Posts from — April 2009

This is a story in three parts.

Part One:

Before we left for the trip, I heard this wonderful quote: “The end is built into the beginning.” At it’s most basic level, it is an obvious statement about the fact that once we are conceived, we are all dying. Some may be closer to their death than others, but it has always been such a strange statement when you’re told that someone is dying. What does that actually mean when death will happen to all of us?

I didn’t mean this to be a downer of a post.

I’ll start over.

I was fixated on another meaning in the statement (which comes, by the way, from Synecdoche, New York): that the way the event or relationship or situation ends is built into the beginning. You can predict how it will go. I think back to my first days at graduate school and it makes perfect sense. The tumultuous end was due to the tumultuous beginning. I should have known how it would go based on those first days and perhaps, had I been smarter, I would have cut my losses when I saw how the beginning went and not allow the natural end to play out at all.

The word synecdoche means to use part of something to describe the whole (it can also mean the inverse). For instance, Pinocchio is entirely defined by his nose. This one trait–the fact that his nose grows when he lies–is the defining characteristic used to describe the whole character (if you saw a cartoon where a bird told his mother a lie and his beak grew, what is the first thing you’d think of? Pinocchio, right?).

With infertility, we often have this limitation of our body define the whole. I am an infertile woman, it is the trait you know me by best. And it is a strange concept, this separation of the whole. I am a firm believer in holistic approaches–holistic teaching or holistic medicine–and yet, I not only allow this element of myself to serve as a synecdoche, but I encourage it. I have a blog where I discuss it, make it the focus even in the title. Perhaps it is just our desire to make ourselves smaller, more manageable. Our whole selves are too messy, too unordered. Taking out these small elements are like making a meal of tapas.

Human experience tapas.

So I am an infertile woman.

I am a Jewish woman.

I am a baker.

My experience in Western Massachusetts was also more varied than I give it credit when I describe it with a single word. When I think of the entire space, I think of it as two sided, black-and-white. On the sunnier side are these memories of tashlich by the Bookmill, cleaning the Kosher K, the stacked rocks on the way up to the Peace Pagoda, riding my bicycle around the top floor of my co-op, the smell of the Haymarket, swimming in Shelburne Falls, tea with Norton Juster. All pleasant, happy things that made me think that I wanted to go back to reclaim the space.

But truly, it’s the darker side that I allow to define the place. I really struggled here.

I already told you the story of the end. It was the first ending. This week, we had four days between two events and Josh and I decided to create a different ending. I was excited during the drive, looking forward to seeing family, eating at my favourite burrito place, buying used books. If I was going to create a synecdoche of the place, I might as well choose one of its sunnier traits. You have heard, of course, of Take Back the Night. Well, this was my version of Take Back the Place.

But as we exited the highway, I started to feel ill. I didn’t want to be up here at all. I always describe this feeling as my nervous system being inflamed. I could not calm down and I didn’t want to be in my skin and I felt like I should burrow in somewhere dark and deep and not intake any more stimuli for a bit.

But we were already up here. With two kids in tow.

Driving through town, it was interesting to see the places that caused me such anxiety were gone. They had changed. They had gone from a bar to a bank, a burrito shop to a coffeehouse. I had been trying to remember the name of a bar all afternoon, asked my cousin when I saw her before I left. Josh drove up the street and my heart was pounding, waiting to see the sign, confirm my thought. But the bar was gone. Vanished. There was a restaurant in its place.

It made me feel a little sick to see it gone. It made me feel a little relieved.

The Montague Book Mill circa 1998 and today

It was like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Someone had changed my history. Knocked down a sign, put another in its place. A walk down a staircase that replays in my head all the time is now becoming fainter, the staircase entirely gone, the store gutted and repainted and refurbished.

