Drive v. Bus

I lied. This post is really (again) about the mass shooting in the high school in Florida.

Last night, Jack and I went to a YMCA event. It wasn't a fundraiser. It was an event for people who previously donated to the YMCA with free food and beverages and Eric Liu as the speaker so that when they call to ask you for money, you will say, of course and open your wallet very wide because you believe in an organization that promotes social equity by creating "weak ties" so we may have a decent, kind and respectful citizenry. "Weak ties" according to sociologists are the small interactions with have with people we kind of know, but not very well. These relationships are the glue that keeps society civil. When we have weak ties with people not like us, our society tends to have more social justice. This was a balm after hearing about the high school shooting in Broward County on Wednesday.

The next morning, I was dressed and on my way out the door to go to work when the Boy said, "I don't want to go to school."

I had driven the kids to school three times this week because

a) the Boy broke his collarbone,
b) the weather was crummy, and
c) I had to drive to work anyway those days, so I might as well drop the kids off at school on the way.

Today, I wanted to take the bus. I wanted twenty-five minutes on the bus to read the newspaper and another twenty minutes to walk from the bus to the office. All three days this week, the kids bickered and bickered and bickered as Claire-Adele wanted to eat the last piece of Jack's birthday cake for breakfast.

I was really looking forward to my bus ride this morning. I was relishing my alone time, so I could come to work relaxed, not annoyed and pissed off at my kids.

"Why don't you want to go to school?" I asked, looking at the clock, knowing I was going to miss the 8:11.

"I just don't," he said, slumping into the couch. I thought why he might not want to go to school: homework, missing ski bus, possible problems with friends. Last night, he said he, Milo and Anna had a deep conversation about school shootings in Chemistry class.

"Is it about your conversation with Milo and Anna yesterday?" I asked.

"No, not that," he said, and I believed him.

"Why don't you eat something. I can toast you a bagel."

"I'm not hungry," he said.

"At least get dressed," I said.

No answer.

"If you need to rest, I can take your phone and computer with me to work," I said in the kindest, least antagonistic way possible. I had to stay calm. Arguing with the Boy, telling him to get his butt of the couch and get to school would only make the situation worse, and I didn't want that. But I'd be damned if he was going to skip school and watch YouTube all day.

"I'll get dressed," said the Boy. And he did. He ate 3/4 of my breakfast sandwich, which was fine. I was glad he ate.

"I can give you a ride to school," I said. I needed to make sure he got to school. I didn't want to get to work and get a phone call from the attendance lady telling me my student wasn't there.

"I can walk," he said. The next bus didn't come until 8:26, so I hung out at home as late as I possibly could. I left when he was putting on his shoes. With a sprint up the hill and around the corner, I made it the stop as the bus was pulling up.

I sank into my seat and checked my email.

Then I read the newspaper, the front page, first article I saw in the New York Times:

Just 24 hours after a shooting that turned this city numb, Lori Alhadeff stood near 17 cream-colored angels with gold wings that lined the park stage where a vigil was held Thursday night. One of those angels represented her daughter, Alyssa, 14, who was killed in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Trembling, she said she was there for her daughter, and she was there to talk to anyone who would listen. “My daughter is dead, but all these children out here have to go to school. A shooter should not be able to just walk in,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I hope she didn’t die for nothing.”

Here is a mom whose daughter died twenty-four hours earlier and she is worried about the survivors of the massacre, the kids who have to go back to school.

I lost it. I started crying on the bus. I was glad I was the only one on my team in the office today so I could come in with puffy eyes and no one would notice.

I should have driven my kids to school.

Valentine's Day (sigh)

Note: I was going to write a happy, upbeat little post on why Valentine's Day sucks, but first I need to comment on the school shooting in Florida. Now that both of my kids are in high school, this kind of thing scares me exponentially more than it did when I only had one kid in high school. And I am going to stop thinking "Thank God my kids are safe," which they are. Instead, I will think about the mom who doesn't get to think that tonight.

How much of collective human joy has been destroyed because of these shootings? How many people were planning a festive evening to celebrate their loved ones and then have to experience the shared grief of Florida teenagers and their parents? Should we all become numb--shrug and move on--every time something like this happens? Do we need a magic number of dead kids (say, a dozen?) for a massacre to make national news? Don't kids have enough to worry about these days that they don't need "I could get shot in school by a stranger" added to the list as a credible threat?

