Sunday, November 22, 2009
Putting on the face
A friend's wife took a tumble outside her office in Manhattan. Hit the marbled sidewalk at Rock Plaza with her forehead, and came home with stitches through her eyebrow. A few days later, she sent him to the local drugstore to pick up this green pancake makeup that her doctor had told her would neutralize the purple of the bruise, so that when she put regular makeup over it, nobody would know she looked like a train wreck underneath. He goes to the drugstore and finds that there's actually a slot on the makeup wall for green pancake. And it's all sold out.
Ah, Westport.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
By the pound
Food and fat--is there a more tedious topic??
I'm back on Weight Watchers--firmly on it. Nothing tempts me. Pangs of hunger comfort me. It's been a month now, and it's true that I feel better eating well. True that I have more energy. True that thin people live longer, and with two kids you'd think attaining longevity would be a very simple everyday priority. But the time will come, as it always does, when I stop losing--for weeks on end--and when that happens, this simple, clean engagement will be harder to maintain. I'll begin to feel as if I am pulling on a rope for every ounce I toss off, and that if I let go even for a second, the scale will fly back to its original spot. It will feel as if the body wants one thing, and I want another. So I will try to prod it--punish it--by exercising more and eating less. And less. Until one day I see stars in the shower, and I let go of the rope.
A person gets tired of a cycle like this. Weight is such a public battle. You estimate the makeup of an overweight person a whole lot faster than you can a wife beater, or a pedophile. It's humiliating. And so pedestrian an issue to be the number one struggle of a life. But there you go. No body, no life.
I'm going to try love this time. Loving the body, as a favorite pair of jeans. Give it the time it needs, as a mother to a child. Let's see how that goes, when the clouds roll in.
I'm back on Weight Watchers--firmly on it. Nothing tempts me. Pangs of hunger comfort me. It's been a month now, and it's true that I feel better eating well. True that I have more energy. True that thin people live longer, and with two kids you'd think attaining longevity would be a very simple everyday priority. But the time will come, as it always does, when I stop losing--for weeks on end--and when that happens, this simple, clean engagement will be harder to maintain. I'll begin to feel as if I am pulling on a rope for every ounce I toss off, and that if I let go even for a second, the scale will fly back to its original spot. It will feel as if the body wants one thing, and I want another. So I will try to prod it--punish it--by exercising more and eating less. And less. Until one day I see stars in the shower, and I let go of the rope.
A person gets tired of a cycle like this. Weight is such a public battle. You estimate the makeup of an overweight person a whole lot faster than you can a wife beater, or a pedophile. It's humiliating. And so pedestrian an issue to be the number one struggle of a life. But there you go. No body, no life.
I'm going to try love this time. Loving the body, as a favorite pair of jeans. Give it the time it needs, as a mother to a child. Let's see how that goes, when the clouds roll in.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Social contract
My brother lives a derailed life--derailed by his own hand, though I suppose you could trace it all back to some dysfunctions he suffered as a child. Dyslexia. Encopresis. I think people have suffered worse and still lived an honorable life. But we are not all the same.
Now he has five children, a trail of crimes he's never been nailed for, and a broken marriage. And so he has betaken himself and his children next door to my parents' house, and there they have been since June. His children are waiting on the road now for the school bus; they've been registered for schools--fantastic schools in a community my brother will never, ever be able to afford to live in off the sweat of his brow; they can only attend these schools if somebody else sustains them. Despite the story he's told my folks, all signs are that this is a visit without end.
There are a lot of things that confound and anger me about this whole scene, but there's one piece in particular that I'll share. Years ago, when I was unemployed and then underemployed and scrambling to keep things going, there were things I simply could not bring myself to do. It was a point of pride--a point of shame. I accepted unemployment payments as long as I was allowed (though that first call killed me); I'd paid into it, and so many of my former colleagues were in the same boat, so it became a sort of new normal for our times. What I couldn't do, though, was ask the local YMCA to let us in for free. I wouldn't tell the schools that I couldn't afford to buy the supplies, or send the checks for the field trips, or pay for school lunches. I wouldn't file for food stamps or Medicaid. I wouldn't. I would not allow my children to be raised up on charity. Our circumstances were temporary, and I would not formalize a temporary circumstance. To be precise, I was too proud to give anyone the opportunity to look at us through different eyes. Do you know what I mean?
It also meant that, for a period of time, none of us had health insurance. I paid for any care out of pocket. Looking back, that's the only choice I regret; that was a risky choice. A stupid choice.
