Motherhood

Some of my favorite moments

Are watching my mother deal with her mother

Because the matriarch does not give a damn anymore

She announces her presence with

Loud boisterous tones and bright red lipstick

Her face glowing with the security and strength of her position

My mother stands behind her

Hissing like a snake about to strike,

The venomous word

Implying the priority of the position

“mother.”

I giggle in the corner because

I love watching my mother play daughter

Seeing her feel the gut wrenching embarrassment

The flexing feeling of uncomfortable organs

Swimming in absurdity

The feeling that,

“Ugh my mother is so embarrassing”

“because she…”

Because she

What?

I don’t know

I can’t remember anymore what my mother says that is uncomfortable

But I remember the emotion

The disdain at her lack of refinement

Or the hatred of the way she said that

Word

My God my mother

I tell friends

And it’s only when they repeat back to me

My own criticism for a woman they do not know

Or understand do I remember to say

My mother lost her best friend and sister

To cancer

At the age of thirty-five

And she had to pull herself out of bed everyday

To take her seven year old daughter to school

My mother was twenty-seven

Alone with a six-week-old baby

Because her husband left her

My mother took karate classes for ten years

And can kick your ass

My mother reads romance novels

My mother is in her element as a teacher

My mother makes up show tunes

When she makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the morning

What have we done to our mothers?

It’s only when a male friend

Calls me “Mom”

For trying to plan

For trying to make sure everyone is having a “good time”

That I think of the question again

What have we done to our mothers?

Our mothers who are women

beautiful, kind,

Intelligent, mean, pedantic,

Frustrating, complex, insecure, lonely

Happy, amused, angry, funny

We, daughters are sometimes so cruel to our mothers

The body and soul that brought us into the world

We deny them their humanity

Wrenching it from their hands

This is ours now

Go be something else

Why this frustration?

Perhaps it is because everything in society screams at us

The eventual turning of time will deny you

Everything

You will loose the four inches of height

You have on her mother

Suddenly inherit her nose, her eyes, her mannerisms

And be thrown onto the generic pile of “woman”

In the corner

What a patriarchal way to perceive women!

Put into categories

Tiny boxes piled on shelves

Forgotten

As if everything I, she, we are

Can fit in a box

I will never be mother

She will never be hers

As we are all unique individuals

Let us celebrate our mothers

As we would any woman we know who

Brings us food when we are sick

Who is learning to play the cello

Who went to Spain last week all by herself

Who lives without a man

A woman who is feeling beautiful, sensual, intense, lonely and strong

All at the same time

Motherhood does not deny you your womanhood

Motherhood is everything on top of it

Back in Childhood

Back in childhood,

There were unicorns.

There were superheroes

Expunging essences in bright beautiful colors.

There were tea parties.

Where dogs could be rulers,

And boys were jedi,

princes,

or both.

When I look back a little nearer,

I see less colors.

But when they show up they,

Pop!

Bright against earthy green tones and navy blues.

They are treated with less casualty than,

The unicorns of childhood.

But it’s weird how we still ignore them.

When I meet with friends we talk about the,

Gray humdrums of the future,

Dreams of domestic bliss.

But what about,

Me,

And now,

And unicorns.

I look back and I am in mourning,

For bright beautiful optimism,

That is still here,

In the present,

My present,

With me.

So I’m going to embrace the color,

Pop,

And play,

With unicorns.

And focus less on the dreams,

attained in the future,

Because that chase is futile.

The real adventure is already afoot.

Victims

Suicide victims are victims. They are victims of a disease, victims of society, and victims of themselves.

Suicide doesn’t have a straight path to it. It’s not the inevitability at the end of some road. It’s a chain of options that spring up like phantoms as you’re working your way through life. One minute you’re okay, and then next minute you aren’t. It’s not because of some implicit choice. Circumstance just brings the phantom to you.

Suicide does not present itself for only one type of person or for one type of reason. I’ve spent years amongst misfits, brilliant people who feel the burden sometimes of a world that really likes to pretend to hate them. Poor misfits who, at one point or another, deeply considered leaving the rest of us behind.

