These are the Things that are Measured

I am terrified that I will not measure up.
That my best will not be best enough,
Or even close at all.
I am terrified that I will fail
Life. Or my son.
I mean, its one thing to fail me.
I've had a lot of practice at that.
I think of all the almosts,
all the near misses,
All from the comfort
of such distance,
Measured in time
and passing moments.
Or maybe seen thru
several layers of gauze,
so that the edges blur,
and the pain of all that
misplaced potential
softens, so that it is
At last,
At best,
Bearable.
But only from a distance

Still.

Still, I am terrified
that the scales that
rise and fall in a graceful arc,
a pendulum sweep of
Enough to Not
will find me wanting.
Though the real secret,
Of all the hidden secrets,
Swaddled so carefully
by the gauzy batting
Of time and passing moments,
the real secret is
   I do not fear at all.

I know.

There is an infinite and
Measureless chasm
Of measuring up.

Surviving Childhood and other lost arts

I once had an argument of sorts with my son. It started when I told him he had to put on his helmet. “If it has wheels, you’re wearing a helmet,” I said. He looked at me with a mixture of pity and annoyance. He immediately dropped the handle of his scooter – the one that he couldn’t live without; the one that he had begged for, the one that would make his life complete and whole and perhaps even cure the common cold – he walked away, shaking his head in disgust and went back into the house. No helmet for him.

I did a mental double take. A helmet? Where the hell had that come from? I never wore a helmet when I was a kid. Had they even been invented then? Who the hell wore helmets, except for those dweebie, nerdy little kids whose noses ran all the time, their asthma inhalers jammed into pockets, chronically underweight and over-smart? I had my doubts that even they wore protective gear.

In that instant, it occurred to me, to ask the very air around me – how in hell did we ever survive our childhoods?

We certainly did not live in the protective bubble that seems standard for the kids of today.

When I was brought home from the hospital (after a week-long stay, where mom went into labor and woke up several hours later, presented with a clean and swaddled baby girl, the miracle (and mess) (and pain) of childbirth not even a ghostly memory), I travelled in style on my mother’s lap. In the front seat, with the little triangle window open so she could tap the ashes off her cigarette (Kool extra longs). This was the original car seat – mom’s lap. My older brother sat in the back, perched on the hump, arms dangling over the front seat, moving in frenetic jerks between mom and dad as he tried to capture their attention away from me so that it could be properly be placed on him, the Crown Prince, balancing precariously with every turn and sudden stop.

And so opened the floodgate of memory, poised on the unlikelihood of survival from an unprotected childhood.

• No car seats, no seat belts and we fought over who got the middle seat and who got to ride in the front. It wasn’t a question of age or size that determined seating order, but pushiness and the sheer volume used in calling dibs;
• No helmets or knee pads or wrist pads (oh, my!);
• We walked to school. Alone or in small groups, down crowded sidewalks and across busy streets, not a crossing guard in sight. And if we were early, we played on the playground – tag and red rover and elimination and dodgeball and whatever other fiercely competitive game we could think of that involved winners and losers and outs and shame – until the bell rang and we lined up, by age and class, waiting to march and shuffle and shove our way into the building. Rain or shine, hot or cold. Every day;
• We came home for lunch. Bozo and Ringmaster Ned and the Grand Prize Game, coupled with cream of tomato soup and tuna sandwiches, and then skipping back to languish through our afternoon classes;
• We rode our bikes in the street, ran with the neighborhood kids till way past dark, swam in retention ponds and hidden creeks;
• We drank out of garden hoses. Hell, we drank tap water;
• Boys played little leagues, girls were Indian Princesses. Paths did not cross. Roles were very clearly defined – X’s went one way, Y’s the other;
• We played with cap guns and watched violent kid shows, like Tom and Jerry or Bugs Bunny. We played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians. We were totally politically incorrect;
• We had Christmas Break and Easter Vacation, regardless of religious beliefs (or lack thereof). We sang Christmas carols and loved them.

And this is just the immediate stuff, the unconscious stuff. I’m sure if I really gave it some thought, I could come up with eleventy-seven more examples of how my childhood may seem so horrifying to the parents of today, me included! We seem so determined these days. So intent on protecting our children, from skinned knees to broken hearts. We want to keep our children safe and watched over. Unscathed by the reality of life.

In the same vein, we seem so much more present for our kids, more involved in their lives. Sometimes too involved, I’d venture to say. It happens: the Little League parent who gets a bit too argumentative and demanding, of the kids and the umpires and the game itself, who looks foolish and crass, a caveman visiting the 21st century. We push and prod and demand excellence, and try to temper that with humility. We over-schedule them and over-stimulate them, and wonder why they have the attention span of small flying insects. We filter where we can and hope the message and the medium don’t provide fodder for some future therapy session.

