Letting it percolate . . .
After reading some interviews, it appears as if she truly has no prejudice, despite suffering from neglect at the hands of very mixed-up parents.
I don't think I'll ever be at the place of complete acceptance, a place where I am ok with some of my past, since I feel a little warped by it, but I'm also not a published author. Forgiveness I can see. Acceptance, well, I've already have accepted some things -- without my unique mother I wouldn't be who I am, Kevin gets some credit there, too, and my dad contributed some fine DNA -- but I didn't need to be left to bleed, either. That's where forgiveness fits in. At some point.
So -- more memoirs to read, more research to be done. And I'll keep on working on my story, but out of sight. I don't think it's helping me to put it out here and, to be honest, it makes me anxious about the whole thing. Kind of like serving a partially cooked dinner to a room full of guests (you imaginary ones count, too). It's just not ready yet.
But I'll leave the vestiges up.
Off to bed.
Stepfather shuffle
If you've read the West Street Sequence (so far) of A
Prolonged Illness (note: no longer on the web
site), you
will know about Tim, my mother's ex-husband. Jim, the
Philadelphia Flyers lover. Tim, the man who wouldn't
talk when I was at the dinner table, unless it was to
harangue me. Tim, the Big Mean Step-Father.
After Mom kicked him out and life became
simultaneously freer and crazier, Jim did some
soul-searching. Went to therapy. Joined a church.
Eventually remarried. And would take me out to dinner
about once a year. The last time I saw him also was
the most bizarre. Tim, his wife, and his sister
(Joy), came to DC to have dinner with me before I
left for graduate school. I hadn't seem Joy in almost
ten years. She just couldn't stop with the remarks:
"You talk just like Chris [my mother]! You have
mannerisms just like Chris! You move your hands just
like Chris! That's exactly what Chris would do!"
Since she hated Chris for hurting "Timmy," these
comments were not meant kindly. I eventually burst
into tears. Joy gave a petulant apology. I swear she
even stuck out her lower lip.
These dinners were never comfortable for me. What was
his agenda? Did he feel guilty? Did he want to make
it right? Who knows, maybe he was fond of me. Hewas
in our lives for 7-8 years, for a large chunk of my
childhood.
We lost touch after he and family moved to Idaho,
about a decade ago. I tracked him down late last year
(yeah, I know, I know) and he's been sending cards
and presents for C for holidays ever since. So here I
am in the middle of a Tim flashback, hating the man
for being a prick, when we get this Easter package
from him with toys for C.
I'm feeling a bizarre mix of feelings right now,
mainly anger and guilt, the usual partners in crime,
though there has to be some sadness, too. Do I have
to forgive everyone, see the human in every single
fucked up bastard I've come across?
Buzzer beater
(Begin boring complaint)
First, C got sick. Then H developed the same cold. When C gets sick, he sleeps like the baby he once was: poorly. Also violently, with lots of tosses and turns and kicks. When H gets sick, he snores more. My cold symptoms started on Tuesday, the same day C developed pink eye, guaranteeing that daycare was a no-go for Wednesday. Babysitter doesn't want pink eye either. Finally, after the first night of good sleep in five nights, yesterday C decided to skip a nap. I have pink eye for the first time since third grade. And I've spent most of his nap time today cleaning up in preparation for the babysitter (at least his pink eye went away).
(End of boring complaint)
Now he is awake. 'Later.
Sweet rejection
A kind rejection letter (do they write this to all the girls?):
I enjoyed reading your essay and found your narrative voice very readable and engaging. However, I must report that we’ve decided to give it a pass. Please note that this doesn’t necessarily reflect on the quality of your work (we receive about 750 submissions for every seven we publish). I wish you the best of luck placing this piece elsewhere.
Not so bad. And now I get a chance to make the story better. So much is spelled out, as though I needed to explain myself, make it clear why I feel so fucked up at times. (Well, I didn't put it that way, but this was part of my thought process. I've come a long way in the last six months).
Nubbin brain
I'm 38 years old and I haven't written a creative word since I was an undergraduate. I don't expect it to come easily. The Mom and K project has an emotional heft that makes it difficult, too. And I seem to suffer from a twisted nostalgia, a real desire to inhabit the past, at least so I can write about it about it with some veracity. I'm trying to let go of my obsession with uber-accuracy, which helps when my literal mind gets caught up in the details.
Mark Doty has a good essay about memoir and truth in the latest Poets and Writers -- but now that I have H and C beside me reading a book, the nubbin brain is shrinking even more and I have a hard time bringing it to mind. Check it out if you can, though you'll probably have to get your hands on a physical copy.
Am I insane?
No one has good memories of being a teenager, or a pre-teen, right? It's all awkward and embarrassing and no one could possibly understand. You feel like a freak and want so much not to, you want to fit in somewhere. Even if you court difference, the bolt through the body part, the angry music and electric hair, you want somebody to align with. It sucks.
Well, I'm writing about the twelve-year old Jennifer era right now. It sounds so whiny -- we were poor, my stepfather was mean, I was ashamed of our living situation. But it's all true and real and apparently still has an effect on me because I'm all worked up. I do think there were events and circumstances that made things more difficult for me than for others, but it's hard to capture. As I write I remember more and I feel the familiar pain.
Bleah. Let's hope I'm transcending something here.
Players win and winners play
Another long no napper today. My ole nubbin brain keeps on shrinking, with very little to show for it. I did learn that toddlers (at least my toddler) enjoy raking clean cat litter and can turn almost anything into a digger -- even themselves with the proper equipment (dust pan and litter scoop).
I'd like to transcend the day now, please.
I've been reading Beautiful Children , a first novel by Charles Bock. Some of it is very well done. The portrayal of how a marriage can slowly fall apart captures a sense of sadness and inevitability when people no longer communicate, can't bridge the distance they've built between themselves, but still care about each other. What happens to the couple when their only child goes missing is also poignantly written. Many of the characters are real and believable. It's a long and ambitious book with various interweaving story lines. I can feel the struggles he had writing it -- ten years and at least four rewrites -- and it is on the bombastic side, well maybe some lower form of bombasticity, since his language is simple for the most part. Just over the top. Maybe he should have stayed with the couple and their struggle, but I'm not sure that would have been as interesting for Bock or his readers.
First time in weeks ...
The K story is changing. All of the sudden, there I am, with opinions and experiences and a viewpoint. K's arrival wasn't the first thing to ever happen to us. He stepped into a context, into a scene that needs to be set. And for this, I have to include my mother's second husband and the quirks of our great triumvirate. Without getting into it too much.
What is lost -- a tight, arid focus -- is worth losing. It's funnier, too. And maybe it's really about me anyway, right?
Making it personal
Yesterday, I read through what I've completed of my brick house. I ended up feeling as though I had swallowed a brick (and I now wonder how far I can take this analogy). It is dense stuff, well-crafted paragraphs that describe them, but as a story are somewhat monotonous. It lacks life. My mother is right -- this is about my experience, is my attempt to exculpate them, and to get over the past. So I have to jump back into the story, become the third character.
I also have to add some real life. That's difficult. The fights, well, they kind of blend together in my mind, though there are some very memorable ones. The conversations -- most of them are gone, too. But the past can be conjured, and sometimes impressions are better than facts.
The hospital and hospice: they are still fresh. I'm beginning to wonder how much of my story will be that, the time when I could be there so unconditionally, providing support, showing that I was a good person. That wasn't my intention, to focus on that time. But it was the beginning of forgiveness and understanding.
Enough navel-gazing for tonight.