Saying Good-bye and a Poem for a Monday

I’ve had the most amazing conversations lately with, of all people, my mother.

The fact that I speak with my mother is nothing unusual: we’re on good terms, and both tend to be chatty. It’s the nature of the communication that’s extraordinary. One of us … or perhaps both, I can’t tell … has crossed the Rubicon, so to speak, and I find myself in a whole new place with her.  It’s an unexpected joy, and comes at just the right time.

See, my husband and I have just “launched” our youngest child.  Our daughter joined her brother in the ranks of young adults living away from home and attending college, and we are now so-called Empty Nesters.  This has come with the usual amount of flurried activity and stress and angst and unexpected expenditures and bittersweet moments and long hugs … followed by arrival in the now-quiet house where the impatient dog continues to make demands.

Nothing about this transition surprised me, until I called Mom.  Granted, she tends to say surprising things.  Annoying things, actually.  Comments which, in the past have, shall we say, “rubbed me the wrong way.”  For example, when my son was a little guy I remember confessing some ongoing worry I had about him, and after she was done patiently listening to me she summed up the conversation with, “Yup. Kids.  It’s a lifetime sentence.”

Or, how about when that same little boy got his license, and I called her the first time he pulled out of the driveway and drove off, alone.  “I know,” she said.  “I haven’t slept a wink since you got your license.”  “Mom, I’m a 50-year old woman,” I exclaimed, to which she shot back, “Let me tell you: it’s a long time to go without a good night’s sleep.”

Sometimes I ask myself why I continue to telephone my mother at my most vulnerable moments, but what I realize is that the apple has not fallen very far from the tree and, like her, I am a consummate worrier.  Not a “helicopter” parent, mind you.  I’m truly happy to see them pack their bags and take off and live their lives:  I remember that stage myself, and it’s so necessary and exciting and wonderful.  But I worry about safety.  Tractor trailers on I-84 while he’s driving to college. Strangers lurking in dark corners while she’s walking back to her dorm late at night. When they are three years old and holding your hand crossing the street, you can put your body between them and the oncoming vehicle … but not anymore.

Which is something I now share with my mother.  For some reason a huge gulf has closed between us, and I find myself toe-to-toe with a fellow parent who is practicing the art of “letting go and letting God.”  Ironically, I’ve caught up with her, and now we both have adult children who live far from us.  Suddenly, her wry observations about children are rather amusing, and wise, so when we deposited our daughter at college this past week, Mom was my first call.

“Just wait,” she said, after I filled her ear with descriptions of every shade of emotion I had experienced.  “You think it’s hard leaving your kids?  Try leaving your grandkids. You’ll love them like your own, but then you have to leave them with these people who don’t know what they’re doing!”

As the incompetent implicated by that remark I suppose I should have been irritated … but instead I found myself laughing out loud at a moment when I might otherwise have been crying.  And I marveled at my mother’s gift for redirecting me and putting things in perspective.

In all honesty, we didn’t cry as we drove away from our daughter’s college last week, but this poem got me. 

Waving Good-Bye

By Gerald Stern

I wanted to know what it was like before we

had voices and before we had bare fingers and before we

had minds to move us through our actions

and tears to help us over our feelings,

so I drove my daughter through the snow to meet her friend

and filled her car with suitcases and hugged her

as an animal would, pressing my forehead against her,

walking in circles, moaning, touching her cheek,

and turned my head after them as an animal would,

watching helplessly as they drove over the ruts,

her smiling face and her small hand just visible

over the giant pillows and coat hangers

as they made their turn into the empty highway.

Poem for a Monday: Normal

Two weeks ago our town held "Cuba Week," a wonderful exploration of Cuban culture and celebration of the sister city relationship we have with Trinidad, Cuba.  I'll confess that in the past most of my "Cuba Week" participation has been limited to eating black beans and rice at Henry and Marty's Restaurant, but this year I found myself salsa dancing with friends to the rhythms of a great band, and also spent a fine afternoon at The Little Dog Coffee Shop on Maine Street, where the oh-so-irreverent Gary Lawless read Cuban poetry.

This poem is from an out-of-print collection, which you probably couldn't sell in the United States even if it were still in print.  Gary's copy is profoundly dog-eared and yellow, and flaps open loosely to his favorite poems:  a well loved book.  A Velveteen Rabbit of a book.

