She is an angel
(my better self)
She watches from the outside
In the inside
Of my head
And shows me
How she would have done it
Better
The control she would have kept
Over her emotions
During that argument
The perspective she will keep
Through the trials
She observes my mothering
And chides with righteous patience
That a glass of juice
Spilled on the floor
Is really not so terrible a thing
To happen
She disregards the build-up
Of juice cups spilled
And diapers
And directions gone unheeded
She lets each go
And starts fresh at every fiasco
She forgives
Everyone but me.
I have yet to learn
What her role is
In my life
If she were meant
To plague me
Or lift me up
But she feels a heavy burden
Teetering at the top of
The load I carry
Maybe she is not
My best self
Maybe she is inhuman
And I do myself
A disservice
Comparing the two of us
As if I were really
Capable
Of meeting
that measure of goodness.
Or…
Perhaps she is my true self
Whispering reminders
Buried under the shrapnel of guilt
I choose to bear
Rather than rising to the glory
Of what I was made
To become.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Beginning
On the first day of Lilly’s new life, she was driving. Her ’08 Subaru wove its way through the gorge, following the curvy highway that ran along the columbia river. The landscape started green, with lush forests rolling up beside her. Heavy grey clouds hung above blanketing the sky, mingling with the tree tops and obscuring any view of the sun. As she pressed east, the scenery made gradual changes. The trees thinned… bare rocks exposed themselves in the earth… and then the clouds lifted and lightened, having lost the strength to carry the darkness and the rain to the other side of the Cascade mountains. And the sun broke through.
Native Portlanders were appalled at Lilly’s choice of location. They called it barren. They said it was too hot. They couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to leave the beautiful backdrop of varying shades of green that covered every un-developed square inch of earth. Lilly, however, was not a native. She grew up in the desert, naming every cactus and taking pictures of the particularly breathtaking sunsets. She preferred her mountains jagged and bare against blue skies. She could not imagine anyone wanting to stay where the rain weeps nine months out of every year, hiding the sun with layer upon layer of indigo-gray clouds. By the time she decided to leave, her least favorite colors were grey and green. She only lived there in the first place because Mike had gotten a job there. And, now, it didn’t matter where Mike worked. If he were a color, it would be grey. She was done with him, too.
As she made her descent into the dry country, the view opened into a panorama. Just two hours ago she had been hemmed in, her vision barricaded by giants knit tightly together, stretching the mountainsides higher into the thick wet clouds. And now they released her into vastness… endless blue sky with miles and miles of warm brown. She recognized immediately that it was different from the desert she knew. Rather than tall mesquite and creosote bushes, it was covered with low sage brush, and not a single cactus gnarled its prickled hands against the backdrop. The sand was even strange, covered with thin, honey-colored grass. There were no craggy mountains - only rolling hills that seemed alive to her, the wind moving the grass like a high desert sea. Three-armed windmills dotted the hill tops, turning slowly. She glanced in the little child mirror attached to her rear view to point them out to Eden, but saw that she was already asleep, along with her little brother, Mason. Lilly turned down the Debussy she’d been listening to and listened to them breathe in their dreams, pulled into her own quiet reverie.
Mason’s face was pale and freckled with deep-set green eyes, like Lilly’s. Eden looked like Mike. So much that Lilly wondered at first if she had a single dominant gene to contribute to the pool. It felt strange to be able to love so dearly the feminine version of a face she despised. Of course, it hadn’t always been that way…
When Lilly met Mike, she was a photography major in college. They frequented the same poetry readings and bookstores. And, finally one day, he struck a conversation with her over the Cummings collection she flipped through as she sat on a winged chair by the coffee shop. She remembered thinking he bore a vague resemblance to e., glancing down at his picture on the back cover. She liked that. They were so similar, everyone said. They started to share the same mannerisms. They sincerely enjoyed each other’s company, whether they were lazing around reading, or walking to class together, or studying… their college life together had been fantastic. She tried to remind herself of that now. In the beginning, it was good. When Mike asked her to marry him, hiking together (though neither of them were outdoorsy) to the top of a mountain that overlooked their university town, she didn’t have to think about it. She had made that decision a thousand times, listening to his laugh… catching his glass-blue eyes staring at her while she wrote… brushing her cheek along the bristles of his beard… he had asked with each gesture, and each time her heart said yes. It wasn’t until after the fairy-tale wedding and graduation and the move to the Pacific North West that the souring began.