We do the best we can.

That’s the bottom line, I think. We do our best and we love them as best we know how, as fully as we can. In every generation, we find a way to love and watch and teach and sustain.

One more image, in this pool of memory and love, that I feel the need to share:

My father, like most fathers of his generation, paced nervously in the Father’s Waiting Room, smoking and drinking bitter coffee, awaiting my triumphant appearance on the the planet. My mother was unconscious, drugged to the gills, oblivious to the miracle she was about to produce.

Fast forward a thousand lifetimes, to the day of my son’s birth.

I was terrified. I was in pain. I was not drugged. I begged for drugs. I was denied. Apparently, you need to dilate to at least four centimeters to qualify for drugs. I never made it past three. An hour. Two. Five. More. More pain that I could ever imagine being in. More fear than I could ever imagine surviving. The monitors lost my son’s heart beat a couple of times. The doctors searched high and low every time it got lost, finding it just on the edge of sight, the edge of a miracle. Finally, one of the several hundred masked strangers (all claiming to be my doctor) came to my husband and me and said “We can continue this and hope for a natural childbirth, but there’s some risk to you and the baby. We’d like to do an emergency C-Section.”

“Do it,” we said. We were a team, we were united. While my husband could not bear our child, he could be as present as possible. He gained weight with me, came to our doctor’s appointments, read and trained and craved and worried and gloried right along with me. And he was with me as they wheeled me into surgery, held my hand as the spinal took hold. He turned green but did not faint or get sick. He was stoic and resolute and watchful and willing the doctors to not blow it, not make a mistake. He was there, not pacing in an antiseptic and crowded waiting room.

And then our son was born.

And here’s the extraordinary thing:

Our son was born, squalling and red faced and mottled, pale skin. He took our son from the nurse. The boy was barely cleaned of gunk and swaddled in blue, and my husband took that small boy-child, all six pounds, one ounce of him in his huge hands, so dark against the boy’s pale, pale skin. He took our son and held him high, so that God could see our son’s face all the more clearly and know him all the better, and love him all the more fiercely. My husband held him high, his hands so big that they nearly swallowed that boy. And then he brought our son to his chest, cradling him tenderly, more gently than a bubble suspended in sunlight.

And he danced.

Slow an stately, with a gaze of absolute and unconditional love, my husband waltzed around the operating room, turning and swirling with this small life, this perfect boy, this gift of love. His feet carried him close to me, his lips grazing mine. He showed me our son, our beautiful boy. And I kissed him. And all the fear, and all the questions, and all the doubt were no more, gone in an instant, quick as laughter. In its place was pure light.

We’re divorced now, my husband and I. There was a lot of pain and anger and hurt that went into the divorce. It took a long and slow time to learn to be civil with one another, to become friends again, to learn that we are family – like it or not – forever. And mostly, we like it. Even so, there was more pain than I could have imagined, a different pain than that of childbirth, more searing and vicious. It’s an effort, but I try to remember, instead, the beauty of our marriage, the joy and the glory and the absolute love that held us together. This is the image that sustains me, that reminds me that there is power and grace and forgiveness in love.

Tempered by Love (an Enough Essay for my son)

I picked my son up from his father's a few Sunday mornings ago. The mechanics of that particular statement just boggle my mind. That I have a child - a sixteen year old, no less - is one of the more astounding facts of the universe. That I have a sixteen year old and have not yet managed to break him -  no sprains, no breaks, no major illnesses - that's even more miraculous. He’s navigated a trauma or two, but they have been no more than the small dramas that are part of growing up.

I fear breaking him. I remember when we weaned him from his bottle. I sat outside his room while he screeched and screamed for hours, begging wordlessly for his bottle. What kind of mother was I, for God's sake? How could I deprive him of the one thing that would bring him any comfort during that long dark night? If I just gave in, if I would only relent-- silence! Blessed silence and a happy, sleepy, sleeping boy! My actions were sure to produce some hell-spawn, I was sure of it. I whimpered hopelessly to my mother on my cell phone, "Please tell me this will not be fodder for some therapy session when he gets all sociopathic on me in a few years, all because I wouldn't give him his bottle."

I could hear my mother, who has suddenly become infinitely wiser over the years, roll her eyes. "Don't be silly," she said. "You all went through it, you all turned out just fine. You all wound up in therapy for completely different reasons."

Oh yay. Something to look forward to.