This poem he read, translated from Spanish, received the loudest applause from the audience.  It made me wish I could dog-whistle.  You know, two fingers in the mouth, eardrum piercing whistle?  It was a good poem for me to hear on that particular day.

How Lucky They Are, The Normal Ones
by Roberto Fernandez Retamar (b. 1930)
(for Antonia Eiriz)
How lucky they are, the normal ones, those peculiar creatures:
The ones who didn't have a crazy mother, a drunk for a father, a delinquent son,
A house nowhere at all, an unknown disease - 
The ones who've worn all the seventeen smiling faces and more,
The ones stuffed with shoes, the cute ones,
The Rin-tin-tins & their secretaries, the ones who "Sure, why not?" this way,
The ones who make money & are loved up to the hilt,
The flautists accompanied by mice,
The hucksters & their clientele,
The gentlemen just a touch superhuman,
The men dressed in thunder & the women dressed in lightning,
The delicate ones, the prudent ones, the ones with taste.
The courteous ones, the sweet ones, the edibles & potables,
How lucky they are, birds & manure
& stones.


Just let them keep out of the way of the others, the ones who make
Worlds & dreams, illusions
& symphonies, words that tear us down
& rebuild us, crazier than their mothers, drunker
Than their fathers, worse delinquents than their sons,
More eaten at by loves more corrosive:
Let them leave these their stations in hell, & forget it.

Poem for a Monday and a Crush

I have a new "poet crush":  Wesley NcNair, the poet laureate of Maine.  Be still my beating literary heart ... he's wonderful ... !

Even the spouse agreed.  I know, that sounds strange, but hey, it's a literary crush. We've just wrapped up Poem in Your Pocket week in Brunswick (all sorts of fun poetry events, culminating with McNair speaking/reading at the local library on Friday night) and I corralled a small group of friends to come with, including the spouse, who usually has no energy for socialization on Friday nights. When he learned poetry and dinner out with friends was on tap for the evening, he growled from the grossfaterstuhl (that's what we call his Big Daddy Chair, in faux German):

"Oh god.  What sort of poetry are you dragging me to hear??"

I took umbrage with the verb "dragging," and accused him of all sorts of high crimes, including becoming a curmudgeon.  Which, it turns out, is a badge he wears with pride. 

Anyhow, off we went (the spouse grumbles, but usually comes along for the ride) and we were treated to a magical evening.  I'm one of those who doesn't "get" the sorts of literary highbrow poems published in places like The New Yorker, where it feels like the poet is speaking, in code, to three of his closest friends who  know the code.  So McNair's poetry, which is so relatable, which had us all laughing out loud, or wiping our eyes, or breathing a collective "Ahhh," at the end, was simply wonderful.

Here's one from his latest collection, Lovers of the Lost, published by David R. Godine press. The cover art (above) is Edward Hopper's Cape Cod Morning. As someone who spends a lot of time weighing the various attributes of particular words, I loved this rumination on a common pronoun. (note: The spouse purchased this volume and had it signed following the reading: from curmudgeon to convert in one night.)

It    

Don't fall for it.

Don't scratch it.

Don't spoil it for everyone else.

Don't take it for granted.

It's not anything to play with.

It's not the end of the world.

It's not brain surgery.

That's not it.

I used to have cravings for it.

It's the last thing I need right now.

I wish it would just go away.

I can't take it anymore.

Why is it so important to you?

Why did you laugh about it?

Why can't you just be quiet about it?

Is it all about you?

It's all sticky.

It's giving me the creeps.

It's worse than I thought.

You're getting it all over yourself.

This is no place for it.

There's no excuse for it.

Take it outside.

Get over it.

Wesley McNair's volumes of poetry include seven collections and two limited editions. He has also published books of prose and anthologies of Maine writing. A recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, he has received two NEA grants and has twice been awarded Rockefeller fellowships for creative work at the Bellagio Center in Italy. His honors in poetry include the Theodore Roethke Prize, the Eunice Tietjens Prize, the Jane Kenyon award, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal. In 2006 he was awarded a United States Artists Fellowship for poetry. He lives with his wife, Diane, in Mercer, Maine.

Follow on a Friday: Your Heart

I remember my first encounter with Kit Smith.

