Tag: Fact

Sometimes my voice doesn’t work

~ Christi ~ 1 Comment

I flunked a test once.

I was in undergrad, at my all-girls school. Passing was, supposedly, a prerequisite for graduation.

Flunking it shattered me. I was a great student. I graduated magna cum laude. I never received less than a B in college, except for that exam.

The exam was on speaking. My proctor, an elderly nun who taught public speaking, sat at her neatly arranged desk. I only remember giving her directions, aloud, from the college to my home. I spoke loud and clear, in my normal voice. The directions came easily since I traveled that route often. I wasn’t even nervous.

I just said the directions.

I was sure that I’d passed. I didn’t even bother to worry about my results.

When I checked the bulletin board in the hall a few days later, I was shocked. Next to my name it said “FAILED.” I almost cried.

I tried talking to the proctor, but she refused to explain. I talked to my advisor, who seemed as surprised as me, and promised to get to the bottom of it. Nothing happened. I wondered about it, worried about it for months leading up to graduation. I thought for sure that I wouldn’t graduate, despite my good grades. I was certain that my life was ruined. I asked my advisor about it, and she told me not to worry.

I still did.

A few weeks before graduation, I had a presentation for my Irish lit class. I remember that I was speaking on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. All of a sudden, my voice disappeared. I could not speak, couldn’t even think. I didn’t know what was going on. I stopped trying to talk, looked at my notes. My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t figure out my thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” I squeaked.

After a few minutes my voice returned to my body. I did my best to finish my presentation.

Graduation day came, and no one stopped me from walking across the stage. The school president still handed me my diploma. No one in the audience knew that I was a fraud. But the damage was done, and by the time I made it to grad school it was nearly impossible for me to make a presentation, to talk in front of a group.

I’ve thought a lot about that day in my proctor’s office. I’ve wondered just what I did wrong. What was wrong with my voice? I’ll never know. But I have set the scene many times. I’ve realized that a young girl wearing a Star of David on a narrow chain at a Catholic women’s college might have never had a chance against an old, devout nun. Maybe the problem was never with my voice at all.

 I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop

Flashback: 1980

~ Christi ~ 3 Comments

I’m excited, you guys. Last week, my godmother sent me these:

20130811-093611.jpg

They are a collection of letters that she received, separately, from my mom and my dad. They were written in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was a baby.

I read this one on Friday:

20130811-093934.jpg

My dad wrote it in 1980. His writing reveals him to be thoughtful and quite spiritual. Also long winded. He wrote about me a lot, which surprised me.

I’ll write more about the letters soon.

I also started reading this:

20130811-095321.jpg

It’s weird. I’m not into it yet. But I did check the copyright page. It was published in 1980, the same year as my dad’s letter. That’s funny, right?

20130811-095442.jpg

I guess I’m going to spend a few days in the 80s. Maybe I’ll put on some legwarmers and crank this, too.

Want to join me?

Do you like grape gum?

~ Christi ~ 5 Comments

Last week, I bought the kids a pack of grape gum. Anna asked for it, and hoping that she would behave in the line at the grocery store, I said okay. Outside I gave her a piece.

“Don’t you want one?” she asked.

“Nah,” I said. “I hate grape gum.”

“Why?” she asked.

“It reminds me of being a kid,” I told her. I doubt that made any sense to her.

When I was growing up, I lived with my mom in a crummy apartment building. Not the worst type of apartment building – it was in good condition, it had all of its shutters – but nothing fancy. Nearby there was a McCormick spice factory. On certain days when you walked outside that heavy grape smell hung in the air. It would almost choke me.

We were poor. My mom bought our food with food stamps, and my clothes were gifts or from the Salvation Army. I certainly never asked my mom for gum at the grocery store, and if I had she would have said no – and not because she wanted to. I grew up watching my mom add up the price of groceries on a piece of paper, carefully calculating all the costs before getting in line. I remember walking with her to and from the grocery store every week alongside a busy major street without sidewalks. Cookie cutter suburbia towered around us and oblivious people in cars would zoom past. And sometimes that overwhelming, cloying grape scent would make breathing impossible.