He has been amazingly resilient, this not- -so-small-anymore man-child of mine. He has weathered a lot in his small life. Nothing big and dramatic, just the normal flotsam that seems to comprise struggling middle class suburbia in the 21st century.

From the time he was born, his dad (then my husband, no w my ex) and I both worked full time, leaving the house before sun up, coming home in the dark. Our son shared that schedule, off to daycare at the crack of oh dark thirty, where he interacted with strangers for 11+ hours a day. And in time, we were the strangers. We were absentee parents and we lived under the same roof as our son.

He survived the barely noticeable tension of two parents coming together from two completely different worlds, that just-below-hearing-level buzz that sets your teeth on edge for reasons you can't quite pinpoint until you're exhausted from trying to find the cause. Everything was an issue, because neither of us realized there were any issues to be had. Discipline. Religion. Family. Holidays. Friends. School. Even his diet became an issue during his first twelve months. Pick something, anything. We approached life so differently, and our son became the unwitting battlefield for our philosophical disagreements.

At five, he was diagnosed with a profound hearing loss. Now there are some words you never want to hear in the same sentence, uttered by a doctor: Neurological. Profound. Congenital. And the best words of them all: We don't know. They ran every test imaginable, and they still don't know how or why he has an 80% loss of hearing in his left ear and a 20% loss in his right.

At six, thing between his father and me started to get tense. By seven, our family life was rapidly deteriorating. Despite my best intentions, my son was witness to our private hell writ large. And loud. We yelled and screamed and stomped and struggled. We did it all wrong. There are lessons in conflict resolution that he has learned that will take God only knows how long for me to un-teach, if that's even possible. Fodder for my own therapy sessions, I think...

By eight, it was all over but the shouting. Even separated, my ex and I continued to shout. We fought and argued and cried and repeated it all, again and again. Life got dicey in ways I couldn't ever have imagined. This was not the life of a nice Jewish girl from the suburbs, dammit. I shielded my son as best I could, but I could not shield him from everything. Things got worse. Things got better. It was an emotional tug-o'-war, and I was tangled in that taut rope, straining to get my end clear from the muddy middle. Sometimes I think I even succeeded.

My son seems to have survived all of this. He may not even be the worse for wear. He is sixteen, taking his first steps – sometimes giant leaps, sometimes a small stutter step - at independence from me. He is at once shy and bold and friendly and mean and smart and smart alecky and happy and sad and whiney and a thousand other emotional adjectives. There are days when I want to sell him to the highest bidder. Ok, not days: minutes, maybe an hour at most. When he gives me the sixteen year old equivalent to being weaned from the bottle, and all I want is blessed relief from that incessant incantation of Mommommommommommom. Just five minutes, I want to plead. Give me five minutes of peace, a chance to breathe.

But mostly, he is this incredible gift: fragile as a soap bubble that floats, higher and higher, catching the sunlight, reflecting clouds and sky. But tough as steel, as leather. Enduring as love. I love him fiercely, passionately, wholly. Without reservation. Unconditionally. I, who swore I would never have children, who was convinced that the maternal instinct had skipped me entirely, I have been gifted with the care and feeding of this boy, this almost man.

I tell him every day, and have, since the day he was born: nothing you do or say could ever make me love you any less than I do now, and I love you more than the earth and sky put together. I may be afraid that I will break him in some way, but I also have made it my mission to let him know that he is enough. Ever and always, he is enough, and he is loved. And wonder of wonders, despite my faults and failings, he knows. So, while I may provide him with endless fodder for some therapist's couch some day, that fodder will ever and always be tempered with love.

Happy birthday, times sixteen

Six pounds, one ounce.

That's how much you weighed the day you were born. Oh - you were so tiny! And perfect. Let's not forget the perfect part. Sure: there were complications. Life is nothing but complications - some scary, some hilarious, some frustrating or tense or wondrous, or some odd combination that makes you want to dance and cry and run, all at the same time. It's all there, and we have such a very short time to teach you how to face those complications with grace.

On the day you were born, there was pain - more pain than I could ever have imagined a person could bear without dying, and yet I did. The drugs helped. and the anticipation of you, that surprised me, how much it helped. I could have sworn my fear was stronger than my hope; I was wrong. There was fear - of the unknown, of the known, and of the infinite list of "what if" that played in my head like a loud mariachi band - all brass and blaring and rhythmic thrumming. My heart raced along it's notes of flattened tin, chased by a pitocin drip.

