On wanting things

Wolfgang Heimbach, Maid looking at a table
A maid looks through the window at the remnants of a feast. And she wants. She wants what she cannot have—not just the things she sees on the other side of that window but the way of life she knows exists on the other side of an equally transparent but very real social divide. You can tell by her round eyes and raised brows that she is amazed. Such sumptuous foods!—the leftovers alone worth several of her own meals. Given the chance, she would drain the wine goblet, polish off that hunk of bread, and carry off the ham bone, still heavy with enough meat to feed her family for a week.

With her nose pressed to the glass and her fingers resting on the window ledge, she has a hungry “puppy dog” look; I half expect her to start howling any minute like a hound who wants the moon to not be a quarter of a million miles away. I am tempted to say her expression is one of longing, but it strikes me as a cruel word, one which implies distance even while it means that she yearns to close the gap. She will never taste the food or touch the starched linens and silver plates that rest few inches away because things more substantial than leaded window panes bar her from a place at that table. She will always be on the outside looking in.

The real appeal of this painting to me is the way it foreshadows Surrealism by 300 years and calls our visual assumptions into question. Is seems that we are on the same side of the window as the feast, and, unlike the maid, we are within reach of everything on that table. But then again, the trick is that we aren’t. We are just as much on the outside as she is. The picture frame, like a window, allows us to see things but never have them. Even if we stood in front of the original painting in the Staatliche Gemaldegalerie in Kassel Germany and risked a fit from the guards by reaching out a finger, we would feel only oxidized chemicals on canvas. The whole thing (as is all art, but we like to forget) is a hoax, a tease, an attractive lie.

The food isn’t all that appetizing to me, but what I want is for that scene to be real, or at least for it to have once been real. The more I look at her, the more I imagine that this woman once existed in the flesh. I have deduced a whole personality for her, a hungry family at home, an errand to run. I want to believe that she lived. And like her (who was never truly a her, but an “it”—an idea in the mind of an artist—and a “those”—the pigments spread by a brush) I want even more what I cannot have.

My daughter Nora is also going through a phase right now where she spends most of her waking hours wanting things. She wants up. She wants down. She wants to be outside. She wants to be in. She wants whatever anyone else currently has, whatever it is. She wants to play with the prohibited object you have just taken from her. This morning I confiscated the following contraband: a pair of scissors, McKay’s math homework, a tube of lipstick (which she was not too sad to lose since it tasted far less sweet than she had expected), two permanent markers, a bear-shaped bottle of honey that she was sucking on like a bottle, the dish detergent, my car keys, and a box of Kleenex—the contents of which she had been gleefully liberating one by one while telling each tissue what I can only assume was: Fly, be free, be free!

Nora only has four words in her English vocabulary, but—don't worry—she speaks 12 different dialects of Whine and has no qualms about making her wants known. If I’m carrying her around and she has a new destination in mind, she will grunt and try to steer me like a pack horse, turning my shoulders or pulling at the reins of my hair. She also points at things. Sometimes she aims both pointer fingers at what she wants and then vibrates them up and down furiously like she’s conducting a tiny, tiny orchestra made entirely of piccolos. If she sees anyone else eating or drinking something, she insists that we share. Yesterday I had to eat the last ice cream sandwich surreptitiously, ducking behind the screen of my laptop whenever she wandered through the kitchen. She caught me on the last bite and I gave it to her before wadding up the wrapper and throwing it away. She wailed for more but it was all gone. “Sorry kiddo,” I said sympathetically. “Life is frustrating. You’re just going to have to get used to it.”

At this stage, Nora’s whole life pretty much consists of longing for things she cannot have. What a drag for her. The most frustrating part is that she’ll beg for something and then decide that it really fails to give her utter fulfillment, so she’ll chuck it aside and look for something else. This makes me crazy and anxious so I cope by opening one cupboard after another in the kitchen hunting for a snack. Something salty? Nope. That’s not it. Something sweet? No, that wasn’t it either. Maybe I need a Diet Coke. Now I’m craving chips. Or is it chocolate?

And then I ask myself, mystified: What in the world is my daughter’s problem?

