Glossarie

Read this piece as though you are watching a girl thinking aloud.  You are.

If I sound certain, you safely may assume I am faking or the words have run away with me.  If I contradict myself, enjoy the creative tension between I and me.  If I say the same thing three different ways, assume that I am struggling for the right expression of a difficult truth…or the words are just playing with me.

In the middle of things

When last we left our intrepid heroine, a woman struggling with more than a few complex issues, she had taken issue with her old pal Thomas Wolfe, boldly asserting that “ya gotta go home again.”  In my case, the imperative derives from my sense of both “the right thing to do” and my certain intuition that coming home to care for my mother will, in its peculiar and perverse way, help me care for myself as I recover from the heart attack and continue struggling with my bi-polar.  It’s also true that absence has made the hearts grow fonder, so that home life will be warmer, friendlier, more affectionate and caring when I get home.  The ol’ spouse and I do love one another after all, and I confess I had lost the edge on my girlfriend skills, so that a little restoration of my expertise ought to help things grow appropriately hot and steamy on the homecoming.

My awesome and incredible sister let her dog stay with the mother and me, and together Fillmore and I are enjoying our stay at “Camp Joyce”—our official term for this month-long adventure.  We probably will order t-shirts. Any one of a million inside jokes may appear on the back.  The front, of course, will read “Camp Joyce—2010—Survivor.”  For the most part, Fillmore and I are honoring our obligations, keeping one another sane and happy—certainly well fed, because I have busted out every one of my best recipes and all my cooking skills, inventing a few new tricks and strategies along the way.  The object of Fillmore’s and my care is growing stronger and healthier every day, and she gains a little more purchase on full independence every day, too.

Little raggedy in the afternoon session

This afternoon the social worker paid us an “official visit.”  Poor woman showed-up with all the best intentions; she probably left feeling as though she had been thrown headlong into a wood-chipper, because our beloved mother unloaded all of her venom and virulence on the poor woman, who originally thought she was just coming to talk about transportation and telephones.  Thank God this was not an alcohol-fueled battle with depression and despair, because it could have grown really ugly—dangerous, possibly fatal.  We could have ended-up with yellow “crime scene” tape woven around the old homestead.

And, honestly, if I were as literary as I affect, I would make the house a character in this drama, allying it with my mother in a deadly collusion to keep away anyone who will not contribute to my mother’s illusions that everything is fine, always has been fine, and indefinitely will continue to be fine…until she decides she is finished and refuses to wake up one morning.  I hope I already have mentioned it, but it warrants repeating, relentless reiteration, and being said over and over: our beloved mother suffers severe agoraphobia.  The world appears when she summons it, and the guest list is considerably more selective than New York’s, LA’s, and The City’s clubs of the week.  Famous artists and makers of fine literature always are welcome.  Purveyors of harsh realities need not apply.  And one must remember that our beloved mother does not venture beyond her own property line without compelling reason.  Before she went to the hospital on Thanksgiving night, she had not entertained a compelling reason in approximately three years.  She probably had not ventured out-of-doors in nearly that long, and one may safely surmise that the osteoporosis and breat cancer have been growing unabated for all that time.

Equally honestly, if I were as good a reporter as I affect, I would say more about Dave.  Dave showed-up about three months after my father died, “Paying his respects” and claiming a small measure of privilege because his mother had been one of my grandmother’s closest friends for approximately three and a half centuries or as long as Dave could remember or something like that.  Dave showed up about three months after my daddy died, and the sumbitch has hung-on, seldom leaving since.  Fillmore, however, provides ideal defense against Dave, who leads the world’s elite germophobes and whole-heartedly believes the dog will be fatal to us all.  Called to witness, Dave will proclaim that Fillmore is 110 pounds of pure pestilence.  You may draw your own conclusions from the fact that Fillmore is here and Dave is not.

At one time, we heard ugly rumors that Dave had given our beloved mother a sexually transmitted disease.  The rumors were neither confirmed nor denied.  Moreover, Jessica and I agreed no child should have to entertain the visions the idea provokes.  Dave is a “portly gentleman’; a suitor of some significant girth.  I could conjure a few more Dickensian phrases—“a man of some ponderous gravity,” for example.  Lour beloved mother, on the other hand, is petite; and, you naturally may infer that osteoporosis and the natural effects of Mother Earth’s gravity have contributed to her petiteness.  Now, you too may share the images to which the rumors gave rise.

While our beloved mother referred to her rehabilitation center, Forest Villa, in prison terms, conjuring her own images of terrible incarceration, Jessica and I thought she ought to call Dave her “homeboy,” but the idea never caught-on.  Homeboy calls every night—usually right in the middle of “supper,” a word and concept I never much liked.  “Suppertime, Margaret,” Frank Burns, the sky pilot (Robert Duvall), says to Hotlips Houlihan in the original M*A*S*H, and the word retains its slobbering, lascivious quality to this day.  We have the good sense not to let our Homeboy interrupt dinner as if her were an intrusive telemarketer.  He (almost) always calls back.  He (always) always manages to say something that creeps deep under our beloved mother’s skin.  Most recently, he regaled her with morbid and grotesque images of the earthquake in Haiti—reminiscent of a first grade boy talking about “guts,” to my way of thinking.  I seldom have felt as fearful as when it dawned on me that I number among the most mature members of this rag-tag crew, and the whole assembly makes Fillmore seem like our elder statesman.

