a baby: “I have a right to feel good always, no matter what I do or say.” I feel that crazy itch in the Spankin’ Hand again.
For the first time in my life, I think I actually want to spank a child because I utterly disagree with her philosophy of life.
Which is insane. She is two.
What happened to the goddess of calm??
I stare at her. She glowers back. Lifting her out of her chair, I say, drily, “Uh-HUH.” The second her little feet hit the carpet, she streaks to the bathroom, shrieking from me the entire way. She cannot get away fast enough from Tee Tee, that terrible woman who makes her feel so SO BAD.
I follow at a leisurely pace. At the bathroom door, I can see her, reaching up to the counter, grabbing a sanitary wipe from its box, smushing her swollen face deep into it.
I roll my eyes. Between gulping sobs, she chides me, waving the wipe at me:
“THIS is a special wipe, Tee Tee!! THIS IS A. SPECIAL. WIIIIPE!!”
I pick her up, move toward the arm chair.
“Uh-huh. Well, you may take that special wipe and stay in this chair until you are all done crying.”
I deposit her in the chair and turn away.
Pause, heavy with doom.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
GOOD. LORD.
Later on, after this harrowing day of babysitting was finally over, I went home to My Beloved, damaged on a molecular level, threw myself in his lap, and yowled:
“YOU NEED TO HOL’ ME AND GIMME A SPECIAL WIPE AND MAKE ME FEEL GOOOOOD!!!”
He stroked my head for a while, then said it:
“Uh, what’s a special wipe?”