Anne Nahm

It rained here for the first time since… probably around April of last year.  Pick-up from kindergarten was pretty awesome.  All the small children freaking the fuck out over water from the sky.  The rubbernecking over suddenly in-use gutters!  The one kid’s dismayed comment:  “There are … little… rivers?  On the street!”  Like she was speaking a second language and her vocab too limited for her experience.  The mad splashing of puddles!

“Where’s your rain jacket?”  I asked my kindergartener, somewhat prompted by the helicopter parents with their judgey faces nearby. Kid was, after all, in a short sleeved shirt and a full compliment of goose bumps.  And damn if I hadn’t found the old thing in the back of the closet that very morning and given it to her like some prize fished out of a Cracker Jack box.

“In my backpack,” she said, nearly chipmunkian in her earnestness and shiny-eyed reverence as she gazed at the sky.  “I want to feel the rain.”

(Of course, two minutes later in the car, she complained loudly about how cold she was and adamantly denied her condition had anything to do with being soaking wet. This is California, woman, her superior tone implied.  If it’s cold, surely you must have turned the AC on.)

Happy New Year!

Thursday morning was the third time in the past six months I’ve seen SomeSortaReligiousWitnessTypes avoid our house.

Our family computer is situated near the front window, so when these folks come knockin’, there’s usually this horrifically uncomfortable scenario in which the Salvationists of Whatever Credo are able to make furious eye contact with me through said window as they walk up the drive.

In the past, I was usually so immersed in browsing semi-inappropriate websites that I did not notice their arrival until it was upon me, Judgment Day style: KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK.  And when I’d jump guiltily and close my browser, there’d be one peering right through the window, wearing the smug smile of a champion Hide’n'Seeker.  Muwhahahaha.  FOUND YOU.

After several years now being forced to answer my door and act all polite, my WitnessDar* has become somewhat more highly tuned and I now spot them when they are out on the street.  Which FYI is totally enough time to crawl under the desk and away from view.  But still, sometimes I go out there (whether or not I have pants on usually dictates this decision) and listen politely for 45 seconds before telling them that I have my own God, thanks.

So I was somewhat curious the first time they didn’t knock.  I saw them consult some papers, discuss quietly between themselves and move on.  I figured they’d already marked my house as VISITED.

The second time they frowned at my house and kept walking, I mostly thought, “Huh… I bet they go all the way down the cul-de-sac and then swing back by my place.”

But then Thursday, as I waited like a crouched cat at my computer chair, I definitely saw them consult a paper, squint for long moments at my house number, perhaps grow a shade paler, and retreat.  I’m not even sure if it’s the same two people every time this has happened.  This may be a total of six people refusing to attempt to convert me.

WHAT IS ON THAT PAPER?  Am I listed as a sex offender on some database?  Or as UNSALVAGEABLE on some divine spreadsheet?  WHAT GIVES?  Not that I want them KNOCKNOCKing, but seriously, people crossing themselves and backing away from my drive is a little unnerving.

*This is like GayDar, but much less helpful on the bar scene.

** If you don’t know about Jenny’s Beyonce, here you go.  I would open that door any day.

I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.  Is exhausting.  But I can’t let the last post stand without adding this other piece.  Although I didn’t appreciate his parenting style, my father was an overwhelmingly awesome personal role model.   It’s very confusing to be so pissed at someone you admire terribly.

My dad is unfailingly honest.  You can set your watch by his word.  He does what he believes is right and good, even if it causes him harm.  He is courageous and thoughtful and protective.

He is the only person in my life who ever told me to be unabashedly who I was and to disregard any person, himself included, who disapproved.    All my other relationships have been tempered with that nurture/relationship oriented ‘be who you are, but first do no harm’.

In a way, he was the most generous of all my relationships, because he was adamant that I not worry for him in the equation of understanding who I wanted to be.  I have put this idea to the test several times, and he is unfailingly solid in his belief, proud even if who I am is to his detriment or against his beliefs.

Of course, I am hardly ever able to pull it off in my everyday life, and he is perpetually offended at my inability to be bold and daring, my over-concern about how others might react, and my apparent shame in who I am, forever hiding my identity on nameless blogs and refusing to let anybody I know read what I write.  He doesn’t give a damn about what other people think, and he cannot comprehend why I would.

It is a strange but comforting feeling to know that although he might be hurt by the content of my last post, he would be proud of me for saying it, and for not knuckling under in an effort to save his feelings.

I also have to tell you that there was a time  I was deeply ashamed of something I had done.  It was during a period in my life I might talk to my dad once every three months or so, long-distance.  I never told him.  To the best of my knowledge,  I didn’t even hint that there was anything wrong.

One day, out of the blue, my father sent me a letter detailing about ten big mistakes he had made in his life.  I mean, these were the kind most people take to the grave.  Some of the things I had heard sideways from my mom or aunt.  Some of them I had never suspected and probably would have lived my whole life without finding out.  They were listed, with no coyness or explanation or attempt to justify them.  He didn’t mention if he suspected I had a big secret too, and he didn’t ask.  I don’t know why, of all the amazing things he’s done for me, this is the one that I wanted to tell you, but there it is.   It was a place in my life that I felt incredibly alone, and he was the person who, precisely because of who he was, was able to blow right through all my defenses and comfort me.

