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- 5
I had to think of something to comfort them, my two little girls, their faces screwed up and shining with tears through the wavy glass of the bus window. The first day of summer camp drop-off had been fine, their father had reported to me, just fine. But now, on the second day, and my turn to dispatch them, they were falling apart like sleep-deprived toddlers before the bus even pulled away. I shifted from foot to foot, looked around. What were the other parents gathered at the bus stop doing for their forlorn offspring? Not much, it appeared: standing with arms crossed, chatting with one another in the early-morning sunshine, glancing up at the bus with an occasional smile or casual wave. Short of mounting the bus myself, what could I do to ease my girls' distress, which, of course, we had been vetting endlessly for weeks around the dinner table? What if I can't find the bathroom? What if Amelia isn't in my group? What if I get lost in the woods? What if I'm scared on the bus?
The bus didn't seem to be driving off anytime soon; Jim, our aging, Reef-shod driver, was sipping coffee from a stainless-steel travel mug and listening to NPR's "Morning Edition" on a scratchy radio. Most of the parents were wandering away—back to their cars or houses down the street—but I held my ground, determined to wait until the bus drove off, no matter how hard it was to hold the gaze of my tearful daughters. Was I doing them a disservice by standing here, a reminder of what was so sad? I crossed my hands over my chest and circled them around. Rubbing my heart, as we say to one another when leaving for a length of time—an expression of yearning to be together again soon. "Rubbing my heart, Mama!" my older one would say to me over the phone whenever I'd be out of town. "See you soon!" In this case, however, the gesture seemed to inspire a fresh outburst of tears, so I quickly drew my hands out in front of me, and started moving them around in pretend sign-language, which my youngest daughter found marginally amusing. She nudged her sister's arm. "Look, ” I could see her mouthing, "Mama's being funny."
It had been a tough year. My ex-husband and I were closing up our divorce, and even though we had kept things amicable, the girls were sullen about the separation: the whiff of failure in the house, the somewhat awkward Shabbat dinners we were still doggedly insisting upon a few times a month, as a nod to a bygone era of home and hearth that would soon give way to ... well, none of us was exactly sure to what.
We had done our best to shield them from the machinations of our arrangement, going back and forth to a downtown studio apartment we took turns sleeping in, so as not to uproot them right away. We stuffed our clothes for several days into overnight bags as cheerfully as possible, and blew kisses across the room while our family as we had always known it dissolved around our ears.
But the separation had brought with it a surprising amount of freedom. "GIRLPILE!!" My youngest would squeal to her sister as she jumped on top of me in the morning. "Come make a naked girlpile with me and Mama!"
My girls thought it was mostly an asset to have a mother who juggled balls in a cowboy hat and bikini on the beach, who did handstands against the slide on the playground, who galloped top-speed through the woods by our house, encouraging them to stop on a dime under the biggest tree they could find and, gazing up at the fluttering canopy, to yell at the top of their voices, "LOVE THIS LIFFFEEE!" These antics came naturally to me, a vestige of an un-groomed childhood spent fending for myself.
I figured it was the best gift I could give them. It was the gift my mother had given me, and, as far as I could tell from the limited time I spent with my maternal grandmother before she passed, the gift my mother's mother had bestowed upon her: joy in response to hardship. You come honestly by your line of wild women! I wanted them to know. "Take my hand, come along; lend your voice to my song! Come along, take my hand, and we'll ru-un! To a land where the river runs free! To a land with a shining sea! To a land where the horses run free! And you and me are free to be, you and me ..."
It was time, 8:01 a.m. on my iPhone. Jim fired up the engine of yellow bus number 227 and with a worrisome clatter, swung the door shut. Suddenly, I knew just what to do. My oldest drew her arm up to her nose and swiped at the snot and tears already congealing above her lip. Her younger, considerably smaller sister huddled on the aisle, big blue eyes downcast. I crouched low and looked over my left shoulder at my girls, their faces elongated through the old windowpane. The bus lurched forward, and at the last second, I slipped out of my flip-flops and took off running down the sidewalk alongside it, waving arms akimbo, my sweat shorts falling down around my hips. "Bye girls!" I yelled, even though I knew they couldn't hear me. "Have a fabulous day at camp!" I ran barefoot down the length of the block, trying in earnest to keep up until it turned left toward Connecticut Avenue. Just before they vanished around the corner, I caught a glimpse of my daughters, their faces crowded together to get a better view of me, their eyebrows arched in disbelieving delight, their eyes alight with laughter.
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- 3
This is part two of Bridget's wedding countdown. Read part one.
If you feel like you don't talk to your mother enough, may I make a suggestion? Get engaged.