On the day you were born, there was your father - so frightened, just as scared as I was. I, at least, was a major player in the drama of your birth. He was an extra, getting in the way of the doctors and the cords and tubes and monitors and the scalpels that emerged eventually, hours into the pain and the fear and what we had thought was drama, but turned out to be merely the lead in. He could only witness, only hold my hand through all of it, which would have been miracle enough - except, when you were finally born, when you were finally announcing your entry into the world at large with a great and glorious cry, as soon as you were cleaned and swaddled and tiny - God, so tiny! - for the first time that long day, your father left my side, rushing to hold you.

And then he danced.

He cradled you with infinite tenderness and infinite love, close to his chest, swallowing you in his huge hands, so that your head rested against his beating heart, so that you could hear its steady pounding- an electric, constant pulsing beat that was so like the one that had sustained you in me until this day of your birth - and he danced. The drama fell away then, into the wings, behind the scrim. No disappearing act; merely waiting for its next cue. He danced you in a slow circle, and the universe fell away then. Or perhaps the universe existed only in the space between the two of you, and God dwelt in the air you shared, in your breath and your touch.

He danced with you, with infinite slowness and infinite care, and he raised you high - up and out and high - as high as he could lift you, nestled so surely in his hands, and showed your face to God. And just when he was sure that you would forever know the face of God, he brought you back to his heart, and then to me. I had carried you for nine long months; now I could hold you - touch you, breathe in your newness and nearness, feel the weight of you on my arms instead of bearing down on my belly, feel the mist of your breath on my skin.

Complicated. Dramatic. Perfect, my beloved boy. Ever and always.

You no longer fit in the cradle of your father's hands. Where you used to fit, with room to spare, on a quartered baby blanket, you are now barely contained on your bed. You sprawl, tangled in a comforter, feet and arms dangling loosely over the edges. You no longer fit in the small and contained and safe-as-we-can-make-it world of your childhood. Not that your childhood is over! Not that you ever fit as comfortably and safely as we tried. There were hurts and aches. Some were healed with a kiss; some with Bactine and a bandaid, but they were relatively small and easy complications. You're straddling worlds now, balancing between the comfortable fields of boyhood and the unexplored vastness of the rest of your life, wearing seven league boots. Every step takes you farther and further into the life you are creating, into the man you are becoming.

You are not so tiny any longer. Everything about you is bigger - your heart, your dreams, your kindness. Your fear. You hurt bigger. You feel deeper. You love more. I am awed at your grace, your kindness, your anger, your stubbornness, your hope. Life is no less complicated for you today than on the day you were born. I can't shield you as I once did, my beloved boy. Let me rephrase that: as I once tried to shield you; I don't know that I ever really did, but I like to think that at least I was able to give you some comfort, perhaps take away the biting sting.

Already you are finding new paths, new hurts and heartaches that I cannot even begin to know. let alone heal. But there you are: diving in on your own, kicking through the muddied waters and breaking through to the surface every so often, gulping in air and light before diving in once more.

There is a world of wonder and joy and kindness and grace for you to explore. You will undoubtedly find broken trust and fractured promises as well. You will rage at injustice and taste the bitter wine of despair. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and it gets bruised and beaten so easily.There is no protection from the hurt. But here's the secret: with any luck, you will find the courage to look beyond that pain and find the strength already so present within you, so that you can walk through the pain to the other side.

It's such a difficult task, to find that courage, to take those steps! You've been building your own "what if" list since you could think and wonder and question and cry. Here's the thing - bad things are going to happen. No matter how still you hold yourself, willing the universe to behave, stuff happens. Sometimes the monsters under the bed are real.

You are the Captain of Happy, my beloved. You will find fellow travelers along the way - some will journey with you into the forever; some will shine a light for a moment before turning left. They will offer you gifts unimaginable, of strength and comfort and respite and love, but remember: it is you who must leap, you who has the power to soar.

Oh, my beloved bot - you are filled with such stumbling grace! You no longer fit in your childhood, or in your father's large hands. You have grown and moved past and begun to leap. You will forever fit, my darling boy, in the space of my heart. nestled, loved, forever dancing.

Happy, merry birthday.

As yet unfinished

He is taller than me now.

Not just his hair, which is big and tight-curled and easily gives him a couple of extra inches. And not just because he stretches himself out, lifting his chin and bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager to have this bit of supremacy over me. No-- he is taller because he has grown, at least a handful of inches in the last month or three.

On the day he was born, as soon as the nurses had cleaned and swaddled him, his father-- trembling with the wonder and awe of it-- held this small child who lay so trustingly in his large and calloused hands. He lifted our son high, as if to show the boy's face to God, and then slowly, with aching tenderness, he cradled our son against his heart and danced.

