Very Much Wow

Some years ago, for some reason, I had my eleventh grade American Literature students write haikus. It was springtime and I think we were all feeling celebratory, and claustrophobic. So we wrote haikus in our classroom and then ran down the hill from one building to another. Attached to the second floor dining hall is a large porch that looks out over our small campus and the Green Mountains just beyond. It's a beautiful spot. The class gathered around in the green grass below the porch, each person finding his and her own piece of earth. One at a time, the students climbed the stairs up to that high perch, came forward to the railing and, at the top of their lungs, belted out their beautiful haikus to the sunny day, to the mountains, to the smiling faces of friends below.

Masaru, if I remember correctly, went last. As he bounded up the stairs, the class was already wild, cheering, arms in the air, unable to stand still. He stepped forward. "This is an original Japanese haiku!" he yelled proudly. His haiku, as it should've been, was delivered in Japanese. We had absolutely no idea what he was saying but…and I think I'm speaking for the whole class when I say this…we loved it. It was as if Masaru shared with us some sort of blessing directly from the Haiku Gods. It was an honor and a moment of pure springtime-poetry-friends-all-around joy.

This is Masaru, at home in Japan:

Masaru translated his poem for us in a second reading. Sadly, I don't remember what it was about, but I'll never forget that brief wonderful experience of the "Original Japanese Haiku" so graciously and proudly shared.

The next spring, Masaru graduated. In his graduation speech, he said, "…and Kerry's class was very much wow!" He might have meant anything: wow, what a waste of time, or wow, that was boring! I don't really know, but I've always taken it as a compliment because, well, compliments are nice. And I still think of that phrase whenever I think of Masaru.

And very much wow is just about all I can think of now each day when I see the latest news from Japan.  I am thinking of Masaru all the time, and I know he's one of the lucky ones; his home is not near the coast and he's sent word to us at school through one of his old classmates:

"We are ok and our all families are ok. Thank you man. Still there are

earthquake coming constantly...But I know that we will be ok.

Cuz I know how to survive from those crazy earthquake."

His message was a huge relief in our community. But we've had other Japanese students as well. And our students are obviously just the beginning of what I am thinking about. A few days later, Masaru posted this on his Facebook page:

"need to save the energy sources. like gas, electricity, food, drinkable water

...
but never be enough to save all the life..."

Concentric circles ripple out from this great disaster, over all of Japan and, of course, beyond.

Another email came through to Sam from another alumnus who was passing on a message from a woman in Mississippi. Sam coordinates a senior class service project each year. For a few years, they went to Mississippi and New Orleans to help clean up and rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Some of the kids have remained in touch with some of the people they worked with down there…

"I'm the lady whose home you dear people readied for rebuilding after Katrina.

I haven't been able to get my mind off Masaru. Did he return to Japan or is he

still in the US? I'm hoping you can tell me if he and his family are safe.

ALL of you will be forever in my heart and prayers."

When I start thinking about the devastation, I get overwhelmed, as so many people obviously do.

I heard a news clip on NPR: a reporter walking around in the rubble spotted a woman sorting recyclables out of the trash. "Was your home damaged in the tsunami?" he asked. "My home was washed away," she said, through a translator. And so, she sorted recyclables out of the mountains of "trash" that was once the stuff of people's lives.

I try to imagine myself in such a position and I can't. I can't imagine having any ability whatsoever to pick myself up and keep going. I used to take pride in the fact that I made it through my mother's death without being institutionalized or becoming a drug addict—as if that was some test of my strength. When I think about the magnitude of other people's losses and hardships, I laugh at myself. It is incomprehensible to imagine having your whole world shaken…and then washed away…and then being left standing in the rubble trying to find your loved ones, wondering how much invisible radiation is raining down on you.

I keep looking at the images coming out of Japan. Rescue workers standing over bodies, their palms pressed together in prayer. Boats perched on top of buildings. Raging fires. Mountains of debris. Adults sobbing. Children's faces covered by masks, except their wide vacant eyes. I watched a six minute long video of the tsunami overtaking a town…at first, a trickle of water rushing up the center of the street…by the end of the video, only six minutes later, everything under water, cars and buildings rushing by. The videographer clearly moving uphill as the time passed. In the final seconds the camera zooms across the raging river to a small group of people huddled together on top of a building, in the middle of other buildings which one by one disappear around them. It just goes blank…the video ends on the screen and yet it inevitably continues to play in your mind.

It is so far away. I take solace somehow in the incomprehensibility of it all. I don't live on a fault line. I don't live near the sea. It couldn't happen here. I count my blessings. I focus on what I can handle. Denial is a family trait.

Then I see this:

...and it all comes crashing in around me again: the sadness, the ache of empathy, my friend Masaru, the vulnerability of us all…the magic and beauty of our short sweet lives.

