Rain to snow to rain again. Slush on the windshield. Everything heavy with wet. And you are cranky along with the weather. I hope because this is your 6 week growth spurt. After being fed, burped, and changed, you seem happy with life for about 15 minutes. Then you are back to crying again.
Two evenings ago we lay you down on a play mat on the floor. You kicked your legs and swung your fists and gurgled to yourself for a good ten minutes. Daddy and Ricki and I sat on the couch and ate wild rice soup and kale and bread and tried not to interfere. Ricki says the hardest thing is not to play with you during these sorts of moments, that I have to learn not to engage so that you learn independence. So I sat with the warm bowl in my lap and I tried to enjoy the taste of balsamic vinegar on the dark green leaves of kale while you smiled and cooed without me. Then last night you made it through your bath without weeping--at least until I set your wet, red body on the yellow bath towel. Then you howled.
I think I will always be bad at letting you go, Thisbe. Your Daddy will be better, which is why it's good that you have two parents.
Today I keep thinking of lines from a Tony Hoagland poem: "I've seen rain turn into snow then back to rain / and I've seen making love turn into fucking / then back to making love, / and no one covered up their faces out of shame, / no one rose and walked into the lonely maw of night." Your face tells this story most honestly, Thiz. You smooth from one emotion into the next and then back again. I've explained this before. The poem ends: "Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness / As long as there is desire, we will not be safe."
Saying the truth, however, can be both painful and scary. "Where the Wild Things Are" premieres this week, the movie version that is. And parents are up in arms about whether the film is too scary for their children. Maurice Sendak says it shouldn't matter; life is scary, we're all scared, there's nothing to be done but tell the truth. When I was six, and Ben and Dave were 10 and 12 respectively, Ricki and Peter took all of us in the Volvo station wagon to a drive-in movie called "Gremlins." My mother thought it was supposed to be a cute film about imaginary creatures. It soon became clear that this was not the case. Gremlins threw other gremlins into microwaves, swimming pools, below lawn mowers and car wheels. Blood splattered across mirrors and windows. One Gremlin cackled and reached for a set of kitchen knives. My mother put a blanket over my head. I shrieked and cried because I wanted to see the movie, but to no avail. A few months later, at my father's house, I watched "Jaws" with my cousin Emily. And no one turned the movie off or fast-forwarded through the bloody bits. No one put a blanket on my head. I slept that night, finally, but sharks circled below my upper bunk. When we arrived at the ocean next summer, I refused to go in above my knees. Even Lake Harriet posed a threat though at 6 I knew that sharks did not live in lakes. Still, I couldn't get the image of an innocent swimmer's body--seen from below, outlined by rays of sunlight--out of my head.
Lies don't make us safe, but sometimes they make us feel safe, and I'm not sure that's always a bad thing. I don't remember being very happy at age 6. My stepbrothers told me they hated my mother while we waited for the school bus in the morning. Peter, in an attempt to draw me closer, demanded signs of affection from me, kisses and hugs, and I hated him for it. My mother, always my greatest confidant, could not be trusted not to repeat my words back to Peter, even when I expressly forbid her to do so. My favorite game to play was "Anne Frank." I made a nest of blankets and dolls below the old sink in the mud room. I waited for the imagined sirens to go off and when they did, I moved all of the belongings to a new enclosed space (behind a couch, inside a closet, under a bed). By that time I was flying once a month, alone, between my two families. No place was entirely safe. I was good at packing a suitcase.
I wonder what lies I will tell to you and which, of the many, will be justified. Forgive me for the rest.
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