12 things I learned today

1. When I have a doctor’s appointment at 8:30 for just a “quick check” of my eyes, it will last 90 minutes and I should take more than one bottle, one diaper and two, count them, TWO wipes because (by the fourth child you would think I had learned this already) I would rather be safe and over-prepared than oh so very sorry.

2. Unfrosted strawberry Poptarts have exactly the same amount of sugar as the frosted kind. Huh.

3. I should look at my calendar more than once a day because it is entirely likely that even though I have been looking forward to lunch at the park with my High School buddies Kathy and Debbie for weeks, I will completely space it and only when Debbie calls me from the park at 12:10 will I remember and then have to admit that I’ve just put Nora down for a nap so please could they come have lunch at my house instead of the park which they will agree to because they are T.F.F.s (True Friends Forever) just like they vowed they would be in my yearbook 20 years ago.

4. When properly motivated I can take the kitchen from Totally Shameful Squalor to Almost Not Embarrassing in 10 minutes flat.

5. (Gabie taught me this one) Lavender lotion and a treatment of water applied with 17 different Q-tips will make the skin on a 5-year old’s face “less pooky.”

6. WARNING: It is actually possible for a 23 pound, 16 month old baby to produce 5 completely full, red-alert, toxic blowout diapers in a single day.

7. Junior High kids can be such idiots, especially the ones who called my sweet Ethan mean names and have apparently singled him out for teasing. He especially hates being called a “nerd.” I try to tell him that those twits will be changing his oil, flipping his burgers and emptying the trash in his executive office some day, but it still hurts.

8. Ethan’s Dad will come to the rescue. Ken vowed to find out where these kids live and (if Ethan wants him to) go have a little chat with their parents.

9. The Pennsylvania Turnpike—been there, done that—was the first freeway in America. (The kids were watching Modern Marvels tonight.)

10. A new word: blook. It means a book developed primarily from material first posted on a blog. Turns out there are loads of people who have done it, some quite successfully. So there! It is not ethically outrageous to recycle one’s own writing.

11. I have awesome, supportive blog readers who give me great advice and tell me to follow my heart and say they’ll read whatever I write and remind me why I love having instant feedback (who knows how many months it will take to hear back from editors who may or may not read past the first sentence of the manuscripts I just sent them?). I love having an audience of people who are just plain NICE. But I already knew that.

Which is why I’d like to post more, even if it’s short stuff here and there and maybe the occasional burst of serious mental tesserae-ing. Because I enjoy writing for people who appreciate what I have to say. Plus, once again, I am reminded that it’s a great way to develop ideas into words that may later work their way into my blook (see, I’m already a pro at wielding this new vocabulary!).

12. Even at the end of a day that I imagined was completely boring and utterly un-blogworthy, there are things I want to say—things that if I didn’t say them and post them to my blog might drain out of my head tonight onto my pillow and dissipate into the stuffing and be lost. Maybe it’s good to just have a place to take notes on the lessons of the day so I’ll remember them tomorrow and (hopefully) avoid having to relearn them again the hard way.

to b. or not to b.

So here’s the deal. I’m having a mid-blog-life crisis. I suspect this is normal as people hit the one year mark in their bloggy careers, but I’m also struggling with more complex issues as well. I need your advice. Here are the facts.

Since I began getting more serious about publishing my writing, I have been neglecting my blog considerably. I’m lucky to get in a post once a week. I wish this weren’t the case since it was the blog (and subsequent encouragement from family and readers) that rekindled my lifelong desire to be a Writer. It may be lunacy for me to get so caught up in this obsession at this stage of my life, and I have tried to set it aside and focus on my family and teaching, but it’s like I have been bitten by a bug. Or maybe it’s more like a nasty virus. Or perhaps a blood-sucking vampire. Anyway, until I can get this out of my system—which may involve trying really, really hard to get something published and then admitting defeat—I can’t seem to defer the dream. Darn you Langston Hughes.

