For years I’ve lived with a longing to be cared for, to live in a warm, happy place with lots of smiling faces. My grandmother was the same way, always trying to orchestrate family togetherness and never succeeding.
Peter had to run an errand and took Miles with him. It’s cold out tonight. There’s been snow up north; we could even see some on the distant mountain peaks to the East.
I was bummed out over the holidays. My sister didn’t call, my friends didn’t show up on Thanksgiving. Women have it tough — they care about these things. I probably should just get on — well, I will.
For years I’ve lived with a longing to be cared for, to live in a warm, happy place with lots of smiling faces. My grandmother was the same way, always trying to orchestrate family togetherness and never succeeding. What a waste of her intelligence. My guess is the happiest time of her life was when she was young and poor and just married to Grampa. She and Grampa supported her mother and sisters. Helena had to work, so her mother took care of my father. Everyone lived together because it was the Depression.
I think Helena must have fantasized about a big house in the woods, big enough so everyone could visit and sleep over and sit on the porch and listen to the whipoorwill’s song echoing through the trees. And that was what happened, except nobody was ever really happy in that house for very long.
Helena liked the idea of the big family, all happy together, but the reality wore on her nerves. She wanted her house just so. I guess Grampa must have felt the same way, because I don’t have any memory of him cutting loose.
I’m keenly aware of my troubles — of the things that don’t work in my life… Or should I say, the things that cause me discomfort. If that’s neurosis, so be it.
It’s very cold out — down to freezing at night. Last night I woke up feeling stifled by the heat. I sprang out of bed and ran out to the back room and stood at the back door, breathing in the frosty air.
Later that night I had dreams of deep and unreasoning fear. I have a freckle on my cheek and I check it obsessively to see if it’s growing. When I skip my period, I’m convinced it’s cancer. When my thoughts are disrupted by the medicine for my flow, I’m certain that my brain is deteriorating. I’ve always been somewhat of a hypochondriac, but this is getting ridiculous.
It feels good to be alone this morning. I don’t want to have to respond to anybody this morning. If I don’t get sufficient time to recharge, I’m no good to myself or anyone else.
I just haven’t been willing or able to numb myself via the system. I’m keenly aware of my troubles — of the things that don’t work in my life… Or should I say, the things that cause me discomfort. If that’s neurosis, so be it.
I have a son who’s bright, sarcastic, and more than ready to grow up. I have health problems, and economic problems, and sadness over my mother’s deterioration.
I’m angry because I’ve spent so many years trying to escape her, but her genes may yet catch me.
For a long time I turned outward. I felt it would be selfish of me to dwell on all this garbage. But maybe I need to take some time to come to terms with all this.
Art seems like the best solution right now. It’s a method of psychic reconciliation — bring together inner and outer, in a painting or drawing.
I remember being the same way about my mother. I was always watching her, admiring her, and worrying when she looked drab and tired. So now, to be a mother, and to be observed, it makes me wonder, why?
I looked over at the kitchen clock just as it reached midnight. So I guess it is actually December 10.
Peter put together a small dresser we bought. I’m worried about him because he seems so tired. Miles was in the back room, talking to him and generally keeping him company.
I don’t think I’m going back to my old job. I didn’t like the way the admin-istrators got fancy offices while the students and tutors were crowded into one big, noisy, disgusting-smelling room. It made me feel like the priorities were all upside down and inside out.
Sunday I talked to my nephew, Doug. He’s a very bright, perceptive kid. I asked him if my sister was still talking about coming out here, and he said that’s all she ever talked about. I asked him if she was getting bigger, now that her pregnancy is getting advanced. “Oh yeah, he said, “She’s huge.” I had to laugh. Kids are so blunt. Miles is like that, too. He’s very conscious of how I’m dressed and whether I look good or not.
I remember being the same way about my mother. I was always watching her, admiring her, and worrying when she looked drab and tired. So now, to be a mother, and to be observed, it makes me wonder, why? I’m far more particular about my appearance than my mother was. I think I was looking for her to tell me something about feminine beauty, but I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s just a cultural thing — the mother’s appearance as a barometer of the family prosperity and well-being.
I keep asking myself, the way one thinks about life, is that rooted in one’s biology? Is there a personality predictor to tell whose brain falls apart at 60?
