Starting Draft
A time. A family. It was the 90s, and I was twenty.
I remember feeling nervous and afraid - a mother who had pointy ice-pick eyes, even when she smiled, and who often wasn't smiling for or at me.
I remember the smell of moth balls from a Chinese grandmother who also never smiled at me even MORE than the mother never smiled at me. She scowled and said ugly things about me in jagged syllables and shrieks that she thought I couldnt understand. I could not understand her Cantonese, perhaps, but I understood her cutting body langage, flickering looks of disdain, and the way she managed to pretend her hearing aid wasn't working when I tried to simply nod my head in a personal way toward her that intimated I was trying to communicate. The only person who made me feel welcome in that home was the dog, an overweight sheltie who also looked a bit confused most of the time, but never seemed to complain: he was fed exotic Asian cuisine under the table and patted with spiny fingers often enough to make do.
I was there because a boy of twenty was in love with me and wanted me there. For hours, I would sit around and be the only Not-Chinese person on the premises, and it is an understatement to say that this made me feel uncomfortable. I had never in my life been met with anything but warm hugs and welcoming invitations by most people's parents, but this home was a __________. Their terse, shrieking syllables intimidated me and even though the boy who loved me would always say "that's just how they talk in their language" I would shudder and watch the clock to see when it seemed late enough to politely finish the meal and get out of there.
It hadn't always been this way. I entered the situation thinking that because the boy loves me, his family will too. They will be excited to learn about me, the white American girl who has introduced their son to standard American living and they would find intrigue in my southern accent and love for pizza and hamburgers and the way my blond hair fell at my shoulders. I have no idea what land I was living in, to think such niave things, but I did. It didn't take long before three things happened: 1. I fell in love with the food they prepared -- mmm... better than any elegant Chinese restaurant could prepare, 2. I fell in love with the boy, and 3. sitting alone in the living room under the smoldering eyes of the Chinese matriarchs made me feel like I was going to wet my pants from nervousness.
Years passed. Little changed. Conversations that were already hard to have grew harder. It initially had been a worthy sacrifice because of the boy who loved me. But then with the passing of those years, my blond, white American mystique started to wear off, and gradually I became just as uneasy under his gaze as I had been with the family-women of his life. It seemed they wanted him to marry a woman like him, and I was different. I expected him to fight it, to raise his galliant hand in the air like a character from a novel and lash out to them that he LOVED me and would NOT conform to their rigid cultural expectations!
He did this for a little while.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Tan
Draft in Progress
It started as a goal to simply "knock the white off." That was it. I only wanted to give myself a healthy glow so my legs and arms, the color of bleached sidewalk, could fit the description of "sunkissed," to innocently match the highlights of my hair. I had given up tanning beds. I was 25 and the reality that I couldn't bake in the sun forever was upon me. You better start now. I had told myself. It is perfectly avoidable to not have to look like another over-baked 30s-age woman-fighting-to-stay-girl spreading a set of white teeth on the inside of a leather smile.
So I took to artifical tanning. I learned the art of liquid tanning on QT, the cheap brand of tanning cream which turned everything orange in its wake, compliments of my mother, who modeled for me how to color-code every limb, including the use of a paintbrush was spread across even those digits so that no part of the body was still showing the shame of The White. The white skin: it must be destroyed,and the fake tan was the cure.
It started as a goal to simply "knock the white off." That was it. I only wanted to give myself a healthy glow so my legs and arms, the color of bleached sidewalk, could fit the description of "sunkissed," to innocently match the highlights of my hair. I had given up tanning beds. I was 25 and the reality that I couldn't bake in the sun forever was upon me. You better start now. I had told myself. It is perfectly avoidable to not have to look like another over-baked 30s-age woman-fighting-to-stay-girl spreading a set of white teeth on the inside of a leather smile.
So I took to artifical tanning. I learned the art of liquid tanning on QT, the cheap brand of tanning cream which turned everything orange in its wake, compliments of my mother, who modeled for me how to color-code every limb, including the use of a paintbrush was spread across even those digits so that no part of the body was still showing the shame of The White. The white skin: it must be destroyed,and the fake tan was the cure.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Night time: The Search for My Mother
Rough Draft
Tonight my daughter fell asleep in my arms in the darkness. She'll be two in a few weeks, and settling her down for sleep is like trying to pin down a wet goldfish. We rocked in our teal green chair that is so soft it swallows you, and somehow we succeeded. After some babbling and giggling and the jabbing of her fingers in my mouth through the darkness, she finally succumbed to the rest she needed after a busy toddler day.
