This is the letter I will probably send Small’s first grade teacher:
Dear Ms. Bee,
Please consider Birth Pie and Dr. Isaac authorized to collect Small from school.
These are the numbers I can be reached at during the day: blah, blah, blah.
Small is looking forward to first grade. She is especially excited about science and geography. We enjoyed the math games you taught us in June. The most recent book Small has read is blah, blah, blah….
This is the letter I should send to Small’s first grade teacher:
Dear Ms. Bee,
Please consider the Birth Pie and Dr. Isaac family to be seamlessly interchangeable with myself and Sweetiebabyhoneylicious. I would like to promise that I will send a note each time I arrange for them to collect our spawn, but it is unlikely that I will remember. If Birth Pie shows up and says she’s supposed to have my child, she’s likely to be correct. If she’s not correct, her house will be the first place I look for Small anyway, so you might as well release the kid.
If Dr. Isaac comes to collect all the children it might just be his turn. I’d like to say that it might be because Birth Pie and I have taken a spa day to drink fruity cocktails, sit in a hot tub and practice karate, although presumably not in that order or simultaneously. However it’s a lot more likely that one of us is having emergency surgery or a nervous breakdown. Don’t panic! Dr. Isaac is a highly trained first responder. He has expertise that will be immediately useful in any crisis, including mad Frisbee skills, the wherewithal to host a dinner party while his wife is zonked on painkillers, and the ability to supervise many children while reading The New Yorker. Everything is under control.
If Sweetiebabyhoneylicious shows up at mid-day to collect all the children, it might be because her Catholic employer observes a holiday schedule vastly different from our secular world. Or it could be Armageddon. You’ll know soon enough.
Small is really looking forward to first grade. She hopes that she will learn something, as she claims to have learned nothing in kindergarten. It is true that she read everything on the reading list recommended for those entering middle school the summer before kindergarten, so she had a bit of a leg up. On the other hand, we were courting homicidal disaster as I attempted to teach her how to write. If I heard, “How do you spell…?” one more time, I feel certain that my head would have exploded. Kindergarten averted that catastrophe and I am grateful.
Small would like you to know that she has had a long career as a super-hero serving as Ruler of the World and Ruler of the Universe and is now performing the duties of Earth Girl. In this capacity, she would like you to know that the United States is the second largest source of carbon dioxide on Earth. Her source for this statistic is an issue of National Geographic Magazine which she read while using the bathroom at her grandparent’s home. If you would like to reduce your own carbon foot print, either at school or at home, she will be glad to assist you.
Small enjoys reading Family Fun and Ranger Rick magazines. She recently saw “Tom and Jerry” for the first time although she prefers to refer to them as “Ben and Jerry.” Her favorite film-maker is Hayao Miyazaki. As a result of her devotion to Mr. Miyazaki’s work, she believes that she will develop the power of flight at the age of 13, at which time she will move to Finland on her broomstick and discover her unique magical powers.
I would like to tell you that I am available to volunteer in your classroom, but the truth is:
a.) I like very few children other than my own and Birth Pie’s, and most of the children I already like are, sadly, not in your class;
b.) While it is conceivable that I could come to like any or all of the children in your class on an individual basis, it will definitely not happen if I have to be in a small room with them all at the same time; and
c.) I need a break. I have been playing “Let’s pretend…” all summer, not to mention for the past five years. I am tired, so I am going back to work.
In case of emergency, please call Dr. Isaac. If he is unavailable, try my cell. I will try to remember to turn it on.
Lynne Marie
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Publications: Cribsheet
I'm thrilled to be featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Cribsheet blog along with colleagues from Kate Hopper's fabulous Mother Words writing class. Please take a moment to read the essays by these fabulous women. I hope you will be reading their memoirs in a local bookstore soon!
Cribsheet selected a free-writing exercise I wrote for Kate that begins:
"My daughter’s death is with me all the time."
Click the title of this post to be immediately directed to the rest of my essay about irrational mama fear.
