December

December is always like this; it's just that everything is compounded by several factors: I'm leaving for Greece and trying to have a real Christmas here and trying to get all my work done--which is to say, mine and several other people's who haven't been doing theirs. On top of this, there has been so much loss and tragedy and grief in my life lately, mostly other people's, but I have been holding them up and advocating for and caring about them--which is both energizing and exhausting. There are things to mourn--a student who has passed away, her death rippling across time and space for so many of my favorite students; the teenager from our town stabbed to death by her boyfriend; and, on a smaller scale, the people I care for are retiring or leaving, and I'm discovering how disconnected I feel from some people I used to love, and how connected I feel to others who won't be here much longer. So, basically, I'm more swamped and overwhelmed and sad than I usually am during finals week in December, and I literally have no idea how I'll get everything done by December 27, when the plane takes off and we're above ground and it will be too late to worry about the fact that one day this semester I literally showed up to one of my classes having forgotten to do the readings, or that maybe I should have left clearer instructions for the people who are doing very little but will need to actually follow through on several details while I'm gone. I'll just be...

I'll be taking 13 students to Greece. And my daughter, and her college buddy J. It's going to be a whole different kind of stress, and for awhile I was sort of dreading it, but suddenly, earlier today, I had this moment of clarity, and I realized the following:

1. I'm going to Greece.
2. I'm taking my daughter--it will be the biggest adventure of her life, even if she's feeling, at the moment, more terrified than excited.
3. Lisa's college buddy J will leave for a semester and most of next summer, and I haven't totally processed how this will affect my life--but I get to spend three more weeks with her, and she's going to keep me and my daughter sane as she so often does, and it will be fun to have this adventure with her, too.
4. And the students--they are engaged and funny and excited, and, I think, less nervous than me. This trip, in its earlier iterations during May session, has changed so many people's lives, and I'm certain it will change some of theirs as well.
5. And the elders--I miss them, miss how it feels to be at the nursing home, with them, with that kind of time stretched out to just be present with people who want companionship more than anything else.

The other night I was talking to a student of mine about a kid he knew who died--how sad he was, how he didn't know for sure how to process it, or how much of an impact he'd had on any of the kids at the after school program where he used to work. We talked about how the moment of connection is sometimes all that matters, all we can be sure about--how the times when my daughter belly-laughs or lays her head on my shoulder and talks to me, really talks to me, matter so much, even if I can't be sure now or ever about the long term, the big picture.

I could be panicked, and maybe I should be, about how much I have to do. But I'm also glad that, even though I've been getting so little sleep, I'm letting myself enjoy little pleasures--letting myself stretch in the ballet class I can't really afford (time or money-wise), letting myself eat good food and drink wine with people I love, letting myself sit in front of the lit Christmas tree and just breathe, breathe, breathe.

S's therapist from the city she is from contacted me recently, just to check in. I sent a very long e-mail at 2 a.m., then apologized for how much I had babbled and mentioned how tired I was.

She wrote back, "Please never apologize for long emails- I love them! Every time I have read about S's progress since meeting you, I am filled with happiness, and I always think what a miracle it is, but the more I think about it the more I think it is no miracle at all. It is simply the result of giving a healing child everything that they need to heal and grow. I truly believe they should use your story as an example of the potentials that exist when the right time, energy, resources, and love are put forth."

That night, after a particularly hard day at work, and after writing a very honest e-mail that included all that has been uplifting and hard about parenting this child--I so needed this response. I felt blessed--and since getting the e-mail, I have also felt my heart slow down. I'm making good choices about how to spend my time. I'll get everything done, and I'll not get enough sleep, and there will be moments of panic and frustration--but I'm not going to let all of that get in the way of being present in my own life.

And so, in the midst of it all, I took the time to have two of my favorite students over for dinner--and they made Christmas cookies with S and laughed at our shaggy and overly affectionate dog. I took the students who work with me (and S, and J) out to dinner--and we talked about silly things and laughed and had a few deep exchanges, too. Last night J took a study break and I took a break from my work, and she came over at 1 a.m. and we had a glass of wine and talked about nothing and everything, and instead of getting sad, I just savored this last time that we'll be in this space talking like this over wine for a long time. Tonight S's other college buddy K came over, and we let ourselves cry a little, but only a little--mostly we just told stories about our semester and laughed at S's comments. I am remembering to care for myself and the connections I have here. I want to know that I am strong enough to sustain myself through the most stressful times by being unwisely generous with my time--but opening my home and heart and feeling the reward, even if I don't have the time.