I grew up happy. My mom was always there, and she made me feel special. She taught me a lot about the important things, and she showed me how to have a lot of fun with whatever was right in front of us. But I always felt something was missing. I always felt a little bit scared at the grocery store. So now, I’m glad that I can buy Anna gum and have it just be gum. I’m glad it doesn’t dump her on a busy street behind an old lady cart like it does for me.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/daily-prompt-transported/

An update on Nate

~ Christi

20130808-103914.jpg

So many people have asked me how Nate is managing, so I wanted to let everyone know that he is healing. it’s going to be several weeks before he can go without his bandage, but the doctors have assured me that his hand will heal normally. Right now it doesn’t sound like he will need any skin grafts.

He’s mostly back to his usual self, which means that he is up to trouble and we have to constantly chase him around as he runs away, now with his bandaged arm in the air.

I feel very lucky.

 

Me: A revision

~ Christi ~ 3 Comments

You might have noticed that I’ve been talking more concretely about my kids lately. This has been a bit of a hard decision. Should I write about them at all? Is it a violation of my family’s privacy? What about using their names? For a while now, I’ve wanted to tell you more about them. I know that I could invent aliases, but it doesn’t feel natural to me to do that. So I’ve been using their names.

After my last post, I received a lot of comments from readers who were clearly confused about who Gabe is. I think I need to back up and tell you about my family.

Geoff and I have been married for almost 13 years. Our daughter, Anna, is seven. Our older son, Gabe, is five, and Nate, our baby, is almost two. They are funny, smart, great kids. I’m going to tell you more about them in future posts. Readers, I am trusting you. Please help me protect my family while I write my stories.

20130808-102836.jpg

Gabe’s version

~ Christi ~ 15 Comments


“Let’s eat our cake,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says. We pretend to eat the dirt we rolled into balls and decorated with acorns and bits of stick. We’re playing castle in the tarp-fort that Daddy made.

“Nate!” I call to my little brother, who is eating the dirt cake for real. “Stop eating the dirt. Just pretend.” I show him how. He pretends for a second, then runs out of the castle over to Daddy. Daddy is chopping wood by the fire.

“Don’t eat my cake!” Anna screams at me. I wasn’t, but I don’t bother telling her. She never listens to me.

“Nate, no!” Mommy yells, so loud that I jump. I run out of the castle. Daddy is holding Nate and screaming. Mommy and Daddy are yelling for us to get into the car.

“Let’s go! We have to go to the hospital!” Mommy tells me. “Nate burned his hand!”

I’m scared. Then I look at Nate. Skin is falling off of his hand. He’s screaming and crying. I start to cry, too.

“Come on, Gabe. We have to get into the car. Go get into your seat,” Daddy says. I hear him, but I can’t move. I’m too scared. Mommy pulls my hand and we go towards the car.

Nate is already buckled in by the time I get into my seat. He’s holding his hand out and crying. “My and urts,” he cries. “Mommy, my and urts!”

“I know it does,” Mommy says, holding his arm tightly. “I’m sorry, Natey-boo,” she says. She sounds sad.

I sneak a look at Nate’s hand. The skin is gray and falling off. He’s screaming.

“I don’t want to look at his hand!” Anna says. “It’s terrible!” She’s almost crying too.

I’m so scared.

We drive super slow by the lake, past our ice cream shop. I had a cotton-candy ice cream cone, but I couldn’t finish it all. Daddy is angry. He’s yelling and saying words that I don’t understand. He goes fast around a car and then honks the horn.

“My and urts!” Nate cries. “It urts!” he says.

“I know, baby boy,” Mommy says. “We are going to the doctor to make it all better.”

I’m not so sure. It looks like it won’t ever be better. I’m so scared. “Mommy,” I ask, “is Nate going to die?”