The nervous spells I have now remind me exactly of how I felt as a child. I was under tremendous stress and my thoughts would spiral off into some bleak cold corner of the universe, where I was completely alone. That’s not really how it is now, but I’m surprised at the potency of stress, of how it can eclipse everything else. If I stay up late, like I did tonight and last night, I find it nearly impossible to get asleep. Instead, my mind will scurry about, chasing after thoughts. I’ll catalog every ache in my body, every twinge of headache.
I kept waiting for my mother to acknowledge me, but she never did. ...
It’s a lie that she cried everyday when she was pregnant with Eileen. I remember because I was always watching her. It wasn’t Eileen she hadn’t wanted — it was me.
I think I wanted my mother to be like some warm maternal diva, someone like Colleen Dewhurst or Joanne Woodward. I kept waiting for my mother to acknowledge me, but she never did. She rejected me from the start and she kept to that position all her life. I don’t know how aware she was of my disappointment that she could not love me.
I took what I could get and that was the material things she gave me if I hinted enough or whined enough. I remember once badgering her to buy me a stupid windmill lamp made out of Delft china. She got it for me and then I felt vaguely ashamed, as if I’d been part of some underhanded transaction. I don’t think I asked her for anything again after that.
I identified with my mother, but it was hard, because she was unwell. Sometimes quite literally unwell.
It’s a lie that she cried everyday when she was pregnant with Eileen. I remember because I was always watching her. It wasn’t Eileen she hadn’t wanted — it was me.
But why? Because I was the first? Did I rob her of her of her girlhood? But why not blame my father? I guess it was easier to make me the scapegoat. She punished me with her coldness, her lack of affection, her rejection over and over while I grew up.
And I didn’t want to see it.
I always believed that God would help me make sense of all this. I think that’s what kept me going. As it turned out, I was very different from my mother in a lot of ways. I took control of my life in a way she didn’t.
Which is actually the opposite of how it sounds. I let go. I enjoyed life. I had adventures. I didn’t waste much time clinging to ideas about how things should be.
What’s wrong with this country is that an entire generation is entering mid-life and encountering all its terrors, night sweats, deteriorations, ambiguities — an entire generation meets cruel nature, whose face is not nearly so benign as sit-com land would have it. An entire generation looks in the mirror and sees decay and begins one prolonged scream of terror. Because the simple fact is, we are unprepared to deal with Death. We see the older generation voting down funds for schools and voting in funds for bingo centers for the old folks. What precedes us is a generation who has ridden on the inflation train to Glory and claimed that it was their back-breaking work that got them there.
Last night, after I finished writing, the full force of a truth lit up my mind. The agony I’d been suffering ever since I heard about my mother’s illness had in recent months revived in me a pattern of frightening thoughts, of nervousness and inability to sleep. I hadn’t felt this bad since I lived at home. What was it about this situation that plunged me back into the terrors of childhood? And then I saw it clearly for the first time. It was a question of identification.
I was afraid I was going to be like her. It was a fear that began in early childhood. My mother was two people to me: my mother, the source of food and body warmth, and words. And then there was the hysterical, shrieking banshee who fought with my father, who sat at other times, depressed and beyond reach. There was also the mother who produced dead babies and a baby who lived for four years and then died. There was the mother who lay in a pool of blood so that she could have another baby. There was this mother who was cold, withholding, who lied and betrayed, who grew progressively more callous with the years.
I didn’t want to be like her. I was terrified that I would be like her, whether I wanted to be or not.
And now, I’m afraid again. Now she has become a dark pool of madness that I might fall into myself. My primal fear has been resurrected.
All women are life and death, but my mother was always more death than life. Because of this, she stunted our growth.
I don’t know much about the psychological definition of identification, but I know it’s supposed to be an important part of a child’s development. What I do know is that I always had trouble identifying with my mother. Until now, I never realized the extent to which my stressed out state was due to this difficult situation. It was only with this recent regression that I made the connection between my state of mind and the accompanying fear.
The problem, in part, was that I really had no one else to substitute, no one else to tell me what being a woman was supposed to mean. There was my grandmother, the old woman in the woods of my recent dreams. Since in my mind, she was old and never tried to play a maternal role with me, I couldn’t get any cues from her.
