There was one day when I was at school that my mother took my toddler brother for a walk down the sandy dirt road away from our house. The sky's exorbitant blue and drifting puffs of cloud gave no compas indications, and the fields of sandy peanut rows and acres of coastal pasture stretched on in every direction. Tiny black helicopters began to sink from the sun and float just outside of my mother's grasp. A static noise came from them, trying to communicate garbled signals from elsewhere. Bits of speech, exclamations, pleading voices appealing for help, stern reprimands, and whispered intimations of dire circumstances spoke to her, whirled around her, here, there, that side, this. A disorienting jumble of plans gone wrong, betrayed friendships, self-serving power figures, and valiant pawns within the game treatised her, called to her, begged for her help, chided her, slapped, and ultimately led her astray. She was miles away from home. The sun was now high, bearing down, no longer an ambivalent force behind sheep-like puffs of white. Gnats buzzed, and bullnettle whipped her ankles. There were no cows. There were supposed to be herds of cows grazing peacefully on either side of the road, but no other living being was within sight. Quiet descended, without even the whir and whip of the helicopter blades, and the full horror set in that she was not only lost in native lands, not only absent of familiar sights, not just disoriented by hallucinations, but she had lost her child. She ran in the direction she thought was towards home. She ran a tangent of it when it did not seem right. She ran without plan or reason on any compelling path. She was fly fishing, casting herself, floating briefly, pullling in and casting in another direction, trying to find a bite, to land something that would reel in, that would be real.
*pop*poppop*pop*pop*
Her gait slowed and eyes turned toward a lane in the woods. Bullets? Firecrackers? Something fired repeatedly, quietly, steadily. Her mind wanted to drift to holocaustal horrors. The tiny black helicopters whirred nearby in her mind. An enormous yellow school bus, Bus #12 driven by Vietnam veteran Ray McLearen, emerged from the line of trees at the riverbed, bringing me home from school just as her three year old stepped out of the wooded trail with his popcorn-popper push toy.
She dropped to her knees, then sat in the sand. With her in the open, her children made their way towards her, each thinking they had been adrift in the world and grateful to find their touchstone waiting for them.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The Cheshire Mama
PART ONE
Growing up with a bipolar mother is not all it is cracked up to be, no matter what they tell you in the pharmaceutical commercials. Still, there were some bright moments when I was caught like a deer in the headlights, and now all I remember is the glow. I have a limited knowledge of astronomy (one semester in college that was, disappointingly, all math.) However, I have intimate knowledge of giants, supernovas, and black holes. I am the progeny thereof.
As a child, I accompanied my mother to Harry Dark Cakes to procure a wedding cake for my aunt and spent the afternoon listening to a debate as to the nuances of peach versus apricot colored frosting with Harry himself. The same shop later became The Shutterbug, and my mother displayed her black and white photography there. It was all rather hairy and dark to me, but it was fertile ground in which I grew.
Evenings were spent at the university library while Mama went to classes for her Masters Degree in English with a focus on literary archetypes. I had rescued two wild rabbit kits from the dogs , and I played with them in the library while she listened to Shakespeare on record albums. I loved Macbeth.
A college student once found himself in line behind me at the vending machine and asked this pint-sized pseudo-professor, "My God, woman, where is the rest of you?" I answered that she was in class right now, and I am now rather haunted by the fact that I considered myself such an extension of Mama and that others would naturally assume me to be, as well.
When I was a toddler, Mama taught English and government at Carbon High School. She was a fierce advocate for truth and justice, and I knew her as a raging force. But as an adult, I met one of her students who said the only time he saw her anything other than funny and pleasant was when her UIL team had received unfair treatment at a meet. She taught half days when I was very little, and we watched the Watergate trials when she came home. I don't remember those. I do remember a black Lab/Collie with white tips & keyhole named Gordon and two hills covered in purple irises. My mother's first name was Iris, but she didn't like it. Apparently, she was named for Iris Murdoch, but I guess she disliked the pre-ordained structure within which she fit so well. Her father chose the names for his kids, and his is a story much further down the road that I look forward to telling as I pick my way through the past, the stepping stones that have led to where I stand, looking back.
Growing up with a bipolar mother is not all it is cracked up to be, no matter what they tell you in the pharmaceutical commercials. Still, there were some bright moments when I was caught like a deer in the headlights, and now all I remember is the glow. I have a limited knowledge of astronomy (one semester in college that was, disappointingly, all math.) However, I have intimate knowledge of giants, supernovas, and black holes. I am the progeny thereof.
As a child, I accompanied my mother to Harry Dark Cakes to procure a wedding cake for my aunt and spent the afternoon listening to a debate as to the nuances of peach versus apricot colored frosting with Harry himself. The same shop later became The Shutterbug, and my mother displayed her black and white photography there. It was all rather hairy and dark to me, but it was fertile ground in which I grew.
Evenings were spent at the university library while Mama went to classes for her Masters Degree in English with a focus on literary archetypes. I had rescued two wild rabbit kits from the dogs , and I played with them in the library while she listened to Shakespeare on record albums. I loved Macbeth.
A college student once found himself in line behind me at the vending machine and asked this pint-sized pseudo-professor, "My God, woman, where is the rest of you?" I answered that she was in class right now, and I am now rather haunted by the fact that I considered myself such an extension of Mama and that others would naturally assume me to be, as well.
When I was a toddler, Mama taught English and government at Carbon High School. She was a fierce advocate for truth and justice, and I knew her as a raging force. But as an adult, I met one of her students who said the only time he saw her anything other than funny and pleasant was when her UIL team had received unfair treatment at a meet. She taught half days when I was very little, and we watched the Watergate trials when she came home. I don't remember those. I do remember a black Lab/Collie with white tips & keyhole named Gordon and two hills covered in purple irises. My mother's first name was Iris, but she didn't like it. Apparently, she was named for Iris Murdoch, but I guess she disliked the pre-ordained structure within which she fit so well. Her father chose the names for his kids, and his is a story much further down the road that I look forward to telling as I pick my way through the past, the stepping stones that have led to where I stand, looking back.
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