About a month ago, Sam and I had a date in our kitchen. Quinn was asleep in her crib. We opened a bottle of wine, had a fire in the stove, soft light in our dining room. We were too tired for a movie, or books and for those reasons I tolerated the laptops being open and on (I resist their presence in our home life most of the time). We shared news from friends, looked at things we had each discovered during the week. Sam played me this video that he found:

We were mesmerized by it…the music, the serenity of the landscape, the fluid grace of the skiers, the focus and artistry of the Japanese subject. At school yesterday, I played this video again, in my office, and I started to cry. 

I feel an obligation to look at the hard things, as if my empathy only has potential to reach the people it is intended for if I remain focused, in the way that they must be focused, on their present crisis. And yet, what I hope for them is relief, peace, comfort, a return to beauty and joy…a fast forward out of their present crisis which is really, if we think about it, our present crisis. Our shared, human, present crisis. 

Though for us, from this distance, it is only really shared conceptually. 

Chopped Liver

(or, Patriarchy Sucks*)

One of my greatest character flaws is that I need positive reinforcement; I want people to like me. I'd love to be one of those people who confidently marches through life, satisfied entirely by some internal force…no one else's approval necessary, and in fact able to shed disapproval like raindrops off of gortex. I don't actually know any of those people, but I know that most people in my life are much more gortex than I am. I am 100% cotton; I absorb absolutely everything and in bad weather, I am not very warm.

Quinn can't talk yet so I really have no idea how she feels about me. But, sometimes I get hints—like the other day when I went to pick her up from her babysitter. I practically ran from my car to the front door because I was so friggin' excited to see her. Maury (the babysitter) carried Quinn to me so I wouldn't have to take my boots off. And, as she handed her over, Quinn started to cry. She actually leaned away from me and reached for Maury. I made a joke, of course, in hopes that I wouldn't start to cry too. Maury was kind enough to insist it wasn't as it appeared, my baby preferring her over me, but we both knew it was.

Quinn responds in this preferential way to Sam too. I'll be busily taking care of some need she has—in the middle of the night or at the end of a long day at school—feeding her, bathing her, or changing a diaper, and she'll be all business, like I'm the hired help. But, as soon as Sam walks into the room, her whole face lights up. She smiles and her eyes get bright with joy.

I get basically nothing in the way of positive reinforcement. I have to do all kinds of stupid antics to even get a smile out of her. There is no "Thank you, Mom, for growing me inside your own body for nine months, and for sustaining my life for the past six with what you've produced from your own…thank you for knowing instinctively when I'm on my face and need you to flip me back over, or knowing that I'm crying because I'm cold, or wet, or my toes are being jammed into these pajamas that are too small." And, you know, I don't even really need any of that…at least not yet…but a voluntary smile would be nice now and then. Or at least she might consider not crying when I show up to bring her home.

But she loves Sam...without the antics and despite the fact that I think I am usually more tuned in to her needs than he is. Sam  will walk over to me, with Quinn in his arms, and ask, "should I change her?" This stuns me. "Sniff her butt," I'll say, and that's me being polite, because what I'm really thinking is, "How the flock do I know? You're the one holding her!" And as he walks away, I'll be thinking, "What a moron."

So, okay, I'll admit, maybe the lack of positive reinforcement from Quinn is the price I pay for being overly critical and needy. Maybe she is trying to scold me for being so mean; I am convinced she knows things, that she has fully developed adult thoughts in that little noggin of hers. Maybe that's why she will only smile at Sam. Maybe she's trying to say, "Stop being such a bitch, Mom; he's trying."

That would be fine if there was some way for me to get my tank filled up now and then…some way she could show me that I’m doing something right, or that in the broader world I could get some credit for all this work. In the absence of these things, I cling to mostly irrelevant data, like how much she weighs. I rejoiced proudly at the doctor's office this week when we were told that Quinn had moved from the 13th percentile in weight to the 18th (like it even matters). She now weighs 14 lbs 6 oz, thanks largely to my breastfeeding efforts because she's not taking to the formula quite as I hoped she would, and she'd rather spray the kitchen with the butternut squash I grew for her than eat it. (It pains me still to recall those hot summer days, faithfully bending over my gargantuan belly to pull weeds from the squash bed). She also enjoys spitting the homemade applesauce in my face, more than she enjoys swallowing it. But, she's growing! And as the doctor measured the circumference of her head, she said with a congratulatory smile, "Wow, Sam, she really is your Mini-Me." Would someone please take this invisibility cloak off of me!?!