And like that film, I couldn’t decide if the erasing of memories were a good thing. On one hand, it felt like I was trying to grab at air when the store was so clearly changed. I couldn’t picture it suddenly, this scene I always imagined, because I was staring at a wall where the staircase should be. I bought my coffee and left, feeling like I couldn’t take back the space because it was taken back for me. It was like liposuction instead of dieting. The work had been done by someone else.

But does it matter if you like the end result?

And on the other hand, did I want my memories erased? Aren’t they part of what makes me who I am now? If those memories are suddenly gone, will the empathy, patience, and self-assertion I gained by the experiences also be gone, making me a different person, perhaps not instantaneously as the removal of a sign signaling a new store, but a slow-fade into a new Melissa, one who does not remember why she wanted to figuratively install anti-virus software on herself in the first place? And without remembering, will it make me simply feel defensive rather than self-assertive? Aloof rather than protective?

On the first night, after we came back from visiting my cousin and her husband, I crawled into bed with my daughter and started to cry as I watched her sleep. I don’t even know why I was crying—was it because I was scared of the world we were releasing her into? We are raising her only to release her and we need to trust that the world will treat her well. Or was it because if she had been around back then, I would have had a harbour to return to at the end of the day. There was a woman in my program who had a child and I always thought that no matter how terrible her day went, she could go home to that harbour.

But really, wasn’t the ChickieNob the reclaimed ending more than the trip? Weren’t the three of them—Josh, the ChickieNob, and the Wolvog—the replacement of the past? And when we get down to the blood and bones, weren’t they with me the entire time—ideals I carried with me for Josh, literal cells for the twins. Hal
f of their DNA was inside me from the moment I was born. They were tucked away inside an organ, and I didn’t even know they were there. If I had, it all may have gone differently.

I went to the bathroom to write this thought down on a post-it note because I didn’t want to forget it. Actually, I wanted to remind my children this in the future when they are in one of life’s maelstroms. That everyone they will love as a harbour in the future is already inside them and with them—either in their cells or in their ideals or in their longings. Those from us and to us.

And then I went back into bed and fell asleep.

Part One Fini; two more to go…

children mentioned and seen…

A few weeks ago, the ChickieNob* asked me if girls were allowed to work. After sputtering around for a minute, I said, “of course!” And she gave a sigh of relief and said, “oh, good, I just wanted to make sure I could get the job of president.”

I said, “I have a job; I work. So, of course, women can work.”

She couldn’t name what I do. To be fair, she couldn’t really name what Josh did either. And it dawned on me that she has never observed me work, though she has visited Josh many times at his office. Her sole understanding of what I did consisted of cleaning, cooking, making candy that she wanted to eat but that I give away to others like the bitch I am, and reading Oliver and Amanda stories. She has only seen me in this one role.

While we still have a lot of time to introduce her to female empowerment, I thought it was detrimental that she never saw me in action. And, then again, do I really want her standing all Children-of-the-Corn, inches from my elbow, while I type up articles? Even the ones that do not involve reproductive organs?

And at the same time, how much responsibility do parents have to mirror the plethora of choices in the world? Being a mother is a job; she has seen me doing this role of caregiver. I certainly can’t be every profession in the world simultaneously, so regardless of what I show her, she can always assume limitations in what she doesn’t see. Or, not notice those limitations at all.

Perhaps I’m just worried because she asked if girls were allowed to work. Is it commentary on her lack of exposure to women in the workplace or simply a question that is on her mind because she is a girl and regardless of what she has observed, perhaps she simply wants confirmation that she will be able to get a job too if she wants one. She has a tendency to ask questions where she clearly knows the answer.

But, regardless, it is a wake-up call to how much they absorb–the things we say and do, but also, what they perceive written between the lines. I have thought long and hard about how I present ideas on beauty and body image, but I haven’t really thought about things like drawing self-esteem from work.