As I sat in the dark, noticing the shapes the moonlight made through the window, I also noticed how amazing this feeling must be. My daughter must feel so secure, so serene, getting to fall asleep almost every night in the safety and comfort of her mother's arms. I thought about how much I wished that I could do the same.
Even in our 30s, as mothers, we still yearn for our mother's arms. Maybe even more so than we did when we were typically supposed to. It is a primal feeling that never goes away. I once read an article that referenced a child who had been burned. The essay described how he cried out for his mother - even knowing that she was the one who had burned him. Even the fire couldn't extinguish the flame of yearning for the child. This struck me as critically profound.
My mother's arms are not available. But it is not by circumstance, but by choice. Only, if you asked her if they reached out for me, she would insist YES - YES, of course they do. Of course she does what she can. Of course she would do more if she lived closer, if she weren't in her 60s and now "less capable";if she weren't trying to function with an "old" car which struggles to keep running; if she only had more "down time"... if....if....if...
My mother told me and my siblings when we were kids that she never wanted to be called anybody's grandmother. She worked hard to look as unlikely as possible to even fit the description of mother. We learned early that her arms were not open, and the shop wouldn't likely "open" at all. Deal with it.
I make a point to hold my daughter and allow her to find sleep in my arms most every night. Although the day time is busy, I reserve the right for her to drift into dreams each night with my smell the last thing she remembers before falling asleep. I do this because I wish it had been done for me, and because if I could make my mother be the mother I want - the mother I need - I would do this in her arms now every so often if I had the chance.
I look down at my daughter in the darkness as we rock, wondering what it must feel like to completely let go, to know that Mommy is here...you can check out now...Mommy is in charge. Of everything.
I lay my daughter in her crib, stomach down, and hear her exhale at the motion. Tonight, like every night, I conclude this time with the resolution that if I can't have this from my mother, I'll make things right in the universe by giving it to my daughter. What else can you do? As Sue Monk Kidd wrote at the end of her novel The Secret Life of Bees, we all have to find the mother inside of us. I'm in the middle of my journey, searching, hoping. Trying on who I am as a mother, seeing what fits and what colors look the best. I pray my arms are always open, no matter what the size or season.
Tonight my daughter fell asleep in my arms in the darkness. She'll be two in a few weeks, and settling her down for sleep is like trying to pin down a wet goldfish. We rocked in our teal green chair that is so soft it swallows you, and somehow we succeeded. After some babbling and giggling and the jabbing of her fingers in my mouth through the darkness, she finally succumbed to the rest she needed after a busy toddler day.
As I sat in the dark, noticing the shapes the moonlight made through the window, I also noticed how amazing this feeling must be. My daughter must feel so secure, so serene, getting to fall asleep almost every night in the safety and comfort of her mother's arms. I thought about how much I wished that I could do the same.
Even in our 30s, as mothers, we still yearn for our mother's arms. Maybe even more so than we did when we were typically supposed to. It is a primal feeling that never goes away. I once read an article that referenced a child who had been burned. The essay described how he cried out for his mother - even knowing that she was the one who had burned him. Even the fire couldn't extinguish the flame of yearning for the child. This struck me as critically profound.
My mother's arms are not available. But it is not by circumstance, but by choice. Only, if you asked her if they reached out for me, she would insist YES - YES, of course they do. Of course she does what she can. Of course she would do more if she lived closer, if she weren't in her 60s and now "less capable";if she weren't trying to function with an "old" car which struggles to keep running; if she only had more "down time"... if....if....if...
My mother told me and my siblings when we were kids that she never wanted to be called anybody's grandmother. She worked hard to look as unlikely as possible to even fit the description of mother. We learned early that her arms were not open, and the shop wouldn't likely "open" at all. Deal with it.
I make a point to hold my daughter and allow her to find sleep in my arms most every night. Although the day time is busy, I reserve the right for her to drift into dreams each night with my smell the last thing she remembers before falling asleep. I do this because I wish it had been done for me, and because if I could make my mother be the mother I want - the mother I need - I would do this in her arms now every so often if I had the chance.
I look down at my daughter in the darkness as we rock, wondering what it must feel like to completely let go, to know that Mommy is here...you can check out now...Mommy is in charge. Of everything.
I lay my daughter in her crib, stomach down, and hear her exhale at the motion. Tonight, like every night, I conclude this time with the resolution that if I can't have this from my mother, I'll make things right in the universe by giving it to my daughter. What else can you do? As Sue Monk Kidd wrote at the end of her novel The Secret Life of Bees, we all have to find the mother inside of us. I'm in the middle of my journey, searching, hoping. Trying on who I am as a mother, seeing what fits and what colors look the best. I pray my arms are always open, no matter what the size or season.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)