If it sounds like I'm calling Whine-1-1, well, I suppose I am. Because Quinn doesn't look anything like me. And she doesn't have my name. Even though I'm doing all this work, she's a Jackson, and she looks like one too. And furthermore, she worships her father and treats me like the lunch lady...well, maybe worse than that because at my school, just about everyone thanks the lunch lady (and the lunch man) after every meal.

What gets me too is that I think back to my own childhood and see similarities...not in the distribution of genes necessarily (I am a near look alike to my mother), but in the distribution of adoration. I'm tempted to somehow blame my dad for this weakness of character that makes me crave people's approval; I grew up craving his and, like Quinn, he didn't give it up easily. Here's the ridiculous part: I still seek his approval, even though I'm 39 and no longer need to earn an allowance or get his permission.

I grew up believing I would marry my dad when I got older…I was little, so this seemed normal. I worshipped him. He was funny—always the guy who could put people at ease, make people laugh. He made silly faces. And he made quiet jokes in church that made my sister and me laugh out loud. Our mother would give us the look—the cut it out! behave yourselves! look—and my dad would frown in mock agreement, and that would make us laugh even more. I never had any idea what was happening in church, but I knew my dad's every move. Everything my dad did was funny, and cool. And I always preferred to be doing the things he did than those my mom did. I wanted to mow the lawn. I wanted to stack firewood. I wanted to build stuff in his workshop with him, and use his power tools.

My dad traveled a lot for work when I was young, and I missed him, a lot. On a couple of occasions, to make up for his frequent absences, we had Kerry Days and Amy Days. I don't know if this was his idea or my mom's, but I can tell you, these days were seriously awesome and he got full credit! From morning until evening, he was all mine. I have vague memories of going out to breakfast at Perkins, of walking around the mall, of him buying me some Snoopy stuff, and even of having dinner out (probably pizza) at the far end of those long, indulgent days. But, even better is the fact that in the midst of these vague memories, I have very vivid memories of my dad taking me roller skating…at the roller rink…with disco lights and a bunch of kids my age in corduroys and rainbow stripped leg warmers. Well, maybe I was the only one in leg warmers; that's possible. The important thing is that my dad was there with me. And he roller-skated too.

What I've never stopped to think about before is the possibility that my mom might have influenced the idea for Kerry Day. Even if she didn't, she facilitated it by entertaining my sister on those days, and taking care of everything that needed to be done at home. I never thought about those things...those many, many things. When I think back to my youth, I think of missing my dad when he was away, and of following him around when he was home. I think about sitting in the family room with him on fall Sundays to watch football, not because I liked watching football, because I didn't, but just because I liked being with him. 

Don't get me wrong, I loved my mom. Especially when I was a teenager and I needed her to help me process things. She really was my best friend and best role model. But, I didn't really appreciate the amount of work she did. The amount of behind-the-scenes, keeping-things-running work. I remember that she was always in a bad mood on the day that she spread the bills out on the kitchen table with her calculator and the checkbook; she hated paying the bills, but she did it. Our pantry was always full, clothes were always clean, and we had a hot family dinner every single night…and I could get all Energizer Bunny on you right now and keep going and going and going...but I'll just try to get to the point:

My mom gave her love freely, constantly, and tirelessly, and yet I craved the attention of my dad. I'm glad she at least lived long enough to know I eventually appreciated her in the full way that I should have all along. But I wonder what sustained her all those years when I thought her presence was a given and her efforts were invisible. 

Maybe she took some solace in what was visible.

FYI: This week marked the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day. If your mom is still within earshot...give her a call and tell her she is awesome...especially if you look just like your dad. 

*Full Disclosure: Sam was willing to give Quinn my last name. I agreed to Jackson. (It must've been the hormones).

The Pussy Posse

One day, when I was complaining about a man I know who was being a bit vulnerable, possibly even a bit dramatic, my friend Mollie cut me short: "Women have pussies. Men just act like them." Mollie doesn't mix words; she's one of my Scorpio friends. And, though her theory doesn't always hold true, it did on that particular day.

Do you know that after a woman pushes another human being out through a very small opening in her own flesh, the people at the hospital tell her to "take a couple of Tylenol" for the pain? 

Tylenol. And I bet many women don't even bother.

That's what I need to talk about now that I've talked about Crazy Town: I need to talk about women. Or, as my friend Cathy would say, The Pussy Posse. Because, even though I love Sam, and even though he works really hard to be supportive, without the women in my life, I'd still be sitting in the trunk.

I am very lucky to have a wonderful and diverse posse. Some of the women in my life have been hanging around for a long time. Others are relatively new. A bunch showed up somewhere in between, but of course, that part is irrelevant; I am deeply grateful for all of them.