It gives me pause; how much what she observes is shaping her–even more than what I say. I can tell her that she can be anything she wants to be, but if she only sees me bleaching and scrubbing, what is the subtext that she is taking from that conversation? Will she be able to comprehend that it was a choice to stay home and fit my job around their schedule–a choice with side effects that I must own as well, but a choice that works best for me and the family? That it could have been otherwise; that until I was faced with the prospect of not having a family, I would have possibly made a different choice. Who knows because you can only speak to the path taken.

I work this strange job that fits in the folds and bends around their day. I feel like I slip my job into tight crevices, taking minutes here and there. I hit every deadline; I rarely need to ask for an extension. But because my job is so malleable, it sometimes feels like it doesn’t exist. I have done such a good job spreading it into time that no one else needs, that it has become almost hidden. It is blending in with the walls.

You know, to the point that my own daughter doesn’t know that I work.

I showed her the book and some articles and explained that I write. That it’s my job, as strange as it sounds. But that not everything I write is for work. I write blog posts and letters that are not part of my job. “How do you know what is for work?” she asked. I just do. I just know when the words are going to be compensated with money and when they’re going to be compensated with love or friendship or community.

And I showed her some of Josh’s stuff and I explained that he writes. That her parents both write stuff. And people pay us to do so. But we also write and don’t get paid. Because it is what we love to do. That she should find a job she loves.

Before we get up in arms and insist that being a stay-at-home mum is a job and yank out that popular email forward stating what a SAHM would be paid if she worked outside the home, I want to disarm. I am on your side. I’ve already stated above that being a mother is a job. It is certainly my career and I care about it more than I do my paid work (um…people who pay me, don’t take that the wrong way). My greatest sense of accomplishment this month–the moment where I was most proud of myself–came as I packed my final mishloach manot box and stacked it next to the wall to be taken to the post office. At the end of my life, I have a feeling that I will care more about what I’ve accomplished in my home, family, marriage than what I have accomplished outside the home. That is just me.

But when the ChickieNob asks about work, she asks about it in the most simplistic sense of the word–an exchange of goods for services. And I don’t do this job in the home to be paid. I do it because I love it. And when you love something, you are willing to do it regardless of whether you get paid. I would still write even if all the freelance work dries up. It is something I love too. And I do write–in this space–without being paid.

If I didn’t work at all, I would have no strange feelings about my daughter only seeing me cleaning and cooking. What strikes me is that I do work, but I have tucked it so far out of sight that they had no clue the job even existed. I guess that is the crux of this: why have I hidden the fact that I work from my kids and not shared it with them? And yet, I am trying to teach my child balance just as my mother taught me balance–between home and work and volunteering and friendships. That it is all a high wire act and no one should be tipping too far in any direction lest they fall off.

*The Wolvog doesn’t really have these deep considerations about his future. He has informed me that he will be the CEO of Apple, and only the CEO of Apple. He will own an iPhone and a Mac. He will also have a Dell; a very tall, thin house with a kitchen on the top floor; and will build said house next to our house so I can come over and make all of his food because he doesn’t
know how to use a stove. He doesn’t need to consider other options when he has already come up with the ultimate plan. Must be nice to have that much confidence and direction at age four.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Perhaps you know you have been blogging too much if you start to think of everything in terms of computers.

My brain, in my old age, bears a striking resemblance to Norton Anti-Virus. First and foremost, I had to pay a great deal of money to obtain said virus protection. It also came with an installation plan that stretched over a long period of time (but was held in 50 minute segments). Now installed, it blocks worm intrusion attempts with surprising accuracy. And, also, like my copy of Norton Anti-Virus, it crashes my emotional hard drive every time it blocks a virus.

Are you still with me?

I am going soon to a place I associate with needing to install said emotional virus protection on a week where I have been doing a tremendous amount of virus blocking. Viruses, of course, are simply thoughts of the viral variety, with the intention of controlling or demeaning another person’s machine (sorry if I’m making this more difficult than it needs to be on a Saturday night).