“No, he’s not, sweetie,” Mommy says. But I’m not sure. Maybe he will. The skin is falling off his hand. Underneath there is red stuff.

“My and urts!” Nate screams. Why won’t he be quiet?

Anna covers her ears. “I don’t want to hear him!” she yells.

Everyone is talking and yelling. I am so scared, so I cover my ears too. I don’t yell. I just stay inside. If Nate dies, I will miss him. Maybe he will go to heaven to be with Mom-Mom. Mom-Mom will take care of him there, and maybe his hand will be all better in heaven. But I will miss him. I don’t want him to die. If he stays alive, I will teach him to be careful by the fire. When we go camping, I will follow him around and keep him safe. I promise. Mom-Mom, please don’t let Nate die. I love him and I like having him for a little brother.

“It urts!” Nate cries. I can still hear him through my hands.

“I know, sweet boy,” Mommy says. “It will be okay.” She turns all the way around and looks at me. She looks worried. “Gabe, we’re almost there. I promise.”

That makes me feel better.

 

On guilt and motherhood in an ambulance

~ Christi ~ 4 Comments

20130805-072721.jpg
Before tragedy struck

I want to preface this post with a bold statement: I rarely, if ever, have felt guilty as a mom. In fact, I hardly ever experience guilt. I have recently wondered if that makes me a sociopath. Hopefully not. But as a mom, I try to give my kids all that I have to give — at least I did until recently. I have always tried not to leave myself any room to feel guilty.

This weekend, while we were camping with the kids, Nate, our youngest, fell into the campfire. He burned his hand badly, and I spent most of the night in two ERs getting him treatment. It was a complete accident. Geoff was starting the fire while the kids played in their fort on the other side of our campsite. Midway through setting up the fire, Nate wandered over to Geoff, who was sawing apart a log. Geoff warned Nate to stay back, and Nate turned and started walking away, looking at Geoff over his shoulder. He took a few steps and tripped directly into the fire, which, thank God, was low, tiny. Geoff saw what happened and immediately pulled him out, but the damage was instantaneous. We all jumped into the car and headed to the nearest hospital.

Where was I while this happened? I was reading a book. In my chair. Watching from afar. I’m embarrassed to admit it. I think of my best friends, the ones who are moms, and I know that each one of them would have been following behind their babies wherever they went around the campsite. There was an open fire and I was reading a book. It’s unforgivable.

The attending doctor at the first ER was concerned that Nate should receive care from a pediatric burn unit. He told me that Nate would need to be put under while his wounded hand was cleaned and the damage accessed. So we transferred to another hospital, closer to home, now at 9 p.m.

Nate fell asleep in the ambulance. It was heartbreaking to see his car seat belted into a stretcher. He looked so tiny and helpless. When the EMT covered him with a white hospital blanket, I couldn’t stop myself from crying. What if the fire had been bigger? What if Geoff hadn’t pulled him out so quickly? All the impossibilities came flooding in at once. If the EMT, sitting across from me in the ambulance, noticed me crying, she didn’t say. How could she have known how much I hate white hospital blankets, how they will always only be shrouds to me ever since my mom died? How could she have known that covering my baby with one to keep him warm in the air-conditioning would put me back in that room with my mom who died so suddenly that I couldn’t even make it to the hospital in time to say goodbye? She couldn’t. She meant well, and truthfully, it all turned out fine.

We made it to the second hospital, and a team of burn doctors assured me that Nate’s hand will heal without surgery. They bandaged his hand, sent us home, and all is well today. He’s learning to be a lefty without much complaint. But I still can’t shake this too-close-for-comfort feeling of near-miss, and I can’t let go of the blame. Maybe I shouldn’t.

elleroy was here

 

Losing my religion

~ Christi

When I was a kid, we celebrated all the holidays. Our menorah went next to the Christmas tree, and our Easter dinner often included ham and matzoh. Go ahead, laugh. Just don’t judge me.