The first time Lilly became pregnant, they were thrilled. They decorated the nursery together, and Mike had filled the baby’s bookshelves months before she was born. Lilly fantasized about their family life with a baby, and Mike made promises to change his schedule so he could be home with them more. Mike was a committed man, which was usually a good thing. He excelled at everything he pursued. Entering the business world, people recognized that and moved aside for him to rise. The firm he worked for demanded long hours which he gave them willingly. Lilly, on the other hand, did not hand him over quite as easily. She rarely saw him. He promised it would only be for the first couple of years, until he could prove himself to the company, but the higher he ranked, the longer his hours stretched. He missed most of Eden’s infancy, coming home long after she had gone to bed and leaving for work before she rose for the day. At first, Lilly had longed for him to be with her… but, after a while, she dreaded his homecomings. She pretended the deepest sleep when he came into bed and reached for her. Some nights, held her anyway… and then he stopped trying… both relieving Lilly and breaking her heart at the same time. Their waking hours together were busy, filled with Eden’s diapers and demands. She was a beautiful little thing. Those blue eyes took Lilly’s breath away. Mike’s, too, on his days off. But, Eden didn’t know Mike very well and preferred her mother. Mike bought lavish gifts for both of them. He surprised her with a new car. They moved to a house so big he hired a few cleaning ladies to help her with the daunting amount of upkeep. With every gesture, the look on his face seemed to both beg for her approval and demand it.
They had agreed that one child was enough for the moment - and then, a few weeks after their anniversary, Lilly discovered the addition of one more. Mike was not so happy this time. His architecture firm had just taken on a major international client, and he was supposed to be out of the country for the entire month after the baby’s due date. She told him to go anyway… and, when Mason was born, she hardly noticed he was gone.
As passionately as Mike threw himself into his work, Lilly threw herself into Motherhood. She read stacks of books to them. She took them to the duck pond and the children’s museum and swimming lessons, snapping albums of pictures at every turn. She tried to be the other half that was absent ninety percent of the time. Every mother knows she will fall short no matter how hard she tries to replace the father of her children… but it doesn’t stop her from working desperately to fill in the gap.
The dissolution of their marriage came on just as naturally and gradually as the creation of it, like the decrescendo at the end of a composition. The intimacy that once bound them slackened and unwound day after day… until in one moment, with one look, they both knew it was over. Mike came into the bedroom around two in the morning and peeled back the down comforter. Thick, drizzly raindrops pattered on the roof above them. Lilly opened her eyes and looked into his. Dark circles hung beneath them and they were bloodshot. Lilly noticed for the first time that his hair was beginning to thin. They stared at each other for a long time, as if across a chasm that could not be bridged. They had both made their decisions.
It seemed rash for Lilly to move to “nothing” and she knew it. The truth was, she had only been to Richland once, to visit an dear friend she’d known since childhood. But, she loved it instantly. So, when she and Mike signed the papers, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to her to go there. She would leave the memories and disappointment on the other side of the Cascades and cultivate a new life under the blessed rays of the sun.
The children awakened in time to see the town as they drove to their new home. They pointed out horses and cows excitedly, and Lilly acted just as in awe as they were. The house she chose was an old red-brick bungalow on an acre lot ten minutes from town. The white paint on the shudders was chipped and faded. The flower garden was dying and choked with weeds. It needed work, obviously, but so did Lilly, so she figured they could do it together. While she created business cards for her photography business on her laptop, she mentally renovated the kitchen.
After the children chose their rooms and wore themselves out running around the yard, they ate a feast of delivery pizza and went to bed early, exhausted. Lilly sat on the back porch in her rocking chair and watched the sun for a while. In the southwestern desert she knew, the sun was heavy, falling in a stunning spectacle of blazing orange behind the mountains in the space of an hour. This new desert was not in any hurry to surrender her. She hung, gathering pink and gold on the horizon, saying goodbye to every curve of the land below, kissing it goodbye and promising to come back in the morning.
Native Portlanders were appalled at Lilly’s choice of location. They called it barren. They said it was too hot. They couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to leave the beautiful backdrop of varying shades of green that covered every un-developed square inch of earth. Lilly, however, was not a native. She grew up in the desert, naming every cactus and taking pictures of the particularly breathtaking sunsets. She preferred her mountains jagged and bare against blue skies. She could not imagine anyone wanting to stay where the rain weeps nine months out of every year, hiding the sun with layer upon layer of indigo-gray clouds. By the time she decided to leave, her least favorite colors were grey and green. She only lived there in the first place because Mike had gotten a job there. And, now, it didn’t matter where Mike worked. If he were a color, it would be grey. She was done with him, too.
As she made her descent into the dry country, the view opened into a panorama. Just two hours ago she had been hemmed in, her vision barricaded by giants knit tightly together, stretching the mountainsides higher into the thick wet clouds. And now they released her into vastness… endless blue sky with miles and miles of warm brown. She recognized immediately that it was different from the desert she knew. Rather than tall mesquite and creosote bushes, it was covered with low sage brush, and not a single cactus gnarled its prickled hands against the backdrop. The sand was even strange, covered with thin, honey-colored grass. There were no craggy mountains - only rolling hills that seemed alive to her, the wind moving the grass like a high desert sea. Three-armed windmills dotted the hill tops, turning slowly. She glanced in the little child mirror attached to her rear view to point them out to Eden, but saw that she was already asleep, along with her little brother, Mason. Lilly turned down the Debussy she’d been listening to and listened to them breathe in their dreams, pulled into her own quiet reverie.
