health food?

I have convinced myself that dark chocolate peanut M&Ms are good for me. I don't just mean for my spirits. Though that argument has some merit.

Even though I know that they are full of sugar and fat -- and that the "dark" chocolate probably does not have significant, real cacao content -- I argue to myself that they are almost a health food.

They have peanuts -- some nut protein. The dark chocolate may have some benefit -- "low class" as it may be. They are like trail mix, right? (Trail mix also can have a ton of fat and calories... my argument is breaking down.)

I run and exercise enough that I am just breaking even -- not gaining, not losing. But I probably could be rid of my remaining baby belly (which is really not so bad, considered) if I stopped eating dark chocolate peanut M&Ms.

this mom thing

Not sure how I'm feeling about this mom thing lately. Where are the perks for me? Sure, the neck hugs from my 9-month-old are sweet. But are they enough? My (almost) 4-year-old says "thank you" without prompting (and I didn't even train him to do it!). But that is not enough. I love them more than anything, yes. But, again, enough?

Az -- the 9-month-old -- had slept through the night for two weeks (amazing -- his brother Iz didn't even consider it until 18 months -- and, as with the "thank you" mentioned above, we did no sleep training). But the past three nights, he has decided he is unable to sleep without me by his side (now this I recognize -- Iz had a monitoring system -- a foot, a hand, that would sense any movement away from him). Az does not want to breastfeed (which is what Iz wanted); he just wants to lie next to me on the "guest" bed in his room and sleep. Like a mini, peachfuzzy, diapered boyfriend.

And last night, he decided to wake up at 3:30am and be "playful" -- coo, gurgle, scratch my cheek, stick his fingers up my nose (I've got to cut those fingernails), and pull my hair. This went on for an hour. I thought it went on longer, but it turns out I was then dreaming about trying to get him to sleep by jiggling his butt. I figured that out when my alarm went off at 5am.

So what is in it for me, huh?

yes, a word cloud

I wish I could keep a permanent one up on my blog -- but I am not savvy enough to figure that out (nor do I have the time to figure it out).

(Thanks to crumbs for the link.)

made me think

"With a few big exceptions, I don't much care for abreactive or confessional memoirs. I'm not sure how to explain this. There is probably a sound, serious argument to be made about the popularity of confessional memoirs as a symptom of something especially sick and narcissistic/voyeuristic about U.S. culture right now. About certain deep connections between narcissism and voyeurism and the mediated psyche. But this isn't it. I think the real reason is that I just don't trust them. Memoirs/confessionals, I mean. Not so much their factual truth as their agenda. The sense I get from a lot of contemporary memoirs is that they have an unconscious and unacknowledged project, which is to make the memoirist seem as endlessly fascinating and important to the reader as they are to themselves. I find them sad in a way that I don't think their authors intend." (David Foster Wallace, Introduction, The Best American Essays 2007)

Since I am thinking about writing (and beginning to write, really!) that memoir/novel, this opinion struck me. Am I being narcissistic? Is narcissism always necessary to write a memoir? It would be about me after all. Of course, I am not writing some over-the-top thing because, honestly, my life was and isn't over the top (with drugs, crime, family drama, whatever, you know what I mean). But there is a story there. So I think I want to write a good story, whatever form it takes. But I don't think it is about saying, "Look at me! I'm endlessly fascinating and important!" Yeah, that's so me (sarcasm -- I am a rather shy individual.). I know Wallace is not blasting all memoirs, but his harsh words made me think.

mothers, babies

I exaggerate a bit, but these days I am only driven to write when thinking of my mother. It is what it is, right?


So here is the paragraph in Dancing on Coral that got to me:


"As she closed the door, the baby woke up and began to cry. For a moment, Lark rested her head against the door, then went in to her little girl. "You woke up," she said softly, taking the soft, happy baby in her arms and kissing her."


My mother is not fully Lark (Dancing on Coral as autobiographical elements, but is certainly not an autobiography). But, damn it, I am that baby. Yes, I am in this novel, crying, a baby, much like my own little 8-month-old Az (who is asleep as I write -- not crying). (See, I can write about my baby, too. Ha!)

So there are some words from my mother, "You woke up." And a kiss.

