The Care and Keeping of a Brain
Ok, even a literary novice like myself realizes that the worst possible ending sentence for a book is “It was all just a dream… or was it?” Which makes me fantasize about a prank appending this sentence to, say, every work in the Penguin Classics series. Watch, I’ll never get a job copyediting now.
Still, I’ve realized that one of my on-going themes is distrust of my own brain… It’s been coming up a lot lately in terms of self-doubt, and the odd circuitousness of knowing how your own head works and trying to out-think it, making a habit of filing doubts away right now because they are not useful to the process of making words come out. The funny thing is how doubts don’t like being filed away, and fight back with meta-doubts about the process, generate stories about people who dismissed as doubts their own intuition and good old common sense and came to terrible ends.
I am sure some of it is defensive, my brain having decided ages ago that should it whisper the most devastating things to me it could imagine it would act as an inocculation or homeopathic against the inevitable criticism coming from elsewhere, and yet when I listen to that I become mistrustful of real flesh-and-blood people saying actual nice things to me. Which is not a good direction to go in.
And it is a double-edged sword, how something can seem diamond-brilliant in the evening, and the next morning you re-read it and are embarrassed to have been seen parading about in such cheap costume jewelry, or can seem a bit tawdry at first and then you understand that there is a deeper glint to it. So, you conclude you have no judgement as far as your writing (and perhaps many other things!) are concerned, and that leaves you with the choice between scribbling in journals that you want burnt upon your demise, trying to find safety in reclusiveness, or at least as much conformity as you can muster, or taking a risk and putting it out there.
Sometimes I wonder if my approach to self-doubt and mistrusting my brain would be something more therapeutic or pragmatic or perhaps hypochondriacal had I been a psychology major instead of a philosophy major. Because I tend to look rather skeptically at the premise of certainty, in the end, after all, that it is not just judgement I am not sure of, but the foundation of knowledge itself (foundations themselve?). Or I wonder if I had been a literature major if I would have taken this as the natural unfoldment of story, our understanding of a situation changes, so instead of pathologizing it or taking it as the crack that admits persistent and pervasive doubt, I might instead have learned to appreciate the way it keeps things from getting too static, heightens the drama, keeps things interesting.
But hey, it was all just a dream… or was it?
Co-Written
So my lovely and talented best friend is doing all sorts of cool stuff towards getting a graphic design degree and she emailed last night asking for help with the text of a pamphlet; she’d just gotten back from a road trip, and that inspired the theme of the project, surviving the family vacation. And so we spent an hour on the phone deciding what to include, and I sat down and typed it up, this is what we came up with…
Perhaps you have run with the bulls in Pamplona, maybe you’ve hunted the rhinoceros in Borneo, participated in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro, trekked to the source of the Nile, or seen the glaciers of Patagonia, but no matter how tough, how adventurous you think you are, we want to prepare you for the ultimate adventure: The Family Road Trip! Do not go unprepared. We have listed some of the major pitfalls that can take out even the most experienced of adventurers, and the best approaches for dealing with them. If you read this and still decided to undertake this risky venture, well, you can’t say we didn’t warn you. Our slogan? “Travelling with kids, all of the work of being at home and none of the conveniences!”
Pitfall #1
The Potty Stop
There is a law that even though you have made everyone visit the bathroom before getting strapped in in the minivan, sometime between wedging every child in with all of the gear that you, the prepared parent could shoehorn in in anticipation of their (almost) every need and your hitting an actual highway on-ramp you will hear the words “I need the potty. BAD!”
Solution #1
Resignation. Heartier souls may carry the coffee can potty kit in the back of the minivan, but it will inevitably be at the bottom of all the other gear you’ve brought, and, to be quite honest, once that can has been filled, you are going to have to find the delicate way to empty it, a prospect at which even the toughest have quailed. So, bite the bullet and pull into the gas station/convenience store, where you are going to run smack into pitfall #2, being…
Pitfall#2
Snacks
Kids are smart. They know that their father feels it violates the laws of capitalism to stop at a gas station with a van that was carefully filled with gas in preparation for this trip the night before just for the sake of using the facilities. They know that their father loves snacks that come in fun and interesting colors and flavors, from tiny balls, to melt-in-your-hand-not-your-mouth goodness, which as a bonus melt in the floormats, also, to smells nature never intended from bananas or watermelons.