I am a person who is terrified of people seeing me make a mistake, or doing something wrong.  I live in perpetual fear that someone will pull back the curtain and reveal me as undeserving of whatever kudos I have accumulated.  And here is this person, the giant of my childhood, laying bare in front of me, all the things I would cripple myself not to reveal to another soul.  He did that and never once flinched or asked for anything in return or even made a big deal about what he had done.  Every time I think about that letter, it takes my breath away.  Without his influence, I would never have written anything.  Hell, even with his influence, it took until I was in my thirties to get my nerve up.

**

So.  Thank you for your comments on the last post.  Thank you Bess, thank you Amazonite, thank you Caitlin, thank you MidLyfeMama, thank you C, thank you bon, thank you Alchemilla, thank you amy, thank you Bon, thank you breakableheart.  Your comments are full of onions and most times I have to close them, half-read, and walk away from the computer so I don’t sob right there at nap time.  I am working through them slowly, trying to use their goodness and perspective.  I am so grateful.  It is very helpful when you see my flaws in logic.  What a funny thing that it is so solid in my head, but when you point it out, it falls apart like toilet paper in the rain.  You make it so I can think through things in a different way.

My dad’s gotten his Senility Troll down to four panels or less lately.  It’s like I’m trapped in the comics section of my local newspaper.  Today’s  installment:

DAD:  Oh! In case I forget – an early happy birthday to you, Anne.
ME (in a tone implying I’m a little incredulous he could miss it):  My birthday’s tomorrow, Dad.
DAD, Looking half-offended, half-joking:  I know.
ME: …
DAD  (Returning to deadpan):  So… How old are you going to be?

Of course, before I can answer, he smiles and says, “Did you know I helped deliver you?”

As it turns out, I had forgotten (oh irony) that he had.

He crooks his arm like he’s holding a tiny imaginary baby and says, “I helped pull you out, and you were much bigger than expected, and I cleaned you off and checked you, and then I carried you to the nursery.”

The sentimentality is so foreign I’m blinking back tears, thinking how it’d be nice to have a cup of coffee and sit down before I get emotionally pepper sprayed next time.  “Thanks for the lift,” is all I manage to squeak out.

He snorts.  “Well at least I didn’t drop you.”

From the couch, where Middle Sister lies splayed, comes the comment, “You really have to question why he’s denying it, Anne.  Sounds guilty to me.”

Later, of course, he’s grouchy and not following the conversation very well.  He mistakes what my mom has said, either due to hearing loss or having lost the thread of the conversation, and the two of them go around in a circle, trying to sort out what’s being said.  Both of them get their feathers up and my dad wanders off to his office.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m so much more OK with him being senile than I am with him being sentimental.  If I had my choice, of course, he’d be neither.  But of the two changes, it’s the kindness that brings me to squished-faced sobs and the sense that the world is rocking on its axis, not his disorientation or irritability.

Saying it out loud seems so pitiful, but I think I’ve spent my life knowing I was his least favorite child.  Who I learned to be was defined in part by his disinterest, and by the standards of his disappointment.  These days, I feel like an old-timey sailor, trying to make my way by charting the stars, and in the Constellation of All Things, my father’s star has moved, and my understanding of the world off kilter.

The other part that is hard to admit is he and I are very much alike.

When I was a new parent, and a new wife, I was afraid I’d end up like him, and that I would inflict on my children some shade of the parenting my father gave to me.  In fact, prior to marriage, I told my future husband I didn’t know if I could actually live in the same house with him, that I might be the kind of person who simply couldn’t tolerate that much contact.

But because my dad was that kind of person, I’ve been pretty determined to live my life differently.  Three kids and a work-from-home husband is a lot of contact to tolerate, and I’m proud to live a life connected to people.

Still.   Some days, while the other mothers are full of their cooing ‘oooh, I wish my children would never grow up, I love spending all day doing projects with them!’

I find myself checking my watch and shifting in my chair and thinking that I am frighteningly like Dad, that my love for my own children would make me do anything for them, but I am not like some parents, (my mother, for example) who could play with kids all day and then invite over the neighborhood kids to play, and then bake cookies for everyone and then throw everyone in the car and go to the beach and go to bed laughing from all the joy of togetherness.   Frankly, even doing one of the things on that list sounds to me like an exhausting pain in the ass.

I know at least one day a week, I am fighting my nature in an effort to be a more involved parent than my dad, and even working as hard as I can, I am easily lapped by lots of moms who do those things because it feels energizing to them.

The point I’ve been trying to get to about my dad’s newfound sentimentality is this:  My sailor’s map has a lifetime of using my father as the pinpoint from which I pushed myself away.    When I feel worthless for lack of personal ducats, I have been able to look at the constellation of my life and show myself how I am providing for my own children a parent who is not driven to familial abandonment via ambition.   That is truly something, yes?  It is not motherfucking cookies on the beach glitter explosion, but given what I have to work with, it is worth being proud of.