In my experience, suicide didn’t present itself in one way. It came to me in moments of utter helpless sadness, complete numbness, and terrible ferocious anger. It came in various packaging and various options.

Yet, for the other misfits and me who were still walking around the world, somehow the timing never was right, the numbness never strong enough, the blade never sharp enough.

There’s a story that says that every year people go to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, and the survivors always say that, mid jump, they realized that there was a simple solution to their problems.

For all its terror, the universe can be merciful.

But Depression is not.

Depression is being at the bottom of a chasm that seems too big to climb out of. Scraping against the sides of the wall, filling fingernails with dirt, starving, trapped and alone. Us, friends and family huddle on the edge of the hole that leads to the light, but the most we can do is call out words of encouragement, screaming our love, our devotion.

Us, those trapped in the chasm, feel everything. Everything is dark. Everything is numb. We are the only ones who can climb the walls and escape.

In depression, though, escape is never permanent because the floor can always fall out from underneath you again. It takes intense beautiful bravery to continue walking through life’s fields, hoping you don’t find yourself suddenly standing on nothing.

Those stuck in the chasm, unable to crawl out, are the victims and deserve the most love and compassion. They are victims because they did not jump in willingly. Something else put them in the dark.

Suicide victims are victims of the darkness, despair, sadness, and loneliness. And like all victims they deserved compassion. They deserve compassion, and they are love by somebody somewhere right now.

Resources for someone considering suicide:

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

http://www.advocate.com/health/2014/11/25/new-suicide-hotline-dedicated-trans-people-now-open-calls

http://www.mentalsupportcommunity.net/index.php?/forum/32-urgent-need/

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

https://www.imalive.org

http://letsrecovertogether.tumblr.com

Safe and Sound-

Safe and Sound

When I first rode up to my grandparent’s house, I fell in love. To anyone it might’ve just seemed like an average little house, but I thought it was something special. True, the outside of the house was not remarkable or distinguished in any way. To me, though, there was always something very safe and honest about the front of that house. Its dark navy blue exterior was the perfect counter of the usually formidable Washington State sky above it. My grandmother always planted bright flowers along the exterior, and when I would visit in the spring, I would walk along the garden, gently caressing individual tulips and daffodils.

The inside of the house was a perfect union of both of my grandparents’ esthetic. The TV room that led into my grandfather’s office and my grandparent’s bedroom was my grandfather. It was darker with more masculine gray and deep navy blue accents. My grandfather’s office was my bedroom in the early years when I would stay there. I would wake up and feel comforted by the sight of papa’s maps on the wall. I would read all of his old books that had been moved from great-grandparent’s house, always reflecting on how ancient the covers and pages smelled. I would play with his eclectic collection of strange tools: objects for measuring distance, speed, and direction. Occasionally, I would ask him what one meant or measured, and even though he always explained thoroughly, I still had no idea what it actually did.

The other half of the house was my grandmother’s side. It was filled with bright pictures and cushions. Strange accouterments from her mother’s house sitting on the mantle surrounded by old photos of family members, made barely recognizable by the years.

The best part, though, was the entire back wall made of windows. Windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. I would sit at the kitchen table, staring outside in complete and comfortable silence.

Outside those windows was magic. To someone born and raised living on the small plots of suburbia, behind my grandparent’s house was a wonderland. It was an enormous open field. My grandparents’ house rested on a hill next to an old barn that doubled as my grandfather’s workshop and storage. To the left of the house was a wood that the neighbor boy and I would play in all afternoon, pretending to be wizards or jedi or knights. But, in all honesty I loved the field because it was a place I could escape to and feel safe in. Nobody could find me if I didn’t want them to. I would sit on the white picket fence that divided the field in half, listening to music, and staring at the harbor down below. One night, I became overcome with fear for some reason and sat outside on the fence for hours, watching the sun set into darkness. It was a place I imagined my life at its simplest, gentlest, calmest. Things became clear in my grandparent’s backyard.

A year ago I was able to return to that place for the first time in three years. My grandparents had sold the house to friends, and inside it was different. The loud lady who lives there now would brag about she’d improved it. Liar. Nothing could’ve improved that house, and I blamed her for ruining it.