Solution #2
Resignation. Yeah, you might have packed healthy snacks like apples and string cheese and crackers. These aren’t going to compete with the Dolly Madison ouevre. So you can comfort yourself with the notion that this is a special occasion, not how you eat every day. And with the fact that the paternal unit of the family is conditioning children to always whine “But remember that time you bought us the super king-sized candy bar?” every time he enters a store with them, which will give you the chance to give a smug little “You made this bed, you lie in it” shrug, which can be SO satisfying. More satisfying than that twinkie youre about to eat, even. Besides, you’re going to be the one detailing the inside of the van when you get home, so you might as well enjoy the bounties of the convenience store before you get busy scrubbing the unidentifiable melting mess.
Pitfall #3
Are We There Yet?
Having exhausted the bathroom and snack avenues of entertainment, your child instinctively knows it is time to turn to the “are we there yet?” entertainment portion of the trip. After all, road trips are Bo-Ring.
Solution #3
Resignation. You can use this as a chance to hone your with with brilliant answers like “Yes, we’re going to have fun frolicking with those cows! Just be careful where you step. ok?”
Disclaimer: You model smart aleck-y responses like this, and guess what those eager minds back there are eagerly learning? But hey, missy, you made your bed, you lie in it.
Pitfall #4
The Golden Arches
When your kids are bored with asking are we there yet and steadfastly unimpressed with your witty answers, they may in the brief quiet tune into the siren call of their own factory-installed Golden Arches Sensors, such that a sixteen month old strapped into a rear-facing infant seat magically becomes aware of the McDonald’s 4 miles ahead and shrieks for you to stop.
Solution #4
Resignation. Really, the food isn’t that bad. And maybe the happy meal toys will keep the children entertained, since the stacks of books, coloring books, electronic noisy toys and your attempts to start a family sing-along just like you remember from your own child have done nothing.
Pitfall #5
Carsickness
So no child of yours has ever had carsickness before, and you curtly dismiss the “I’m miserable” with the cynical sureness that it it is just one more ploy to keep you from getting where you are going. So at the rest stop you roll your eyes and grudgingly give the child the last of the water in your water bottle, telling him to walk around, get fresh air, he’ll feel better. And then he staggers up to you and throws up at your feet.
Solution #5
Resignation. What can you do? You feel guilty? Motherhood _IS_ guilt, didn’t you get that memo?
Pitfall #6
The Backseat Wars
This is an extension of the toy wars, started at home, with the added fuel of body parts touching the wrong half of the bench seat, the “she’s kicking my seat” wars, the “she’s singing” wars, the “she doesn’t like my singing and that hurts my feelings” wars, and the “she made a face” wars. All accompanied with an appeal to your sense of justice, your power to make the offending sibling stop.
Solution #6
Resignation. They don’t get along at home. What makes you think that putting every body into a metal box of 150 cubic feet hurtling along at 70 miles an hour was going to magically change that?
Pitfall #7
The Incessant Questions
From the scientific (why is the sky blue?) to the personal (why can I see the skin on the back of Daddy’s head?), from the legal (why do Mommies and Daddies get to stay up late and we have to go to bed?) to the medical (why am I not supposed to have put that bean up the baby’s nose?) there is no question you can be sure of not hearing, except maybe “Why don’t you relax and enjoy the scenery while I quietly entertain myself back here and maybe take a nap.
Solution #7
Resignation. It’s such a brief period in their lives when they think you know everything. In ten to fifteen years when they are convinced you know nothing, you’re going to look back at this time and sigh with longing. So enjoy it.
