It's been harrowing around here. Beatrice, so much younger than her brother and sister and thus far less adept in the sophisticated eye-rolling and sarcasm department, has resorted to screaming the brutally direct phrase STOP IT the moment the tone shifts to a tiny bit combative, or worse, a tiny bit dismissive of the importance of her day to day activities and feelings. I would argue that this is a natural response to being objectified - treated explicitly as "cute" in a way ultimately intended to demean the cute person in question - though my older children would probably disagree. In any case, now the problem is so entrenched that I seem to hear Beatrice screaming at her brother and sister many, many times a day.
She screams at me, too.
On Sunday night I took Gabriel and Beatrice to the contemplative evening service at our church. Oh, what a very bad idea that was. Beatrice wriggled and whispered and pushed at her brother who insisted on claiming the lone meditation cushion (she periodically whined in a very audible stage whisper to me: he won't let me sit on the whoopee cushion, Mama!). He smiled triumphantly at her, chin high, wriggling himself more decidedly onto the cushion, while she was left with one of the boring meditation benches.
Truly, it was torture. The two of them could not break their bickering rhythm and most of the hour-long service was spent in either complete silence or silence while one person quietly spoke. But of course since we were there it was never silent. The children were pushing each other, taunting each other, leaning on me, pulling on my arms, softly groaning. In fits of frustration, I would occasionally stare at them and hiss STOP IT.
Wherever did Bea pick that up?
Anyhoo. Church finally ended, and we basically ran out of that chapel, into the welcoming embrace of the cold fresh air and evening street sounds. I was feeling brittle. Desperate. Mad at myself for thinking that that service was a good idea, mad at Gabriel for quietly taunting his sister, mad at Beatrice for being unable to sit still for more than thirty seconds. (I just can't stop moving my body right now, Mama!).
We drove back home and I tried to explain to Beatrice why she can't continually scream at her siblings and at me - incidentally have I ever mentioned that explaining ANYTHING of this sort to a five year old is usually a bad idea? - including the concept of being respectful to adults, and not talking back, and knowing that I, her mama, am most definitely in charge ALL the TIME. This went over as you'd expect. Talk about escalation. Our absurd conversation, if transcribed, would make you laugh. Heck, it might even make me laugh. But in the moment I was holding back tears and rage and had no perspective whatsoever. It was awful. I sent my black ship past her little gray rowboat in the dead of night again and again through gritted teeth to absolutely no effect, and in the end only worsened our fraying dynamic.
At home, we pulled up to the curb and I said, I need a minute.
Gabriel, who had been quiet the entire ride home, said, yes you do. C'mon, Beatrice.
So he and Beatrice got out and walked around the corner to my mom's house, where we were due for dinner. And as soon as the automatic minivan door slid shut I let loose a keen like no other, an ongoing rage/grief scream of epic proportions. Man, did it hurt. Like there was an alien lizard-like creature inside of me, and it was on fire, and it had to come out. The hard way.
Mike, Mike, Mike! Take these children. Tell them to stop it. Give me a break already. Exert some fucking authority, please, because apparently I have none. I need you here, being their papa, being my partner, the one person with whom I can wade through all this muck.
Finally I pulled it together - barely - and stiffly got out of the car. Just then I saw Frances coming down the dark street. At my mom's, Beatrice had started yelling at her (something about the wrong take out order, a miscommuncation on Frances's part that had struck Beatrice as a personal affront) and so she decided to leave. I can't take it.
I know the feeling. But I convinced Frances to come back with me. Grandma had ordered us pizza! That was nice. It would be delicious. We can take it. Let's go.
We walked in, and the tension in the kitchen was worse than it was in the car. Things were looking more and more grim. Various people volunteered to leave, or rather escape, Beatrice began to cry and scream all over again, and louder still, because everyone was acting like she is too horrible to eat dinner with, and just as my mom poured me a glass of wine I took stock and decided to send Frances, Gabriel, and my mom to my house with a box of pizza. I told Beatrice she and I will stay, because it is time to Take a Break.
The dreaded time out! She protests. I put her on the couch. I pull up a stool in the open kitchen a few feet away, get my glass of wine, and open an old Martha Stewart Living magazine that is on the counter. Breath, breath, breath. Beatrice continues to bellow and writhe. This is a torment she cannot endure quietly. I continue to breath and look at the pretty pictures. The magazine is open to a little section showing Martha's calendar with her daily items listed in each square of the month.
Polish the silver.
I hate you, I hate you!
Make a delivery to a local food pantry.
You don't understand me at all!
Organize the wine cellar.
She slithers desperately off the couch and onto the floor. Why is everyone so mean???
Deadhead the roses, take dogs to be groomed, horseback ride.
I clung to Martha's orderly, waspy domestic dreamlife as tightly as I did the stem of my wineglass. Oh, to have but a single item on the daily to do list, and to have that item be wrap Japanese boxwoods with burlap.
I told Beatrice we wouldn't talk until her time out was over. My heart was pretty cold at that point; my eyes stayed fixed on the glossy paper shining beneath the yellow kitchen lights while my little girl wept and screamed in a manner not unlike my partial grief-demon exorcism in the car thirty minutes earlier. But my earth had been salted, nothing could live in there. In that moment, in my mom's kitchen, my highest hope was to endure the next few minutes. And then the next few after that.
And then, as faithful readers of this blog have probably already guessed, something good happened. Grace or a love demon or something moved me to the couch when her minutes were up, where I picked up my limp, red-faced girl, and found the strength to work things out with her. It wasn't easy. The talking was tough, and there were many more ships-in-the-night moments, but our vessels were slowly and surely cutting through waves towards a common point on the horizon. We did the work, together.
A friend in grad school taught me the phrase 'stay in the boat.' She learned it from a marriage counselor, who used it with clients to describe the goal of getting through times of conflict in a marriage. (It is such a useful concept that I feel certain I must have mentioned it here before). You can't step out of the boat and push it downstream and wave with a resentful frozen grin at your partner when the going gets painful. You have to stay in the boat together, tolerate the awfulness, until you find your way back to connection, to love. There's no hope of reconciliation for people who refuse to stay in the boat. When I was gazing at waspy fantasy chores and walling off my broken heart, feeling pushed past the capacity to empathize, I was sitting right on the teetering edge of the boat. It would have been so easy to slide off, wade through the water, and climb onto shore. See ya, Beatrice. Have a nice trip.
Instead, I fell back in. We got to the point where Beatrice told me that when she screams deep down she feels afraid. And sad. And that she would like it if I could speak quietly and nicely to her instead of being a mean mama in those moments, because she could feel better and probably calm down if I did.
And when I asked what to do about her siblings, who were feeling so hurt and angry, Beatrice said, remember the day that Papa died, how you and me and Gabriel and Didi got into Grandma's bed together and had a family snuggle for a long time? I would like to do that.
I think about Mike's death every day. I think about the hospital, and everything that happened before, during, and after he died. I think about it whether I choose to or not - my mind is compelled. My heart just barely tolerates the pain of it. But the very worst thing I've ever lived through happened a little later, and that was telling the kids. I can barely write that sentence. It is unbearable, unrevisitable. I cannot think about it at all.
Beatrice remembers though, and brought something beautiful from that pain right into an evening that I had thought was unredeemable. My girl wants to stay in the boat. So do I.
Love is real. Family snuggle it is.
1 comment:
I sobbed and sobbed, Meagan. Beautiful, terrible, indescribable; but somehow you share it with us.
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