Let’s generalize and say that I was formally, publicly, Catholic. I attended Sacred Heart Elementary, where I learned to love Jesus, to recite Our Father and Hail Mary, and where I colored xeroxed copies of the stations of the cross. At home, my mom, my sister, my Bubbie all cursed in Yiddish and ate corned beef. I didn’t question it until much later.

20130804-200757.jpg
As a teenager, I abruptly decided to give up Catholicism, and celebrate only Jewish holidays. I felt that the main point of religion was to honor your ancestors, never mind spirituality. I still agree with this to a point, but I have long since realized that I wanted my Bubbie to love her more. I thought that if I were more Jewish, like her, that she would. Did she? Did it work? I don’t know. She was inscrutable.

On Christmas as a kid, my mom would take me to midnight mass. I remember one year seeing a young couple kissing in their pew. That beautiful image has stuck with me all this time, that joyful and spiritual togetherness. Sometimes the memory is sweet, sometimes it breaks my heart. I never talk about it.

My mom taught me that all religions are just different paths to the same God. I agree, but I still grew up feeling confused and slighted for not having one singular religious identity like my friends did. Why did my mom choose to walk two paths at once while raising me, between the Judaism that she grew up with and her chosen Catholicism? If she were still alive, I would ask her. In her absence, I have to guess that those childhood memories are powerful and it was her instinct to share them with me. But what I would like more than anything is to experience that shared faith, that certainty in that which cannot be seen. My mom found her spiritual source in church, but she chose not to force that source on me. I understand why, but I can’t help feeling that that intangible piece of religion, the faith, is lost to me.

I’ve long since made my decision on religion, and Geoff and I basically agree: We’re happy to belong to our synagogue, to send the kids to Sunday school, and to see them developing their singular religious identities. They deserve it. And even though their Grandma does occasionally take them to church, they know they are Jewish. I’m glad to offer that certainty to them. But as for the other piece of it–the faith that I’ve only ever felt in church–how can I ever share that with them?

Present tense: Picnic dinner

~ Christi

20130801-104749.jpg

Last night we had a picnic dinner at the botanic garden. It’s something that’s on the weekly schedule but I almost cancelled for clouds that looked heavy with rain.

I’m glad that I didn’t.

Prep work was hard as usual. Imagine kids screaming in the background. The same song playing repeatedly in the kitchen.

The one-year old crayoning on my laptop screen. The five-year old intermittently screaming and eating everything in sight. The seven-year old singing along to that same damn song.

The drive is quiet but for Gabe’s questions and lectures. The kids can’t help hitting each other a few times. We stop to pick up Geoff from the train.

Finally, we reach the garden, cool and surprisingly sunlit. We eat pesto pasta, fruit, and brownies while jumping up from our blanket to chase Nate away from the water.

20130801-104902.jpg

20130801-105019.jpg

20130801-105031.jpg

We’re all having fun. Looking at us, you’d have no idea the scenes we’ve endured to get here. You’d have no idea of the conversations Geoff and I had earlier this week. You’d only see the result: a happy family. So simple.

20130801-105129.jpg

You wouldn’t know that Gabe would momentarily run down a grassy hill and fall on the gravel path below, scraping himself in five places and shattering his happiness. You wouldn’t get to see Nate’s joy at splashing in a fountain, and you wouldn’t have to chase him out of the fountain. You wouldn’t know that Anna and Gabe would have an extensive fight over my water bottle on the way home.

20130801-105245.jpg

You’d miss Gabe’s never-ending soliloquy in the car. Once at home, you would miss our bedtime conversation:

Me: It’s quiet time now. I need you to stop talking.

Him: Why?

Me: Well, the first reason is that I’m tired of hearing your voice today.

Him: (Jokingly) What’s the second? The third?

You’d miss me hugging him, laughing.

This is going to be a fun few years. You really should hang around.

20130801-105328.jpg