"Weddings are tough, huh?" I whispered to my flaccid four year old as I tried to pull her purple princess nightgown over her head.
She didn't answer, hand through sleeve... out.
Last week we went to the pool and the yellow squirter fishy married the purple squirter fishy, oh, 8 or 9 times in the course of an hour. The green one functioned as the wicked stepmother, evil witch, and monster keeping them from each other, over and over. Our sitter informed me the next day that my daughter "got married 4 times". Her dollies all have wedding gowns. You get the picture. She has an undying fascination with marriage.
It's not so much the superficial fascination of weddings, but the little glimpses of what getting married means to her. My husband and I had an argument and before our bath she asked "Mommy, when are you and Dada getting married again?". Her four-year-old mentality simplifies it into something about "true love". Go figure, she's got ALL of the princess movies, something I said would never happen, something that crept its pretty little stereotypical head through the crack in the door one day–and never went away.
Really, it's not that silly. It's the reason I still cry at weddings, or in the case of today, balled uncontrollably in my place as "matron" (god I hate that word) of honor. We idealize it. Through the ceremony we listen to the words about perfect love, listening to one another, and giving ourselves fully to the one standing before us. Nobody does it with the thought of "my god, the odds are against us. 50 50 we'll get divorced".
About two years ago, the bride who's wedding we were at today gave my daughter The "Paper Bag Princess". It had been stepped on and spilled on, pages sticking together, and finally found its way, unreadable, into the trash. So much for the independent woman. She can do it all, so why not just use her and abuse her, and throw her to the side to deal with her own mess?
Bitter? Maybe. Independent and taking it a day at a time... or even as pages stuck together melding into one big blob of continuum. Yes.
I was at the wedding by myself with the two kids. 7-and-a-half hours from home.
My daughter wore her "Belle" dress to the wedding. The bride said she could wear anything she wanted, and I figured that if this would make my life easier, then it was worth it to allow her to be in her fantasy of what a wedding should be–Fancy, magical, star-lined, with singing birds and mice, and flowers that bow to the bride's every move.
In this wedding though, the bride was barefoot, holding a bouquet of wild wheat grass, tied with twine, drooping daisies in her hair. She looked beautiful, but not in the sense that my daughter might think of a bride looking beautiful. The "minister" wore shorts, and married them in a circle of stones on the rim of a large green field. A big sheepdog was the ring bearer.
I keep looking through the tears to see what my daughter's reaction was. She was in and out, running off to play with the other kids, and color in her Princess books, not entranced, not even really entertained. She didn't like the cake, the sitter I had watching her was "okay", and the other kids "messed up her coloring books".
The night culminated with the sheep dog almost biting her face, and her wetting herself because she got scared. I rushed crying blindly into the bathroom, looking to see if she was hurt. (Thank freaking goodness, she wasn't and I will knock on wood a thousand times for that one!). I thought that she was crying because she was scared. Through sobs, she said that "no", she was feeling "shy" now. I introduced to the word "embarrassed" and I made her laugh by putting her wet underwear in the front of mine, under my dress (so we could hide them from the crowd). "Just hold me" she said and I carried her out, hiding her face, trying to deflect well intended comments.
"Just hold me", my broken little girl, exhausted and embarrassed.
Tonight I carried 50 pounds of human beings through the hotel lobby, up the elevator, and down the hall to our room. 50 pounds of sleeping baby and sleeping child, settled into beds, sleeping soundly, after a long day. A day of ceremony, a day of joy, a day of love and hope, and a day of embarrassment.
Again, "weddings are tough".
That's all I have to say.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Love and Fishing
The love that I feel for my children is the only love that I have ever felt that hasn't faded over time (and I am presuming it won't). I now know how dogs feel. You can kick them, and scream at them, and demand things from them that are outside of their very nature. Still they will sit next to you and slobber, and lick you and love you beyond all reason. I have been bitten, and screamed at, and asked to do things outside of my nature. Yet, I sit here and slobber, all love. MOM=DOG. Three letters, both containing an "O".