Cribsheet selected a free-writing exercise I wrote for Kate that begins:
"My daughter’s death is with me all the time."
Click the title of this post to be immediately directed to the rest of my essay about irrational mama fear.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Mind Body Mama: Shattered
From my writing window, I see a lot of the life of our little town. I see the happy, blond garbage man swing his long body off the green monster of his truck to pick up my neighbor’s recycling. I see the BirthPie family caravanning down the street on some combination of bicycles and running shoes and wonder if they’ll roll past or momentarily burst through my back door needing to pee and play with Small and catch me up on the small details of their lives. I see my neighbor tearing into the driveway in his old green pickup after a shift at the felt factory, and a moment later hear the rev and idle of the motorcycle he built from parts and still tinkers with every day. I see any number of runners and know them as any number of children’s moms and dads. For years I saw the parade of students making their way to the brick schoolhouse on our corner; last year Small and I joined the parade that will start anew in just one week after the short, hot hiatus of summer.
And in the last year I’d see our friend walking his crazy blond poodle, sometimes in the company of his sweet eight-year-old daughter on her little bike. But we won’t be seeing him anymore because, a week ago this morning, he died. Without warning or explanation.
And this does not make any sense.
I keep thinking, he can’t be gone because he’s taking Small to school on Tuesdays like he did last year, holding off her requests to ride a scooter instead, catching the teeth that fell from her gums, never complaining about what a terrible walker she really is, how much longer the commute must have taken with her in tow.
He can’t be gone because the kids are expecting him and that ridiculous dog on the playground every morning, even the kids who are a little afraid of dogs, because he is steady and patient and keeps him under control until they work up the courage to lose their tiny fingers in his soft, curly coat.
He can’t be gone because his beautiful wife loves him. And his friends, the hundreds of whom filled the church yesterday in the sweltering August heat.
And, of course, he can’t be gone because his sweet daughter still needs her daddy.
Last year, when our friend Janice died, I told a lot of people who did not know her what had happened. I had to explain why I came back from vacation glassy eyed, exhausted and grey with grief. I would say, Fifty-two, ovarian cancer, less than three weeks, and they would ask me, Did she have children?
I would want to punch them then, right in their heads. I would want to hold them by the shoulders very, very hard, until my fingers left marks on their arms, and look them in the eyes and say,
I think you did not hear me.
I said, “Janice died.”
We loved her, and she died.
Her wife loved her, and she died.
All of our friends, my teachers and my students, we loved her, and she died.
I knew then, like I know now, what they were asking. They wanted to know if we were in this particular hell of grieving. Not a worse hell, but a specific one. The one where we remember a hundred times a day this daughter, this dad, and feel the incredible injustice of what a child has lost and will miss out on her whole life.
This particular hell of having to admit to our kids in so many words that a parent can die, can disappear; can be suddenly and terribly gone.
I told Small right away when Janice died, but I did not want to tell her that her friend’s daddy was gone. I did not want to take that innocence from her. But Sweetie strode right into it, looked Small in the eyes, and said it plain. Because Sweetie knows that parents die, knows there is no hiding from it, having lost her own dad at thirteen. Which is a far cry from eight, but is still terribly, terribly too soon.
Last year when Janice died, we were shattered with the same disbelief: Didn’t I just see her? How can this be happening? But there was a deeper level to my incredulity, a sense that these kinds of things don’t happen, that vibrant, healthy people don’t suddenly get sick and die. A sense that the sickening rending of our world was unusual, bizarre, far outside the ordinary order of things.
This time, when Birth Pie told me the horrible news in a choking voice, I just thought, “Fuck.”
I didn’t know that I still had innocence at forty until I noticed that I had lost it. Now I believe that senseless, catastrophic loss is part of the fabric of my ordinary life. I wanted to say to Birth Pie, there on the phone, “Oh no! I don’t know what to do!” But, of course, I do know what to do. Because we’ve been doing it all year, grieving Janice.