Now my father is changing, he is no longer a caricature from which I can cleanly move away.  I am terrified as I feel increasingly sympathetic towards him.  If he becomes a good parent to me, I will have lost my due North.  I will see things from his perspective, and finally see that he was something of a good parent considering what a Bad Kid he had to deal with.

I am afraid I will forget what it was like to be a child, and I will start treating my kids the way he treated me.    I’m afraid it will be easy to do, too, since he and I are so alike in disposition.

And one day, instead of just looking at my watch while the other mothers fawn over motherhood, I will simply get up and walk out.

Thank you for the comments last post.  Some of them were like therapy for me.  I guess after I go through a scenario in my head and come up with a decision on what I think things mean, it never occurs to me that there might be an alternative scenario.  It was both humbling and powerful to read some of your alternatives (that were totally valid and I’d never considered.  Blew my mind.  Thank you.)

It’s been hard to write in real-time these days.  I don’t know how people do it.  But! My smallest kid is potty training now, and yesterday she Number 2′d in her training pants, and I knew I had to come back and tell you about it.

(And here is the section I’ve written and then deleted a lot of the details about the actual crapsplosian spectacular.  Because that kid will one day know how to read, and so will her friends.)

Suffice it to say: Despite all I know about the conservation of mass, this poop might have been bigger than the kid.  And after I got poop on myself (gagging now, just recalling) I said, eff all this, and I threw the pants in the washing machine.

My husband had concerns there was so much poop it might not wash out, and the washing machine would clog, and we’d have to buy a new one.

I was willing to take the risk.

So we set the machine to power-wash and turned the heat to HIGH and threw those underpants in by themselves lest we ruin any other clothes (well, except a diaper changer cover that took collateral damage).

And, hey?  It was a mistake.  Just saying.

The whole hallway smelled like Steaming Hot Poop Stew in a crockpot for the rest of the afternoon.  Should have thrown those pants away.

****

My dad has been dropping these little bombs.  Each is another rocking rocking-chair in some room, and I am the long-tailed cat.

We were talking about the declining health of his 90+-year-old mother.  The doctors estimate she has one-to-five years left, due to converging health problems.  After visiting her, my dad suggested I get down to see her sooner rather than later, because he thought that estimate might be too generous. “She used to be sharp as a tack,” he says in this parsing-the-evidence voice.  “But now she’s more like me.”

*

He was building a plane in the garage. Now he thinks it’s too big a risk to continue (I agree) and he won’t sell it because of the risk he’s done something forgetful that might make a wing fall off in flight.

What does one do with a half-made, unusable plane?  He’s quite curious on the matter.  I want to stick my fingers in my ears, because why does he think I know the answer to that?  He’s been building a plane from scratch for the last five years.  Five years I’ve been listening to his excitedly talk about his airplane flying buddies, and his plans to take Mom on jaunts from grandbaby house to grandbaby house (once my sisters have children).  Watching  a bunch of metal become something recognizable out in the garage has been an amazing thing to see – a feat of his own hands and brains and determination.  It’s sat, untouched, for months now.  His asking me where to get rid of it feels a bit like the end of Old Yeller, with him casually discussing which shotgun will do the best job.

*

For the holidays, my Mother-in-Law came into town, and we all went to my folks.  Over dinner, my dad started to talk about the coffins at Costco, and what he wanted at his funeral, and how, since very technically he’d served in a war, there was possibly a loophole in which the government would pay for his burial costs.  Cool, right?

I sat there, eyes huge, dinner spoiling in my stomach.  Everyone asked polite follow up questions.  I squirmed.  My dad opined in detail about the options.

I said, “can we talk about something else?” Nobody heard this – possibly I only screamed it in my head?  My father elaborated on the shocking expense of funerals these days.

My mother joked that he didn’t need to worry about the money – she was burying him in a cardboard box.  Then she kissed his forehead and they laughed.  Because my mom has always had this gift that she can stay with people, no matter where they go.  I don’t have it.

I say too loud, in front of my MIL and my husband and my kids, “I’d rather talk about colonoscopies than this.”

My MIL looks at me with something akin to horror – which, I guess FYI, sarcastic ass comments to one’s parents isn’t considered the highpoint of witty repartee as it might be on, say, the internet.  But (as I so delicately only thought at the dinner table and did not say, so… yay me?): Fuck this noise and all noises arising from it.

In the awkward silence that followed, my father deadpanned from across the table, “Well, Anne, what’s new in colonoscopies?”  and proceeded to await my answer.
*

What makes it hard to write about, or even think about sometimes, is that I’m never quite sure if

1) I’m being a terrific ass in face of my parents’ super-well adjusted attitude.  Or

2) I’m the only sane person in a room of denial-laden fucknuts.  Or sometimes, worse,

3) I know I’m being an ass, but helplessly pushed into the role of the hysterical teenager because there’s this vacuum in our family in which someone must acknowledge the stress but no one’s willing to do it, so I get thrown under the familial bus, shrieking hysterically all the while.  And

4) what I really want to scream is, “You’re not dying, you’re just getting senile,” but that is way harsh, Tai.

Writing this feels like the lowest, cowardly gossip.