...and, anyway, it will all get done, and when it does, I'll be going to Greece!

on being evangelical, and practicing what you preach

When I arrived at the school to pick up S after her play rehearsal, she bounded into the car, practically shouting, "Guess what happened today?"

"What?"

"A motivational speaker came to our school. He was SO cool. And he's going to talk again tonight at 7:30. Can we go, mom, PLEASE?"

Admittedly, the second I heard the words "motivational speaker," I was immediately suspicious. Plus, there was a Halloween party I wanted to attend, and a university cultural event--but I'd missed my chance to get tickets to the second, and I didn't have much energy to pick out a costume for the first. Maybe it's meant to be, I thought. Plus, S is very vulnerable to misinterpreting messages, and tends to get confused about the main idea--maybe, I thought, it would be a good idea for me to go hear this guy so we could talk about him.

"Tell me more," I said. "What did you like about him?"

"He tore a phone book IN HALF on stage. And BENT A STEEL BAR with his TEETH. It was UNBELIEVABLE."

"OK, but what was his message?"

"People told him all his life he'd never amount to anything. And he was constantly getting bullied and beat up and nobody did anything. But he never gave up, and now he's doing all these cool things. Plus, he travels around with this really great band. Anyway," she gushed, "the whole POINT was how it's not OK to treat people who are different badly."

So, I reluctantly agreed not only to go, but to go early to get a good seat. We did--and got a front row seat--but as soon as the band started its opening number, I told her I had to move back. I was so focused on getting away from the loud speakers (and reflecting on how old this meant I was) that I missed both the words of the first song (but, hey, there were like five teenagers screaming into their microphones over very loud electric guitars that were playing the exact same notes--no melody, no texture--so I was also trying to block out the music, if one can call it that). I also missed the fact that several teenagers rushed into the front row as soon as S and I had abandoned it. "We lost the best seats," S said, scowling at me.

In the second song, I heard the name Jesus, but not much else. "Are these guys evangelicals or something?" I shouted into my daughter's ear. I looked around then, recognizing four families I happen to know go to a very conservative church in town--all of them perfectly nice people with nice elderly relatives at the nursing home whom I know well--and I started thinking maybe I'd happened upon the kind of event I'd spent my life avoiding. Besides the families, the auditorium was about half full with high school kids who, like S, had been lured to the event by the assembly at school.

"He's an ANTI-BULLYING SPEAKER, Mom," she shouted. "Don't be psycho."

"They're singing about Jesus," I shouted back.

"But you love Jesus," S replied, pointing to the prayer rope I wear around my wrist.

Good point. Now, S should by now be perfectly clear on my religious beliefs--she knows I'm a liberal Christian, and she knows I've suffered a lot of pain because of how I have been treated by religious people, and she knows I pray and do devotional readings every day, and she knows I'd never push any of my beliefs on her, but that I do need to do some kind of reflection with her each Sunday to feel as if my week is complete, so we've settled on a Unitarian-type service, just the two of us.

But, so far, it was hard to connect these teenagers to any sort of conservative, exclusive movement that spread hateful ideals. They were, first of all, adorable.
The drummer had a "drop beats, not bombs" shirt on, and the main vocalist had long hair and jeans falling off his ass and was pretty incredible at jumping off large speakers while singing without needing to catch his breath, among other things. The teenage girls in the room were cheering and taking pictures with their cell phones.

So, I decided to wait it out. When the backup vocalist got on the mike and said she and the only other girl in the band were going to "show you what we've got," and added that she hoped "the old people in the room" would like "this Alicia Keys song," I realized I was really, really old--I could only vaguely remember who Alicia Keys is.