Girlfriends are the people who sit around in a church basement after your mother's funeral and manage to make you laugh. They call you up again and again and invite you to do things even when they know you're trying to sleep a year or two of your life away. Girlfriends bake your wedding cake for you, even though you were too young and too naïve to find a way to even get to their wedding. They come to your parties early, dressed up like they've been invited to some very posh affair, and equipped with incredible food they've prepared just for your event. Girlfriends each bring their own bottle of wine (or ginger beer), and they settle in, undistracted, for as long as the fire's going and as long as your husband is away.

Girlfriends laugh at you when you take yourself too seriously, they call your bluff when you're trying to cover something up, and they tell you to stop acting like an idiot when you are acting like an idiot. And if you're not the idiot, they are happy to join you in lambasting the person who is. Girlfriends walk past the screen door, hanging from just one hinge, and say, "We can fix that," and then they come in for a cup of tea. And they keep coming for tea even though you seem to be developing a habit of trying to demolish your front door.

Anyone who is lucky enough to have a good girlfriend, or two, or twelve, knows what I’m talking about. True friends rank as one of the very best aspects of being alive. As my friend Char says, "friends are the family we choose." And, when you find yourself pregnant, after trying to get pregnant, but horrified by the prospect of being pregnant nonetheless, you need these women friends…you need all the women you can get your mitts on.

You expect your sister to be there for you because she can't really escape you, right? And you expect all those crazy friends who had kids back in their prime to be there for you because frankly they've been trying to get you to join their club for years! Here's the part that surprised me: just about every woman you know, close friend or casual acquaintance, baby-lover or not…women all over the place come to your aid.

I didn't anticipate this. I thought I would be going through it essentially alone, missing my mother and paying for my own past failures to support and celebrate my pregnant friends. But, I was wrong; I had more support than I knew what to do with. One day I was visiting my dad and I sat crying at the kitchen table because I was more than halfway through my pregnancy and my baby-to-be still didn't have a single thing to wear. On cue, my dad's wife Louise produced a gift bag with a bunch of soft little nightgowns. From there, it was as if every woman in the universe heard my plea and the supplies started rolling in. First, it was boxes and boxes of hand-me-downs from friends in Colorado and Connecticut and Maine. Then our basement filled up with swings and seats and play stuff from a friend who, best of all, would need it all back when we were done! 

One night in July, my non-mom friends came to pick me up for a summer girls' night. It was Cathy's birthday that night, but still, they piled out of two cars in my driveway with armloads full of little frilly dresses, fuzzy blankets, hand painted onesies and, for me, wine and a gift card for a future dinner out. These friends, with beautiful bodies that have never been stretched, forced me to snap out of my self-consciousness and embrace my own bulge.

And my already-mom friends, the same friends I ran around Burlington with doing all kinds of things that I imagine laughing about someday, when our kids (all but one of whom are girls) are grown enough to sit around and tell those tales to...

…well, those friends bought me all the gifts I didn't want but they knew I would eventually need. And I did need them.

And when I really just needed my mom, my friends even shared their moms. Carol, who bought some of Quinn's most adorable outfits and accessories, called me from North Carolina after Quinn was born and kept me company on the phone for a very long time while I struggled through the early days of nursing. And Wendy, who filled Quinn's room with more wonderful stuff, including her first pair of cowboy boots, has also continued to fill my inbox with just the kind of encouragement my own mom would provide if she were here…even though Wendy has, at the same time, been watching her own mother struggle through the ailments of her old age.

Then there were the neighbors, who sent sleds and beautiful silver bowls and more outfits…the same neighbors whose husbands have had to come out in the wintery dark to pull me out of ditches. And there are the friends from school, and the parents of students from school...who knitted hats and sweaters, and sent books, and little gardening tools, and fuzzy unicorns.

I can't even catalog all the stuff, and all the kind gestures…it would take way too long. Suffice it to say, Quinn is six months old now and I am still writing thank you notes.

My point is this: women are extraordinary, whether they are sisters or friends or acquaintances…they have a sixth sense that detects what other people need. And they provide for one another. They help each other get ready for the big events, and then they help each other recover after the big events. They take your calls and give you the information you need. And, after you confess your insanity to the world, lots and lots of them take the time to write you an email and tell you about the times they went to Crazy Town too.

I can't even really express how humbled I am by them, and how grateful I am for them. And I keep thinking about how I might have been a better girlfriend myself if my mom had been around to coach me in my twenties, and so, as Quinn naps next to me on the bed—our new weekend ritual: she sleeps and I write—I'm trying to figure out how to be sure Quinn gets this coaching, whether I'm here to provide it myself or not. 

So that's what this entry is about: it's about jotting some things down for Quinn to read someday when she is older, and it's about saying thank you…Thank you for the stuff, and the support, and the empathy, and the encouragement and all that magical estrogen. Thank you for being in my posse. A million times and for the rest of time: thank you.