Family of Five

Vigilance

I try.

I try to be a good person.  I try to give way, on the sidewalk, in the road, in line for groceries or stamps. I try to smile, and be kind to people. I try to be honest, even when that’s difficult. I think it’s important. I try to be rational. When I feel very strongly that I am entirely in the right, I know that I must not be. I try to figure out how I might be at fault, how I might stand in the other person’s shoes and see how what I’ve done, or not done, how I could have contributed to the problems between us. I try to set my emotions aside, and remember that no matter how angry I am, some things are more important than being right. Or feeling right.

But I won’t lie here: it’s not easy. I like being right as much as anyone does, and maybe more so. I’ve been told over the years that I am “competitive,” and “aggressive,” and “harsh,” and sometimes I feel like the people around me are unjustifiably afraid of me, or afraid of what I might do, or say. And their fear? It feels like judgment, and it makes me angry.

And then I do slip, and say something that I regret as soon as it’s out of my mouth—or worse, say something I think is perfectly appropriate until someone checks me. And then that fear I mentioned? It feels like judgment and it makes me really, deeply, unsure of myself.  Which I don’t like. And which pisses me off.

I wonder, then, am I mean, and I don’t even know it? That in spite of all my trying to be good, and live right, and do good even when it costs me—in money, time, or pride—that maybe I’m just delusional. Maybe I just hold onto superficial nice things I do, or say, or think as evidence that I’m a good person. But in reality—some indefinable something that everybody but me can see—I’m really just a stone-cold bitch.

It shuts me down. Makes it hard to think, hard to write, hard to talk.

You want to know a secret? Mental illness runs in my family. My grandmother had breakdowns, more than one. At least two of my great uncles killed themselves; and in my parent’s generation at least two more suicides—that I know of. And although suicidal isn’t my problem (I have others) I worry about going crazy. Specifically, that I might go crazy and not be able to stop it, or not be able to recognize that it’s happening to me.

Or sometimes I worry that I might already be crazy. Because that’s the way it happens, right? From inside your own head you can’t tell. You think what you’re doing makes perfect sense.

First Day of School

And so, so excited. She loves school, like her mama did, but she's shy in new situations, which her mama never was. She's there now and although I'm sure it's going well, I'm nervous. We were escorted to her classroom after the bell rang (the Head Teacher takes an actual bell down the playground and rings it), so that we could meet her classroom teacher and see where her room is. She has a male teacher again this year, and he was calling roll and asking the children whether they're having "school dinner" or "packed lunch." He asked Girlish as she walked in the room, and she was a bit confused about how she was supposed to answer, so she said, "School dinner," so quietly he had to ask her again. I fought down the urge, first to answer for her, and then, to sneak up to her seat and give her a little pep-talk. As he went down the roll after her, we learned that the standard roll-call exchange actually goes like this:

"Johnny Whitsteed?"

"Good morning, Mr. Guy. School dinner, please," or, "Good morning, Mr. Guy. Packed lunch, please."

The British are really rather proper compared to, "Here," which is what I used to say when they called my name. And please? Please.

Then Mr. Guy assigned Girlish a "friend for the day," so hopefully that will go well. I mean, we walked back by the front office with the assigned friend and Girlish to drop off the class roll, and although she didn't say a word to any of us, I'm sure she was just feeling shy, like Girlish was herself. I keep thinking about it though, wishing he could've assigned her a more talkative friend. But I didn't go back to the room to suggest that. That would be inappropriate--even I know that. I wouldn't want to hurt that rude little girl's feelings, right? Maybe that's the just the British way, to not say a word to your assigned friend.

Sigh. It feels like a long time until 3:15.

Sorry for the not-posting

Sorry for all the not-posting, everyone, but I have been busy. I am applying to grad school. Again. Not because I didn't get in the first time, but because unexpected events meant I couldn't go. See exhibit A:

Then, my planned deferral for this year got derailed by our decision to move to London. I posted about that here.

And I thought, you know, that I'd wait awhile before trying to do something again. Maybe take some photography courses in the meantime. But as the deadlines for the low-residency programs at Bennington and Warren Wilson rolled around again, I couldn't get it out of my head. I dabble in photography and blogging is fun, but a personal essayist I am not (ask Ann) and my photographic skills are pretty mediocre. Fiction is what I do best, and even if it's not good enough I'm still better at that than anything else. And so I have to give it a shot. To see what I can do if I REALLY focus on it, and give it the time and attention I never seem to be able to otherwise.

Really, no matter what it costs, I have to try. Because nothing else is as important to me--except maybe my chickens. And sometimes not even them.