I find myself figuratively holding up my hands and deflecting the words. It’s not that it doesn’t affect me emotionally; I still find myself thinking about each situation long after the other person has probably forgotten their words. I’m not great with compartmentalization, I tend to carry all thoughts with me at all times and on a particularly bad day of virus blocking, I may drive with a cacophony of ideas bouncing around in my brain.

At the same time, I’m excited to return to this space that I associate with the installation of the emotional anti-virus software. It’s not where it was actually installed, but it was the place where I finally put my foot down and said that I needed to gather some new software. A computer becomes infected without the right protection programs; it doesn’t run as well, can even be compromised if the right virus takes hold. And a person too cannot live without a strong operating system, one that has reasonable defense mechanisms in place. You don’t want to keep out everything; just the destructive stuff that serves no purpose other than to infect the system.

Until you get the full story, you can guess where I am going in the next few weeks. Here are three pictures taken about 8 miles apart. I think it was autumn. To help you narrow it down, the place is either in North America or Europe.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

Everything in our house is breaking. All at once. Which is how these things seem to go. It started with the air conditioner last summer. It was getting progressively hotter in the house and we realized that regardless of how high we set the dial, the vents were no longer blowing cold air. Luckily, my parents live in the area so we spent two nights at their house, installed a new air conditioner, cried about the price, and moved on.

Next to go was the dryer. This was learned after I opened the dryer door an hour later and found my clothes just as wet as when we began. Most recently, we’ve had a problem with the gutters, learned we have to insulate the attic, and replace the refrigerator entirely. Our dishwasher is about to go, every door in the house has fallen off their hinges and are currently either at the dump or resting against the wall, and the ceiling needs to be repainted following the gutter incident.

It sucks being a homeowner.

I’m not really sure why we bought a house. I mean, I know the whole financial planning side of it–how it will help us in the long run to be paying for something we own rather than something we rent. But I’m currently looking at what is happening now vs. how this is setting us up for the future.

The other thing that occurred to me this week is the whole working/family planning factor. I have been wondering for a while what we did wrong. We know a lot of people who seem to have larger houses and more wiggle room but work in comparable jobs. It just didn’t make sense. Yes, there was the whole paying-for-treatments thing that sucked up a lot of savings, but at some point, it felt like it should all shake out. I’m not talking about friends who lived in different areas with different housing prices. I’m talking about people right here in town, who make a comparable salary, have two kids, and don’t have a secret trust fund.

And then it hit me this week as I was reading a new book. We bought our house a few years into the marriage. Maybe two? And we got married when we were relatively young. And we started trying to conceive soon after the wedding, but bought the house before we conceived the twins. Where we went wrong, I’ve come to realize, is that everyone else worked longer–either before getting married or after being married–before buying their house and certainly before having children. They waited until they were settled in their careers before building their family.

Of course, the flip side for us would be that if we had waited and worked and focused on the career-building aspect of the equation, we wouldn’t have these kids or perhaps any kids. It was more of an a-ha moment than a oh-damn-I-wish-I-had-done-that moment. I wouldn’t want a different house if it meant a different life. But it was still interesting to pinpoint the place where we veered from the path that would have meant less stress when the refrigerator breaks.

Feh, you win some, you lose some.

None of these strange stories are an April Fools joke. In fact, the coincidences began several weeks ago.

Like many midwestern creative writing students, I went through a Raymond Carver stage. It is impossible to avoid him if you’re on the fiction side of the department; and frankly, I can’t really see why anyone would do a duck and weave with him.

I have found myself repeating the same Raymond Carver phrase for the past few weeks; always in different places, always applicable. “This is a small good thing.” I was aware that it came from a Raymond Carver story. What I forgot was that the phrase came from a short story about parents who lose their eight-year-old son right before his birthday and the words are spoken by the baker who was making their son’s cake for the party. At midnight, when they show up in his store for a confrontation, he sits them down at a table and gives them hot rolls and says, “Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this.”