And then, after a beautifully sung (but poorly accompanied) lyric that did not seem to be Christian, the "motivational speaker" came on stage. He started out by blowing up a hot water bottle until it popped. We were supposed to cheer for him and believe he could do it. I was bored to death watching him get red in the face and hearing the crowd shout for him--in a sort of low-key, Minnesota way, that is--but S was really into it. It popped. More cheering. He went on to tear two phone books in half, bend a steel bar with his teeth, and roll up a frying pan. To be honest, I was sort of wincing through the whole thing, but still, I stayed.

Then the guy told his story--he couldn't read, write, or speak for many years, he was forced out of public school, he went then to a private Christian school and was bullied even more harshly there. He persevered and got into college. A professor he trusted told him he should drop out, that he'd never amount to anything. He persevered and graduated college. Soon after that he found himself in a room not unlike this one hearing a message not unlike his, and he ended up getting on his knees and accepting Jesus into his heart. There were some jokes along the way, and people respectfully and forcefully laughed in that Minnesota-nice way, but, to be honest, nobody seemed particularly into the story. Except my daughter, who whispered occasionally, "That sounds like me."

And then things got creepier. He began to weep and explain how Jesus had changed his life, had helped him to believe he could not only overcome his limitations and still go on to graduate college, but also help turn other people onto Jesus. He asked those of us who wanted Jesus to change our lives, too, to raise their hands. I didn't, S did. (Jesus has already changed my life; I didn't need this dude to "help" with this). Then he asked the people who had raised their hands to join him in prayer. I watched as he closed his eyes, as the teenage band began to sing some Christian rock song, as he moved his lips in prayer for those hand-raisers. Then he asked the hand-raisers to come forward, because he was going to break a baseball bat across his knee and he wanted to dedicate that action to them. I didn't, but I decided not to stop S. I wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to watch her up there with everybody else, to see how she'd react. About half the crowd followed her up: the volleyball team, a few football players, some parents with little kids--and crowded around him. He said, "Before I do that, though, I want you all to close your eyes and repeat after me. I am just so moved by how many of you want to turn your lives around. Let's commit ourselves to Jesus." I didn't listen to what he said. I couldn't. But I know he asked for sins to be forgiven, for Jesus to come into each person's heart.

He then asked for all the mothers in the room to raise their hands. My daughter turned and looked expectantly at me. I wasn't planning to raise mine, but I did anyway--to keep my hand down when she was staring at me would be like denying she was my child. "It looks like there are only a few of you, but I'll tell this story anyway," he said. "My mother is the only person who ever believed in me, and the only person in my family who now approves of what I'm doing. So no matter what brought you here, just know that God doesn't want you to give up on your children. I don't care if they have a learning disability, or ADHD, or even autism--don't give up. You're not hear on accident. You're here to learn that God is going to use your child for something amazing, just like He is using me."

And then he asked a man to come on stage and introduced him as the man who made all of this possible. I recognized him immediately as the youth pastor of one of the churches in town that had recently written a letter proclaiming homosexuality a sin, and those who supported it hell-bound. The band passed out cards for people to sign. I didn't read them, but I silently prayed--yes, prayed--that my daughter would not sign one, or at least not put our contact information on it.

After the cards were signed and returned to the pastor, he broke the bat over his knee, then held up the two pieces, making the shape of a cross with them, holding it up victoriously. "Now, everyone, I'm leaving town tomorrow, and so is the band. But Youth for Christ will still be here. This guy," he said, pointing to the local minister, "He's the real deal. He'll ALWAYS be here for you. He will show you the love and acceptance and hope you need in your life."

And then, it was over, finally. As people were walking out, I saw S approach a band member who was cleaning off the stage. I watched as he handed her the torn phone book. She ran her fingers through it. He nodded at her, and she grinned widely and hugged him.

Then, she walked toward me. "He GAVE me the phone book, Mom," she said, holding it out me. "Wasn't that awesome?" I couldn't believe she hadn't caught onto how I felt about it all.

"Not really," I mumbled, but she didn't seem to hear.

"I figured I'd just rededicate myself," my daughter said. I realized suddenly that, in one short year, she had made a complete circle from evangelical Christian to atheist to Greek Orthodox to evangelical Christian.