Things I Miss

My pans. When oh, when will my pans arrive? Fiona left us a couple of pans, a few dishes, a mixing bowl, 2 cookie sheets and some flatware. Some odd glasses and mugs. I favor the one with sketches of Pooh Bear, not because I love Pooh, but because it is the largest. The pans are crap. I would have left them behind, too. They heat up, in like one spot, exactly where the burner is touching them, and despite the nonstick coating everything sticks to them and I have burned more in the last month than in the last ten years.

I miss my mugs. I miss the small brown clay one, round like a ball in the palm of my hand, with its rough exterior and carefully finger-painted stripes, its smooth green interior. I miss the blue clay one, with its faded suggestion of a dragonfly on the side, the one that feels as if it was made for my hand, fatter and thicker at the bottom and more narrow at the chipped rim, so my tea stays warm.

I miss my teapots.

My pans are Calphalon, by the way. They are thick and heavy and they get hot fast; they heat evenly.

I know I'm rambling but I also miss my clothes. I thought I brought enough to get by with Babe-ish, but she has outgrown just about everything in her drawers. And I miss our drawers.

I miss putting my children to sleep in their beds, and I wish I had their furniture so I could set up their rooms and put out their toys and make them more at home here.

I miss my books. My god, I really miss my books. I have a list of them that I use to make sure I’m actually reading all the books I buy, and today I was looking at that list and wishing I had any one of those books here so I could read them. I am working on a story about mental illness, told in the second person, and I need my Lorrie Moore, my Julie Orringer, my Mark Haddon.

Because I have been feeling this way, I have been calling the movers, trying to get some sort of status report on our things. I called before we left for Germany, trying to talk to “Dave,” some guy who was supposed to know how to help us. Dave was out, but he’d be back around 2:00. So I called back at 2:00, and Dave was busy, could he call me back? Sure, I said, leaving my California number--we have, via the marvels of modern technology, ported our old number so that it rings in our house in London. It couldn’t be easier, really for Dave and his people to call us back. So, of course, he never called.

When I returned from Germany, I called. Because of the time difference, I was able to call the night I got in, after taking one plane, three trains and a cab to get to our house. Dave was unavailable, could he call me back tomorrow?

I called on Wednesday, and Dave was—you guessed it—on the phone, and could he call me back?

Today, I had no illusions, really, that Dave might call. I called him, but I was prepared to tell Andy or Joe or whoever happened to answer the phone that I had called three days in a row, and twice last week, and I was prepared to wait for Dave to come the phone. Tell him it’s me again; tell him I’m waiting, please.

So, I talked to Dave just now, and he told me, yeah, he needed my address so he could send me a FedEx with some paperwork they needed.

I gave him the address and asked what sort of paperwork? “Oh, copies of your passports, a couple other things, then we can ship your stuff out.”

“Okay,” I said, not getting it, “Has it arrived in London, then?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, “It’s still sitting in our warehouse in Oakland.”

* * *

I could go on, obviously. I could tell you exactly what I said to him, about why no had one called me for 60 days to let me know they needed some “paperwork,” about how I had FedExed them money to expedite the shipment and had called them repeatedly, and was never told anything about “paperwork”; about how I was practically camping in an apartment with 3 children in London, waiting on our things, and even, about how my baby was fucking outgrowing her clothes waiting for them to arrive, and could he please, rather than making me wait on the international mail, just tell me what they needed, and work with me to expedite it so that our stuff could leave the mother-fucking dock, like, yesterday two months ago?

I am trying to get my head around this. I am getting ready to write some letters. I will not. Cry. I will not cry. I won’t.

Going to bed now.

Winged Sunset, originally uploaded by texasgurl.

I had big plans to do a sweet self-portrait of me and my chickens tonight, reading a story by lamplight in their sparsely-furnished bedroom—maybe in black and white—and write about how I am trying to help them regain some normalcy after all our travels. I wanted to say that I am trying to feed them earlier, and put them to bed on time, and settle into something of a routine again, because I love them and take good care of them and I am such a fantastic mother.

You know how this story ends, right?

So, since we landed in our new digs, Boyish has determined to discover what exactly will happen if he seriously injures his baby sister. He has pushed, kicked, and pulled her over onto the floor, the bedframe, the wooden train tracks strewn about the living room. The way I figure it, it’s only a matter of time until he discovers the stairs.