Pitfall #8
The Forgotten Item
The forgotten will be an item that is completely irreplaceable, a lovey given by a now-deceased great aunt at the child’s birth or the like. Or if it is something that can be gotten at the next Wal-Mart, well it just won’t be the same.
Solution #8
Resignation. What are you going to do? The unfortunate law is that the more irreplaceable an object is the greater the likelihood it was left in the branches of a tree watching you picnic at a rest stop you will never ever pass again, so if it was left at home, be grateful for that.
Pitfall #9
The Sleeping Baby
The baby falling asleep will inevitably lead to one or more older siblings discovering an intense need to stop again for the bathroom. And the cessation of motion will set off the baby like the bomb in that movie, Speed, where a bomb will go off if the bus’s speed drops below fifty miles an hour.
Solution #9
Resignation. Perhaps if the non-driving parent were a Hollywood stuntman, you could attempt to do a roll out of the minivan as it circles the gas station parking lot, but modern carseats make this impracticable with the older sibling. Which leaves you on the fork of a dilemma, soiled clothes and furious child or screaming infant for the next forty minutes? Either way, it isn’t pretty.
Pitfall #10
The Sleeping Sibling
This is just the converse of the sleeping baby. As soon as the whining stops and you breathe a sigh of relief that the older sibling has drifted off, the baby will develop one those needs that require Immediate Attention, an exploding diaper, a need to nurse, a worrisome cough that you don’t dare investigate. And the moment the van stops the older child will immediately do a re-enactment of pitfalls #1 -8.
Solution #10
Resignation. Athletic and flexible mothers might think they could attempt the “changing the diaper without removing the infant from the carseat” maneuver or the breastfeeding while leaning over the carseat hoping that the shaded windows give some privacy , but it’s going to require breaking seatbelt laws, uncomfortable contortions, and the high probability that even on an empty highway late at night, there will be sudden braking throwing you against the windshield as you try to climb into the backseat over the litter of backpacks, juice boxes, and chirruping electronic toys to reach the baby. It really is not advised.
Pitfall #11
The Used Condom in the Motel Parking Lot
While you are busy trying to get all of the gear you couldn’t live without for two days into the hotel room, do not be surprised if a child runs up shouting “Look at the balloon I found!”
Solution #11
Resignation. Or if you are feeling a little at odds with the person who booked this “Travel Bargain!” over the internet, you could suggest that, since your hands are full right now, maybe daddy would be willing to blow it up.
Pitfall #12
The Un-Baby-proofed Hotel Room
You know hotel rooms were designed by the childless, because the glass carafe to the coffee maker is perched three feet above a hard tile floor, the electrical outlets almost have “Play with me, I’m fun” signs, and the phone is kept at the height where toddlers just learning to pull up can reach them on a bedside table. It’s a bonus to have kids who figure out how to order pay-per-view.
Solution #12
Resignation. Your alternative is staying at the un-baby-proofed home of a relative and getting to hear about the irreplaceable “Precious Moments” figurine your child broke and tried to conceal breaking by flushing the pieces down the toilet, flooding the bathroom, at all family gatherings for the next thirty years.
Pitfall #13
Getting There Means You’re Only Halfway Done!
Yes, that’s right, you get to do it all again to get back home. Disheartening isn’t it? Almost enough to make you consider living in the un-baby-proofed hotel room indefinitely. After all, there’s cable, and somebody else makes up the bed.
Solution #13
Resignation. Or buying the kids all greyhound bus tickets and promising to pick them up at the bus station when you get back home.