I nodded, trying to push her out of the room. But the big-muscled evangelical approached me and put out his hand. "Thanks for coming," he said.

S hugged him. "Thanks for coming here," she said. "I'm one of those kids who has thought of giving up a lot of times because nobody believed in me."

I was mortified. I didn't want this man hearing my daughter's story. But then she went on. "But thank God my mom is here for me. She makes sure I never give up." Admittedly, when the story ended that way, I got tears in my eyes. S put her arms around me.

"Oh, that's so beautiful," he said. "You must be an amazing mom." He looked directed at me, a tear coming out of the corner of his eye.

I thanked him politely and practically carried S out of the room. In the hallway, I met up with another mom I know fairly well; we've been on several community committees together, and I know she goes to a mainline Lutheran church in town, not one of the many conservative/evangelical ones. "That was really amazing," she said to me, but she sounded a little doubtful. "Did you think so?"

"I thought it was interesting," I responded. My throat felt really dry.

"I didn't know what to expect," she said.

"I didn't, either."

I said goodbye to her, and we got into our car. I took a deep breath and prayed, Please let me handle this the right way. And I felt myself get really, really calm.

"What did you like about it?" I asked, finally.

"Well, he's kind of like me. I mean, he didn't have anything going for him, and nobody cared about him, but now he's doing this great thing because he believed in himself and didn't let everybody convince him he was nothing."

"That is a good message," I said. "I liked that he talked about how important it is not to bully other people." I swallowed hard. "But," I said.

"But what?"

"But I didn't like everything he said. I think he is a different kind of Christian than I am."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I don't believe it's OK to manipulate people into feeling like they have to raise their hands to say they are dedicated to Jesus. I didn't raise my hand or repeat after him when he wanted us to pray together. And I didn't go up front. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't believe Jesus likes that kind of prayer. Jesus criticized the hypocrites who would stand on street corners showing off how they pray and trying to get other people to be like them. He says we shouldn't be like them. Instead, we're supposed to be humble and pray in our own rooms, with the door shut."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," S said, hugging the torn phone book to her chest.

"But see, that's what these people want you to do--not take the time to talk through what you're hearing, not think about it too much."

"I'm not STUPID, Mom. And anyway, what people are you talking about?"

"I know you're not stupid. And that's why I want to give you another perspective, so you can make your own choice."

"You're ASSUMING he's an evangelical, Mom. How do you know that?"

"Well, first of all, that group he was promoting is a group from one of the churches that preaches homosexuality is a sin. I KNOW that minister." But I felt myself getting angry, and I managed to calm myself down again. "But actually," I heard myself say, "I don't really think they ARE evangelicals."

"What do you mean?"

"Evangelical is a Greek word. It means, a person who spreads the good news. What do you think the good news is?"

S didn't answer right away. "Love your neighbor?" she said, finally.

"That's what I think, too. And his message seemed to be all about loving yourself. I mean, you have to love yourself to love your neighbor. You do have to be OK with yourself to do any good in the world. And he's right, every single one of us has the potential to be used by God to do good in the world. But I think we have different ideas about what doing good means."

"He IS doing good, Mom," S said. "He's talking to people about why bullying is bad."

"I agree. That part of his message is powerful. But the rest, in my opinion, isn't. He said himself that his goal in life is to win hearts for Christ. Well, that's fine, if that means that he's trying to get people mobilized to follow Christ's message, which is what I think the good news is."

"What do you mean?"

"Christ's message was about love and inclusion. It was about changing the system so that those who didn't fit in weren't persecuted. It was about feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, freeing the oppressed. Did you hear him say anything about those messages?"

S thought for a minute. "Well, he did say people shouldn't bully."

"True," I said. "But what if I told you that minister that he said would always be there for you has been a bully to me, writing homophobic letters in the paper? What if I told you that everyone isn't welcomed in his church? Or that the church spends more time preaching about what they think is wrong with individuals instead of what's wrong with society, and what we can do to change it?" By this time, we had made it home and were sitting on the couch, and she was absent-mindedly braiding her doll's hair while the dog and cat snuggled against her.

"I'm not stupid, Mom," she said again. "You have to trust me. I'm not going to let them convince me to join some scary church that wouldn't accept you for who you are."