This is love, and honestly I believe it's the only kind that exists–truly. I used to think that love was something you felt for one of your peers, in my case, of the opposite sex. I used to dream of a "soul mate", someone that fit perfectly with my needs and desires. One might say that I have met him and had two children with him. I will be honest, that I don't know if I love my husband as intensely as I once did. For sure, the feeling's essence has changed.
I was visiting a friend of mine last night after going to the pool with the kids. He had just been fishing at a reservoir with his dad and four year old daughter (who is also my daughter's best friend). We were on the other side of the dam, headed towards the waterfall. I was trying to convince my oldest that she actually could make it the next 100 yards to be able to see the waterfall (and possibly Ariel swimming there). Basically we all were within a half-mile of each other but separated by a huge concrete barrier and 500,000 tons of water. We didn't know this until later though.
At his house, the baby wanted something to nibble on, so I was going to run out to my car and get a MEGA-box of goldfish that I had bought at Target that day. My friend said not to, that he had some in his cabinet. I grabbed them out of their little sealed plastic bag (I guess to keep them fresh, or maybe so they were more manageable than having to grab the MEGA-box that he bought from Sam's club). I threw some on a paper-towel for the baby, and the older girls immediately came over.
"They aren't the colored ones".
"I am a one-goldfish kind of guy", my friend responded. We both laughed over this. He's going through a nasty divorce, and we've had several discussions about how he's not intending on settling down with one person because he no longer "believes in monogamy".
Through several conversational transitions, we went from goldfish-monogamy to love.
"How many times had I been in love?". I thought it was two. I had two very specific people in mind. Then something happened. I kept changing people. I kept thinking of particular moments with one or another.
My friend decided to teach the girls how to clean the fish he had caught. There were 6, one was special because it had brown spots. Of course this fish needed to be shared between the girls. There was much discussion as to which fish were girls, and also much haggling over who would clean the "girl fishes". My friend decided that they were ALL GIRLS, and then the haggling stopped. Everyone was covered in scales and guts, everyone was laughing (except the fish of course). I guess the kids are "one kind of fish" people too. Or maybe too many choices just lead to too many debates.
Putting all the thoughts together I started to realize that maybe my "in love with" partners kept changing because the choices were so situational... I "loved" one for the way he held my hand on the bus, another for the song he wrote. I guess, for me, how much you "love" someone depends on where you are in life, what's important to you then. Maybe my needs change too much and too often. Maybe I don't have a strong enough set of moral values to hold up to love of this sort. Or maybe I am just fickle.
We do so much searching in life to find out who we are, why we are important, and where we belong. Is this a contemporary situation? Do we have too many choices in this land of plenty? Is this why the divorce rate is skyrocketing? We no longer have a good foundation of morality to stand on, and nothing to guide us?
Having children has changed my value system. I used to want to be a famous artist, an eccentric, see my name in lights. I wanted to be the brown-spotted fish that everybody wants. I have "lost" this part of myself, and more and more I simply want a life that's safe and happy and quiet. I can't quite figure out if this is "sad", (as in "how sad that she lost herself once she had kids"), or if I should take it as quiet contentment.
I want to give my kids clothing and shelter, and a good chance at surviving this life. I've always wanted them to be able to make their own choices, but maybe choice is not the key to happiness. Choice can be quite superficial.
I asked my daughter if she would want to eat fish more now or less. She said "more", so I told her that that meant we would have to go fishing. That she would have to work hard to eat her next fish. That she would need to clean it and fillet it, and then take the joy of eating it.
This is the lesson that I wish to teach my children. If you want something, sometimes you need to work to get it. We have forgotten that idea in our "do you want ice with that fish?"-wrapped in paper/plastic world.
And after that fish is gone and in her belly... after the initial thrill of the catch, will she remember it as it's own? Even if it's the special brown spotted one?
It's very doubtful. She WILL remember the experience though. She will remember the situation that brought her the fish. She will remember the blood and guts of cleaning it, and the work that's involved... so much more than if her mom just bought one at Whole Foods (wild caught, free range).
And we all must remember in love or fishing "there are plenty of fish in the sea", but maybe that's the problem.