So while I’m setting up our portrait, he saw that Babe-ish had his toothbrush (which he never uses) in her fat little fist. So he snatched it away, making her cry. I snatched it back, explaining how snatching is wrong, and gave it back to the her. He then grabbed some dental flossing thing that Girlish had gotten out and left on the floor (we’re really into dental hygiene around here) and began poking the baby on top of her sweet little head.

She is only 9 months old—she still has a soft spot there, and what I do not need right now is a freak accident and a brain-damaged baby. Or my son psychologically scarred for life because of said freak accident and potential brain damage. So, since I am gunning for Meanest Mother of the Year, I grabbed his arm and yelled at him. He cried. She cried. I sat on the floor and tried not to cry. While they both climbed all over me, wailing. It was a Kodak moment.

I read earlier, here, that jet-lag makes a person irritable. Who knew? I thought it was just the personal upheaval and transatlantic move. Honestly, I mean, it makes perfect sense—I can’t sleep; I’m utterly exhausted for a thousand reasons—the person I should be putting to bed early, apparently, is me.

Ahhhh-stin

Kids At The Springs, originally uploaded by texasgurl.

God, I love Austin. It is a place where you see people doing cool shit like playing guitar at the pool.

It's a really beautiful city, where there are green trees and blue swimming holes, bike trails and hippies, and healthy, happy people walking down streets filled with fun places to eat, look at art, hear poetry, buy t-shirts, and drink coffee. It is still a place that feels like home to me.

So yesterday I packed the chickens in the car and drove a couple hours to spend time with my dear friend Stew and his lovely wife, Angela. They have a darling house in East Austin, just across the 35 from 6th St., and their guest room has leather rug and a euro-futon. Suh-weet.

Stew and Angela are the kind of people that seem to enjoy, rather than merely tolerate, the chaos that ensues when you invite a harried mother and her three rowdy children into your home. Stew never says, "I'm serious," unless he isn't, and I love him so much I let him give my children gummy worms.  They welcomed us with beer and watermelon, then took us to Barton Springs and grilled steak for us in their front yard afterwards. I am so lucky.

And today there is more good news: Rod has found us a place to live, and it looks fantastic. It is four bedrooms over three stories, wood floors and carpeted bedrooms, a family bathroom AND a spare shower downstairs, a large garden, is three minutes down the street from a lovely park, seven minutes down the street from an even bigger and more fabulous park, less than 10 minutes from a train station, and it looks like we have a choice of two or three good schools. Halle-effing-lujah, people—just give me a couple months to get settled and then you can all start stopping over on your European vacations.

Good news is a good thing, because yesterday I was barely holding it together. After I arrived at Stew’s it seemed that all the distractions of these recent weeks came crashing into my head, and I could barely function. It took me, like, half an hour to pack 3 swimsuits in a bag to take to the pool, and another 15 minutes to untangle the strings of my swimsuit so I could put it on. And the longer I wrestled with the suit—that I’ve worn hundreds of times without a problem—the more I marveled: what the hell is wrong with me? It was embarrassing even without anyone watching. When I finally got out to the car, Stew kindly let me know that I had left my fly open, and then, as we crossed the freeway on our way to the pool Meena yelled, “Mommy! Marlee’s not buckled!” So there I was trying to drive, call Stew to tell him I need to pull over, and direct Meena not to let Marlee climb out of her seat. And freak out. But that was fairly easy, considering.

This is the ice-cream juggler at Amy's Ice Cream, where we went after our swim, and where Oliver completely and utterly lost his mind. As we got ready to leave I took his practically-finished ice cream away because he was playing with it, and he cried, and when he wouldn’t stop crying I took him in the car with me rather than letting him ride back with Stew and Angela.

I am a hardass, I know.

Anyway, he threw the mother of all tantrums. He screamed so loud, and so long, that I had to roll the windows up in the car for fear that someone in traffic might report us to child-protective services or something. It was such a spectacular fit that I recorded some of it, but I’ll upload later because I didn’t bring my uploader thingie with me to Austin. After we got back I had to hold him in a quiet room for a while until he calmed down, after which he spent the rest of the evening cheerfully trying to injure his baby sister: he sat on her, slammed a heavy toy down on the table right in front of her face, picked her up and tossed her down so that she would fall, and pushed her over two or three times. After too many time-outs and too many stern talkings-to, I finally put us all to bed.

We are better this morning. We have a place to live in London.

Landed in Texas

Landed in Texas, originally uploaded by texasgurl.

I am here, in Texas, staying at my mother’s house. I am in limbo. There are loose ends to tie up, and I am trying to do that, but I am also just floundering a bit. I haven’t taken many pictures, haven’t gotten too much accomplished, and I fear I may be eating too much Mexican food. Assuming it’s possible to eat too much Mexican food. Which it isn’t.

