Motherhood is Not for Wimps

I can’t help looking at Sarah Palin with total kinship.

I’m not going to vote for her ticket, and I think she’s too young to be president, but oh, how I get her right now.

“Are you coming back?” the Doodle asked me today. Big blue eyes. Round naked belly. Worried little face.

“Mommas always come back,” I said, managing to keep my voice conversational. Reality is that I will be away from the kids three days a week starting now. Sunbeam will be taking them to gymnastics, carpooling, checking homework, conducting supper and tubs. Even with that help, I am wondering if I can carry it all.

“But I’m sad when you’re not with me,” she said.

But it’s the chance of a lifetime. If I don’t take it, I’ll always wonder.

“I’m sad when I’m not with you,” I said, dropping my briefcase beside her and pulling her into my lap. “But you’re always in my heart. And you and your sister are always the most important thing in my day.”

I won’t give you a mother with no dreams. I won’t give you a mother who was too chickenshit to try.

She looked so sad when I left her, I wanted to turn around and go back.

Which is why I kept going.

“Momma,” Ren says, thrusting a sword into my hand. “You be da bad guy.”

“Okay,” I say gamely. She holds up a crumpled piece of paper.

“And dis is da plane, and you trying ta get it, o’tay?”

“Right,” I say, thrusting at the plane.

“No, no, Momma,” she says, deep concern in her eyes. “Dis is a plane. You can’t get it. It way too high for you.”

I stare, blinking.

“But. So. What’s the game?”

“You just stand there wishing you could get it. And you can’t.”

Ah.

It’s not a problem you hear very much about.

Which is part of the problem.

I’ve been reading coverage of the Joseph Duncan murder trial. He has been convicted of stealing two children, raping and torturing them over the course of a few weeks, and then finally murdering one in front of the other.

I think we parents comfort ourselves by not watching this sort of thing, and by telling ourselves it doesn’t happen often.

The truth is that what Duncan has been convicted of doing actually is a thriving industry — according to the U.S. State Department, at least 600,000-800,000 children and women are sold into slavery every year.

Some investigators argue that this may be what happened to Madeline McCann, a little girl who disappeared from Portugal while on vacation with her parents. There may be evidence that a Belgian slave ring targeted her and sold her into slavery.

The Council of Europe calls this a profitable practice, saying: “People trafficking has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about $42.5 billion.”

Before my North American readers think it doesn’t involve them — approximately 14,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year, a large number of them through Canada.

Kids. Stolen from their parents, sold to people like Duncan. For billions of dollars per year.

Predictably, wherever bad guys are coming at kids, our friend Scott Hampton has something to say about it. He’s asking American Express to declare ending human trafficking one of the top-25 most important issues in the world today.

His plan calls for an information campaign that would tighten the circle around the perpetrators and help the victims get away. He’s asking American Express to fund websites, signs, and hotlines.

He has my vote on this project. I hope you’ll take a look and consider giving him yours.

Cute Husband and I have discovered those cool big red machines in the grocery store out of which you can rent a movie for a buck. Selection’s not great, but it’s convenient.

The machine is near the checkout, and when that’s the only thing I’m going for, I go in the out door. I know, I know. Rebel.

So there I am, waiting for someone to come out the out door so I can go in it, and along come two teenaged boys.

“Hey,” says one of the boys. (I know I am getting old. “Hey” from a teenager annoys the shit out of me.) “Hey,” he says, “I recommend going in the in door.”

“Thanks.” I smile like he’s just handed me an Academy Award and keep going.

“No, really,” he says with great authority and annoyance. “This is the out door.”

Sweet Jesus … really? All this time? This was the out door?

“I run a multi-million dollar corporation,” I tell him. “I think I can manage the grocery store by myself.”

Note to dippy teen for future reference: Women running multi-million dollar corporations likely can afford to repair dents in their mini-vans.

When I pushed open the door to the small church rec. hall my first thought was that I had not been this nervous in a long time. And then I wondered just how nervous El must have been, all the times she walked into this room – before she was serious about it and then when she was.

Ellie smiled when she saw me, and I was struck by how lovely she was. She was wearing yellow and amber, and her hair was up in a pretty knot, and she stood next to me and grinned and looked the very opposite of hapless and out of place.