My brother has embraced all of the benefits offered to people with no income. His children went to the YMCA camp for free all summer--swam and did crafts and played with other children. They had had their teeth repaired, their eyes checked and glasses acquired, their orthodontia covered--all courtesy of you and me. Their food is paid for by you and me. My yougest niece will attend the same preschool Liam attended--only I worked overtime stocking shelves at Borders to pay for it, but my brother will do nothing and my niece will attend for free.
So there's the knee-jerk pissed-off-ness about the sheer inequity of circumstance, though I know I could have dove into the pool of freebies just like anybody else with a hard-luck tale to tell.
My brother is the welfare mother. He has no shame--indeed, he has a sense of entitlement. And all the stories I ever told myself about the welfare mother--institutional racism, the long-term disabled, generational poverty, etc.--don't apply to my brother. Which makes me question everything about my position on social programs. My loser brother could turn me into a fricking Republican.
Not really.
The conflicting part is that my nieces and nephews are faring far better with a parent who embraces poverty than my own children fared with a mother who wouldn't go near it. And if you think about it, which set of kids really felt poor when they were poor? Not his.
***
Liam broke his wrist on Saturday; a pile of shit on top of a display fell on him when we were school shopping at Staples. My brother, it occurs to me, would sue the store.
Off to the orthopedic guy.
Now he has five children, a trail of crimes he's never been nailed for, and a broken marriage. And so he has betaken himself and his children next door to my parents' house, and there they have been since June. His children are waiting on the road now for the school bus; they've been registered for schools--fantastic schools in a community my brother will never, ever be able to afford to live in off the sweat of his brow; they can only attend these schools if somebody else sustains them. Despite the story he's told my folks, all signs are that this is a visit without end.
There are a lot of things that confound and anger me about this whole scene, but there's one piece in particular that I'll share. Years ago, when I was unemployed and then underemployed and scrambling to keep things going, there were things I simply could not bring myself to do. It was a point of pride--a point of shame. I accepted unemployment payments as long as I was allowed (though that first call killed me); I'd paid into it, and so many of my former colleagues were in the same boat, so it became a sort of new normal for our times. What I couldn't do, though, was ask the local YMCA to let us in for free. I wouldn't tell the schools that I couldn't afford to buy the supplies, or send the checks for the field trips, or pay for school lunches. I wouldn't file for food stamps or Medicaid. I wouldn't. I would not allow my children to be raised up on charity. Our circumstances were temporary, and I would not formalize a temporary circumstance. To be precise, I was too proud to give anyone the opportunity to look at us through different eyes. Do you know what I mean?
It also meant that, for a period of time, none of us had health insurance. I paid for any care out of pocket. Looking back, that's the only choice I regret; that was a risky choice. A stupid choice.
My brother has embraced all of the benefits offered to people with no income. His children went to the YMCA camp for free all summer--swam and did crafts and played with other children. They had had their teeth repaired, their eyes checked and glasses acquired, their orthodontia covered--all courtesy of you and me. Their food is paid for by you and me. My yougest niece will attend the same preschool Liam attended--only I worked overtime stocking shelves at Borders to pay for it, but my brother will do nothing and my niece will attend for free.
So there's the knee-jerk pissed-off-ness about the sheer inequity of circumstance, though I know I could have dove into the pool of freebies just like anybody else with a hard-luck tale to tell.
My brother is the welfare mother. He has no shame--indeed, he has a sense of entitlement. And all the stories I ever told myself about the welfare mother--institutional racism, the long-term disabled, generational poverty, etc.--don't apply to my brother. Which makes me question everything about my position on social programs. My loser brother could turn me into a fricking Republican.
Not really.
The conflicting part is that my nieces and nephews are faring far better with a parent who embraces poverty than my own children fared with a mother who wouldn't go near it. And if you think about it, which set of kids really felt poor when they were poor? Not his.
***
Liam broke his wrist on Saturday; a pile of shit on top of a display fell on him when we were school shopping at Staples. My brother, it occurs to me, would sue the store.
Off to the orthopedic guy.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
How it might look
I can't believe I was writing about moving three months ago. How does it still feel like a new and unfamiliar notion to me--something I'm sharing only now for the first time? It speaks to how many issues there are attached to the decision, and how conflicted I am.