I know to cry, and talk, and pray and write. I’ve learned from Birth Pie how to write notes and leave messages, make casseroles and bring wildflowers. I know that when the flurry of surprise and shock wears off, when the far away friends and relatives have to go back to their lives, our friends will be walking this path of sadness for a long, long time, and they will still need us.
We left the grieving streets of our little town to take Small to Story Land. “That’s what kids are for,” said SpecK when I told her the sad news and that we were continuing with our vacation plans. “They keep you moving.” I called BirthPie to give her my cell number even though I thought it wouldn’t work in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. “That’s OK,” she told me, “Nothing more eventful than what has already happened will happen while you’re away.”
I chose to believe her. Not because it was true—one terrible thing is not prophylaxis for another terrible thing happening, I know that much. But because we have to act like the terrible is rare and infrequent, or else we couldn’t move at all.
And in the last year I’d see our friend walking his crazy blond poodle, sometimes in the company of his sweet eight-year-old daughter on her little bike. But we won’t be seeing him anymore because, a week ago this morning, he died. Without warning or explanation.
And this does not make any sense.
I keep thinking, he can’t be gone because he’s taking Small to school on Tuesdays like he did last year, holding off her requests to ride a scooter instead, catching the teeth that fell from her gums, never complaining about what a terrible walker she really is, how much longer the commute must have taken with her in tow.
He can’t be gone because the kids are expecting him and that ridiculous dog on the playground every morning, even the kids who are a little afraid of dogs, because he is steady and patient and keeps him under control until they work up the courage to lose their tiny fingers in his soft, curly coat.
He can’t be gone because his beautiful wife loves him. And his friends, the hundreds of whom filled the church yesterday in the sweltering August heat.
And, of course, he can’t be gone because his sweet daughter still needs her daddy.
Last year, when our friend Janice died, I told a lot of people who did not know her what had happened. I had to explain why I came back from vacation glassy eyed, exhausted and grey with grief. I would say, Fifty-two, ovarian cancer, less than three weeks, and they would ask me, Did she have children?
I would want to punch them then, right in their heads. I would want to hold them by the shoulders very, very hard, until my fingers left marks on their arms, and look them in the eyes and say,
I think you did not hear me.
I said, “Janice died.”
We loved her, and she died.
Her wife loved her, and she died.
All of our friends, my teachers and my students, we loved her, and she died.
I knew then, like I know now, what they were asking. They wanted to know if we were in this particular hell of grieving. Not a worse hell, but a specific one. The one where we remember a hundred times a day this daughter, this dad, and feel the incredible injustice of what a child has lost and will miss out on her whole life.
This particular hell of having to admit to our kids in so many words that a parent can die, can disappear; can be suddenly and terribly gone.
I told Small right away when Janice died, but I did not want to tell her that her friend’s daddy was gone. I did not want to take that innocence from her. But Sweetie strode right into it, looked Small in the eyes, and said it plain. Because Sweetie knows that parents die, knows there is no hiding from it, having lost her own dad at thirteen. Which is a far cry from eight, but is still terribly, terribly too soon.
Last year when Janice died, we were shattered with the same disbelief: Didn’t I just see her? How can this be happening? But there was a deeper level to my incredulity, a sense that these kinds of things don’t happen, that vibrant, healthy people don’t suddenly get sick and die. A sense that the sickening rending of our world was unusual, bizarre, far outside the ordinary order of things.
This time, when Birth Pie told me the horrible news in a choking voice, I just thought, “Fuck.”
I didn’t know that I still had innocence at forty until I noticed that I had lost it. Now I believe that senseless, catastrophic loss is part of the fabric of my ordinary life. I wanted to say to Birth Pie, there on the phone, “Oh no! I don’t know what to do!” But, of course, I do know what to do. Because we’ve been doing it all year, grieving Janice.
I know to cry, and talk, and pray and write. I’ve learned from Birth Pie how to write notes and leave messages, make casseroles and bring wildflowers. I know that when the flurry of surprise and shock wears off, when the far away friends and relatives have to go back to their lives, our friends will be walking this path of sadness for a long, long time, and they will still need us.