My mother, god bless her, is a physician, and has just about the healthiest habits of any person you’ll ever meet. She shuns anything with any kind of flour, sugar, or dairy in it, and she has an entire cupboard filled with vitamin and nutritional supplements. Since my children’s favorite food is macaroni and cheese, it’s hard to coordinate a dinner I can make in under two hours that both she and my children will eat.

I exaggerate--but only a little. The good part is that—because of my mother—my kids are generally willing to eat salmon and walnuts and spinach with their mac & cheese. Mother’s been working for the last few years on the cutting edge of nutritional medicine—the idea that disease begins at the level of the cell itself, and that the foods we choose to eat can prevent or promote disease. She believes, and I tend to agree, that someday we will look back on this period in our history as a time when disease and obesity rose to alarming levels due to the overwhelming prevalence of mass-manufactured and processed food in the American diet. And I’m not just talking about the worst offenders, like McDonald’s, but about all that boxed and bagged and frozen food we buy at Costco, or Wal-Mart, or our local grocery.

So I do my best, right? My kids eat eggs and flourless bread for breakfast, and they almost never get anything from a can or a box. It's taken a few years, but I have convinced them that McDonald’s is disgusting. And yet, with all this to be proud of, whenever I’m with my mother, I’m totally self-conscious about what they eat. Feeling like I don't measure up because I'm willing to eat cheese. My need for my mother’s approval runs much deeper than my superficial rebellions.

So it bothers me. We have these tense little conversations around meal preparation and grocery shopping—like how to prepare the squash and what sort of oil to use in the stir fry. But what bothers me most is that we don’t share food like we used to. Tomorrow is Ollie’s birthday, and although there will be cake, she won’t eat it. If I make a simple pasta dinner tonight, she will fix herself a little salad or some nuts and soy yogurt instead. And although I’m sure she would say I’m crazy, it  still feels like I’m disappointing her.

Wrenching

Everything In My House Is Gone, originally uploaded by texasgurl.

I’ve spent the better part of the last three days in constant motion, moving through the rooms of my house, the streets of Sacramento, and the airspace over western part of this country. I have bagged garbage, mailed packages, and entertained three kids for eleven hours in the airport, trying to catch a flight to Texas on standby. I have left my home.

On Monday, they packed us. On Tuesday, they finished packing and loaded up the truck. For two days I moved through the rooms of my house, sorting clothes and rescuing objects, trying to stay ahead of the movers. I bonded with Marvin, the foreman of our moving crew.

I only left the house a couple of times for things that had to be done, like shipping all our photographs and memorabilia to Rod’s parents’ house for safekeeping and picking up the rental car. I returned from the post office Tuesday afternoon to find them nearly finished, down to a few boxes and the last few pieces of furniture. Marvin met me at the door, asking for socket wrenches. The bunk beds in Oliver’s bedroom had had to be put together inside the room—there was no way to get them out without taking them apart. I found the guys struggling with the beds in the doorway, trying to angle them out by opening the door and jamming one end of the bed into the furnace closet.

“Stop,” I told them. “I’ll find you some wrenches.”

“What about your friend?” Marvin asked me, referring to Tony, who’d been hanging around the house helping out, and who is, among other interesting things, a genuine rocket scientist. He definitely owned a set of socket wrenches.

So I ran out the front door, dialing Tony on my cell phone and wondering how in hell I’d get back before they damaged the bed or the wall.  As I crossed our yard to my rental car, parked in front of Gary and Ivan’s, it occurred to me that I would sure enough eat a set of socket wrenches if Gary didn’t own one.  I passed the car without slowing, and bounded right up to their front door and knocked. 

The house was quiet, and I wondered if maybe they weren’t home. In my panic, I turned from the front door almost immediately, and saw Gary dragging something through the back gate.  “Gary,” I called, already crossing their driveway. “Do you have a—“ 

He turned to me, his face pure kindness as usual, and suddenly my throat closed up. “Socket wrenches,” I choked, “I need—“ And then, to my utter astonishment, I was fighting tears. Ivan had come out the front door, answering my knock, and I stood between them, fanning my temples with my hands and saying, “I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.”

They got me the socket wrenches, of course, and didn’t embarrass me by trying to talk to me about it. But it was so strange—so disconcerting—to find myself crying and not know why. So I’ve been thinking about it, and I want you to think about it, too. Please, take a moment for me, and think about your home and how much of your life takes place there. Think about what it means to walk away from the building where you sleep, work, make love, and tuck your children into bed at night. It's where you keep your food, hide your stash, and invite your friends for dinner. Now, think about removing all your things from those rooms where you live, and what your life might look like when stripped to the bare walls.