Even in the dark, though, the field remained the same. I introduced my best friend to it as I would’ve introduced an old friend: my place of clarity and comfort. I sat in it, allowing the grass to overwhelm me, staring at fireworks up above through bleary eyes. My safest place, steady in all the change and turmoil. For a minute I wished to become part of the earth, so I could lie there forever.

See, I can write a legend

In the early times things were different. The Earth was young and handsome, with great blue oceans and green green trees. Creatures dotted his surface, the only planet with anything living in the entire solar system.

It was for these reasons that the Earth grew vain, and ignored the other planets, his brother Mars and sister Venus. He floated alone in space flaunting his colors made by water and trees.

The only one to venture near him was the moon. Moon was a quiet plain soul, desperately in love with Earth. Earth enjoyed Moon’s company and allowed her to stay with him, but for the most of the days he ignored her. Her beauty was not appealing enough to catch his attention.

But Moon remained in love with Earth, despite his ignoring her. She grew so attached to Earth, she became a part of his magnificent surface, buried underneath his oceans, hoping to one day be noticed by him.

It was another, though, who caught Earth’s attention. She was far away from Earth. She shone with a light and energy like nothing Earth had ever seen. She was gorgeous and brilliant. She was Sun, untouchable and untamable, uncontested as the most fantastic being in the system.

Earth became engrossed in his love for sun. But it was a love that could never be. Sun was too great for a small being like Earth, even one as lovely. So, Earth was left to forever orbit sun, never allowed to get nearer, but never able to leave.

Heartbroken, Moon flung herself away from Earth. Embarrassed and broken, she became cold and gray. But, her love for Earth persisted, and she never left his side. As Earth was forever to circle the sun, so too was moon forever forced to circle Earth.

It has remained this way in the many years since. It is only on special days, when the moon and sun are just so, that Moon is able to block Sun and for a few minutes, be the sole recipient of Earth’s attention and love.

The Script for having a Wonderfully Overdue Confrontation with your Looser Ex-Best (let’s face it, it’s usually a guy, but this will work for anyone) Friend

(The phone is ringing)

You:

Hello?

(playing it “cool”, whatever the hell that means)

You:

Hey it’s (your name). Yeah long time no talking.

(here’s where they start saying bs about you having not talked for a while, or act like they actually notice that they haven’t talked to you for a while.)

You:

Yeah, uh huh. Okay, well, I was just calling to give you a chance to explain to me why you haven’t talked to me in

(how ever many years; I recommend this script for only a year or more of no talking)

(They are usually either apologizing or denying at this point. Don’t interrupt them)

You:

(Now keeping your voice level, reminding yourself that what they said above was either total bullcrap or it probably really doesn’t negate years of neglect and abandonment; in fact I might say that below)

(keeping your voice level, and hopefully devoid of too much emotion)

Okay well those were lovely words you just shared with me, and maybe someday we’ll meet on a street corner, and I’ll be able to forgive you for all of this.

But, for now, I just want you to know the truth. The truth being that you abandoned me. We were friends. I trusted you, and you threw that away. You left me to bear the emotional weight of our friendship ending. You made me feel terrible, like I was a bad friend, like I had done something bad to deserve loosing you as a friend. And I have combed through every detail of our friendship and you know what I realized?

This wasn’t all my fault. This was also your fault. You hurt me. And I’d be remise if I didn’t say that I wanted you to feel a bit bad about that.

Really, I didn’t want to ruin your day or make you feel the same way I’ve felt for the past (however many years). I just wanted to be heard. I don’t feel like it’s fair anymore for me to sit in pain while you live your life without knowing what you’ve done to me.

I know you’ll probably tell other people later that I called you like a lunatic raving about some ridiculous notions I had. Which is fine. I don’t really care. Cope with the guilt as you will. I just want to let you know that if you do that, that will confirm all the hateful things I thought about you during my darkest moments.

I don’t want to be your friend again either. I just want you to know how you hurt me, so maybe you’ll think more about the commitment you owe to your friends.

Please don’t call me back. I don’t really want to talk to you anymore. I’m doing well in my life, and I will someday forgive you. But, I will never forget this.