I can see the infant that he was, like an after-image superimposed in the air next to him, closerthanthis, as if from a too-bright flash. God, but he was small when he was born! A tiny little thing, just over six pounds and only 18 inches long, he fit so easily on his baby blanket when I folded it into fourths. He barely fits on his bed now, sprawling in his sleep to take possession of all the available surface.

From infant to adolescent in the beat of a heart, the blink of an eye. He carries the entire procession of image and experience with him: the day he took his first step; the gash on his knee when he learned, much to his surprise, about falling; first words, first friend, first loss; the daily tedium flecked with bits of exhilaration.

There have been an infinity of firsts (and seconds and thirds), he has learned some, and played some, been bored and exultant and defiant and curious. There is an eager, impatient momentum that surrounds him. He carries this all-- this life, his life-- a gathering, expectant spiral, shot through with his father's fierce joy, a celebration of love and pride. There is some of me as well: the dreamer, the seeker, the cynic.  This is the warp and weft of him, a tapestry of knotted thread.

It is complex and unfinished, just like him.

These days, the threads bear less the imprint of his father or me than of an almost thoughtless mix all his own, of twisted color and varying weights. He weaves together the comfortable and known threads of his childhood, and now, in a syncopated stutter step that becomes more sure every day--  something wholly his own: a variation on a theme, at once familiar and new, becoming a different story altogether.

It is breathtaking. Just like him.

Once upon a time, in a land that was long ago and far away, I would say "Hold my hand, baby. The street is busy. I don't want you to get hurt." He's a teenager now. He's tugging away, rushing towards the busyness of his day. Of his life. I can still feel the memory of his touch, his small hand in mine, eyes wide and a smile so sweet it could break your heart. We walked together, ambling along a winding path. We taught one another-- about patience, about God, about kindness and love.

Always love. His for me, me for him, every breath, every word, every touch-- it was, ever and always, a lesson in love: unconditional and infinite. Was it enough? Will it be enough to carry him through as he steps off onto a diverging road that only occasionally intersects with my own?

"Hold my hand, baby. I don't want you to get hurt."

He will, though. He will get hurt and be heartbroken. He will be lifted by hands not my own, and find healing and grace where I have never thought to look. He will tell his own stories, grand and glorious and filled with everything he carries with him-- his father's fierceness, his mother's dreams, his own precious threads that he discovers and creates and borrows. All of it, a knotted, twisted tapestry, as yet unfinished.

All of it-- unfinished, unfolding. His.

To my beloved boy, Nate, upon his graduation from middle school

June 2013

Mom enough - story for Mother's Day

I am willing to admit, with only a brief round of arm-twisting,  that I received a handful of blessings when I came into the world. I like to think that I'm kind, have a bit of compassion, can do multiplication in my head and can make a mean brisket. I value these qualities and truly feel quite blessed. What I am sure I did not receive, in any way whatsoever, was maternal instinct.

Even as a kid, I did not get that whole mommy thing. I didn't play with dolls. Hell, I barely played with others; why in the world would I play with dolls that did, well, nothing? They didn't talk (not really) or walk (unless I moved their feet) or eat (unless it was one of those strange little magic baby bottles of chemically liquid that was (apparently) supposed to be milk and disappeared when you tipped the bottle one way and reappeared when you tipped it the other). They weren't real, and they certainly weren't clever enough or independent enough to be mistaken for such. They were, in a word: boring.

So, no dolls for me.

And in case I'm being a little too coy and understated: I didn't play house, hated babysitting, shuddered at diapers and felt at a total loss when it came to miniature creatures who would one day, with an incredible amount of luck and training I couldn't begin to comprehend, grow up to be actual people.

But they would do it all without me.

So you can imagine my surprise when I learned I was pregnant. I'm sorry-- what? That can't be right. I'm not cut out to be a mother. I have cats. I barely remember to feed them on a daily basis; how in hell will I remember to feed a baby? Relax, they all told me. You'll remember to feed the baby. It's different when you're a mom. And then they'd snicker (though they'd insist it was gentle laughter, meant more to commiserate with my cluelessness than chide my ignorance). Pregnant. Apparently with a baby. Some poor soon-to-be-human who had the poor prenatal intelligence to choose me as his mom.

Thirty some-odd years (and then some), and I still didn't play with dolls.

Panic gripped me, and the angst almost ate me alive. I lived, for nine long months, playing an endless loop of "what-if? in my head" What if I drop him? What if I break him? What if he doesn't like me? What if I mess him up? What if aliens conquer the earth and separate us and he grows up to become an ax murderer? He could be unpopular; worse, he could be popular, and what the hell would I do then? Oh God- what if he's a Republican? There were a hundred things - a thousand things - an infinity of things, real and imagined, that my child could be, and what if I fail him?