I call it an “encounter” because he was three years old, and you don’t really meet a three-year old.  Especially not this one.  I had escaped from my own young children for a blessed hour of peace at a local coffee shop where I often went to get some writing done. Halfway into my first cup of strong coffee, I realized I couldn’t string together one coherent thought. That was because there was a three-year old under a nearby table, crashing giant legos and bellowing in exuberant play … while his parents, enjoying their own coffee and crumpets, blithely ignored him.  I waited for the parents to do, say, something, to their tiny terror, but … no.  They obviously didn’t think there was anything unusual about this din.

They were used to it.

Two decades later, I’ve learned that extraordinary children are often not politely quiet. They don’t color in the lines. They say outrageous things at inappropriate times.  They are hard to raise. Sometimes they crash and burn and all we can do as parents is pray that they’ll emerge, phoenix-like and wiser, from the lessons they’ve learned.  I’ve noticed that those that do, that pull off merging their amazing talents with common sense and discipline, can realize their dreams.

They live a Plan A life.  The first choice, the dream life.  Not the backup plan: the job you’d be willing to live with and pay the mortgage with.

Plan A can be pretty much anything, but what all Plan A’s have in common is the odds.  Low, practially impossible odds of success.  Like, becoming a professional actor.  Publishing a novel.  Singing with the New York Metropolitan opera. Competing in the Olympics.

Or becoming a professional athlete.  Like Kit. Who recently learned he’s made the cut to play lacrosse with the Boston Cannons.  He’ll suit up for his first game tomorrow and I hear a fan club’s worth of folks from our little town in Maine are heading to Beantown to cheer him on:

http://www.pressherald.com/sports/bowdoin-grad-wins-spot-in-pro-lacrosse_2012-04-24.html

Granted, Kit has talent, but so do many people who don’t achieve their Plan A dreams.  So what’s the difference between those who “make it” and those who don’t?  Yes, yes, I know, hard work, determination, faith in yourself … we’ve heard it all before.

I had reason recently to “poll” a few of my writer friends about this topic, and novelist Alison McGhee said it best.  I knew Alison back when we were in the same creative writing seminar in college.  Since then, she’s published some 20 books, and achieved a wonderfully satisfying career.  Besides emphasizing the importance of always having enough income to pay for health insurance, here’s what she said:

I myself never had a Plan B. I wanted only to be a writer, and a creative writer, not a journalist or academic. … I wanted to write short stories and poems and novels. So I have never had a real job, really, in my life, besides part-time teaching (health insurance!) Writing those novels and poems always, always was the priority, and I organized my schedule around it from day one. When my kids were born I got up at 4 a.m. so as to get the writing done before they woke up.  Many, many sleepless years.

Eventually, 20+ years down the road, I was/am living the life I always wanted to live. There were many years, decades, when I worked in solitude and without any sort of public affirmation (e.g., 13 years of writing every day before I sold a novel, mostly because it took me a long time to become a good writer). It’s very scary for me, as a mother and as a caretaking sort of human being, to advise anyone to put all their eggs into one basket and never veer from a certain path. But that’s how I did it.

Yes.  It’s as simple, and as terrifying, as that:  No Plan B.  No backup.  No other vision for yourself.  You live Plan A because it’s who you are, and you’re willing to make little or no money doing it, endure long years without outside affirmation, and resist pressure from people who suggest you get a “real” job. Or go to law school.

Like my childhood friend, David, the kid who always had the lead in the school musicals. He was in a lot of denial about himself for a while and told everyone he was going to law school.  At some point he had a reckoning and threw caution to the wind and has gone on to have a wonderful career as an opera singer.  It’s not an easy life: he’s had to find other work between “gigs,” and he travels a lot. But one year, when he was performing with the New York Metropolitan’s traveling company, I got to hear him sing, and I wept.  He was fabulous, this boy I used to know.  Living his Plan A life.

And now there’s Kit.  The Tiny Terror, not so tiny anymore, hurling lacrosse balls like miniature cannons into a goal.  Plan A life.

A few weeks ago another boy I used to know (my 20-year old son) decided to make a few Plan A plans of his own, and auditioned to attend an acting conservatory in London in the fall.  He described the audition itself as surreal:  the folks he performed for registered no response, just stared blankly and scribbled notes as he sang and strutted his stuff in a classroom.  He had no clue what they thought, or how he did, which is unsettling for a stage actor who feeds off the energy from a live audience.