Nitpicking
SO someone used the search term “hypographia” to get to my blog. And I used the term to mean the opposite of “hypergraphia” which means the compulsion to write. There is a difference. Greek – ‘hyper’ as a prefix means ‘over’ ‘above,’ ‘beyond’, ‘hypo,’ ‘below’ ‘under’ ‘beneath’. Right – hypergraphia, compulsion to write, hypographia, struggle to write? Aren’t I clever? Sure way to make people look for everything you say that is wrong and stupid. Or just hate you. See, high school experience as the walking dictionary taught me something. But I hate that somebody might be searching for hypergraphia and find my hypographia and think that that is evidence for spelling it the other way. Stupid Greek to make two almost antonyms sound so similar. You cannot even find hypographia in the dictionary. Or not any dictionary I’ve ever used. (Careful with the qualifiers missy). Oh, though, I am in a horrible mood, and something about railing about word usage is so satisfying. I don’t even know why I am in a horrible mood. Yeah, I do. It’s the stupid television on. Too much of the time. Or the computer. Or the video games. This wasn’t how I was going to parent but everything I do or suggest looks kind of dull and stupid next to shooting aliens together on the game that was never going to be played in front of the kids. SO, they’re watching the idiot box, I’m bored and frustrated, and they’re going to grow up not knowing their Greek prefixes. And I should enjoy this time to myself, but instead am doing that lovely thing where I clean to show how annoyed I am (my mother and sister do this too). Not a clear way to send a message.
The problem with time travel, or thoughts while listening to NPR podcasts
So at dinner last night the conversation went like this,
oldest son: So you know what the trouble with time travel is?
his father: There are a bunch. Like the assumption that time is this constant, static thing to travel through…
o.s.: No, I was thinking that it was if you brought currency with you into the past, everyone would think it was counterfeit.
h.f.: Well, one depressing theory I have heard is that time travel is scientifically inevitable, and the fact that we have not been visited by people from the future is evidence that we’re going to destroy ourselves.
(Cheery thought and I am not even going to go into the problems with that argument, because nothing tops my son’s response)
o.s.: What makes anyone think that any time travelers would want to visit this time period?
On that terribly nerdy note, NPR had two stories in their most emailed stories and 7 am news summary podcasts, one on this giant spider web in Texas — what it is it with spiders this year? I had a web spun across the top of my water cup the other day when it was put down for just a few minutes, have spider webs spanning it seems the space between any two bushes or structures in the yard, and it wasn’t like this a year ago. The other story was on a United Nations report presented in Vienna about global warming leading to increased flooding and mosquitoes and disease, particularly malaria. 2030. I’m all for coming up with time travel to send the giant spider webs to then, but have decided as a precaution to keep with the practice of gently removing the spiders in house and yard to someplace safe and out of the way.
In Memoriam
On June 12th, my grandmother, Mary Bogart, passed away. She would have been 100 on September 20th of this year, and we’re planning to be in New Mexico on that day for a family gathering and memorial service. When our first child was born, he had six great grandparents, all but my father’s parents who passed away my senior year in high school, and now our boys have only their great grandmother, my father-in-law’s mother. I am so grateful they will have memories of all these people. It also means that we’ve had more funerals in the last five years than in any other period in my life. It doesn’t seem to get any easier. My mother asked me several weeks ago to write something for the collection of memories of my grandmother that she’s putting together. This is what I came up with:
This is hard to write. Maybe because if I were trying to describe Grandma to somebody who had never met her, I would start with the story of bringing home a report card in middle school that had five A+s and one A, and showing it to her and being asked “So why isn’t there a plus next to this one?” And maybe that would make it sound like she was tougher than she was. Because I never doubted that she loved me, and in the question about why there wasn’t the plus was the faith she had in me, that I could do anything. And that was a gift. When I tell people about my grandmother I describe coming to visit her in her 90’s and there being an algebra book lying on the table, about her practicing the piano into her 70’s, not because she was going to be hitting Carnegie Hall but because it meant something to her. I tell people that what I learned from her about living a long and happy life was staying active, keeping your mind stimulated, holding to faith, being of service to others. That what I learned from her was that love can be expressed in quiet actions, the baking of birthday cakes and taking of walks, as clearly as it is in lots of words. And yes, she was a tough woman, which has helped me to understand that I can be tough when I need to be, that it’s better sometimes to meet adversity with pragmatism and action than with self-pity, but that that toughness is not exclusive of lovingness. And maybe the thing I would then describe to someone who had never met my grandmother, if I could keep it together, is the gift that came with her slow decline in the last few years of that toughness falling away a little, and how when I last visited New Mexico, we didn’t exchange a lot of words, even though there are a lot of questions I would have loved to have asked her but never did, but I sat and held her hand before leaving and when I got up to go there were tears in both of our eyes, and that there was something there that neither she nor I had the words to express, but it was expressed anyway.