We left the grieving streets of our little town to take Small to Story Land. “That’s what kids are for,” said SpecK when I told her the sad news and that we were continuing with our vacation plans. “They keep you moving.” I called BirthPie to give her my cell number even though I thought it wouldn’t work in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. “That’s OK,” she told me, “Nothing more eventful than what has already happened will happen while you’re away.”
I chose to believe her. Not because it was true—one terrible thing is not prophylaxis for another terrible thing happening, I know that much. But because we have to act like the terrible is rare and infrequent, or else we couldn’t move at all.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Mind Body Mama: Warm Brains
One of the most incredible gifts to come to me from karate camp was the opportunity to meet Ellen Snortland. Even more amazing: at the silent auction, I bid on Ellen’s services as a non-fiction book coach. And I won.
Apparently, now I have to write a book. Or two or three.
But that’s not what this post is about.
If you don’t know Ellen yet, check out her blog on the Huffington Post. It is always ravingly feminist and is often focussed on issues of self-defense and violence prevention.
If you are or have a mother, you should not miss any opportunity to see Ellen’s Pulitzer-nominated one-woman show, Now That She’s Gone. It’s the kind of performance that will have you stomping your feet, doubled-over with laughter, while tears of sadness stream down your face.
BirthPie and I saw it together and she said, “It was so funny I wanted to punch you!”
If you are a writer, you should consider hiring Ellen as a coach. She is incredibly gifted at this work: her passion, creativity, and deep love for writers is apparent in every exchange. Among her many brilliant exercises is a writer’s warm-up she calls a Brain Warmer. I usually bristle at writing exercises, but when Ellen says something like, “See how amazing writing is! A whole world that never before existed can come into being just by you typing at your keyboard for five minutes!” I begin to soften.
Brain Warmers take five minutes—just five minutes!—and start with three words. (That’s all I’m going to tell you—if you want to learn the secret of this and other terrific writing exercises, you need to call Ellen.)
I will share one of my recent favorite results, though:
Aluminum foil, if it is crafted properly around a toilet paper tube, can apparently help you see the future. That’s what Small tells me about Super Future, her recycled invention. It’s on the staircase next to a pink tulle tutu and a green hoodie, a veritable trail of breadcrumbs leading to a life sized tiger, a week’s worth of dirty underpants and a disaster scene complete with rescue vehicle and Life Flight helicopter.
Why does everything I write have something to do with underpants?
How did my life come to be like this? I want to be the hipster in the Ikea ad, with my ebony desk and silver foil computer, sitting beneath a poster-sized picture of my little darling rockin’ out.
But the reality is me hopped up on too much coffee while workmen track sawdust all over my house, pollen dusts the shining ebony surfaces, and the debris replicates itself if I look away for a moment. In a closed loop, I bend to pick up the same library book and gently replace it on the shelf. Over and over through the weekend, until I come to Monday screaming for an escape.
How long is this five minutes anyway?
And then I anchor my ass at the computer and strap in, shoulder to the grindstone to plow through the day’s to do list, domestic detrius be damned.
Apparently, now I have to write a book. Or two or three.
But that’s not what this post is about.
If you don’t know Ellen yet, check out her blog on the Huffington Post. It is always ravingly feminist and is often focussed on issues of self-defense and violence prevention.
If you are or have a mother, you should not miss any opportunity to see Ellen’s Pulitzer-nominated one-woman show, Now That She’s Gone. It’s the kind of performance that will have you stomping your feet, doubled-over with laughter, while tears of sadness stream down your face.
BirthPie and I saw it together and she said, “It was so funny I wanted to punch you!”