I came back from the YMCA this evening and I heard the news on the radio. My son heard about it on Instagram hours before I did. Teens hear about everything that happens anywhere moments after it happens. When I was in middle and high school, we would have the Dan Rather on in the background while we ate dinner. I mostly tuned it out unless something major happened like the Space Shuttle explosion. Now, my kids know more about what Trump said or tweeted today than I do. For better or worse, they are not shielded from the world events. I needed to check in with my kids this evening, to see how they are feeling--worried? angry? sad?

The only hope I have is that my kids and their friends will all grow up someday and call bullshit on allowing people with records of mental illness to have access to AK-47s. Or even anyone to have access to an AK-47. I get blue and moody on occasion and I wouldn't want me handling a weapon on those days. Seriously--even though the likelihood of me committing a mass killing I hope would be infinitely small, would I trust myself that I could keep such a weapon safe and out of the hands of someone who might want to do harm to themselves or others? What about the kids next door? I’d be most worried that the eight year boy next door would think it was a toy and gun down his sisters.

I remember years ago reading about Chechen rebels who attacked a school in Russia and killed more than 300 people. Back then in 2004, I thought that was an act of considerable barbarism. What would be the worst, most reprehensible thing a rebel or terrorist could do to a group of people? Attack their children. It is the lowest of the low. We even think of animals they prey on the young as awful. What birds are considered the worst? The ones that steal other birds eggs. The fox gets a bad rep for stealing eggs from the hen house (and probably a few hens, too.) 

And yet, we permit this to happen. I am not calling for repeal of the second amendment, but nor do I buy the argument that “a few school killings is the price to pay for freedom.”

$5

I was on the sidelines of the Boy's soccer game today talking to moms. The boys won 5-1 in case you are curious, especially compared to last week's cluster which was the first topic of conversation on the sidelines. Two moms weren't there and the witnesses relayed the horror. When the boys are winning, the moms chat. I missed the Boy score and then his "textbook corner kick" which got the team a goal. Oh well. I would say I'm a bad mom, but it is rude to cheer for your kid's team when they are dominating the game.

One of the moms talked about "Mom's Eyes" where she can find things in the fridge and around the house that her children can't see even if it is under their nose. 

"You mean this?" she said as she pretended to grab a mayonnaise jar out of the fridge. 

"When my family tells me they can't find something, I tell them 'If I find it, you owe me five dollars.' They immediate start looking much harder than they did before, hurrying in case I find it first. It is perfect!" I said.

After the game, I dropped the Boy at home and picked up Claire-Adele from her volunteer activity. On the way home, we stopped at the grocery store. Unlike shopping with a toddler, teenagers can run around the store and pick up red peppers and avocados. A half-gallon of blueberry cheese cake ice cream made it to the cart, but I figured that was a small price to have her help. 

We were in the aisle with the canned tomatoes. The shelves were nearly empty. I wondered if there was a blockage on I-5 and tomato trucks didn't make it to town this week.

"Where are the fire roasted tomatoes?" I said.

Claire-Adele picked up a can off a barren shelf and said, "You owe me five dollars."

Therapist, Out of Africa and the Sh*t Sandwich

I was visiting my dad this weekend in Ohio. My mom is in a memory care unit where her Alzheimer's is being managed. I was going to say treated, but they stopped treatment about nine months ago and are now trying to keep her comfortable.

My dad has been through a lot. My brother has schizophrenia, and my parents watched him fall apart for years. My mother had depression where she would lie in bed and cry for weeks until she found the right medication. My first daughter, Ada, died, and now my mom has Alzheimer's. I hurt my knee and was laid up for a year when my mother's illness became a crisis. My dad couldn't help me and I couldn't help him as much as we both would have liked. There is other stuff, too.

"We sure have had our own bite out the shit sandwich," he has said.

Sometimes when I list it out, it doesn't seem that bad. Other people have gone through worse. Other times, it seems overwhelming, too much.

I started meeting with a new therapist a few weeks ago to help me better understand some of the issues my teenagers are going through. When I was pregnant with Claire Adele, I saw a therapist who specialized in women's health issues.  Shellie was great. Now I have this new guy who works with parents and teens. When I give him by bio and list off all of the stuff that has happened to me, he looks bewildered, as if he doesn't know where to start or what is the most important. I can't blame him.

Last week before I went to Ohio, I was reading Out of Africa, a memoir by Isak Dinesen about her years on a coffee plantation in Kenya. She writes

"The Natives have, far less than the white people, the sense of risks in life... It made me reflect that perhaps, they were, in life itself, within their own element, such as we can never be, like fishes in deep water which for the life of them they cannot understand our fear of drowning. This assurance, this art of swimming, they had, I thought, because they had preserved a knowledge that was lost to us by our first parents; Africa, amongst the continents, will teach you: that God and the Devil are one, the majesty co-eternal, not two uncreated but one uncreated..."