I am now spending most of my free time (or in reality expensive time, as it is purchased at the cost of time spent with my children or cleaning my kitchen) writing and revising essays for publication and reading other people’s (much superior) prose for inspiration. If I do have a random thought for my blog, I just can’t seem to find the several hours it used to take me to develop and edit an entry. If only I treated my blog as I had originally intended—a place to dump stray ideas—I wouldn’t have this problem. But I expect too much and I don’t want to disappoint my few, but loyal readers.

As I submit my work (3 in the mail already!) and research submission guidelines, I am discovering that some people are bothered by “recycled” material. This means they don’t like it when people send them previously published stuff, even if it has only been “published” on a dinky little personal blog. I am also discovering that once you launch something into the electronic stratosphere that is the WWW, you can never suck it back. I deleted old posts that I have since reworked for publication but they will likely be cached and readily Googled for quite some time. At this stage, the essays I’m trying to publish and the book I’m hoping to compile both involve cannibalizing my archives. Should I just close up shop?

And most disturbing, on three occasions I have discovered my exact words have been copied without my permission elsewhere on the web. (This does not include the whole “Convergences” freak-out, where I willingly flung something I wrote into what may or may not be a dark vortex of idea theft). The other day, a neighbor came up to me in church and told me she had read something funny I wrote on the internet. I asked her how she found my blog and she said she had no idea I even had a blog. Instead, she told me of a different site (one I have never visited before) that reprinted a story of mine. She only knew it was mine because of my first name and the names of my children. This was a bit creepy and made me want to double check everything I had ever written about my neighbors. (Ironically, this one is about that particular neighbor’s nephew, but since it was my son who wound up smelling less than sweet, I decided to leave it alone).

I should be flattered by the imitation thing, and normally it wouldn’t bother me that much, but my vain delusion of Writer-hood is based on the premise that I’m writing stuff that is totally original and unique. My blog friend Michelle once told me that you’ve got to try to be the purple cow. I’m feeling a sense of urgency to get my ideas in print before someone else does. What if I’m too slow and by the time I get into the field, there are purple cows mooing all over the place?

And finally, what I really need right now is feedback on the essays I’m revising and expanding for publication. My brother (who is writing a novel) plans to create a blog where he will post one chapter at a time for family and friends to read and contribute suggestions. I might do the same. If so, it would be a restricted site to avoid the aforementioned problems of having my stuff sailing aimlessly Out There. I would, of course, give access to any Mental Tesserae readers who asked. Every time recently that anyone has reviewed my writing, they have given me suggestions that lead to big improvements. (See, I had nobody to read that last sentence but me and just look what a mess it is!)

So, if you’re still with me after my spotty current posting record and today’s little soliloquy, I would love to hear your opinions on the subject. Just so you know, I don’t think I could ever torch this whole blog; I have put too much of myself into it and besides which, Gabie thinks it’s his blog and he would surely disapprove. But maybe a hiatus? Or a makeover? Please let me know if you have any suggestions. I am, as always, in your debt.

Julie Q.

blank canvas

The blank canvas. The tabula rasa. The empty surface. It can be intimidating (what will you make of this Nothing and Anything in front of you?). But I actually find great comfort in the fresh start. I love to learn new things and especially when it comes to keeping a blog, when I start with nothing special I usually wind up saying something I didn't realize I wanted to say. Every time I write, I learn something new about myself. You'd think after 38 years, I'd have pretty much figured my own brain out by now. But nope.

I love the beginnings of things: births, baptisms, resurrections. And I love the crisp white look of that tiny little "New Blank Document" icon on my toolbar. Maybe I’m an optimist encouraged by latent potential, or maybe I’m just relieved to know that I haven’t screwed anything up yet. Either way, today I am energized with the thought of filling it up with my words. I may be about to write a bunch of drivel, but you never know, I may be about to write Anna Karenina.