Sometimes I feel warm and fuzzy when my baby wakes up crying. Sometimes I think "Oh, damn." Sometimes I want to run screaming from the house. I'm sure my mother felt all these about me as a baby. But she preserved the sweet. I needed that. Oh, and it made me cry.

dream of my mother

I dreamt about my mother last night. Only my second about her since she died on July 11, 2007. I crave these dreams -- as if they were some kind of real contact (which I don't think I believe).

I was standing near a wall with mirrors of all different sizes and shapes. My profile was to the mirrors, and I was talking to someone (don't recall to whom) about nothing important. I turned to face a mirror, a medium-sized square one. I saw my face full on, and it slowly turned into my mother's face, bit by bit. Cheekbones, eyes and all. I looked away quickly. I looked into a different mirror and my face was my own. I didn't think I looked like my mother, I thought. Then I stepped back to face the first mirror, and my face again turned into my mother's.


I turned my back to the mirror. and found myself looking out the familiar French doors of my childhood New York City apartment. It was night. And there was my mother, with huge angel's wings, flying outside the doors (five floors up). She waved and smiled. We didn't talk.


In the other dream, which I had months ago now, she also didn't talk. She was sitting on a hospital bed in one of her blue and white, Asian-style cotton weave robes. She looked like herself, alert, full of face, hair present in her short, layered bob haircut. (Not what she must have looked like at the end -- gaunt, without hair, lying down -- I did not see her at the end; I was in the States with a newborn; she was in Sydney, Australia.) She just smiled at me. I wanted her to talk.


I suppose I don't know what she would say -- and these are my dreams. That is what I crave -- some words from her, even if they are of my subconsciousness's creation.


You know, those French doors and the wrought iron balcony outside figured in another visitation from the dead dream. My cat Clark, who died when I was 17, came out of what appeared to be a tunnel with an opening in the middle of the wrought iron. He did talk, but I cannot recall what he said. I used to believe he looked out for me. I wish I could believe my mother has joined him.

that novel...

...that I've been planning to write. Intending to write. I know it will be fantastic! A work of art! A bestseller!

Okay, how many people who maintain blogs are novel-writers to be? Millions, I'm sure. Makes me feel less special.

The inspiration for my memoir/novel thing (oh, I am so clear on what I am doing here, no?) is my mother's novel, The Tempest of Clemenza. Before my mother died, even before she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I have been jotting things down. But her death -- and her wishes for me to write -- have compelled me to do more.

I re-read The Tempest of Clemenza, my favorite of her novels, soon after she died. It is fiction, but the frame story is about a single mother and her only daughter, Clemenza, who is 13 and has some unnamed terminal illness. Clemenza has a lot of me in her, my fashion sense (wearing gold, high-heeled sandals on a hike) and my stories (that friend who lost her virginity in a sandbox in Washington Square Park). And I am the only child of my single mother.

The mother-daugher relationship has inspired me. Though my memoir will be about much more, that relationship will be my frame. The idea that my mother knew me better than anyone, while I ran around trying to define myself (I still run around trying to define myself), is the one I want to carry through (without being too heavy-handed about it, of course).

All very concrete, right?

be a grown up

I was on a business call today -- about the editing I do. And I was afraid of geting in trouble. Of all things! I'm 36 years old!

"Be a grown up!" I wrote in the middle of my notes as I sat on the conference call.

And I wasn't in trouble anyway. But what the hell is up with my childish nervousness? Even the phrase "in trouble" is juvenile. I'm no different from when I was 16.

So "be a grown up" is my mantra for the day.

Travel section

The Travel section of the newspaper is taunting me. It often goes straight to recycling. After all, where am I going?

My mother would remind me, "Look for good fares, cheap fares." To Sydney.

And I used to read it for destinations with medieval history (because that was my bachelor's and master's focus).

Now I don't.

Yesterday I "saved" a page with tiny advertisements for cheap international fares (though Abraham may have already recycled it) -- to Sydney for less than $1,00o round trip (excluding undetermined "taxes" and a "Sept. 11 security fee").

Again, where am I going? With a preschooler and an infant? With a very modest income?

I want to be the international person I was raised as. The half-Australian. The one with family and friend connections in France and Italy. I have people to see! Even places to stay!

Without my mother, will I ever again be compelled to travel around the world?

I want to re-learn French. That might be a start.

an attempt to shop...

...or maybe just get out of the house. The local, very ramshackle, mini strip mall is the only place I get to regularly. It is easy -- just a mile or so away. And I don't feel like going far these days. Too muich of a hassle with two kids, work -- I just have no time.