Do over: A little raggedy this afternoon

Let me see if I can do this in a sentence…

Our mother would like to pretend none of this ever happened, blissfully returning to her cloistered life in fantasyland, happily enabled by Dave, who naturally will continue his chivalrous service to the Empress.

That’s not bad, but we need more realism and less metaphor.  Tongue out of cheek and eyes wide open.

Take two: My mother cannot stand the idea that she is sick and might need someone’s assistance; the thoughts seriously violate her sense of herself, inducing huge shame, which naturally manifests as rage.

Also not bad, but a little too academic.  And it brings-up an allied thought.

After my grandfather’s death, my grandmother lived happily and productively alone in her home until she awakened one morning to discover she was in end-stage pancreatic cancer.  She adjourned to the hospital where she lingered just long enough to make sure I passed my orals.  She died the day after I was anointed as a survivor of “oral qualifying examinations for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.”  I know she willed herself to stay alive through my rite of passage.

My mother believes that she should do it exactly the same way, and this untimely set-back does not fit with the plan.  Not in any way at all.

Our mother intended to come home, pick-up where she left off, and keep going until she just could not go any more.  Then, she intended to quit—all on her own terms.

When the plan did not go her way, she adroitly jumped to the conclusion that God has it in for her and is singling her out for special abuse and suffering.

No one ever claimed there was any logic or rationality in any of this.

The woman is a towering genius, but one must remember she majored in art and her gifts are more imaginative than logical.

Still haven’t quite done it in a sentence.

Take twelve: Joyce expected that she could pretend none of this ever happened.  Therapists and social workers keep reminding her that it did.  And as long as the cancer remains in her breast, it will continue to happen.  It is not okay that it should continue to happen to Joyce.

In this context and in the beginnings of a freezing rain, Cindy the social worker showed-up this afternoon at 3:30.  Cindy was doomed from the moment she rang the doorbell, because the Empress had given the command, “Pull-up the gates and fill the moat.  Dave, let loose the alligators!” she must have proclaimed, ordering her minions to their posts.  Cindy came in peace.  My mother came in full battle regalia; she especially had sharpened her rapier intellect, honing it to readiness for slicing, dicing, mincing and cutting julienne.

Cindy was brave, but our beloved mother was firing on all twelve raging cylinders.

“So, Joyce, how are you feeling today?” Cindy politely inquired.

“Today, I have run out of charm and the desire to be nice to people who invade my home asking me about my sickness and neediness,” my mother responded, giving the best one-sentence summary we have seen or heard so far.  Cindy hastily retreated to her case files, regrouping and undoubtedly calling out “mayday, mayday!” to her own guardian angels.

Cindy came back with the worst conceivable follow-up, responding with her graduate school training rather than her better instincts. “Why do you think I’m invading your home, Joyce?”  The woman clearly had a death wish.

To be continued…soon

My brain is showing about seven active windows, and I’m having trouble figuring out which one really deserves my attention. You can help me decide if I really come to an impasse.

First, as I was considering how I would give “My First Lecture,” my answer to the professor’s best-selling Last Lecture, I immediately remembered his assertion that it must deal with Life. I agreed. Pretty much to the syllable, I agreed, and my agreement has a lot to do with why I bailed on “Everyday Health”—that and the fact that “Everyday Health” has a nasty tendency to dummy-down complex subjects, and I just cannot make myself do that. Just cannot.

As I wrote that sentence, the latest of “Everyday Health’s” featured articles popped-up in my e-mail. “How to Spot the Sings of Bipolar Disorder” it entices. I’m sure it has lots of lovely bullets and pithy tips—all that I feel dummies-down a complex and difficult syndrome. What? Like you couldn’t tell you were riding an emotional roller coaster, or like you could not detect genuinely radical mood swings in your child? No, it cannot easily be mistaken for PMDD, which has its own pattern and rhythm and remains absolutely distinct from and independent of bipolar disorder. For the record, I also hate that bipolar has become everybody’s pet fascination and favorite excuse. Play in the league for fifty years or so; then, we’ll talk.

Second, I realized—for approximately the million-and-eleventh time, I realized—my sister and I have benefitted from our rotten childhood as much as we have suffered from it… almost. “We”… I was going to speak for both of us, but I know my sister will write it in her own way and her own unmistakable voice when the time comes; so, I will write it just for me.

I know that I am a better parent because my mother and father so frequently failed to deliver. I think I mentioned how my mother stumbled out of my high school graduation sobbing uncontrollably and holding in her vomit. Whose mother was that? By the time I graduated from Rolling Hills High School, I had perfected the subtleties and intricacies of feigning “normal.” I was not alone in that.

