For those of you who are familar with this story don't spoil it for the newbies!!! Crys
The smallest of details can design how an entire life is spent like pennies on candy or squandered like stolen pirate’s treasure. My moment in time was etched in stone during the summer of the change from elementary to junior high school. I was one of those children that found true joy in making my parents proud of me. This was the year that my mother and I tried to be friends and stop having that hostile war that two females living in the same house have had for centuries. I was what has now become known as, in the current vernacular, a "tween"—still looking for my place in the family structure.
My mother, someone I had always seen as perfect and as someone with obsessive compulsion disorder, worked very hard for me to see her that way—a beautiful dark haired woman with an angry edge that every teen dreams of honing. I had always lived my life in her shadow and as the ways of children, had found myself lacking in all ways save one. I was compassionate where she was not. I was the girl-child who could cry at the drop of a dime, or with the man from the Hallmark commercial, without shame.
That Saturday was hot, sticky, and wet, like fresh honey poured from the comb. The inside of our house was muggy hot, causing curls to fizzle and the dreaded afro look. As my mother and I looked for something, anything, to ease the discomfort and keep our clothes from sticking to us like overripe banana peels, we decided now was the time to have a heartfelt conversation. Now was the time for my mother to find a way for me to perfect my edge.
I had always been the tomboy of the house, more male then even my brother. I was the one who Dad called when he was going to the part store or the wrecking yard, so any excuse my mother could cook up in those days to keep me out from underneath a car was a truly good day to her. If I deliberately chose her over Dad it was a great day. So with that in mind I chose to spend the day with her.
"Hey, Mom, what do you think we should do today? Wanna watch the NASCAR races with me?" I yelled from my room looking for my favorite grubby blue jeans.
"Hey, Amani, let’s do something entirely different today. How about we go to the mall and price you a new dress," she answered, standing in my doorway. I froze like a deer in headlights. "Oh, sweet lord: my mother, the mall, and a dress all in the same afternoon, there really is no God."
The disdain for the standard tomboy dress I was wearing and the disaster that was my room, glistened on her face like morning dew. Her brown, slightly almond shaped eyes flitted from first my wrinkled and worn "RATT" poster to the unfinished carburetor sitting on my floor to the large soda stains on the chest of my favorite t-shirt. My heart pounded and I hoped that today of all days would not turn into the age-old argument about how a girl’s room should be as beautiful as she is, blah, blah, blah. "Oh, God" ran through my mind like a heavy hurricane as I thought "What have I set myself up for?"
"No, how ’bout we do something here in the house."
"Okay let’s redecorate the living room and dining room," she replied and I breathed a silent sigh of relief.
"Sure," I replied with a deep and heavy sigh. At least I wouldn’t have to change my clothes.
"I made you a nice healthy breakfast," my mother said as I ran down the stairs to the dining room. What should I be greeted by but my mother and a breakfast of grapefruit and toast with black coffee and water. Oh look, we’re on the Mayo clinic diet again.
"Thanks, Mom, so what are you planning for the living and dining rooms today?" I asked, trying very hard not to be upset by what was so obviously an attempt to comment on my size twelve jeans. "You know I have always wanted to ask you a lot of questions about when you where growing up?"
"Really, what do you want to know?" she replied.
"Well, Mom, what were you like growing up, like did you like to go to the mall a lot then or did you climb trees?" I asked, faintly remembering a story my father had told about my mother and a pair of converse tennis shoes that she wore until they wore out.
"Oh, I was a very nice little girl but we were very poor so I couldn’t go to the mall or things like that. We always had to work in the fields or come home and work" she replied.
I smiled, imagining my mother working hard without giving direction or as we liked to call it in my house "executive direction". "Tell me more, Mom," I said as I thought of her and my aunt trying to get away with as little as possible done to play at the school yard.
"You know I always wanted to be like the popular girls in my school, dressed really nice with pretty lunch bags and my hair done up real nice," she said, a small wistful smile playing at the corners of her mouth and eyes. She sparkled remembering her fondest wishes. I thought of how beautiful she was and how I hoped to one day be as beautiful as her. The glow that emanated from her shone like Apollo’s sun carriage and lit her with angelic beauty. She reminded me of Hepburn or Bacall; classic and mysterious all at the same time.