My sister and I have a close relationship with my mother. All of our therapists would agree with that. We are a close knit and for the most part, happy, family. I moved away from my native California as an 18-year-old to attend Northwestern University, and after I graduated I moved to New York, where my sister lived. So, I spent seven years a multi-hour plane flight away from my parents. As all young adults do, I "separated" from my parents, at least a little bit. Negotiating an adult child-parent relationship isn't always seamless. Choices were going to be made by all parties that were totally healthy and beneficial, even if not everyone agreed with them. I'm being circumspect, aren't I?
We didn't talk every day, more like a couple times a week either via e-mail or cell phone; I was busy persuing my young adult life, making decisions for myself and setting healthy boundaries. I love therapy. Even when I moved back to Los Angeles we didn't talk that much more, our conversations were great, just not daily. My parents had relocated to Newport Beach, so they were an hour away, there was no dropping in on anyone's part. We continued our perfectly reasonable level of communication. And then we started planning a wedding.
My mother and I went from talking three times a week to talking three times a day. At least. These days if I haven't heard from her by 2:00 p.m. I start to get itchy.
I would say the bulk of our conversations are logistics. Things along the lines of,
My Mom: We decided on the green runners right?
Me: The mint colored ones.
My Mom: I know we're talking about the same ones, but they aren't mint...they're more like, a light, creamy green.
Me: I'm calling that mint.
My Mom: well those, the green ones. Celadon. They're celadon.
Me: Oh, I guess you're right. Can fabric be celadon?
My Mom: Why not?
Me: Sure, ok, yes, those.
My Mom: I remember everything else. The ecru table cloth, right?
Me: Yes.
My Mom: The runners—we are talking about the same ones? They were covering that small table at the rental place, right?
Me: Yeah, we are.
My Mom: Maybe they're a light grass green.
Thrilling, I know. One of my big wedding surprises is caring about details I never would have thought would matter to me. Like the place settings. Granted, my mother and I settled on them pretty quickly (30 minutes—that's like an eyeblink in the wedding deliberation world) but still, we're still talking about them.
My mother and I are like lovestruck college freshman who can't stop texting and e-mailing each other.
Where's the man I'm marrying in all of this? In charge of the band. And the honeymoon. And being my life partner. We plan our lives together...except he does not have an opinion about anything related to the wedding. I said, “Do you want to wear a navy suit?” And he said, "Oh yeah, that sounds nice, I don't have one of those." I said, "Do you have any feelings about family style vs. a buffet?" He said, "No. Wait, what's the difference? Actually, no, whatever you think is good." It's like I'm asking him where we should go to dinner. My sister has great wedding thoughts, she found my wedding dress and the bridesmaids dresses (Vineyard Collection and J.Crew (on sale) respectively). My father has some opinions that are along the lines of, "Can't everyone just carry their chair downstairs for dinner?" But most of his input is vital to the health of the wedding.
My soon-to-be husband and I had always discussed hosting our own wedding. I'm being delicate and saying hosting instead of paying for. We didn't want to ask my parents, who paid for my teeth and education and my health insurance for way longer than just college, to throw us a big expensive party even if it is to celebrate our undying love and commitment to each other. But then...we realized a couple of things: my parents had long intended to host the event; and we didn't have any money for a wedding.
So, my parents are hosting the event. We are contributing; we are hosting the band and part of the photographer. We could have hosted a wedding if we were not having a party. If, as oppose to 125 guests we were having 12, then yes, the situation would be different. But this is what my fiance and our families wanted, a party with everyone we hold dear to our hearts.
Which means that my mom and I are communicating with a frequency that is reminiscent of the time when I only went to pre-school. Even when we lived in the same house I'm not sure we spoke this much. That's an exaggeration, of course we did. But it's an interesting change of pace. I stopped consulting my mother on every decision I made...a while ago (see the whole separating thing), and here I am again, sending e-mail after e-mail about hair half-up vs. all the way up vs. down.
And here's another surprise: it's been great. (No offense, Mom.) It's the perfect way to test all those adult feelings—not becoming an exasperated adolescent when my mother doesn't remember something we have already discussed, or suggests something that I don't like. I'm not a total ingrate, I'm saying that I seem to have happily aged out of those impulses. I am able to practice all those things I've tried to cultivate as a young independent person. My mother likes to remind me that her best friend and her best friend's daughter went into counseling during the planning of a wedding. It can put a lot of stress on mother-daughter relationships. Weddings—and again, not marriages, but weddings, seem to hit every nerve in mother-daughter relationship: hair styling, romantic choices, friends vs. family.
Actually, I take that back. Marriage hits some nerves too. While I was at my parents' house doing the “take- everything-out-of-the-garage-that's-yours-you-are-getting-married and-your-high-school-detritus-is-yours” clean-out, my mother and I had a spirited argument about the division of holidays after my marriage. We settled it nicely.
Read the next installment in Bridget's wedding countdown here.
Photograph of Bridget and Anne Moloney courtesy of the author.
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