Ah. There it is, the secret shame, the real fear, named at last: what if I am not up to the task? What if I fail?

My son, and not a mothering bone in my body.

And then I held him. They placed that small body in my arms- warm and swaddled and wrinkly. His head fit perfectly in the palm of my hand, his body curved into mine as if he were the piece of me, of my heart I didn't even know was missing. My son. My child. And I held him. cradled him against me, and felt the presence of God, knew that God lived in the space between our breaths, between the beat of our hearts.

There, on the fringes of my panic, driven by doubt and fear, I prayed to every god I could think of, including the one I'd finally made my peace with not too long before this miraculous instant-- I prayed; no, I demanded "Now what?"

I mean, really: now what? I learned, just in the nick of time, that I had, if not a maternal instinct, then at least a connection to my son. It was profound. It was more than love. It bordered on magic, and certainly on a miracle or three. It filled me, this love, to the very edges, and then overflowed in small waves, until I felt like I was drowning, or maybe breathing for the very first time. There was this life- tiny and fragile and innocent and our hearts, our breath, were woven together, an inextricable bond, and now fucking what?

So, I loved him. So what? Bad pop songs went spinning through my head, a calliope of the banal. The world needed a helluva lot more than love. I needed a helluva lot more than love. I needed, at the very least, an instruction manual. They were sending me home with this infant boy. Did They - whoever They were - some omnipotent They, related to the Editorial We and the Royal Plural, those power broker rule-maker mavens - did They not realize how little I knew, how unprepared I was? They gave me a diaper bag, a handful of glossy pamphlets, some samples of formula and some other tchotchkes, my son and a fare-thee-well.

We were on our own, and I was still waiting for that maternal instinct to kick in.

I guess I was waiting for the bolt of lightning, angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin kind of enlightenment. I wanted to be infused with that mommy glow of knowing, quickly and painlessly. What I got was something else entirely.

I got the disorganized mommy gene, the one that had at least one major item missing from the traveling circus diaper bag that it was necessary to carry any time we left the confines of the house that was now a cross between a padded baby prison and a toy store. Other parents showed up with extra bottles and binkies, a change of clothes, little Tommy's favorite toy, crackers and cheerios in environmentally safe packaging, and their infant, clean and calm and smiling. I was lucky that I remembered the baby. Extra stuff? I'd be happy with enough stuff.

Birthdays were celebrated with joy and merriment. Parties were hit or miss. We did them most years. They had no themes. I didn't realize babies and toddlers needed themed parties. We almost always had cake, and a present that showed up, sometimes wrapped, within 48 hours. Almost.

Calendars and school vacations were mostly theoretical. There were a couple of times I took him to school, only to find that there wasn't any that day. Pulaski Day. Really? I don't know that he can spell it, let alone know who the hell Pulaski was. But apparently, he's important enough to close the schools around here as a show of honor and respect.

Forget Little League and after school activities. Apparently, these were all designed and scheduled in a wormhole from 1957, an era in which both parents didn't work and kids could walk willy-nilly and unsupervised across town to get to the ball field or wherever said activity was being held. And there were carpools and gangs of neighborhood kids and you knew people and other parents who could step up every so often, except your "every so often" was every time, because you work full time and you're a single parent and you barely know your next door neighbor, let alone the parents of your kid's classmates. So you die a tiny little bit, when that kid, that not-quite-so-small and still defenseless and slightly older kid looks at you as you drive past the ball field with practice going in full swing and says, in his most grown up and understanding voice "That's ok, mama. Maybe next year."

Then there were the days that you prayed to everything that was holy that your child stayed this side of not-quite-sick long enough for you to make the meeting that you just couldn't miss. Those were the days that you cringed every time your phone rang, hoping it wasn't the school nurse letting you know he'd gone from not-quite-sick to sick enough, please take him home. Worse were the days you were out of town and you couldn't be there at all, had to depend on someone else - anyone else - to fill in for you. Good God, those were the days you had to depend on someone, and come to think of it, they were probably a helluva lot more organized than you, more focused than you, more mom than you anyway, so what's the big deal?

There are meds to take and doctors to visit and shoes that leak water and buttons that fall off and homework that needs to get done and teachers to correspond with and you manage, barely, to feed him every day and put on clean socks every day and make it to school every day and love him every day. Every day, you do those things. Some days are better than others. Some are more organized. Some, you swear there's not enough duct tape in all the world to contain him and give you just a minute of quiet, so you can catch your breath before the next round. Some days you want to crawl into a corner and weep because you know, you just know, that you have failed him. And every day, you love him, just a little bit more.