The CVS is my main destination (probably because we have all been sick in one way or another -- requiring cold meds or psychotropic meds). It is a sad little CVS. But it functions well enough. Though finding Hanukah candles there was a fool's errand. Are there no Jews in this area? Come on!

Thanksgiving

So I actually cooked something (Abraham is the cook of the house) -- but only two things: cranberry relish and cranberry steamed pudding. (I am the cranberry maven, turns out; I also love cranberry juice.) Both are my mother's recipes. I make the relish every year without fail. But the pudding is more of a pain, taking 2 1/2 hours to steam in a mold on the stovetop. I often skip it.

My mother used to ask every year if I had made both dishes. She was usually in Australia, but she loved Thanksgiving. And she seemed disappointed when I didn't make the pudding. So I made it this year, in her honor. She is smiling from whatever afterlife there is -- she believed life couldn't just end and promised she'd watch over me. So she'd better be, I say!

(Next posting will be about something besides my mother -- I hope -- Az's small size, only 12 pounds at 5 months old; Iz's storytelling and how much I miss him now that I have the demands of two children... my writing, my painting -- but so much is wrapped up in my mother's memory right now.)

I remember my mother

I spoke in person at my mother's memorial in New York City on October 14. It was so hard to prepare -- I almost decided against it. But then my stepmother suggested that I would regret it if I didn't. She was right. So I spoke. I was not at all nervous -- I usually am speaking in front of a crowd. And this was a crowd that included many writers and practiced speakers. I did completely choke up on the first sentence and had to pause for a good long time (probably seconds only, but felt like a while) until I was capable of speaking. Here is what I said:

I could not have asked for a better mother. She was unconditionally loving and supportive, sensitive and understanding. She was also a tremendous role model in many ways – brilliant, adventurous, creative. Yes, she could drive me crazy sometimes, but she was my mother. Whose parents don’t drive them nutty sometimes? And she had an amazing memory – which fed her writing ability and probably even demanded that she write.

My mother always said her earliest memories – from when she was 2 or 3 – were clear and her thoughts were more sophisticated than she could express at the time. I wish I could recall the exact memory she related as an example – it had to do with listening to a piece of music.

I am so worried that I will forget all the stories she told me and that the memories that only the two of us share will fade in me, the sole holder of them now. I have been writing again, as she always wanted me to do, and a great deal about her.

I have been writing “I remembers” in bits and pieces. With so many writers and teachers of writing in the room, you probably know what I am referring to. My mother assigned her students this exercise: Write a piece in which every sentence begins with “I remember.” It was a way to tease out concrete writing.

Since I have been considering how to convey what a fantastic, loving mother she was. And how interesting and intelligent. How much she meant to me, her only child.

A somewhat random selection of my “I remembers” is a place to start:

I remember she called me “darling.” As in, “I love you, darling” and “How are you, my darling?”

I remember how she neatly quartered apples and pears, sliding the knife effortlessly in an arc to cut out the seeds. Then she put the quarters on a little plate. I remember she cut the tip of a banana off instead of snapping the top open, leaving a cone of banana flesh, which I wanted to eat first, in the tip.

I remember she bought a miniature, kiddie-sized set of wicker table and chairs so I would sit still and eat. I remember her plan didn’t work. She also tried plates and bowls with pictures, such as those of Winnie the Pooh, so that I would eat all my food eagerly to get to the bottom. This also didn’t work.

I remember the giant floor pillows covered with colorful Moroccan print fabrics that she set up under the built-in bookshelves in the living room. I remember she would sit on the pillows with me and read to me. Or I would sit there and cut up her magazines to use pictures as paper dolls.

I remember my mother taking me to the carousel in Central Park. I remember she told me about the brass rings, hanging high, that carousel riders of the past would try to grab. I remember I believed she knew the origins of all sayings, phrases and words.

I remember my mother’s office, next to my bedroom, the walls covered in world maps. I remember her office in Sydney, covered floor to ceiling, wall to wall, in Monet posters. I remember she sent me cards and postcards reprinting paintings of windows with girls looking out of them, their backs to the viewer. I think they reminded her of me. They are on my office wall.

I remember my mother almost always had music playing – the radio tuned to the public radio classical station. I remember she recognized most pieces, “Oh, that’s so and so’s such and such.” She also knew the words – in the original language – of many opera pieces. And she would sing.