God and the Devil are one. This is such an interesting concept. It fits with the story of Job from the Bible, the one where God and the Devil together torture Job (kill his crops, family, etc.) to see if Job loses faith. He doesn't. He keeps believing in goodness, even when faced with extreme distress.

I was reading Ordinary People and I found a comment on how Americans try so hard to have nothing bad happen to them, but what for? Difficult things--disease, injury, mental illness--happens whether or not we want it to. This sometimes is hard to see when I am in the thick of it--visiting my mom in a nursing home, wondering if she remembers me or not, watching my dad spoon-feed her because she can't feed herself. At times like this, I'd like to believe in good and evil, but then it makes more sense that God and the Devil are one.

Parents' Voices v. Kids' Voices

I am taking a novel writing class at the Hugo House taught by Sonora Jha. She has an older son, and she says his comments haunt her now instead of her parents' words. As my kids would say, #relatable. When I was younger, I would hang on the words of my mom. Now, I hang on to the words of my daughter. When my mother would harangue me, I would often bite my tongue and not respond to her. Instead, I would go off and complain to my father, friends, and brother about how I was wronged.

Last week, Claire-Adele and I went to see Hidden Figures. As much I as I enjoyed taking the time to see the movie with her, there were times that I was annoyed at her rudeness towards me. We were running a little bit late as I was talking to my father right before we left. There was a power outage, and Claire-Adele ran to Starbucks to get lunch, only to find their power was out, too, and were not serving food.

We got to the theater after that drama, and I am jogging up the steps, a major accomplishment for me considering that last year at the same time I was learning to walk without a brace or crutch. Jogging and going upstairs were out of the question, let alone trying them together.

"You are the most embarrassing person in the world!" Claire-Adele scolded me as I moved quickly up the stairs. She didn't consider yelling at me in the middle of a crowded movie theater embarrassing, but whatever. I am sure she didn't want to be seen with me at all, but none of her friends wanted to see this movie.

After we had found our seats, Claire-Adele wanted some popcorn because she missed lunch.

"Can you get it for me? I want to see the previews," she said. After being told I was the most embarrassing person in the world two minutes earlier, I told her to get her own popcorn. I gave her money, but I had no desire to stand in line and miss the previews for someone who had been rude to me.

This Christmas, she told the family that she had no plans of coming back to visit after she graduates from college during the holidays. Of course, she wants to be invited on vacations, but God forbid she has to spend a holiday with us.

If another friend talked to me like this, I'd probably drop them--unfriend them on Facebook, block their phone number, etc. Instead, she is my daughter. I don't have the luxury of writing her off. This weekend, I went to visit my dad and my mom in Ohio. I got home around 11:00 p.m. last night, and the kids were in bed. This morning, Claire Adele was sniffling, and I asked how she was doing.

"There is nothing wrong with me," she yelled. "Why do you think there is something wrong with me?"

Good morning to you, too, I should have said. Later, I went to wake up the Boy. As I passed her room, she asked me for the fabric scissors.

"Why do you need them?" I asked.

"To cut my head off," she said as she rolled her eyes. "I need them to cut fabric. Can you get them for me?" She had blue fleece spread out over her floor. She is part of a group that is making blankets for homeless men and women.

"I need to get your brother up, and then I can get them," I replied.

When I went to get the Boy, he was excited to see me. "How was your trip?" he asked. I told him, and we talked about how his friend got his remote control airplane out of a tree. This was big news, as the plane had been stuck forty feet up in a Port Orford cedar since the end of winter break.

"Are you going to get me the scissors?" Claire-Adele barked. "I need the scissors."

"Shut up," I said frustrated with this person who has said nothing nice to me in weeks. "I am talking to your brother." I was so tired of the world revolving around her. "You are interrupting my conversation. Just wait."

"You know," she said. "You say I am rude to you but spoiler alert -- you are ruder to me."

I could let those words haunt me, like the words of my mother stuck with me as a kid. Instead, I look at the millions of micro-aggressions and insults she has hurled at me for the past few years. I know I am the grown-up here and she is the kid. I should be the example of the right way to behave.