All three of my boys started school this week. All three began at new schools they have never attended before: Ethan at the Junior High, McKay in a gifted class far across town and Gabie in Kindergarten. They were all a bit anxious about the unknown, but excited with thoughts of the year ahead and a fresh start. They have new people to meet, things to learn, blank slates (or notebooks) to fill. Ethan had never ridden a bus to school before (I think this was the single most important reason he gave me for wanting to attend public school this year instead of homeschooling). McKay is hoping for some new friends, maybe the chance to acquire one of those mythical Best Friends he pines for. Gabie is just thrilled beyond measure about going to Kindergarten. He had his backpack filled and parked by the door a week in advance (actual contents: three different spiral notebooks, about 20 pounds of art supplies, a water bottle, the family stapler, a can of Spaghetti-O’s, a change of socks and a tennis ball. I suggested he might need to add the can opener and kitchen sink.)

I am starting fresh this week too – preparing to look out over a classroom full of new faces on the first day of class. I am revising my syllabus, changing major aspects of a course I’ve taught for 13 years, tweaking my exams again, hopeful that this will be the best semester yet. The potential is all there; the future still as unwritten as my students’ papers. I am confident and rejuvenated, like I’ve just stepped away from the makeover counter with a flawless matte finish on my face, ready to conquer the world, or at least the Mall.

I belong to a church where every Sunday we take the sacrament – a token of atonement, repentance and renewal. Sometimes I look up at the vaulted ceiling and wooden beams (or more likely at the florescent lights and basketball hoops since I was late and am sitting in the overflow cultural hall) and I imagine I am in the Sistine Chapel where directly above the altar, Michelangelo painted a scene of God dividing the light from the dark. As the sacrament is prepared, I think back on my week and try to push the darkness – the depression, the frustrations, the many many mistakes – behind me and let the light fill me with peace and hope for better days ahead. In the Sistine fresco, God holds back the shadows with one hand, and with the fingers of the other he combs through clouds of white. In fact, the white paint seems to flow from his fingers; he not so much separates the two as he defeats the dark with an infusion of light. Michelangelo often talked of God as an artist, but in a sense, God is the opposite of an artist. Where a painter saturates a canvas with pigments, God is the source of all newness, the beginner of all beginnings, the Divine Eraser.

This scene was the last one Michelangelo painted on the ceiling; it is smaller and much less complicated than his others. I like to think this is not because he was tired and emptied of ideas and anxious to get his paint-encrusted self down from the crummy scaffold, but because this moment represents the simple seed of the whole creation process that follows. It is the moment we revisit every day of our lives when the sun rises, bringing light from the dark and giving us a chance to start over.

My boys tend to roll their eyes at me when I do it, but I like to quote Anne of Green Gables when they are bummed out by something they have done wrong. I float the words at them cheerfully: “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.”

Can you imagine if we never slept? I don’t mean the kind of never-sleeping that parents with small children already experience, but what would happen if our bodies did not require a period of rest? If each day just flowed into the next? My first reaction of “How wonderful. Just think of all the things I could accomplish!” is quickly replaced with “Ugh. Every frustration, every worry would compound and build and pile up until we would positively sink from the weight of it.” How lucky we are to get a periodic rest mode where we have no choice but to shut down our bodies and brains for several hours. We need sleep; it’s a mandatory physiological thing. Psalm 23 says “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…He restoreth my soul.”

As anyone stopping by unannounced could attest, I have had no motivation for housework recently. At some point, the frustration anyone would feel if asked to “stand right here for a while and hold back this avalanche with a rubber spatula while balancing a baby on one hip” has driven me to give up almost entirely. What’s the point, when nothing I do seems to stay done? I’m no match for the natural forces that wreak havoc in my home. Lately, I have seen and embraced the irony in the cleaning product industry. I truly cannot stem the Tide of my laundry. My dishes indeed form a spectacular Cascade in and around my sink. My carpets are covered with the far flung debris of today’s Tornado and yesterday’s Wind Tunnel and last week’s Cyclone.

I can tell it’s time to get cleaning because I feel edgy and grumpy when the house is a mess. I think we all do. Humans crave the blank surface. We need the dawn, the Mondays, the New Year’s resolutions and the First-Day-of-the-Diets. And yes, it's important to at least occasionally live in a clean house. So, pushing past the sense of futility, I got up early this morning to mop the kitchen floor. A few scrubbed tiles are better than nothing, right?