I remember my mother singing show tunes, often in the kitchen, and pre-rock pop tunes such as “You’re the top” and “Button up your overcoat.” I remember getting older – a teenager – yelling at her to stop – embarrassed though no one else was in the apartment.

I remember my mother tsk-tsking jaywalkers when she was driving, and I swear that she sped up to make her point. I remember she denied this.

I remember my mother’s “clothing museum” of our clothing. Things we’d never wear again, but that reminded her of significant events. Pigskin bell bottoms, a red corduroy toddler jacket with embroidered flowers on it. I remember a fair bit of polyester (a long black sheath dress, an orange/red/pink striped mini dress.

And these are just a small handful memories. But a place to start, to remember her, preserve our shared stories, to try to capture what she was like. I cannot believe I will never see her again.

a tribute to my mother

My mother died on July 11, 2007, from metastasized ovarian cancer. I am so very sad. Following is what I wrote for her funeral:

My Mother

My mother always said her earliest memories – from when she was 2 or 3 – were clear and her thoughts were more sophisticated than she could express at the time. I wish I could recall the exact memory she related as an example – it had to do with listening to a piece of music.

This is one of my major concerns now that she is gone: I will not remember all the stories she told me. And the memories she and I alone shared are now just mine – and I worry I won’t remember everything.

I remember little things:

• She called me “darling” (as in, I love you, darling”).
  
• She neatly quartered apples and pears, sliding the knife effortlessly in an arc to cut out the seeds. Then she put the quarters on a little plate. She cut the tip of a banana off instead of snapping the top open, leaving a cone of banana flesh, which I wanted to eat first, in the tip.
  
• She let me cut up her magazines and newspapers so I could make paper dolls of the pictures.
  
• She bought a miniature, kiddie-sized set of wicker table and chairs so I would sit still and eat. (It didn’t work.)

Trying to write well, especially about my mother who deserves the best and who was herself such a fantastic writer, f eels difficult. Like rusty gears turning? The gears are there, but not used nearly enough these days. My mother always said I write very well – but she may have been too kind, idealizing me a bit.

I’ve often assumed she idealized me because I am her daughter. She thought I was beautiful, smart, a good writer – and said so often. (Who could ask for a better mum, right?) Of course I was special in her eyes. (I know how special now that I have two children.)

In talking to her friends over the past few days, I realize that she had a similar effect on others. They have said she made them feel special, she was an influential friend, she was a fantastic teacher – all variations on the theme: she had a major impact that made her daughter, friends, colleagues, and students feel significant, important.

I don’t think she knew what an impact she had on others – even on her own daughter.

• She taught me that I should do what I love – even if my choice were quirky.
  
• She taught me that reading and writing are essential to living a full life – I feel strange if I have not done one or the other for too long.
  
• She taught me that women can do anything –it very occurred to me that I couldn’t do something because I was female.
  
• She taught me that questioning and examining are simply what one does – Abraham, my husband, often teases me about examining and discussing the most trivial thing.

My mother was unconditionally loving and supportive, sensitive and understanding, rarely – if ever – critical (I know many women whose mother’s make comments about their weight, their life choices – not my mother). She knew me better than anyone (except perhaps my husband Abraham – but I write “perhaps”) – and I cannot believe I will never see her again.

I already miss talking to her on the phone – being able to call her and talk about nothing important. With the time difference between us, we often talked at odd hours for her, even 11 or 12 at night. Even the “nothing important” stuff was interesting to her. She could discuss anything as if it were a story or a philosophical question to be examined – whether the topic were something trivial like a bad haircut or something meaningful like becoming a mother.

I will miss her visits to the States. I am so sad that my sons will not get to spend more time with her. I cry when I see her handwriting, hear her recorded voice on her answering machine.

But this is the sad stuff.

Because she is still here in so many ways. That may sound clichéd – but if anyone could still be here, she could. She was that kind of presence.

When my mother came to visit – once a year, sometimes twice – she stayed with us in Cheverly, Maryland, just outside of Washington DC. Iz, who turned three on April, loves his grandma. She was not loud and boisterous with him, she was very much herself. She read to him, talked with him as he played with his toy animals (in the tradition of his grandma, telling stories with them), and she took him to the nearby playground.

Though I had taken him to the playground many times, I had never noticed the hollow but very alive tree on the walk there. My mother did. She was fascinated with it – because things could be hidden in it. She and Iz would put a flower, stick, or little toy in it on the way to the playground and pick it up on the walk home.