From these experiences, I learned to provide lunch money or perfect lunches complete with surprises and notes. I learned to show-up for every school event looking absolutely proper and professional, and I learned how to avoid embarrassing my daughter at all cost. I admit I made a few mistakes along the path to that difficult maneuver. Do you have any idea how hard it is not to say anything to the English teacher who is so full of shit you want, desperately, to call the cranial septic service? I finally can get through a curriculum night without showing my “Go Bears” in any way. Well, okay, sometimes I wear a blue and gold striped blouse, but that’s as far as I will go. In general, I have learned to calculate each of my parents’ maneuvers and then do the exact opposite. For the most part, the technique has worked well.

I know that I have become more independent and resourceful as a result of my rotten childhood, and both my sister and I have become extremely skilled at managing crises. I confess I may have manufactured a few crises just for the sake of managing them, but life also has delivered a few I would not have contrived even at the deepest of my melancholies.

This perverse gratitude for survivorship depends, for its efficacy, on stern resolve to deal with it. Always, everywhere. Deal with it. Kinda like “just do it,” and equally challenging.

Therefore, third, in order to manage my own and contribute to managing my mother’s recovery, I have to accept that my mother absolutely does not remember any of her less-than-perfect moves. She can recite chapter and verse of her sacrifices and triumphs; the rest just never happened, and my mother cannot feel guilt or remorse for all that never happened. In other words, I must sustain my forgiveness and reconciliation without asking or expecting any kind of responsibility or apology. The forgiveness exists at least as much between The Great Father and me as it happens between me and my mother. I will not even bring it up to her, because it will have no context or relevance in her constructs of our family history.

In order to manage my own and contribute to my mother’s recovery, I must become as good a parent to my mother as I have been to my children. If I really am honest and insightful, I even will own-up for my mistakes with them, taking responsibility and accepting the consequences. There’s a nifty challenge for future blog episodes, eh? Meanwhile, if I return to the old homestead despite Thomas Wolfe’s sage admonition, I will go as a parent and caretaker. How I go, however, may not match how my mother receives and regards me. In the same way that she can recite every sacrifice and triumph in her parenting career, she also can recite every faux pas and genuine fuck up in my career as a would-be person. She can recall the minute particulars of every embarrassing moment—especially the one time I risked enjoying a few cocktails with the family and could not handle them. How much divine payback was that? Especially the one time I, eager to show off all I had learned in my restaurant career, insisted on making the gravy for a Thanksgiving turkey and produced a truly epic failure. B in typing—right on the tip of her tongue; A’s in honors English were simply expected and barely worth noticing.

It comes to this: Can my mother accept me as a caregiver? Cans she, first, accept me as a mature, competent, responsible adult; and, then, can she accept me as an authority? Part one seems possible; part two seems barely plausible. Is this another perverse version of “ruining my life”? Because I ended-up rejecting her as any kind of authority, will she now return the favor, using my own bad behavior as precedent? Will she recall, for example, how the girls and I drove all the way to “The New Place,” a teen-aged nightclub, in Algonquin? Will she aim directly for the weakened heart muscles, citing her disgust at how and with whom I relinquished my virginity? She can go even further than that, but I have my limits here; I have learned to enforce a few boundaries.

I have come to understand, hurt feelings notwithstanding, my mother first rejected my care because she did not want me to discern just how sick she was and urge her to get medical attention. She did not want to make herself vulnerable in that way. I suppose there always may be a few things a mother wants to conceal from her child. I guess she, in her mean-spirited way, staked out her boundaries, too.

My mother wants nothing more than to return to her own home. She wants nothing more than to live, or die, there in peace. My sister and I believe she would choose to fall asleep some night and just forget to awaken.

Which brings me back to the beginning. I want “My First Lecture” to dwell on the business of living—not coping with the downside or seeing the signs of bipolar disorder as if they were hidden in the tea leaves’ pattern, but the real business of living and growing and learning and taking risks until it just ends. I once had hoped I might share these initiatives with my mother, but I do not know if we agree. Is she going to hospice care as I continue my study in Kieryn’s Academy of Literary Genius? I certainly respect her wishes, and I definitely care about her desires. I do not want to disrespect her in her last years or months or minutes. I can maintain my independent quest for life and the 300,000 words that will cheat death while she maintains her focus on dying with dignity. But how will I know? I cannot just dial the magic digits and inquire, “Yo, mama, y’all ‘bout dyin’, or y’all thinkin’ on keepin’ on keepin’ on fo’ while?” Well, maybe I could do it a la Zora Neale Hurston (yes, of course, I read her, too). It’s doing it in my own voice and authentic self that leaves it just outside the bounds of plausibility.

It’s a long way around to a very short question: I want to deal with life and living and some measure of fulfillment. What does my mother want to do?

Today

Moosemiles: 2

Aquatic: water polo style—tread water for one minute on three minute intervals, five repeats

Weight: 168, a little improvement, still too much

Wordage: approximately 5000, and added another small client

Here, 1490 words