This is love, and honestly I believe it's the only kind that exists–truly. I used to think that love was something you felt for one of your peers, in my case, of the opposite sex. I used to dream of a "soul mate", someone that fit perfectly with my needs and desires. One might say that I have met him and had two children with him. I will be honest, that I don't know if I love my husband as intensely as I once did. For sure, the feeling's essence has changed.
I was visiting a friend of mine last night after going to the pool with the kids. He had just been fishing at a reservoir with his dad and four year old daughter (who is also my daughter's best friend). We were on the other side of the dam, headed towards the waterfall. I was trying to convince my oldest that she actually could make it the next 100 yards to be able to see the waterfall (and possibly Ariel swimming there). Basically we all were within a half-mile of each other but separated by a huge concrete barrier and 500,000 tons of water. We didn't know this until later though.
At his house, the baby wanted something to nibble on, so I was going to run out to my car and get a MEGA-box of goldfish that I had bought at Target that day. My friend said not to, that he had some in his cabinet. I grabbed them out of their little sealed plastic bag (I guess to keep them fresh, or maybe so they were more manageable than having to grab the MEGA-box that he bought from Sam's club). I threw some on a paper-towel for the baby, and the older girls immediately came over.
"They aren't the colored ones".
"I am a one-goldfish kind of guy", my friend responded. We both laughed over this. He's going through a nasty divorce, and we've had several discussions about how he's not intending on settling down with one person because he no longer "believes in monogamy".
Through several conversational transitions, we went from goldfish-monogamy to love.
"How many times had I been in love?". I thought it was two. I had two very specific people in mind. Then something happened. I kept changing people. I kept thinking of particular moments with one or another.
My friend decided to teach the girls how to clean the fish he had caught. There were 6, one was special because it had brown spots. Of course this fish needed to be shared between the girls. There was much discussion as to which fish were girls, and also much haggling over who would clean the "girl fishes". My friend decided that they were ALL GIRLS, and then the haggling stopped. Everyone was covered in scales and guts, everyone was laughing (except the fish of course). I guess the kids are "one kind of fish" people too. Or maybe too many choices just lead to too many debates.
Putting all the thoughts together I started to realize that maybe my "in love with" partners kept changing because the choices were so situational... I "loved" one for the way he held my hand on the bus, another for the song he wrote. I guess, for me, how much you "love" someone depends on where you are in life, what's important to you then. Maybe my needs change too much and too often. Maybe I don't have a strong enough set of moral values to hold up to love of this sort. Or maybe I am just fickle.
We do so much searching in life to find out who we are, why we are important, and where we belong. Is this a contemporary situation? Do we have too many choices in this land of plenty? Is this why the divorce rate is skyrocketing? We no longer have a good foundation of morality to stand on, and nothing to guide us?
Having children has changed my value system. I used to want to be a famous artist, an eccentric, see my name in lights. I wanted to be the brown-spotted fish that everybody wants. I have "lost" this part of myself, and more and more I simply want a life that's safe and happy and quiet. I can't quite figure out if this is "sad", (as in "how sad that she lost herself once she had kids"), or if I should take it as quiet contentment.
I want to give my kids clothing and shelter, and a good chance at surviving this life. I've always wanted them to be able to make their own choices, but maybe choice is not the key to happiness. Choice can be quite superficial.
I asked my daughter if she would want to eat fish more now or less. She said "more", so I told her that that meant we would have to go fishing. That she would have to work hard to eat her next fish. That she would need to clean it and fillet it, and then take the joy of eating it.
This is the lesson that I wish to teach my children. If you want something, sometimes you need to work to get it. We have forgotten that idea in our "do you want ice with that fish?"-wrapped in paper/plastic world.
And after that fish is gone and in her belly... after the initial thrill of the catch, will she remember it as it's own? Even if it's the special brown spotted one?
It's very doubtful. She WILL remember the experience though. She will remember the situation that brought her the fish. She will remember the blood and guts of cleaning it, and the work that's involved... so much more than if her mom just bought one at Whole Foods (wild caught, free range).
And we all must remember in love or fishing "there are plenty of fish in the sea", but maybe that's the problem.
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