Her husband joined us and we sat in the front row, and at first I thought, “Oh, couldn’t we sit in the back?” – and then I realized that the back was for the people who had a real reason to be scared, and I should give them their privacy and stay up here.

Ellie spoke first, and when she got up and said those words – My name is Ellie and I’m an alcoholic – I waited for every clichéd drunk movie character I’d ever seen to wander through the room: Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Elizabeth Shue, sexy and gorgeous and stumbling. But she said it, and they said, “Hi, Ellie” and I didn’t see a fall, but a rise to an exquisite sort of grace. Ellie, glowing and funny and articulate: telling the story I had been witness to – and some of the parts I hadn’t.

After Ellie, there were others: each with familiar notes of despair and agony, and a descant of hope. As one man was talking — in his sixties, stout, tattooed, the sort of man who’d wander into my life to fix my kitchen sink and never be heard from again – a cool gust of autumn wind blew in the window, carrying the honk of a flock of geese — the sound of coming winter.

I knew then that this was it: this is as good as it gets. Wealth, power, fame, success: meaningless. You have achieved something when you know the despair of the world; when you are aware of and forgive your own basic faults, and those of the people you love; when you love the humanity of others and stop placing yourself in categories above or below, and are reminded of the divine simplicity of your own creation by the sound of geese passing by.

At the end, the presentation of chips. Anyone sober a year or more got to raise her hand. El quietly put her hand in the air, and I, of course bawled.

Anyone sober six months this week? — A chip. Three months? -One? — a young man strode to the front of the room to a roar of applause. A terrified smile and he took his chip.

24 hours? No one stood. See me after if you’re too shy, said the man handing out the chips.

And now the presentation of the one-year chips. Someone lighted the candle on Ellie’s cake, while her husband took the podium. She had asked me to be his backup, in case he flaked. Let me tell you, he flaked. He flaked beautifully. It was raw and sad and lovely, and just when I thought I couldn’t take another word he said, “You know, after seeing all this, I think … alcoholics are amazing people.”

And of course we roared, and wiped our eyes, and then cried again when the amazing person we were there for got her chip.

So I wasn’t called on to speak, which is good, because I don’t think I would have made it – but if I had, here’s what I would I have said:

When you find out that someone you love and thought you knew very well is an alcoholic, you find out that you were in a sick relationship. And it takes two people to make a sick relationship.

I don’t think that the people inside this room are any worse off than the world outside of it. The only real difference is that the circumstances that bring us here give us an opportunity to see what many people never see – our basic flaws and our basic goodness, the goodness in each other, the bad results of our best intentions and the strength to try again. When I understood how sick Ellie was, I knew that I had to grow and change, too. And in that, Ellie was my leader and role model. And she set the bar pretty god-damned high.

The meeting broke. We shared in Ellie’s cake, and told jokes that only alcoholics and their loved ones think are funny. I saw some of the people in the back of the room wander quietly away, and I said a prayer for them; that they would find themselves here some day, having lived through despair and learned that the only way home is through surrender, and friendship and humor.

“Momma, can you tell me the story of the Dark Knight?”

Mare has asked me this four times in the past couple of hours. I have ascertained that she does not mean Batman — (hmm… Heath Ledger. Boy I’d like to see that again) — So I keep putting her off because I’m not entirely following what she’s asking and I’m not feeling patient enough to make up a story right now.

Finally, she has me. We’re in the car, and she explains that she wants me to tell a story she heard on Noggin. (”It’s like preschool in your home!!” their announcers chirp, and I nod and agree and feel all, like, better about myself and stuff.)

“They told the story of the Dark Knight. Will you tell it to me?”

Sure, I say. I may have plot problems, but this I can handle.

There was a wise Queen, in a land far away. She ruled her kingdom with careful authority. She relied on the judgement and counsel of her advisors, a panel of women and men who helped her.

The Bright Knight found work in a neighboring kingdom. His reputation remained impressive throughout the years, but mystery surrounded him. He never made mistakes, but people around him did — and no one ever seemed to know who. And the kingdom he served did not seem to change much in all those years, despite his efforts. Systems of injustice and cruelty remained in place throughout the generations, although no one ever quite knew why.