"But you practically did tonight when you went up to the front and signed that card," I said. "Did you give them our contact information?"

"I wrote down my e-mail," she admitted. "But if they e-mail me, I'm going to just respond that I'm not interested and please not to e-mail me again."

"That's a good idea," I said. "And if you keep getting e-mails, will you tell me?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"But they're not going to e-mail me, right? I mean, you're the town lesbian. They're going to recognize my last name."

"If they do recognize your last name, then that's all the more reason they'll think you need saving. That's how these people work, sweetie. They look for people who seem vulnerable, who need to be loved and included, and they will do anything to get you involved. They tried it on me."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm not stupid, either, but I went to a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting my first year in college, because I was lonely and a really nice girl invited me. And they had the same exact message, about how people who have been treated poorly and struggled really needed Jesus, and he would change their lives."

"What happened?"

"I needed to hear that at the time. You know I was bullied in high school, and I always felt like there was something different about me. So I kept going for about three or four times. And then I stopped, because after awhile, I realized it was the same thing every time. Well, I wanted more. I wanted to try to figure out what good I could do in the world, and I wasn't convinced that just helping to get people to those feel-good meetings where everybody cried and laughed a lot was enough. They also didn't do any real analysis of Jesus' message, and I'm not stupid. I know the Bible is complicated and pretty much anyone can pull out a couple passages and say whatever they want about them and ignore the ones that don't make them feel comfortable." I realized I was preaching, and that S was losing interest, so I got to the point. "Anyway, when I decided to stop coming, they wouldn't leave me alone. They kept calling and knocking on my door--this was before anyone had e-mail--even though I kept saying no. I tried to talk to them about why I'd decided to move on, but they didn't really want to have a conversation. To them I was a soul to save, and it was their responsibility to do it. But think how much good they could have done if they'd spent that energy working on changing the immigration laws in this country, or finding a way to train homeless people for new jobs."

"Mom, I think I believe what you believe. I think people shouldn't be forced to pray or to make their lives all about converting people. I think we should be working on changing the bigger things, like you said."

"Well, he was right about one thing," I said.

"The bullying part?"

"Well, OK, three things. The bullying part, and the part about how you have to believe in yourself and keep persevering. And he was also right that I was supposed to be there tonight. I think if we hadn't gone, we wouldn't have had this conversation, right?"

"Right. And this was a good conversation to have."

I sighed deeply. Everything was going to be OK.

"Do you think of Jesus as your friend?" S asked, suddenly. "As someone you can talk to about anything?"

I thought for a minute. "Not really," said. "I mean, I do think God loves me as I am, always. And when I pray, I do sometimes tell God my problems or confess the things I've done wrong. But I also feel like God challenges me to keep growing as a person, to ask hard questions, to have hard conversations, and to take risks to make the world a better place. The people I admire are the ones who are in their communities trying to make them better, even what that's a hard thing to do."

S picked up the phone book and ran her fingers through it. "But isn't that what a real friend does, Mom?" she asked me.

I was amazed at her wisdom. "Actually, yes, you're right. That's exactly what a real friend does. Friends don't let the people they love accept easy answers to take the easy way out. But they also love you unconditionally."

"Can I keep this, though?" S asked, holding up the torn phone book.

"If you want to," I said. "What does it represent to you?"

"That I can do things people think I can't do," she said. "That I can get through hard times."

"OK, then keep it," I said. "I think it is important to believe in yourself. Otherwise, you can't do the good you're meant to do in the world."

"What's the good you're meant to do, mom?"

"Adopting you and helping you grow up, I'm sure about that one," I said. "I'm still figuring out some of the other stuff. I used to think it was sharing my writing to inspire others, or my work for GLBT equality, or helping students who needed my help, or the work I've done with elders, and helping other faculty do similar kinds of projects..."

"Maybe it's all of those things," S said, wisely. "Does it have to be just one?"

"No, definitely not," I agreed. "It's definitely about paying attention to every action you take, every decision you make, and using your talents to make good changes. But choosing to adopt you--that was definitely the best decision I've ever made."