Most people relate to the parents in the story. They are certainly the focus of the story. But I have always been drawn to the childless baker. What is his story? Why does he mention that he doesn’t have children? The mother assumes that he must have children as she orders the cake. And yet, it is the point he brings up during the confrontation. “I don’t have any children myself, so I can only imagine what you must be feeling. All I can say to you now is that I’m sorry.” In a story so sparse, so concise, so quiet, those words must mean something.

I guess the point of all of this is not to moon over Raymond Carver’s writing, but to point out these strange coincidences. I found myself using this phrase many times over the last few weeks; in comments, in a story I’m writing, to the twins. Why am I using this phrase–I truly didn’t even remember the plotline of the story until today when I noticed myself writing it in a comment again. And then remembered the story.

And it is a baker, someone who bakes, an act that is enmeshed in who I am that Josh put it on my business card. Isn’t that a strange coincidence that infertility and loss comes up in a story featuring a baker and that I glommed onto this phrase that features in the story without even thinking about the plotline?

Not sold yet?

A few weeks ago, my friend posted an Anais Nin quote as his Facebook status. “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” I noted it and moved on. That day at lunch, the ChickieNob saw me holding Tertia’s book and asked what the front page looked like. I said, “I don’t know. Maybe I skipped it. Or it’s a dedication.” Except that it wasn’t the dedication. Before the dedication, there is a page with a single Anais Nin quote. That quote. What are the chances that this completely unrelated male musician would choose the same quote as this female writer is South Africa?

A friend told me that she wanted to take a vacation but didn’t want to be far from home in case the expectant mother she was matched with went into labour. I was excited because I had read about a town an hour away from her in a magazine and I ran upstairs to get the article. I wrote her a long email, trying to sell her on this town, listing the restaurants in the article as well as all the related day trips you could take in the area. A minute later she wrote me back. In a world of cities, in a state that I barely know, in a magazine that I rarely read, I managed to choose the random city where the expectant mother lives.

I was thinking about yurts after talking to Josh about yurts (he had pointed out that my dream house cannot be a traditional yurt due to my fear of crickets and their tent-like nature. So fine, I would like a non-traditional yurt with a good seal against cricket intruders) and then my friend told me how she wants to build her dream house and sent a picture. Like this. A yurt.

And then…that night, I drive to a new friend’s house. I once lived close to her neighbourhood though I barely remember the names of the streets anymore. I haven’t been down there in seven years. I park the car about a block away, fearful that I won’t find parking closer, and begin to walk with the twins towards her house. And then we are standing there. In front of the house I always wanted to own. She lives next door to the house we always wanted to own. When we lived nearby, Josh and I used to drive here and sit outside this house and stare at it. We were doing treatments and we spoke about the school system as if we were going to be successful.

Finally, returning to the first person who kicked off the coincidences, he posted that at 8:30 p.m., he would be “sitting on my roof watching SF turn off its lights. then I’ll get out my guitar and some paper.” I read this update at 5:30 his time. Which was 8:30 my time. Though it was originally posted at 11:43 a.m. I had just had a strong feeling at 8:30 that I should see his Facebook status. And that is what it was.

And just as he opened the coincidences, they came to an end. I haven’t seen another one since last Saturday when I read that update.

It feels like these coincidences are too strange, they stick out too far to be ignored. So what do two quotes, a town, two houses, and a status update have in common? Or, Raymond Carver, Anais Nin, an old friend in California (twice!), a new friend in South Africa, a dear friend who is on the cusp, a town that I may never visit, a type of house that I hope to own, a friend who shares my heart and exchanges stones with me, and my dream house. Next door to a new friend. How does it all come together?

Your thoughts? Honestly, do you see any connection? I can answer any questions to give more information except for information about the dear friend on the cusp who is finding herself in an impossible vacation.

Your own strange coincidences that you’ve noticed?