Here I just kind of stopped, all proud of myself. My suprior parenting. My application of plot. THIS, my friend, is what happens when you hire a Master’s candidate to be your mother.

“Noggin’s version had a horse,” Mare said. “And I don’t think there was a Bright Knight.”

“Ah,” I said, knowing right then and there what a mistake it is ever to turn off the television.

I love autumn: the crisp-cool air, the first feel of jeans and clogs, the colors, the way the days are cool at the beginning and end but warm in the middle.

I love autumn food — pot roasts and cheesey things with garlic. Seared meats in pan sauces with buttered startches to soak them up. (I do have a tendency to gain weight in autumn, so I try to do my share of leaf-raking.)

Tonight I made pork chops. It isn’t really autumn, yet, and I paid the price for turning the stove on — the kitchen was unbearably hot — but we ate it in front of a Samuel Jackson movie in the family room with the fan blowing in the cool late-summer evening air.

And the pork chops were so worth it.

DaMomma’s Balsamic Pork Chops

3 pork chops
1 medium onion, chopped in chunks
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 apples, peeled and chunked
1 cup (give or take) balsamic vinegar plus vermouth (optional — friends of Bill W. can double the vinegar or use chicken broth)
A solid sprinkling of thyme or rosemary, or both, whatever’s on hand, plus salt and pepper

1) Season the chops with salt and pepper while you heat the pan to medium-high heat. Add vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan, and then sear chops 3-5 minutes without moving (until caramelized) then turn over and do the same on the other side. Remove chops to a 350-degree oven, turn down heat on pan, add olive oil as needed;

2) Add chopped onions to the pan, cook over medium heat until just starting to be translucent;

3) Add garlic, being careful not to burn;

4) Add apples. Toss to coat and brown evenly;

5) Deglaze the pan with vinegar. Scrape bottom and sides. Let boil until reduced to syrup. Taste for doneness. You can add vermouth, broth, or another round of vinegar and reduce again until the apples are tender and coated in balsamic syrup. Add salt, pepper, thyme or rosemary. Add a chunk of butter, toss until smooth, and then add back the chops, plus their pan juices, and toss to coat.

I served this over mashed Yukon golds, with lemon garlic green beans. I think it would be amazing over mashed sweet potatoes.

“Congratulations,” I said to Ellie, on the first anniversary of her sobriety. “I think you’re awesome.”

“Thanks. It’s really a strange thing to celebrate. But I’m milking it. ‘Hey, I can stand upright and I’m aware of what’s going on, give me presents!‘”

“I feel morally obligated to blog that.”

“I totally understand.”

Ren spent much of Mare’s first horse show glaring.

Ren — and this may be quite a shock — can be a jealous little thing.

“When it gonna be my turn to be in a show? When can I get a ribbon? MOMMA WHY SISSY GET TO DO DIS AND I DON’T???”

“When you’re older,” I soothed. “When you’re bigger. WHEN YOU CAN FREAKING POST A TROT, MY FRIEND.”

“Huh?”

“You have to trot. And you have to post. — That means go up and down in the saddle. You have to do that before you can be in a show.”

So there we were at the very next horse lesson. Ren got her obligatory pony ride, where everyone patronized her and told her it was a “lesson” — and she glared some more and shouted, “TROT!” -Forward the horse went and before anyone knew what was happening …

“Liz … she’s posting,” her wide-eyed instructor said.

“For God’s sake, don’t let go of her,” I answered.

“Momma!” Ren shouted from the saddle. “Now I do da show?”

“Don’t be silly,” I said.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” the instructor said. “But she qualifies.”

“Yeah, but, if I buy show gear and pay entry fee for a two-year old that would make me –”

A chump.

Aw, so sweet …

… and then this is how you know it is our family:

We went on a walk through the woods. We found a tall purple flower, blooming in a patch of sunlight. The sun coming through the leaves, lighting the bark of the trees, the shimering purple, were breathtaking. I took an endless series of pictures and couldn’t capture it.

I have about fifteen versions of that shot.

I wanted the detail of the flower, the light, the crinkly brown of the trees behind it. Then I realized it was too much. I had to choose. So I focused on the flower, bathed in the natural light, and somehow the rest of the story lingered in the background.