Thanks for listening to all this. I really do hope you have a good life.

(You hang up the phone. You are now the bigger person. Take that assbutt. Resist the urge to do something drastic. Egging his house, while a tempting and a fun idea, won’t solve anything.)

Like A China Doll

Pretty girl with petty problems

Waiting on a promise

Doesn’t wear too much of this or that

Wanting to be “natural”, normal, neurotic

Hiding the books anytime suitors arrive

Watch every word rest on her tongue

Measuring every minute movement or mistake

In the eyes of the boy across from her

Wondering if her place would be better served by a mirror

Superhero Alter Ego

(The stage is dark; a voice can be heard in the darkness)

Voice: College. A time for new adventures. A time for new people. A time for growth, self-expression, and self-examination.

(The lights come up on a lone girl in a cheesy looking superhero costume. She holds a dramatic pose in the middle of the stage. As the lights come up, other students walk behind looking at her like she’s a freak. She continues the dramatic monologue, ignoring them)

Over-thinking Girl: And in a time of new experiences, there is only one person who can be called upon to bring out the unnecessarily negative and self-loathing side in every person…

(People walking and standing behind her still look confused. One actually comes up and pokes her or something because she’s been holding the same pose for a while now.)

Overthinking Girl: Overthinking Girl!

(she walks up behind some girl)

(continuing to address the audience)
Overthinking Girl: Be it a five-minute wait time on a text message.

(She leans over to a girl looking at her cell phone)

Overthinking Girl: Maybe he isn’t texting you back because he doesn’t want to be your friend anymore because you said that thing at lunch that may have been miss construed as something vaguely offensive.

Girl: I’m just checking my email…

Overthinking Girl: (ignores her) Or a poor grade in a class

(walks up to a guy)

Overthinking Girl: Bad grade champ?

Guy: I mean, I guess so. It’s only a C+, and I am taking twenty credits this semester. It’s not even one of my major classes.

Overthinking Girl: Yeah, but maybe in the future you are interviewing for a position at a major law firm because you’re a Government major.

Guy: Physics major

Overthinking Girl: Right! And you have a strong application, but they see you flunked out of European History.

Guy: It’s only a C+!

Overthinking Girl: And you never get hired anywhere. You try to become a janitor and it doesn’t work. You become homeless, live on the streets, and every one of your fellow tribe members passes by you and laughs, remembering your legacy as the guy who failed European History.

Guy: Gosh, Negative Chick, it’s only a C+!

(he walks off getting annoyed)

Overthinking Girl: (she yells after him) Overthinking Girl!

Sarah: (enters) Seriously, Becca we talked about this!

Overthinking Girl: Ahh if it isn’t my roommate, who told me she’d meet me for coffee today, but then didn’t. She said she couldn’t meet me because of a meeting with a professor, but I think it’s because she secretly hates me.

Sarah: Seriously, neurotic girl, I had a meeting with my professor earlier today.

Overthinking Girl: Sarah, you’re inability to listen and learn my superhero name is exactly the kind of evidence that points to the fact that you will eventually turn out to be like your mother.

Exactly. Like. her.

(Overthinking Girl makes another dramatic pose): Overthinking girl, keeping college an unnecessarily neurotic place!

Sarah: Becca, this really needs to stop

Who the Heck is Toby?

A sketch I wrote, that I found amusing. Whether the general public finds it such, remains to be seen.

Dylan: Okay I got the trail mix!

 

(He walks into the dorm room and there are Dan and Toby sitting on the couch together watching TV.)

 

Dylan: Oh…

 

Dan: (uncomfortable) Hey Dylan, I didn’t know when you would be getting back tonight, so I invited Toby over.

 

(Toby waves. He does not take his eyes off the TV for the entire sketch.)

 

Dylan: But, I thought, Thursdays were our TV nights. You know. Roomies nights.

 

Dan: Yeah, man. You were taking a long time. And Toby brought pizza.

 

(Toby wordlessly holds up a pizza box)

 

Dylan: Dan, c’mon man. All my other friends in college get to hang out and do stuff with their roommates. But, every time we’re supposed to hang out, Toby comes over.