"I had the same wish for you when you were born," she said.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my head cocked to the side like a small reflective puppy.
"Well, when you were born I wanted you to be a little girl, pretty and delicate, but you were never what I wanted," she said while looking down into her breakfast almost dismissively.
I will always remember that conversation and in vivid detail, right down to the smell in the air—bitter coffee and browned butter. Sometimes the things we remember in life seem small and insignificant at the time but they can change mountains, oceans, even valleys with a tone.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Chimp
I had no idea how to answer Rachel’s question it just seemed so preposterous.
“Jim and I have to go to Vancouver for the weekend can you babysit Buster?” Buster the 9 month chimp they had brought home from their last trip to Africa. They said they had found him just sitting on the trail next to his dead mother wailing like a lost child and Rachel just melted. It probably didn’t help that she was suffering from Empty Nest syndrome either. So here it is a time to be brave.
“Okay but I need all the information to contact you if anything goes wrong”
“Oh Sara this is so great thanks so much you saved my marriage, Jim said if I didn’t make this trip he was filing for divorce and you’re the 5th person I called.”
Oh god what have I gotten myself into I thought as Rachel rattled on about Buster's feeding schedule.
“Oh Rach, I gotta go the baby is crying just make sure that you write everything down for me. I think I can handle it.” I dashed off the phone as fast as I could. Okay Henry I am coming I called out as I paraded through our 50,000 square foot home thinking I had done pretty well for myself considering I had been born to a crack addict and left in the garbage can at birth, a throw away the papers had called me well look at me now.
My husband is CEO of one of the biggest importer/exporters in the US; my three boys were popular and athletic at their exclusive prep school not bad for a ward of the state raised in Cabrini Green. These thoughts all raced through my mind as I walked to Henry’s suite if I can survive that beginning then I can survive a monkey for a weekend, those were the last sane thoughts I had concerning the monkey.
The rest of the week moved at its regular blurred pace and as Friday afternoon approached a sense of missing something stuck with me. The boys came home from school and the nanny began Henry’s scheduled Spanish lessons when the phone rang. “Oh Sara,” said Rachel and as I heard her voice the nagging feeling replaced it’s self with the knowledge of what I had missed. “Did you forget about Buster? The daycare just called and they need you to pick him up right away, the regular kids are coming and Buster isn’t allowed to be around them anymore.”
“Oh Rach, I did forget but I will send the nanny, oh wait, I guess I’ll pick him up myself. Sorry see you when you get back” I raced out of the house and drove the 3 blocks to the daycare to pick up Buster. The teacher seemed genuinely happy to see me and had all of Buster’s things packed and ready to go. “Make sure to remind Rachael that Buster cannot come back on Monday”, she told me as I loaded the car with Buster’s things and I wondered yet again what I had gotten myself into. Buster was surprisingly calm and docile on the exchange and ride home where I didn’t stop but picked up my two oldest boys, D’artagan and Liam.
As we took off so I could take the boys to the baseball fields for practice Buster seemed to wake up as Liam poked him in the arm. Buster’s screams where worse than anything I have ever heard. Even a colicky baby cannot compare to the screams that seemed to erupt from Buster’s throat. And the hand motions that followed were frenzied and scary. I pulled over as Liam began to cry and D’artagan laughed hysterically. I tried lulling Buster by singing as I pulled Liam slowly from the car. D’artagan in the chaos of the situation sat there as Buster began to pull the car seat apart while still seated in it.
“Dart,” I called softy “come on Dart get out of the car” but Dart just sat there watching the carnage. Buster pulled all the stuffing out of the seat and then began to pull his own clothing apart. Right past my head flew his little sailor shirt and hat, then his little shoes, Thank God they were the soft-soled kind. I was franticly trying to get Dart’s attention without causing Buster to notice my hand and head motions. Finally he turned to look at me with a wide-eyed grimace on his face.