I've found this adorable little red house in the woods. Cheapish, relatively speaking, for reasons I'll share. The main house was built in 1760, and the most recent owners, now deceased, added a pole barn to it in 1990, making it a livable size for a family of 3. It seems structurally sound, though the addition has its flaws--like the uneven floors between new and old. Amateur mistake. The floorplan is quirky; it'd take some thought to figure out how to overcome the feeling that it's really two houses with no relationship but a point of contact. Liam doesn't like the third bedroom--the one that would be his; it's under the eaves, and he thinks it's spooky. (There is that old-house energy in the old part. No question. You can almost feel the families that moved through it over the centuries. People with names like Lewis and Issac and Abel. I love this stuff. Got the history of ownership from the historical society.) Oh, and there's no kitchen. Literally. Somebody ripped out whatever kitchen there had been in the original house, and they put in the plumbing and electric for the kitchen in the new part of the house. But they ran out of steam or interest, or cash. I've lived in in-progress homes all my life in a family of builders. Can manage that.
The town has 3-acre zoning, and this property--most of it wild--is heavy with old trees, and the air is moist from the wetlands and the reservoir. I feel at peace there--something I haven't felt in years--though I'm privately wondering if I have the guts to take on the isolation. And the high taxes. What's the worst that could happen? I lose my job? Foreclosure? Hightail to a rental? People survive those things. I cast backwards in my life and think my greatest mistakes have always been acts of ommission. Acts of caution. This time I'm mining for courage.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Intentions
We are planning a move to Redding—20 minutes from here. Local taxes went up $800/month, and I’m tired of the expense. The kids don’t want to move—they like their school, they love their friends. They fear we are poor—they ask me and I tell them we are not. But I don’t know how to explain why I am forcing a move without explaining that this town we’re in is too pricey, and we can live easier elsewhere. I have, I’m sure, handled this all wrong. But there you go.
***
They fought like cats and dogs all day yesterday—stuck in the house with a snow day, Liam with his cast, and Maisie out of some twisted solidarity or sheer disinterest in playing outside alone. They pulled an 8-foot bookcase away from the wall so that they could climb into a small closet behind it—a bookcase packed with stories I love that would’ve killed them if they’d only miscalculated a bit. They pondered the things they might do to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, and Liam determined that he could claim two things: 1) an enormous collection of elephant figurines; 2) his ability to stick a needle in his thumb 32 times.
“Wait—what??”—my head snaps up, and I’m waiting.
He holds up his thumb. Maisie brings me her phone with this photo, which captures another of the activities I missed when I went to work.
They are gleeful. I feel bile in the back of my throat, and my eyes burn. I start to holler. Their faces fall. He begins to cry. I keep hollering. I talk about tetanus shots and infection. I’m so angry—with him, with her, with the adults next door who were supposed to be watching them.
When I stop hollering, he explains himself.
“I don’t want to move. Maisie and I were trying to think what we could do to make some money and save our house.” At “save our house” he’s holding up both hands for emphasis, because he feels such urgency. “So I thought if I sent this photo to Guinness Book of World Records they’d send me some prize money and we wouldn’t have to move.”
32 needles in his finger to save our house.
There are no words.
***
They fought like cats and dogs all day yesterday—stuck in the house with a snow day, Liam with his cast, and Maisie out of some twisted solidarity or sheer disinterest in playing outside alone. They pulled an 8-foot bookcase away from the wall so that they could climb into a small closet behind it—a bookcase packed with stories I love that would’ve killed them if they’d only miscalculated a bit. They pondered the things they might do to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, and Liam determined that he could claim two things: 1) an enormous collection of elephant figurines; 2) his ability to stick a needle in his thumb 32 times.
“Wait—what??”—my head snaps up, and I’m waiting.
He holds up his thumb. Maisie brings me her phone with this photo, which captures another of the activities I missed when I went to work.
They are gleeful. I feel bile in the back of my throat, and my eyes burn. I start to holler. Their faces fall. He begins to cry. I keep hollering. I talk about tetanus shots and infection. I’m so angry—with him, with her, with the adults next door who were supposed to be watching them.When I stop hollering, he explains himself.
“I don’t want to move. Maisie and I were trying to think what we could do to make some money and save our house.” At “save our house” he’s holding up both hands for emphasis, because he feels such urgency. “So I thought if I sent this photo to Guinness Book of World Records they’d send me some prize money and we wouldn’t have to move.”
32 needles in his finger to save our house.
There are no words.
No comments:
Post a Comment