I always believed that God would help me make sense of all this. I think that’s what kept me going. As it turned out, I was very different from my mother in a lot of ways. I took control of my life in a way she didn’t. Which is actually the opposite of how it sounds. I let go. I enjoyed life. I had adventures. I didn’t waste much time clinging to ideas about how things should be.
The quality of my life has been very high, as far as I’m concerned. There’s been a lot of joy in my life to balance out the sorrow. Despite my confusion about my role in life, I’ve done some good and over the years, I’ve mellowed out. It’s only with this recent crisis that I found myself, as I say, regressing. And that regression proved to be the key to a better understanding of myself.
Friday the 13th and yet another visit to the doctor. This time to see if I’m hypoglycemic, or have a thyroid problem or am just plain crazy. After talking to me, the doctor said, you have a very interesting medical history. Meaning, no doubt, my mother’s disease.
All I can say is, whatever I have is a curse, an absolute misery. Without Peter and Miles, I never would have made it this far.
I hung a string of red chili pepper Christmas lights on top of the stove. These reflect onto the black and silver-speckled tablecloth — it reminds me of the way colored lights reflect on rain-soaked city streets.
It is still the same night, past midnight. I’ve had a couple hours of rest and got up to have a small snack of rice cracker and almonds.
I was reading The War Between the Tates, which has held up as a good book. She writes:
“What is so awful, so unfair, is that identity is at the mercy of circumstances, of other people’s actions.”
I eat the wrong foods and I’m a lunatic. I eat the right foods and I’m a mellow, amusing, intelligent adult. It’s all so fragile, this construct of who we are. The murderer and the saint both know this.
The child in us cries, You’ve made me what I am, and now you punish me? It seems the worst sort of injustice.
And people are formed by the language they use. The doctor speaks in terms of symptoms and he organizes these into patterns. The verbs in his sentences are all full of malady. Most doctors I’ve met speak in dolorous tones, which betray the professional smile they give you so courteously.
I hung a string of red chili pepper Christmas lights on top of the stove. These reflect onto the black and silver-speckled tablecloth — it reminds me of the way colored lights reflect on rain-soaked city streets.
One of my earliest memories is of my parents carrying me through the glass-brick entranceway of some hotel. The glass-bricks were lit from behind with green light that glowed in such a way that it seemed as if we were all moving underwater.
When I go to the doctor I want to quote T.S. Elliot’s The Wasteland when he asks what’s wrong with me. I want to say that we recently won a war, in part, by plowing 150,000 men into the ground while they still breathed. I want to say it is no longer safe to go out at night, or for our children to go to school. I want to say that our government continues to rob us through mismanagement and corruption, robbing us of our belief in the future and our happiness today.
I had a dream last night, that I was sleeping. A man approached my bed and awakened me. He held out a thick envelope to me, which I accepted happily. At last, I thought good news.
When I woke up, I felt good, and I was in a good mood most of the day.
I got through Christmas okay, but now my thoughts are anxious, restless. It is late, late. We went to see a vacuous movie tonight, called Hook. It was terrible.
My stomach hurts. Unfortunately, we ate late tonight. My gut is as unruly as my thoughts.
I want to paint and draw — I want to become the artist I always thought I was going to be. But I guess I don’t want to pay the price.
I hear the refrigerator’s motor chirping in the kitchen. The house creaks in every room. A car passes, its wheels grazing the macadam, its engine making a dull roar that rises as it gets closer to our house and then descends as the car turns the corner. If there are crickets, and there probably are, I cannot hear them. Peter found a cricket beneath my futon bed last night. I thought, I would have slept all night with the cricket singing madly and never known it.
I had a dream last night, that I was sleeping. A man approached my bed and awakened me. He held out a thick envelope to me, which I accepted happily. At last, I thought good news.
When I woke up, I felt good, and I was in a good mood most of the day.
Ah, now I can hear Peter snoring. And a moment ago I heard the trains down at Grand Ave.
I talked to my sister this morning. My phone bill will be enormous this month. There was much talk about sending Doug Jr. out here. He is 12 now, and giving her a lot of grief, according to her. The things she describe him doing all sound normal to me.
Another trip to the bathroom for me. Something I ate must have been foul.
It’s close to my period. I didn’t want to be a girl.
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