Every day, again and again. Every day, in an endless succession of over and over. And you can't imagine living your life without it. Thank God (or whatever deity in which you currently believe) you have been given this gift, this miracle, this awesome and fearsome and breathtaking boy, to care for and comfort and learn from and love. Every day.

And then you pause. You think: That maternal instinct, that thing I've been aching for since the day I first knew that I carried another heartbeat, another soul-- is that the feeling of dread and guilt and annoyance that fills me? And the feeling of bursting-at-the-seams pride when he achieves and creates and laughs and sings and brings you a flower and makes something out of pasta and glitter and spray paint? And the dread you feel, wondering if you will break him, or ruin him or can't fix his hurt or heal his heart?

Could it be that sure and absolute knowledge, before anything else-- before everything else-- the idea that the only job you have, the only one that matters, is to love that boy, that now-kinda-large and suddenly adult boy, and make sure that he knows, with his every breath, without doubt or hesitation, that nothing he does or says could ever make you love him any less, that he is loved and he is, ever and always, enough?

Is that maternal instinct? Is that being mom enough?

One of my favorite stories: a woman is bemoaning her single status to a friend, wondering why she can't find the man of her dreams. So her friend, being wise, asked her to make a list of all the characteristics she wants in this perfect man. The woman sets about her task with enthusiasm, taking a week or two to compile a list of everything she considers a prime quality in this mythical-but-hoped-for man. Finally, she is satisfied that she has everything covered. She returns to her friend, hands over the list and waits for her friend's words of wisdom and advice. The friend glances at the list (which covers several pages), barely seeing a single trait, hands it back and says, quite gently, in a voice filled with love and kindness: "Now become all those things."

I wasn't looking for my perfect man; I was looking to grow a boy, to teach him to be a person - a mensch. But-- maybe yes, become all these things. Become them, because how on earth could I teach him forgiveness if I did not learn to forgive? How could I expect him to understand the strength it takes to ask for help if I hid my fear behind a wall of pride? I have not become all those things, not by a long shot. But I try. He, marvelous boy that he is, has learned every lesson I have ever taught him, intended or not. Trust me, I have spent much time apologizing. "I'm sorry; I didn't do that well (or right, or kindly, or patiently, pick an adjective, any adjective); I will try to do better next time. We need to learn this better, ok?" 

My son is smart and funny and annoying and sarcastic (in spades) and kind and self-absorbed at times and curious all the time. He splits hairs until I want to scream. He challenges the powers-that-be in politics and religion and science, both their reasoning and their conclusions. He has a moral compass set to JUST, and is finally learning to temper his judgement with mercy and compassion. He tastes life, in great gulps and with much passion.

He has become... himself. He steps through his life, sometimes faltering, sometime boldly. But he walks through it. Every day. He succeeds, he tries, he fails, he stresses, he questions, he knows -without hesitation - that he is loved. He knows, without doubt, that he is enough.

And that, forever and always, is enough for me.

Small Stuff

Last spring, right around the time school let out (May-ish, when the air is warm but not yet humid, and everyone wants to have class outside (even the adults, locked in their offices of glass and steel and climate-controlled windows that won't open), and the kids are all just itching for the final bell to ring and free them from the prison that is school) last spring,  I got The Call.  It was not a Divine Call to join some religious order or nunnery. Wrong religion, wrong calling.  It was the dreaded Call From School.  My son, far from being sick, far from being awarded some educational accolade or middle school equivalent of a Nobel Peace prize, was being awarded a detention.  Dammit.

My son-- bright and funny and smart and kind and thirteen and, yeah; I'll say it again: smart-- my son lied.  He lied about where he was, when he was, and just what the hell he was doing.  He was supposed to be at an after school club.  He was supposed to be finishing up some homework.  What he got was caught.  What he got was in trouble.  What he got was a two day (two days!) detention in the Vice Principal's office. 

My rational brain keeps sending me soothing messages: "He's thirteen.  He'll get it together.  You weren't an angel at his age.  Look where you are now."

My lizard brain has a salamander basking on a rock in the hot sun, flicking its long, poison-tipped tongue, and whispering seductively in my ear: "Duuuuuuuuuuuct tape. Ssssstrap him to the chairrr and let him sssssssufferrrrrr,  Then ssssssell him" Visions of torture and retribution dance through my head.

Oh great. Turns out, I'm a pacifist with violent tendencies.

My first impulse was to reach for my well-used, dog-eared copy of The Rule Book: A Parent’s Handy Dandy Guide to Raising Perfect Children.