On her most recent visit in April, she was not up to taking Iz. But one day she went out for a walk by herself and took one of his little plastic dinosaurs. She left it there for him to find later. He was thrilled, and I will keep up the tradition she started.

I already called the tree “Grandma’s tree” in her honor because Iz did not see her often – so he would think of her. He insists on stopping at it every time we walk past, and notes it even when we drive past, “Look, Grandma’s tree!” Now it will remain Grandma’s tree, so he does not forget her.

I believe Izwill remember her. She was a powerful presence, even though she was quiet – maybe because she was quiet. (Though “quiet” is not the right word. Thoughtful? Observant? Calm? No one word can describe the presence she had.)

My son, Az, was born on June 14 – when my mother as already in the hospital. In a way, his birth complements her passing – maybe offering some healing. And though he will not meet her in the flesh, her line and her spirit can live on in him. I look at his little face as I write this, and, for a moment, he looks just like her.

The day after she died, we went to the tree with a bunch of flowers from our garden – black eyed susans and purple cone flowers – and left them in the tree for her. I imagine her spirit checking in with us – making sure we are okay, watching over us. In a short letter she wrote me when she was first diagnosed in 2005 (a letter I just opened because she instructed me not to open unless she died), she wrote, “I’ll watch over you, and just think of me and how I love you.”

many happenings

Since I last wrote (over nine months ago), I have:

• been pregnant (Sept-June)
• traveled to Australia to cheer up my mother who was being treated for metastasized ovarian cancer (Dec-Jan)
• had a baby (June 14)
• heard my mother is now actually dying from further metastasized ovarian cancer (June) and may only have weeks to live

More things have happened, but new baby and dying mother are the major ones. I will write more details soon.

city kid and September 11

city kid

While I was at the playground with my mother and little sister, I saw a girl playing
After a while, she and her mother left, but as they were leaving, I heard her say: “And the two little rabbits hopped down the sidewalk and lived happily ever after.”
After I heard that, I thought, “Only a city kid would say ‘And the rabbits hopped down the sidewalk.’” (“Metropolitan Diary,” The New York Times, September 11, 2006, A21.)

I don’t read “Metropolitan Diary” in The New York Times often. (Hell, I usually don’t get to read the newspaper – certainly not every day.) The fact that this was a nine-year-old writing didn’t register upon first reading. (I mean, what a sophisticated observation for a nine-year-old to make.)

I was a city kid in the very same city as this kid. At the age of 30, I was at the suburban (almost rural – or recently rural) childhood home of my then boyfriend (now husband). I saw maybe 10 geese hanging out in a field near a lake. I asked him, “Who do those geese belong to?” I did not think this was an odd question – or I would not have asked it. He laughed… and laughed… and laughed. The city kid remains in me even at 30-something. Are there wild geese anywhere in NYC? Maybe somewhere. Of course there were pigeons. And, near my apartment building, peacocks roamed the grounds at St. John the Divine cathedral. But those peacocks belonged to someone. I’m certain there are no wild peacocks in NYC.

Another city kid tidbit: I have never used a lawnmower.

Now that I watch Sesame Street with Iz, the childhood in the city images look familiar yet feel far away. I now recognize them as unusual, or at least not the experience of all children. Iz does not have that experience. Why does that make me sad? I mean, of course two rabbits would hop down a sidewalk!


September 11

On a much more serious note (though related – I was a city kid in the city that was attacked) – I have been crying over September 11 mentions, reports, memories for, oh, at least three days now.

I did not lose anyone in the attacks. I was no longer living in New York (though I was living in Washington, DC and saw the Pentagon spewing smoke).

I have been cursing and yelling at the radio whenever politicians – especially Bush – speechify about September 11. How dare he? How dare he use this as a partisan, fear-mongering… damn. I am so angry that he is manipulating this tragedy to his own ends. How does he get away with it? Makes me even sadder.

The articles about the new towers (the Freedom one and the three others) are interesting – but why has nothing been built? Not that something huge and business-oriented must go up or the “American Way of Life” is compromised. I wonder if there will always be a hole in downtown New York City.

Like a family tragedy – I felt as if I should have been there on September 11, 2001. But I wasn’t. (I had moved to DC two years earlier.) I still feel as if I should be there.