If you are a writer, you should consider hiring Ellen as a coach. She is incredibly gifted at this work: her passion, creativity, and deep love for writers is apparent in every exchange. Among her many brilliant exercises is a writer’s warm-up she calls a Brain Warmer. I usually bristle at writing exercises, but when Ellen says something like, “See how amazing writing is! A whole world that never before existed can come into being just by you typing at your keyboard for five minutes!” I begin to soften.
Brain Warmers take five minutes—just five minutes!—and start with three words. (That’s all I’m going to tell you—if you want to learn the secret of this and other terrific writing exercises, you need to call Ellen.)
I will share one of my recent favorite results, though:
Aluminum foil, if it is crafted properly around a toilet paper tube, can apparently help you see the future. That’s what Small tells me about Super Future, her recycled invention. It’s on the staircase next to a pink tulle tutu and a green hoodie, a veritable trail of breadcrumbs leading to a life sized tiger, a week’s worth of dirty underpants and a disaster scene complete with rescue vehicle and Life Flight helicopter.
Why does everything I write have something to do with underpants?
How did my life come to be like this? I want to be the hipster in the Ikea ad, with my ebony desk and silver foil computer, sitting beneath a poster-sized picture of my little darling rockin’ out.
But the reality is me hopped up on too much coffee while workmen track sawdust all over my house, pollen dusts the shining ebony surfaces, and the debris replicates itself if I look away for a moment. In a closed loop, I bend to pick up the same library book and gently replace it on the shelf. Over and over through the weekend, until I come to Monday screaming for an escape.
How long is this five minutes anyway?
And then I anchor my ass at the computer and strap in, shoulder to the grindstone to plow through the day’s to do list, domestic detrius be damned.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Mind Body Mama: Freedom of Speech
A few conversations I would have missed out on if I had not become a parent.
“Do you have to pee? Are you sure you don’t have to pee? You look like a person who has to pee.”
Child: "I. Am. A. Robot. From. Saturn."
Me: “Aliens are from other planets. Robots are made in factories. Maybe you are an alien robot.”
“If you don’t have to pee, why are you holding your vulva?”
“Stop reading. Stop reading. Stop reading. Stop reading. STOP READING! I’m sorry I scared you. Please stop crying.”
"Why did you trade underpants with Mikayla?"
“You might not stab yourself in the face if you held the fork like this.”
“Are you pooping or just reading?”
"Are you wearing underpants? Why aren't you wearing underpants? Where are your underpants? No, I don't know where they are, they're not my underpants."
“You’re absolutely right, you don’t see as many princesses with dark skin as with light skin. What do you think that’s about?”
“No, you can’t have a sip, but you can smell my beer.”
"Put on your shoes. Put on your shoes. Put on your shoes. STOP READING AND PUT ON YOUR SHOES! I'm sorry I scared you. Please stop crying. No, I don't know where your shoes are. They're not my shoes."
“No, I don’t think President Obama’s birth certificate is fake. Even if it says so in that newspaper.”
“Do you have to pee? Are you sure you don’t have to pee? You look like a person who has to pee.”
Child: "I. Am. A. Robot. From. Saturn."
Me: “Aliens are from other planets. Robots are made in factories. Maybe you are an alien robot.”
“If you don’t have to pee, why are you holding your vulva?”
“Stop reading. Stop reading. Stop reading. Stop reading. STOP READING! I’m sorry I scared you. Please stop crying.”
"Why did you trade underpants with Mikayla?"
“You might not stab yourself in the face if you held the fork like this.”
“Are you pooping or just reading?”
"Are you wearing underpants? Why aren't you wearing underpants? Where are your underpants? No, I don't know where they are, they're not my underpants."
“You’re absolutely right, you don’t see as many princesses with dark skin as with light skin. What do you think that’s about?”
“No, you can’t have a sip, but you can smell my beer.”
"Put on your shoes. Put on your shoes. Put on your shoes. STOP READING AND PUT ON YOUR SHOES! I'm sorry I scared you. Please stop crying. No, I don't know where your shoes are. They're not my shoes."
“No, I don’t think President Obama’s birth certificate is fake. Even if it says so in that newspaper.”
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