S looked away from me and turned her attention to the dog as she often does when I say things like this. The dog jumped off her lap then and made his way to the door, letting out a short yelp to let us know it was time for his walk.

"Grandma," she said, in a strange, deep voice she has made up for the dog, "my mom's tired because you've been talking to her about big things for way too long. Will you give me my walk without her? Because I really, really need to pee."

The dog yelped just as she finished the sentence, as if he really had spoken those words. "Compromise," I said. "We'll take him together."

"OK," S said, in her own voice, followed by a long sigh. "I GUESS that's a good idea." Then she added, "I love you, Mom. And that's evangelical, right?"

"Huh?"

"That's good news, right?"

"Yes," I said. "That's good news. Now I have to figure out what to do about the fact that the school let a motivational speaker..."

She interrupted me. "He didn't say anything about God during the school assembly. He just talked about bullying."

"Still, I don't think it's appropriate for the school to let this guy talk to you and encourage you to come to something else."

"Let it GO, Mom. Please."

"I'm not sure I can. I have to think some more about it. I just need to make sure I'm making the right decision, either way. So I'm going to sleep on it, OK?"

"That's a good idea. You always tell me I should think things through before I act on my anger."

"Right. I guess I should practice what I preach."

and the hate crime bill passes!

Finally, 10 years after Matthew Shepherd's murder, the federal hate crimes bill is signed into law by Obama. It's hard to believe. So hard, actually, that I found myself watching the footage over and over--I couldn't get enough of it. There are other signs that things are getting better: there's hope that the Defense of Marriage Act will be repealed, that Don't Ask, Don't Tell will be repealed.

And yet, I can't help but reflect on the fact that in the last two weeks, two GLBT students at the college where I teach have dropped out of school, both of them dealing with fallout related to coming out.

When we lose queer students--and it happens every year, without fail (and those are just the ones I can count, not including any who silently slip away, in pain and in the closet)--all of the faces of the kids I tried to "save" come back to me. Last night, I dreamed them all, marching in a parade for justice, waving the rainbow flag. At the end was the man who started E-Quality, the GLBT group here, who endured receiving boxes of dog shit and threatening notes, and never even considered calling the police--and who didn't graduate. This was 15 years ago, and things are better now--but not good enough, not really.

I wasn't in the dream. Or maybe I was, but if so, I was filming from a perspective above them all, as if I couldn't quite reach them or have the effect I hoped to have.

OK, so these students maybe weren't "save-able"--they were suffering from years of mental health issues that related to their coming out process, their shame. But certainly they wouldn't have suffered as much if they had lived in a different family, a different kind of society. Certainly we are all responsible for creating that society.

I go back and forth between sounding really old, telling stories about how things were when I was in college and explaining how lucky the young people are--and feeling hopeless (how could it have taken 10 years to include the words "sexual orientation and gender identity"--not to mention disability--in a hate crimes bill?)

And whenever I begin to think that these kinds of symbolic changes don't matter, I remember how I responded when I heard my supervisor at the college bookstore proclaim, after a request to do a book display for pride week, that she wasn't about to give any space to a "bunch of faggots." I sat there, at the counter, and just took it, didn't even think it was at all peculiar that she'd say this, as much as it hurt. Now I'd be making some calls if someone on my campus said something like this. Have I changed on my own, or has my tolerance for hate been affected by the progress we've made in the last 20 years?

But the hate is often more subtle these days, and harder to nail down. If a student can't afford to pay her tuition, and her parents cut her off when she comes out (or when they find out she has a girlfriend), what's she supposed to do? It takes time to declare independence from one's parents--it can't happen overnight. When a student has faced self-hatred for years because of his parent's treatment of him--if he's suffered verbal and physical abuse--why would we expect him to be able to put all that behind him and step into college a new man? That kind of grief and horror will catch up with anyone. Not having a support system when one's roommate or friends do--that stings. More to the point: what about the student who is out and confident, mostly, except that every so often, there are people who are cool to her, who say things, off-handedly, that show they aren't true supporters of GLBT equality--how long is she supposed to take this pervasive hate before she breaks?