Yet, it is so hurtful to be constantly told how wrong and awful and embarrassing I am, and I need to respond. How is it that I am rude when I call my daughter on her rudeness to me? Why? I wish I had Michelle Obama's grace of "When they go low, we go high." This is different. I am living with this lowness, and it is in my face when I wake up, when she comes home from school and before she goes to bed. She directs her sass at not just me, but to her brother as well. I shouldn't defend him because that makes him look defenseless. She has no awareness of the link between yelling at her brother and then his yelling back at her.

"Dad didn't yell at us all weekend," she said after I told her to shut-up. Argh. Jack was probably in "Distracted Parent Mode" all weekend, squeezing in work, looking at his phone, and generally ignoring the kids. He probably didn't notice them enough to yell at them.

"Where is my water bottle? I've been looking for it for two days!" Claire Adele continued to rant.

"I put it in the drawer with the other water bottles. It was in the dishwasher. You should yell at your dad about that. I wasn't home this weekend," I said. She glared at me and stomped away.

Claire Adele will be leaving for college in a year and a half. I've talked to other parents about life as an empty nester. I've always imagined it being so hard and lonely. I always wondered how moms coped with the person they raised for eighteen years leaves to go off on their own. Why aren't all of these women crying and crying? Why aren't there support groups for moms when their kids go to college and leave home? When Claire-Adele was six, I talked to one mom who had what I thought was a nice and lovely daughter say she was sad for about a day when her daughter left for school, and then she was fine. I tried to push out of my mind how I'd feel when Claire Adele leaves the house, my firstborn, my baby. I couldn't imagine.

Now I get it. Claire Adele needs to leave me as much as I need her to leave. We need a separation, time apart. Hopefully, someday, we can be friendly to each other. She might need to push me away to make her own departure easier for all of us. She is succeeding, I have to say. She is succeeding.

Adventures on the Couch

My thirteen year old son, the Boy, has recently been complaining he has no friends. He ran into a friend walking home from school and said he was going to call this guy when he got back from running an errand. When he came back from his post-school, pre-break orthodontist appointment, he glumly sat on the coach in my bedroom and started watching Dr. Who. This is not a auspicious start to Winter Break.

"Want to call Dan?" I asked, hoping the Boy wouldn't become a permanent fixture on my couch for the next two weeks.

"No," he said, earbuds plugged in.

"Want to call another friend?" I asked.

"I have no friends," he said. Grrrreat. Please god tell me something better will happen to make these next two weeks not complete miserable. Please find my son something better to do than sit on my couch in my bedroom. Please.

About twenty minutes later, his phone--which was plugged into the charger in my office--started to buzz. I assumed it was a text message, hopefully from a friend asking him to get together. Please be someone asking him to get together...

"Your phone is buzzing," I called and the Boy got off the couch and got his phone.

He promptly sat back on the couch and began a texting conversation that has lasted more than 48 hours. Apparently, he had to clear his social calendar so he would be available to text this new person, who does not have a name. His phone is now always in his pocket, and when I peek over at his phone, it is on the texting screen. I don't know how the phone stays charged.

Claire Adele told him is butt was going to get out of shape if he continued to sit like that, which is interesting because she sat on our living room couch for her entire 8th grade year and her butt, as she describes it, is a perfect bubble butt. I guess bubble butts are now desirable. I wish J Lo and company would have made a round tush popular when I was in high school.

Yesterday, we put up our Christmas tree. I told the Boy to put down the phone so he could participate in a family activity. I recommended he tell his Friend that he was going to be offline for an hour or so. He got out his phone, and texted the Friend.

The Boy helped my untangle the Christmas lights and put them up on the front railing of the house. As he was helping me,  I asked "What do you text about? All you do is sit on the couch. Do you text about your adventures of sitting on the couch?"

This is what I imagined his conversation to look like:

The Friend: What are you doing?
The Boy: Sitting on the couch.
The Boy: What are you doing?
The Friend: Sitting on the couch.
The Boy: Cool.
The Friend: Yeah. Cool.
The Boy: Here is a new emoji.
The Friend: Great! I love emojis!
The Boy: Still sitting on the couch.
The Friend: Me too!
The Boy: My couch is beige with a large indent from where my butt is.
The Friend: My couch is tan.

I told the Boy what I imagined his text conversation looked like, and he actually laughed. A real giggle. He knew it was all absurd, but still he laughed.

I can see how kids get into sexting. They exhaust all other topics in the universe suitable for texting, and then the only thing left is sending each other photos of body parts.

Last night, the Boy asked me if he could get a new chair for his room. Someplace comfortable where he could sit, presumably for hours where he can text his new Friend.