Can you see it?

Now, go get me a socket wrench.

Gary & Ivan's Garage Sale

Gary & Ivan's Garage Sale, originally uploaded by texasgurl.

These are my next-door neighbors, Gary and Ivan.

That's Ivan on the left, and Gary on the right. But to us they're always Gary & Ivan, not Ivan & Gary. Ivan is more reserved, often bustling around in the background while Gary stands at the foot of their driveway, holding court with one neighbor or another.

Unlike us, with our noisy kids and generally disorganized existence, Gary & Ivan are the perfect next-door
neighbors. Their yard is the most fantastic in our culdesac, a Seussian landscape of native California plants and a tumbled-rock streambed they constructed themselves. Ivan warmed up to me a bit last summer because my morning walks coincided with his morning gardening, and I often stopped to chat him up for a few minutes when I got home.

Gary is the more gregarious of the two, and we got to know him earlier on. He’s the guy on the block who always has excellent information, like, how to get paid for recycling your moving boxes, who will haul away your electronics for free, and where to buy the best yellow lantana. They are the kind of neighbors that you aspire never to let down by allowing the paint on your gutters to peel, your grass to get too high, or your trash cans sitting on the curb too long.

A month or so ago, when we had a garage sale before we put our house on the market, Gary and Ivan said that when we had the next one, we should let them know, because two garage sales are better than one in terms of attracting buyers. So this time around, I placed the ad for a two-house Saturday sale.

On Friday, when that umbrella over Ivan's left shoulder went up, Rod and I knew we were in trouble. Because see, that’s their sale up there, and um, this was ours:

In my brief defense, I will say that this has been an insanely crazy time: Meena’s last week of school, pack-out day coming up on Monday, last-minute good-bye dinners and unexpected wine-drinking marathons with friends. But, honestly, it was so bad that one guy wandered into our garage early on, before we put that sad table out front, and said, “Are you having a sale, too, or do you just have your garage door open?”

California Inking

So, my mother will disapprove, but I got another tattoo. And, with all the things I have to do and should be doing, spending Tuesday getting tattooed was probably not the wisest use of my time. But whatever. I'm transitioning. This is part of my process, a way of marking the occasion.

And although I have always wanted to live overseas, I have realized in contemplating this move that I feel very at home in California--more at home here than anywhere else I've been. Except maybe Austin. But that's Texas, my "where-I-was-born" home, so it doesn't really count in the same way.

California is the first place I've lived where I feel like I'm participating in the culture, rather than just observing it. I got along in Texas because I grew up there; I knew the landscape and understood the people out of our years of sheer proximity. But it was a one-way love, my Texas love. I never felt that Texas really loved me back. I never really belonged there--not in elementary school, when my mother caused a stir by  quitting her job and going to medical school; not in junior high, where I argued with my biology teacher about evolution (he refused to teach it), and certainly not in high school, where I was trapped in some sort of social purgatory for slutty pot-smoking honor students.

But California loves a freak like me. Here, I fit in precisely because I'm a little bit different. Here, my tattoos and my biracial family are not really the norm, but they're not anomaly, either. Californians are more than tolerant of weirdness--they embrace weirdness. I feel like I'm a part of what's going on here. Californians are politically liberal (out here we say "progressive," which sounds more hip), ethnically diverse, and we like to get outside. And if you lived in California you'd like to get outside, too, because it's the most beautiful state in the Union, and one of the prettiest places on earth. We've got Tahoe, Yosemite, Malibu and Death Valley. We've got San Francisco, one of the most aesthetically pleasing cities in the world, and Los Angeles, a hideous hag of a town, but wildly entertaining. And the weather--well, I suspect you've heard about the weather.

When we visited London in April, looking for housing, we sometimes told people that we were moving over from California. On two separate occasions--a woman on the street and a student in the train station--each looking sort of mortified, asked "Why?" as if we'd just told them we were auctioning off our children on eBay. Seriously, they couldn't have been more confused or horrified. And the second time it happened I realized what a shining little gem California is in the eyes of the world, and how lucky we are to have a home here.

So, although I have always considered myself Truly a Texan, and I will always get riled when people talk ugly about Texas (as they are prone to do), I am offically and publicly declaring my undying love and allegiance to my more glamorous and popular home of California. As the Govenator might say:

I'll be back.