Then, high on the cathartic mood or perhaps the ammonia fumes, I decided it was time to have a garage sale. I went through every room in the house purging things right and left: clothes dating back to the first Gulf War, books we don’t read (I think after four pregnancies I know better than anyone What to Expect when I’m Expecting, thank you very much), and a demonic black Hefty sack full of toys that let out a cacophonous burst of barks and honks and synthesized music every time I bumped it as I moved it from the playroom to the porch and finally to the lawn to be thankfully passed on to happy children and their unsuspecting parents. It was a joyous process and now my house contains significantly less flotsam and jetsam to drift about when the next hurricane hits.

After a long day of cleaning and selling and hauling the remaining unsold junk to the thrift store, I put my kids to bed and felt more content than I have in quite a while. I held Nora in my arms long after she had fallen asleep and I just stared at her gorgeous little face. She has the most perfect porcelain skin – not a blemish or freckle or scar on it. She is (as each of my babies were) still a blank slate. A fresh start. I will not be able to live my life over again through her, but I get to watch what she makes of her own. I think it is one of the things I love most about being a mother – my home is absolutely filled with latent potential. I get to participate again in all kinds of firsts: first steps, first days of school, first tastes of everything. I get to help raise a new generation. I have given birth to a tiny piece of the morning.

reunification

Well, I survived my much anticipated / dreaded 20th year class reunion. I feel a bit like McKay did last week when we finally had his birthday party (after two years of being out of town on his birthday and making do with be-candled angel food cake in campgrounds, he got to have a big friend party so we went all out with the Harry Potter theme). The night after McKay’s party, when found him crying in bed, I asked him: “Hey buddy, what’s wrong? Didn’t you have a good time?” And he said, “I had a great time. But now what?”

So here I am, on the other side of three reunion parties (two of which I helped plan and one of which I was in charge of) and I’m thinking now what? I had a great time catching up with old friends (the emphasis being on the OLD part – we’re a bunch of dinosaurs) and as I truly have fond memories of High School, the walk down memory lane took me past some pleasant recollections. But at the end of the lane, there is nothing looming - no big events, no destinations, just my ordinary, somewhat boring life.

I was tempted to invent myself a better life for bragging purposes at the reunion dinner. Moi? I’m a freelance writer with a 7-figure contract in the works….Oh, I just have 8 children, all of whom are Olympic hopefuls in various sports, but how about yourself?... Yes, my husband produces feature films, but lately he’s far too busy with his humanitarian missions to Bangladesh and composing those pesky Nobel Prize acceptance speeches.

At the dinner, they gave away door prizes to the alumni with the most children, the most years of post-High School education, the most visited countries under their belts, etc. I, of course, won nothing. Had they given prizes in the following categories, I would have walked away with my arms full:

• Most recent Lasik surgery (Monday) and thus the most hideous broken blood vessels in her eyes and the fewest intact eyelashes and the blotchiest makeup and most frequent trips out into the hall for another hit of eyedrops.

• Best impersonation of a drug addict (see above).

• Most national parks under her belt (17).

• Most pounds lost for the reunion (15, which was far less than I had hoped to lose, but at least I didn’t have to wear maternity clothes. Oh, wait, my skirt was actually one I bought at Motherhood. Drat. But, hey, it was really stretchy material).

• Most likely to show up spouse-less to the reunion (Ken argued that he would be bored and he might as well stay home so we could save the $50 and the cost of a babysitter).

• Best adult re-enactment of her teenage wallflower days. People kept telling me that I haven’t changed a bit since graduation, but while I’m clinging like a barnacle to my far more attractive and popular friend Kathy and her husband Rick as they navigated the crowd, I'm thinking: yeah, I remember feeling exactly this insecure at every gymnasium dance I ever attended. Good grief!

• Most overdue library fines paid in the last 20 years.

• Largest collection of mustard bottles past their expiration dates in her fridge.

Gee, talk about your exotic life. I could have put all those doctors and professional musicians in my class to shame. But instead, I chose not to hog the limelight because that’s just the kind of selfless person I am. I can’t guarantee such modesty at the 40th reunion so watch out. Which reminds me, I’d better get busy because I only have 240 months to lose a few more pounds…