Mason’s face was pale and freckled with deep-set green eyes, like Lilly’s. Eden looked like Mike. So much that Lilly wondered at first if she had a single dominant gene to contribute to the pool. It felt strange to be able to love so dearly the feminine version of a face she despised. Of course, it hadn’t always been that way…
When Lilly met Mike, she was a photography major in college. They frequented the same poetry readings and bookstores. And, finally one day, he struck a conversation with her over the Cummings collection she flipped through as she sat on a winged chair by the coffee shop. She remembered thinking he bore a vague resemblance to e., glancing down at his picture on the back cover. She liked that. They were so similar, everyone said. They started to share the same mannerisms. They sincerely enjoyed each other’s company, whether they were lazing around reading, or walking to class together, or studying… their college life together had been fantastic. She tried to remind herself of that now. In the beginning, it was good. When Mike asked her to marry him, hiking together (though neither of them were outdoorsy) to the top of a mountain that overlooked their university town, she didn’t have to think about it. She had made that decision a thousand times, listening to his laugh… catching his glass-blue eyes staring at her while she wrote… brushing her cheek along the bristles of his beard… he had asked with each gesture, and each time her heart said yes. It wasn’t until after the fairy-tale wedding and graduation and the move to the Pacific North West that the souring began.
The first time Lilly became pregnant, they were thrilled. They decorated the nursery together, and Mike had filled the baby’s bookshelves months before she was born. Lilly fantasized about their family life with a baby, and Mike made promises to change his schedule so he could be home with them more. Mike was a committed man, which was usually a good thing. He excelled at everything he pursued. Entering the business world, people recognized that and moved aside for him to rise. The firm he worked for demanded long hours which he gave them willingly. Lilly, on the other hand, did not hand him over quite as easily. She rarely saw him. He promised it would only be for the first couple of years, until he could prove himself to the company, but the higher he ranked, the longer his hours stretched. He missed most of Eden’s infancy, coming home long after she had gone to bed and leaving for work before she rose for the day. At first, Lilly had longed for him to be with her… but, after a while, she dreaded his homecomings. She pretended the deepest sleep when he came into bed and reached for her. Some nights, held her anyway… and then he stopped trying… both relieving Lilly and breaking her heart at the same time. Their waking hours together were busy, filled with Eden’s diapers and demands. She was a beautiful little thing. Those blue eyes took Lilly’s breath away. Mike’s, too, on his days off. But, Eden didn’t know Mike very well and preferred her mother. Mike bought lavish gifts for both of them. He surprised her with a new car. They moved to a house so big he hired a few cleaning ladies to help her with the daunting amount of upkeep. With every gesture, the look on his face seemed to both beg for her approval and demand it.
They had agreed that one child was enough for the moment - and then, a few weeks after their anniversary, Lilly discovered the addition of one more. Mike was not so happy this time. His architecture firm had just taken on a major international client, and he was supposed to be out of the country for the entire month after the baby’s due date. She told him to go anyway… and, when Mason was born, she hardly noticed he was gone.
As passionately as Mike threw himself into his work, Lilly threw herself into Motherhood. She read stacks of books to them. She took them to the duck pond and the children’s museum and swimming lessons, snapping albums of pictures at every turn. She tried to be the other half that was absent ninety percent of the time. Every mother knows she will fall short no matter how hard she tries to replace the father of her children… but it doesn’t stop her from working desperately to fill in the gap.
The dissolution of their marriage came on just as naturally and gradually as the creation of it, like the decrescendo at the end of a composition. The intimacy that once bound them slackened and unwound day after day… until in one moment, with one look, they both knew it was over. Mike came into the bedroom around two in the morning and peeled back the down comforter. Thick, drizzly raindrops pattered on the roof above them. Lilly opened her eyes and looked into his. Dark circles hung beneath them and they were bloodshot. Lilly noticed for the first time that his hair was beginning to thin. They stared at each other for a long time, as if across a chasm that could not be bridged. They had both made their decisions.
It seemed rash for Lilly to move to “nothing” and she knew it. The truth was, she had only been to Richland once, to visit an dear friend she’d known since childhood. But, she loved it instantly. So, when she and Mike signed the papers, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to her to go there. She would leave the memories and disappointment on the other side of the Cascades and cultivate a new life under the blessed rays of the sun.
The children awakened in time to see the town as they drove to their new home. They pointed out horses and cows excitedly, and Lilly acted just as in awe as they were. The house she chose was an old red-brick bungalow on an acre lot ten minutes from town. The white paint on the shudders was chipped and faded. The flower garden was dying and choked with weeds. It needed work, obviously, but so did Lilly, so she figured they could do it together. While she created business cards for her photography business on her laptop, she mentally renovated the kitchen.
After the children chose their rooms and wore themselves out running around the yard, they ate a feast of delivery pizza and went to bed early, exhausted. Lilly sat on the back porch in her rocking chair and watched the sun for a while. In the southwestern desert she knew, the sun was heavy, falling in a stunning spectacle of blazing orange behind the mountains in the space of an hour. This new desert was not in any hurry to surrender her. She hung, gathering pink and gold on the horizon, saying goodbye to every curve of the land below, kissing it goodbye and promising to come back in the morning.
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