Hypographia
So some days writing seems like something I cannot help doing, something as natural as breathing, something I wake up looking forward to doing, the daily opportunity to capture some of the words and thoughts that have been drifting around in my head. And some days it feels like torture.
The blog seems like an additional pressure, I don’t want to disappoint anyone, I am sure that anyone reading is going to get sick of it and stop reading entirely, and of course, I have the stats chart conveniently provided by WordPress to back me up (would I be happier with it disabled?). Or I open the computer and read a dozen other blogs and either dismayed at how brilliant the brilliant ones are, or at how the ones that are more like social connection-points for groups of friends seem completely alien to me, in-jokes and empathy and support, how BAD bad blogs can be, how I feel boxed in to this tone, this voice, of having a thesis sentence, elaborating, commentating, and it’s as bad as hearing my own voice recorded, as bad as seeing a photograph of myself on one of my picky days when all I can see is blemishes and hair sticking out funny or not liking the way that shirt fits — a photo, that left for a year or two I might pick up and notice how happy we all look in it.
And I am still here trying. I do know that it’s a cyclical thing, too, that rough spots are followed by easier ones, that on the days when I cannot get a sound I like out of the violin or viola, I still practice, though I might work on just the most basic stuff, saving the expressive bits for another day. I also am willing to experiment a bit with tone, and keep pondering appropriate blog-fodder: I surprised myself writing “the most personal writing is not about our medical histories or our sex lives, the things that would hurt other people to read, but the stuff that tells you what it feels like to be me” in a comment-conversation and I am still pondering that.
What has it felt like to be me today? I guess I am muddling through the “doing it imperfectly because there aren’t any do-overs” with parenting — my kids deserve someone more patient and perhaps willing to spend more hours coloring and playing board (bored?) games and go on nature walks and, and, and… well all the things I wasn’t doing when I was reading this great “Reader’s Manifesto” in the Atlantic Monthly, an attack on the pretentiousness of American literary prose that makes me feel better about the books that have left me cold. But it’s a long article and the kids were pretty much playing video games while I read it and I wasn’t thinking about them at all. And they were playing video games while I wrote my morning pages. And while I sorted through the papers on my desk for any important back to school notices and answered emails that date back to when we were camping. And talked on the phone with my best friend. And I wonder if I’ve crossed the line from “valuing self-sufficiency” to mostly-benign neglect. And I know that once school starts we’ll be back to virtually no screen time Monday – Friday, that I still read to them, with them every day, practice with them happily, that they are, fundamentally ok, but it still feels like I ought to do better.
Being me today involved going to the back-to-school picnic potluck (are potlucks going to be obsolete when everybody’s dietary restrictions finally explode into our consciousness?) and after going through the line to get my food sitting down at on of the only spots open, at the end of a table next to two women who clearly knew each other and were gossiping about who was there and who had just gotten married and whose daughter was starting high school… and Raven put down his plate and popped back into line to get some food for the shorter members of our family, and I sat there and ate and these women didn’t acknowledge my existence and I didn’t see any easy opening there. So when I looked over and noticed my oldest son sitting by himself eating, I jumped up and ran to him. And he really didn’t seem able to go up to any of the kids from his class and start a conversation, or maybe just wasn’t that interested, and I didn’t want to pressure or push, but I worried a little when he describes himself as a “loner” because really, he’s also a kid who knows how to be a great friend, has these leadership-y abilities to come up with cool games and organize the kids around him, has this lovely moral reasoning ability and personal code of conduct. But, ack, what was the model I was providing him? I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone there. Actually, the population of parents of gifted kids that this was, seems a bit introverted and eccentric generally, anyway. But we ate as a family except for the second-born who was joyfully greeted by all of his friends, and after eating Raven decided this was boring and not a good use of our time. And the oldest son and I didn’t argue.