Oh wait— there is no such book. Or, if there is, I must have been out grabbing a cup of coffee when They (the omnipotent, omnipresent They)— I was out when all the other parents were getting their copies. As an added bonus, I had apparently also been absent the day They handed out The Single Parent’s Guide as part of the divorce settlement. I was on my own, flying solo. 

Hooray.

Ah— the joys of parenting.  Single parenting at that.  It hits me oddly, that giddy, terrifying, swoopy, bottom-dropping-out feeling, all sideways and slanted and so totally unexpected. They say that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you makes you stronger. Right. At this point, I am Atlas, and all I want to do is shrug.  I know, I know: it’s really no big deal. He’s thirteen. It’s a detention, not hard time on a chain gang. But, well— it’s a detention. It’s one more thing I have to deal with, in a long line of stuff I have to deal with.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my son: fiercely, unconditionally, wholly. There is nothing I would not do for him. But these moments, where I am so certain that I’ve committed some grievous parenting error, provided him with more than sufficient fodder for future therapy sessions, in which I will have the starring role as Ghengis Khan, Machiavelli and Medea all rolled into one. these are the moments I would gladly trade. These are the times I want to call for a timeout. The Universe is less than obliging.

This isn’t big stuff. Hell, the big stuff is easy. I am the Fixer of Broken Things. So I fix. I act. I do. You shoulder the big stuff because you can’t do anything less. I never realized that it would be the small moments that would trip me up, leave me clueless and frustrated and slightly panicked. You find out the hard way, when it’s 10:00 and you realize you’ve run out of cream for tomorrow’s coffee. It’s that chasm of infinite guilt as you send your kid off to school with that nasty, nagging cough because you have a meeting that you just can’t miss, not today. It’s not signing up for Little League because you work and who the hell calls a practice at 4:00 in the afternoon for God’s sake, and hearing your son say, as you drive past the ball field, in that voice that’s way too mature: “It’s ok, Mommy. Maybe next year.” It’s going it alone, again, ever and always, as you try to navigate through all the lonely, silent days. It’s the easy stuff, the quiet stuff that makes it hard to breathe sometimes.

This is the part, neither big nor easy, but certainly breathless and definitely painful, where I admit that I have no idea what I'm doing. And I'm afraid that I will screw up my kid. Have screwed up my kid. That I'm doing my best, dammit, and am terrified that my best just isn't good enough. This is the part where I say my ego was bruised, and what the hell kind of mother could I possibly be to letsego matter when it comes to her kid? This is the part where I admit, through gritted teeth, that I am more annoyed with the fact that I believed him, rather than the fact that he lied at all.

This is the whispery, secret and ashamed part, where I admit that I had a part to play in this. Not the lying part, but the part that led up to that, kinda-sorta. The part that I knew he was struggling, treading water and not doing a good job at that, and I? I turned a blind eye to it. Ok, if not blind, then at least half-closed and squinty. Because there was the job thing and the bills-to-pay thing and the this-that-and-the-other-thing thing that was really important and had to be done right now and I promise I'll notice you later. And help you later. And teach you. Later.

Later. Ha! He's thirteen: there is no "later."

And I knew that. I knew that he needed me now, and prayed that later would be good enough. Hooray me.

And then I remember: it is a detention, nothing more. Time served, punishment meted. Small stuff.

For all that it can be sad and lonely and silent, it is small stuff.  Painful and prickly and breathtaking-- but small stuff nonetheless.  He is resilient, that boy of mine.  He is bright and funny and smart and kind and thirteen and, yeah; I'll say it again: smart.  He pushes at the boundaries to find his limits (and mine).  He's learning to taste the choices he makes, and savor how they feel against his skin.  He is becoming his own, which is, really, the whole point. 

 

This is small stuff, and these are small moments.  He lied. It's a detention. We survived the storm (even as I brace for the next one).  But for all that, I get friends who remind me to breathe.  They drown out the seductive song of that damned basking salamander and tell me that the small stuff is just that: small.  They tell me that even the big stuff is small. 

 

In the midst this, I have found a few small truths:  Parenting is tough (single or paired or in whatever village-shaped iteration one has cadged together to get through these moments).  I screw up, make mistakes, doubt and wonder and panic and dither.  I love my son.  Fiercely, unconditionally, wholly. I love him even when he lies, even when he gets caught.  And for all that I screw up and doubt and dither, my son knows that.  Above all else, he knows that he is loved. 

 

The trick, I think, is to breathe long enough to gather in all these moments– not just the minor panic and small fears, but the triumphs and joys, and-- most of all-- love, so that we can find that what we get, what we really get when all is said and done, is a life.  Far from perfect, far from solitary.  We get a life filled with everything and then some.  And then I remember that it is all small stuff and I am filled.