We are even more responsible now, I think, for responding to hate--for being present, for seeing ourselves and others with clarity, for challenging and educating before hate gets to the level of a hate crime.

I can't help but believe, though, that any stride to make our country, our world, less tolerant of hate and more tolerant of difference (yes, tolerance is the first step toward acceptance)...well, that's something we ought to celebrate, right?

a note to all the girls I used to know who starved themselves

In the beginning, I wanted to tell you I couldn’t stand the sight of you, the thighs fluctuating from fat to thin, or the bony-kneed, arm-laced-with-knife-marks, pale-skinned bodies.

I hated, too, how you wore your not-wanting as a badge of honor, flimsy as the size three dresses you wrapped around hips like cloaks, thick as the cheese you rolled into your napkin, carefully shrouded, to throw away.

I didn’t want to understand. To understand would mean facing everything you wanted, everything we all wanted: a home-place where our shame could evaporate, wisp by wisp, into thin air, like the dry ice in the kettle we’d stir every Halloween in our front yard to draw the trick-or-treaters.

We liked to dress up. I was always a witch, armed with magic wand, magic broom—I could sweep clean the yellow-brick-road of your memories, turn your days from black and white to color, stir the concoction until it tasted right, even to you.

But I can’t go on like this, hating and loving you at the same time.

You were the opposite of carelessness. But somehow you were drawn to me, laying out, methodically, your reasons: You don’t seem to hate your body; you know when you’re hungry; You don’t seem to care how you look.

“Thank god you’re not one of those girls,” my first lover told me, running her palm across my belly.

Some of you wanted to shame me, to stand beside me like pillars of salt, daring me to change you back.

Some of you wanted to fuck me—as if, if your bodies collided with mine, you would turn careless, learn to want again.

“But I won’t look back,” one of you said to me, when I asked how it started, turning my face from your triangle-hip. “If I had to look back, I’ll fall apart.”

I still don’t know what I should have said, should have done. I don't remember how it ended, if it ended. So much I've forgotten in that haze from those years of wanting and not-wanting.

Grown up now, a parade of girls makes its way through my office, carnival-reflections of you. I still don’t know what to say, what to do.

Sixteen

Summer, 1987: the sweet-and-bitter scent of the cigar your father says he doesn’t smoke, the gritty rage in the back of your throat, the sound of his phlegm clearing, tentatively, over and over.

Twenty years later, you will realize he waited all day for the chance to stand there, on the porch below your window, until your cousin was gone to her night job and you and your sister were believed to be asleep. You keep the window open because Ohio is muggy and still in August, because you love the sound of crickets and the small, round light over the Boltz’s picnic shelter, lonely now against the backdrop of lake and grass.

All summer long, Mrs. Boltz sits on a folding chair in the center of the family’s barn and watches her sons pull down each weathered slab of wood, and twenty years later, you will see there was an easier way, that she chose this laborious un-building. But for now you know only that you like to sit beside her on a hay bale, twist the thick, blond strands in your fingers, and watch with her, breathing deeply the sweet-and-musty scent of barn. When her daughter calls out from the farm house, Mama, time for supper, you say goodbye and kiss her on the cheek.

Even on the hottest days, her skin is cool and smells of oranges, you don’t know why, and summer is that smell, too, the laborious un-building of each orange peel, each petaled clove of garlic, the garden with its bounty and its bounty, the cigar your father smokes, or doesn’t smoke, the slow line of cows against the fence, their silent parade toward the flatbed truck that will lead them to the slaughter.

Summer is fresh, warm milk and its absence, the neighbor boy’s handcuffed wrists, the neighbor boy, his absence. Twenty years later, you won't remember his family's name, or his face: only the masked terror-child who rode his bike into trees on Halloween night to scare the other children.

You know it is only a matter of time: soon band camp will begin again and you’ll have to practice. Mr. Artz will stop by to say he can hear you playing from across the field, how much better you sound this year than last, and in between Friday night football and pizza at Noble Roman’s, somebody will know what happened to your neighbor, what he did, and you’ll hear the story, too.

But for now, your father is inside again, snoring at the television; your sister is mumbling her dreamscape; your cousin won’t be home for hours. You are sitting up now, watching the thin trail of road barely visible between the row of pines and the last, tall rafter of what used to be the barn, leaning toward the darkness.