“Whatever,” he told me.  “I didn’t hold back. And in my written statement, I just said I don’t want to be an actor.  I will act.  Anywhere, for whatever money, it doesn’t matter.  I absolutely will do this.”

I didn’t see his audition, but right then I knew:  he got it. 

He’s headed to England in September.  Meanwhile, I’m calling Blue Cross this afternoon to make sure our policy covers him while he’s abroad.

Poem for a Monday: Real Work

At some point we start to learn, really learn, from our children.  I don’t know when it begins, or when it began, for me, but my teenage daughter teaches me every day.

This Monday began her spring break week.  It’s her senior year in high school, and while she’s got some pretty big fun planned for the end of the week, she didn’t have many plans for the beginning.  Unbeknownst to me, she called our local food bank and scheduled volunteer hours for herself. 

She chops vegetables, sorts donations, cooks, cleans, and serves food to the clients who come for a meal and free groceries each day.  She’s been doing this all year, and when I asked her why she chose to spend her spring break this way, she shrugged and said, “I love working there.  It’s so real.”

It made me think of this Marge Piercy poem, which I’ve loved for a long time.  Never, over all the years that I’ve turned to it, did I imagine this would be my daughter.  But, there you have it.

To be of use

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy is the author of 17 novels, 18 volumes of poetry, a memoir, articles, essays, and criticism.  She was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1936 and currently lives on Cape Cod.

Poem for a Monday

Happy National Poetry month! I've been having Google problems lately (grrrr .... ) so this blog is late and it's already nine days into National Poetry Month. Ah well.

In honor of a MONTH of poetry I wanted to call attention to a wonderful initiative by Maine Poet Laureate, Wesley McNair: Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry.

Each week a poem by a Maine poet is published in two dozen newspapers across the state. My local paper doesn't participate in this (grrrr .....) but the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance archives all the selected poems, which you can check out here:

http://www.mainewriters.org/products.html

So, thank you, Wesley McNair, yay for the MWPA, and yay for National Poetry Month!

A few weeks ago I posted on this blog a poem called Transportation by Maine poet Kristen Lindquist. Last week Garrison Keillor read it on The Writer's Almanac, and this week, as I was looking for a Monday poem, I came across this one by Billy Collins. Like Kristen's, it's set in an airport, where the narrator feels a sort of communion with his fellow travelers.

Passengers

At the gate, I sit in a row of blue seats

with the possible company of my death,

this sprawling miscellany of people -

carry-on bags and paperbacks -

that could be gathered in a flash

into a band of pilgrims on the last open road.

Not that I think

if our plane crumpled into a mountain

we would all ascend together,

holding hands like a ring of skydivers,

into a sudden gasp of brightness,

or that there would be some common place

for us to reunite to jubilize the moment,

some spaceless, pillarless Greece

where we could, at the count of three,

toss our ashes into the sunny air.

It's just that the way that man has his briefcase

so carefully arranged,

the way that girl is cooling her tea,

and the flow of the comb that woman

passes through her daughter's hair ...

and when you consider the altitude,

the secret parts of the engines,

and all the hard water and the deep canyons below ...

well, I just think it would be good if one of us

maybe stood up and said a few words,

or, so as not to involve the police,

at least quietly wrote something down.

Billy Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006.

Follow on a Friday: The Neurotic Parent

We recently had a ceremonial burning at our house. In the backyard, one of those fire dishes: into it we dumped Fiske's and Barron's. US News and World Report's Guide to Colleges. Stacks upon stacks of glossy brochures featuring picturesque campuses across the country. Yeah, I guess we could have recycled all that paper, but it felt good ... it felt necessary ... to burn it.

Because our last and youngest child, a senior in high school, has been accepted to college and is bound to leave the nest come September. And all of us in our family can now breathe a collective sigh of relief as we leave the oh-so-fraught-and-stressful world of college admissions behind.

If a backyard fire isn't in your cards, you might want to check out this book by J.D. Rothman. The Neurotic Parent's Guide to College Admissions, and this author's blog, have provided me with a few of the best laughs I've had in a long time. It's a much-needed antidote to the INSANITY which surrounds the current college admissions process ... and Rothman should be applauded for her honesty and self-deprecating sense of humor.

She's been on a book tour recently (The Neurotic Parents Guide only just launched) and shared with me a few answers to questions about her work and her experience as a college-touring parent:

The Neurotic Parent started as a blog. Did you plan from the beginning to write a book about your experiences as a helicopter mom?