Being me today felt like Portland hitting 95 degrees after yesterday’s was 85 and the day before 76, was just uncomfortable and cross and sticky, and after the fiasco of the picnic we couldn’t stand coming home to the house without air conditioning, and since it was going to have to be done at some point we might as well go get school supplies at Target. Which was air conditioned. But out of pencils. And pink erasers. And the little personal pencil sharpeners on all three boys’ lists. The denuded bins, the pawed-through stacks, misplaced crayons in the spot where pencils ought to have been, cardboard displays falling apart, and empty shelves seemed to be echoing with contempt for people who put this off to the last minute. Like, a week before school begins. Or maybe it was just making more room for Halloween candy.
Being me today felt like the only real redemption was to cross the parking lot and go into Barnes and Noble where Raven and I could switch off turns in the children’s section: I found Wislawa Szymborska’s Poems New and Collected, and Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale, he got Twyla Tharp’s Creative Habit and Madeline Bruser’s The Art of Practicing. And being me today felt like that redeemed the whole rest of the day.
Conspiracy
Dear Person Who Has Been Slipping My Children Behaviorist Theory,
Please stop! I don’t know who you are, but there is clear evidence that someone has, behind my back, been spoon-feeding the precocious darlings some B.F. Skinner. I expect any day, to be rifling through their backpacks and find a pamphlet “Training Your Parents in 10 Easy Steps” with beginner level steps like:
1. Wait for the moment when the parental unit is clearly relaxed and not thinking about you and choose that moment to torture your brother until he screams loud enough for the neighbors to surely contemplating calling Child Welfare.
2. Make it clear that the person who does most of the picking up in the house understands that the inevitable consequence of time spent with a computer is a bucket of really tiny lego pieces dumped in the kitchen.
3. Try getting up before your parents are awake and entertaining your little brother by flushing toys down the toilet, and then say “But we were playing quietly so you can sleep because I love you!”
4. The phone ringing is your bell for snack time.
5. If you behave atrociously enough at the grocery store, then your parents will find themselves willing to make catsup soup for dinner rather than take you shopping.
6. The sound of the vacuum cleaner is your cue to do science experiments in the bathroom sink. Clean-up in the bathroom is your cue to take crackers into the living room.
7. Sleep deprivation is your friend. Your parents will have neither judgement nor will power left when they are tired enough.
8. There is no reinforcement like intermittent reinforcement. So some days give your mother an hour of reading peacefully while you play sweetly with your brothers, and other days every time you see her glancing longingly at the book discover an “emergency”: scream about a bug only you can see, worry about volcanoes, lose your favorite toy dinosaur (bonus points for down the toilet) experiment with ways of pouring your own cereal, milk, and just for variety’s sake, try sweetening that cereal with maple syrup, making sure that it’s conspicuously all over the kitchen.
9. Make sure you reward behaviors you want to encourage, so every grudging concession to letting you watch tv or play video games that she swore would never enter her house should get her an hour of sanity-saving peace, quiet, and order.
10. If you slip and let her find the pamphlet, for all of our sake don’t let her have time to blog about it, because we surely don’t want word to spread. Remember, loose lips sink the Lego ships that you built with all of the coveted red bricks that your brother wanted.
See, I’ve been reduced to trying to write cutesy parenting humor, because every other serious thought I’ve had in the last three days has been interrupted by calls to referee who-started-its and the dread sentence, rising on a wail “But it was an ACCIDENT!” I know a sense of humor is the most important tool I have in parenting, but it feels like such a damn cliché, and it’s been done so much better already. But then, maybe I am just subject to forces much bigger than I am.