 

Dan: Dude, Toby is cool.

 

(Toby holds a thumbs-up)

 

Dylan: I don’t know anything about Toby! Like what year is he in? Or what is he majoring in?

 

Dan: C’mon that’s orientation stuff. I mean he’s definitely a…

 

(There’s this awkward silence where they both watch Toby, who doesn’t look at them)

 

Dan: I don’t know. I think he’s a science major.

 

Dylan: You can’t major in science, Dan. And we still don’t know how old he is.

 

Dan: What are you an ageist or something? Toby, how old are you?

 

(Toby just shrugs)

 

Dan: Well, he definitely seems college aged.

 

Dylan: Look, Toby has to leave. It’s in our roommate agreement. I have to be in bed by eleven to be rested for quidditch practice tomorrow.

 

Dan: I’m not sending Toby back to…. wherever he lives. He just got here!

 

Dylan: You know what? Fine! I’m just gonna call Caitlyn. I have to talk to someone.

 

(Toby shakes his head)

 

Dan: Oh yeah, that might not be such a good idea. Toby said he heard she’s bad news.

 

(Dylan stares at him)

 

Dylan: Dan, when did Toby say that to you? When has Toby ever talked to you?

 

(Toby shakes his head)

 

Dan: What are you talking about? He’s been talking ever since you got in here. He never shuts up!

 

Dylan: (yelling now) No he hasn’t! He hasn’t said anything since I walked in here! Nothing about who he is, where he came from, why he’s here, or how the hell he knows anything about my girlfriend!

(Dylan leaves slamming the door)

 

Dan: Well, that went well.

 

Toby: I think your roommate doesn’t like me very much.

 

Dan: Yeah I don’t know why. You’re always really cool to him. And he just ignores you.

 

(they sit for a while watching TV)

Toby: You know I really don’t get why Vampire Diaries is your favorite show.

 

Dan: It’s an acquired taste.

END

A Father Needs No Introduction

A father needs no introduction

A father teaches you how to brush your teeth
He tries to make getting ready for bed exciting
Really, he’s so tired that he doesn’t care when you don’t spit into the sink

A father holds you because you’re scared
Wraps you up in his big warm embrace protecting you from monsters
And only after the fifth time you come downstairs
Does he loose his temper slightly
When he explains the shapes you see at night are merely a toy on the floor

A father coaches your softball team
Since maybe the other coaches didn’t want you
He tells you to stop playing with the grass out in the field
But all the other girls love him, and it makes you proud

A father teaches you how to manage your finances
He teaches you about CDs and ATM cards
He helps you invest your money in Disney stock
And smiles when you know everything in economics class before it’s taught

A father buys you gifts
Even though he just finished lecturing you about how not to waste your money
He buys you something he thinks you’ll like
Even though you haven’t watched Sleeping Beauty since you were four

A father helps you with your math homework
Inadvertently, teaching you algebra
Because he thinks the way your teacher taught it is stupid

A father gives you advice about boys
Then threatens to scare them if they ever come over

A father dances with you at the father daughter dance
Gently giving advice because you’re not very good at partner dancing

A father teaches you about life wordlessly
Through his stares and his grumbles
Through the movement of his eyes and his smiles
You trust his judgments about the people around him

A father is the one you call when your car breaks down on the side of the road
Because you’re scared
And cars are whipping past you on the freeway
You know he’ll be there soon

A father is the one you easily see your kids climbing all over
With their smiling little faces sitting in his lap
And he’ll spoil them
You’ll kid about being jealous

A father comes to your plays
Even though he really doesn’t get Shakespeare
And he can’t understand the guy with the beard

A father let’s you go
He doesn’t cry (as much) when you go off to college
And makes jabs about how the house is cleaner without you
Really, he misses you
But, he believes in you enough to know you’re not coming back

A father needs no introduction
Anyone that does isn’t a father
Any man who has to repeat his position is not a father
No genetic connection
Nor place of birth
Can be what a real father is

A real father who lets your crying self keep him up late at night
Who takes you to Disneyland when you feel alone
Who sits up late watching movies with you
A man who needs no introduction