I never thought of myself as a helicopter mom. In fact, I was usually the one who forgot to pick up the entire carpool. And I have still never checked my kids’ homework. But when my son was a junior, I discovered the website CollegeConfidential, where most kids who post have invented an antibiotic by the age of 15. That convinced me that a little hovering was in order, and when one of the soccer moms heard that we had planned an eight-state college tour, she encouraged me to blog. But I never imagined that the blog would become a book…or even that anyone would read it at all. It went viral on the day I posted about the ugly bedspreads at Cornell’s hotel school.

How did you find the time, given your demanding day job as an Emmy-award winning writer and lyricist for children’s programs?

Blogging is actually a fantastic form of procrastination – once you figure out how to insert hyperlinks, you get to enjoy the process of writing – no deadlines, no page one rewrites, no wacky network executives giving notes. It does cut into my online Scrabble time though.

How much of the book is based on real-life experiences?

Everything about my obsession with linens for the college dorm is 100% true. Other parts might be somewhat embellished.

You’re a Brooklyn native who now lives in Santa Monica. Do you think the process differs from one coast to the other? And in between?

Luckily, as far as I know, Kumon for preschoolers does not yet exist here. But we do have plenty of community service. Just about every high school student I know has founded an orphanage in Fiji.

Who’s more neurotic: New Yorkers or Angelinos?

A recent task force has determined that a city’s level of neurosis is proportionate to a) the percentage of kids who wear hoodies to alumni interviews and b) the cost of the SAT and ACT tutors. New York kids all own a presentable outfit. And top tutors there are $1200 per session, while L.A’s are a mere $990, so that gives New York the edge in neurosis.

Both of your sons are in the book (as CJ, Cerebral Jock, and GC, Good Conversationalist). How do they feel about being discussed publicly?

CJ is unconcerned about all the anecdotes because like most kids, he doesn’t read, and hasn’t yet gotten through the blog or the book. But GC went to a journalism camp last summer, then poured over the galleys, instructing me to remove all references to him and his friends. For that reason, I focused mostly on the meals during his college tour, rather than his adverse reactions to smug tour guides we met on the trip.

What is the single craziest thing you encountered while researching the book?

Other than the factoid that George W. Bush had a higher SAT score than Bill Clinton, the most mind-blowing discovery was about the college prep centers in China...prep for American colleges, that is. One company will market, brand and package your child for $15,000. They create fake awards, change kids’ grades and even write their essays, making sure to leave in a few spelling errors so they’ll look authentic.

What sanity-preserving advice do you have for parents who have teens going through the admissions process?

Love thy safety. Help your kids find a school they’ll be happy to attend that will definitely admit them - even if their essay is about killing cats.

You’ve become quite an admissions expert. What are your Top Ten Admissions Tips?!

1. Lots of Mozart and flash cards in utero.
2. Drive over the border to Mexico to give birth.
3. Start your child in an unusual extracurricular, like organic kale farming or atom splitting, before preschool. Don’t even consider piano or T-ball!
4. Move to North Dakota or Montana before middle school (or just rent a trailer) so you can have a zip code from an under-represented state.
5. If your teen doesn’t mind getting up at 5:00am, and likes icy water, consider crew – a favorite sport of college recruiters.
6. If your teen hates a school because of the tour guide’s shoes, don’t force her to apply.
7. When colleges say they like to see an “upward trend” in grades, they’re not talking about going from C’s to B’s.
8. Have several extra T-183s around the house, so you don’t have to go calculator shopping the night before the SAT.
9. Don’t use the word “heretofore” in the essay – a dead giveaway that an adult helped….and please avoid the pronoun “we” throughout the process.
10. Make sure the development office is aware of your great uncle’s foundation.

Do you have plans for a follow-up project? Any hints on topics?

I doubt if I will find any humor in empty nesting, so instead I’m working on the Broadway musical version of the book. Or if I can make a deal for an edition in Mandarin, I won’t have to work again.

J.D. Rothman (The Neurotic Parent's Guide to College Admissions) is the blogger at The Neurotic Parent; her blog posts also appeared in I'm Going to College, Not You (St. Martin's Press). A New York native and Santa Monica resident, she is also an Emmy-winning screenwriter and lyricist specializing in children's literary adaptations. She has successfully guided two sons through the college admissions process, and they're still speaking to her.