“Dart,” I whispered, “open the hatch and slide out the back door as quietly as you can.” At this point Buster discovered his baby bag sitting right beside him. As I quickly closed the side panel on the minivan the thunderous crash of baby food jars slamming into the glass was heard three blocks away. The cops appeared to me as if by magic as I stood dumfounded by the innate stupidity of the human condition. Here I was a soccor mom/upper class housewife with this insane belief that I could care for a wild animal as if I were babysitting my neighbor’s child.
The End
“Jim and I have to go to Vancouver for the weekend can you babysit Buster?” Buster the 9 month chimp they had brought home from their last trip to Africa. They said they had found him just sitting on the trail next to his dead mother wailing like a lost child and Rachel just melted. It probably didn’t help that she was suffering from Empty Nest syndrome either. So here it is a time to be brave.
“Okay but I need all the information to contact you if anything goes wrong”
“Oh Sara this is so great thanks so much you saved my marriage, Jim said if I didn’t make this trip he was filing for divorce and you’re the 5th person I called.”
Oh god what have I gotten myself into I thought as Rachel rattled on about Buster's feeding schedule.
“Oh Rach, I gotta go the baby is crying just make sure that you write everything down for me. I think I can handle it.” I dashed off the phone as fast as I could. Okay Henry I am coming I called out as I paraded through our 50,000 square foot home thinking I had done pretty well for myself considering I had been born to a crack addict and left in the garbage can at birth, a throw away the papers had called me well look at me now.
My husband is CEO of one of the biggest importer/exporters in the US; my three boys were popular and athletic at their exclusive prep school not bad for a ward of the state raised in Cabrini Green. These thoughts all raced through my mind as I walked to Henry’s suite if I can survive that beginning then I can survive a monkey for a weekend, those were the last sane thoughts I had concerning the monkey.
The rest of the week moved at its regular blurred pace and as Friday afternoon approached a sense of missing something stuck with me. The boys came home from school and the nanny began Henry’s scheduled Spanish lessons when the phone rang. “Oh Sara,” said Rachel and as I heard her voice the nagging feeling replaced it’s self with the knowledge of what I had missed. “Did you forget about Buster? The daycare just called and they need you to pick him up right away, the regular kids are coming and Buster isn’t allowed to be around them anymore.”
“Oh Rach, I did forget but I will send the nanny, oh wait, I guess I’ll pick him up myself. Sorry see you when you get back” I raced out of the house and drove the 3 blocks to the daycare to pick up Buster. The teacher seemed genuinely happy to see me and had all of Buster’s things packed and ready to go. “Make sure to remind Rachael that Buster cannot come back on Monday”, she told me as I loaded the car with Buster’s things and I wondered yet again what I had gotten myself into. Buster was surprisingly calm and docile on the exchange and ride home where I didn’t stop but picked up my two oldest boys, D’artagan and Liam.
As we took off so I could take the boys to the baseball fields for practice Buster seemed to wake up as Liam poked him in the arm. Buster’s screams where worse than anything I have ever heard. Even a colicky baby cannot compare to the screams that seemed to erupt from Buster’s throat. And the hand motions that followed were frenzied and scary. I pulled over as Liam began to cry and D’artagan laughed hysterically. I tried lulling Buster by singing as I pulled Liam slowly from the car. D’artagan in the chaos of the situation sat there as Buster began to pull the car seat apart while still seated in it.
“Dart,” I called softy “come on Dart get out of the car” but Dart just sat there watching the carnage. Buster pulled all the stuffing out of the seat and then began to pull his own clothing apart. Right past my head flew his little sailor shirt and hat, then his little shoes, Thank God they were the soft-soled kind. I was franticly trying to get Dart’s attention without causing Buster to notice my hand and head motions. Finally he turned to look at me with a wide-eyed grimace on his face.
“Dart,” I whispered, “open the hatch and slide out the back door as quietly as you can.” At this point Buster discovered his baby bag sitting right beside him. As I quickly closed the side panel on the minivan the thunderous crash of baby food jars slamming into the glass was heard three blocks away. The cops appeared to me as if by magic as I stood dumfounded by the innate stupidity of the human condition. Here I was a soccor mom/upper class housewife with this insane belief that I could care for a wild animal as if I were babysitting my neighbor’s child.
The End