As usual, nothing is happening, but you can’t sleep. Then car doors slam. You don’t know these voices. Twenty years later you will realize the couple came to a place where they believed no one could hear them, not understanding the science of echo, valley, wind. Even from this distance, without the words, you know his anger is rising up from the small round shame in his throat; you know he’s hurt her and he’s sorry.

Then it is quiet until, suddenly, you hear the sound that comes from her—-rising slowly, octave after octave like your clarinet in the fifth grade, when you still couldn’t hit the high C, when every scale you played was screechy, laborious, off key. She is taking her time and nobody can stop her, tame her, and then you can almost make her out, or think you can, hands rising up toward a sky full of cumulus clouds.

It will rain tomorrow.

Before that, you will sit beside Mrs. Boltz for one last time until the last ream has been pulled from its foundation in the soil.

She goes on, reaching with hands and voice, higher, higher. You want to tell her, in the kind, steady voice of your first good teacher, who, much later, came to your mother’s funeral and asked you, to distract you, do you still play the clarinet? Do you still love it like you did at the beginning?

During lessons, he’d say, Slow down. Let the air move through you. Breathe. You want to take the woman by the shoulders and lead her inside, say these words to her, because grief connects with grief, because it’s the end of summer, because tomorrow, you’ll wonder if this really happened, and nobody else will have heard her scream.

(If your throat is burning, you’re not breathing right, he’d say).

Slow down. Move through.

Silence again. Then car doors slam, wheels turn against the spattering of rocks beside the ditch: sputter, sputter, screech, silence. Too late, you think. Too late to save her.

And then, the unexpected happens. Twenty years later, you'll wonder, did he really walk across your lawn, toward the Bowmans’ house?—yes, that was their name! The Bowmans!--and out into the distance, toward the woods? Did she really drive away without him?

Either way, you had already become her by then, already understood how the burn in your throat will one day rise away. Build up, tear down, sit still, forget, drive away, remember. Supper time. Summer time.

You are 16. You are learning.

Power Over It

In his memoir _Firebird_ about his childhood, marked deeply by his mother's addiction and his father's pain, Mark Doty writes, "To tell a story is to have power over it. Now they--we--are part of a tale, a made thing--a perspective box!...What happened defines us, always; erase the darkness in you at your own peril, since it's inextricable at last from who you are...Surely their actions might be something we'd do ourselves: the hand raised to strike could be your hand, the face that trembles to receive the blow your face. The finger on the trigger yours, afraid; the heard held in the gun sights yours also. And that is close enough to forgiveness, to find that any character in the dream of your life might be you. But you don't know that until you tell the story; caught in the narrative yourself, how could you see from that height?"

Those words, when I read them the first time, resonated with me. Now, on the other side of parenthood, as with Lamott's work (which I wrote about yesterday), I understand more deeply what he means. I expected to be the kind of mother who was nothing like either of my parents, or the aunt who raised me after my mother's death. I sometimes see small glimpses of my father's abuse, as well as his fierce desire that I become something more than others expect; I feel my mother's deep love, how she wanted to both hold on and let go, at every moment; I sometimes experience the nervous worry of my aunt, who wanted so much to do everything right that she couldn't be present. I had not expected to become any of them, but at times, I do, and this has, yes, made me love them more, understand them better. It has also forced me to experience both humility and grace.

But tonight, for the first time, I realized it is not possible always to imagine myself in another person's shoes, and that maybe, just maybe, this is OK in some situations.

S and I were having a good day. After last night's period of reflection--which ended with my last blog entry--I slept deeply for almost 12 hours, and I woke up feeling like a new person, no longer full of shame, the grief still swimming in my body, but not numbing me--instead, making me more alive. We had a very late breakfast, and then I went to work to catch up, and S spent some time with her college buddy. I got home; she was quiet but happy, and we had dinner and took a short walk; we saw some friends on the way, who said I should come over later for a drink. "You should go, Mom," she said. "You never get to do anything with your friends. I feel OK about staying alone." So I said I would later, and we cleaned the house; she helped without complaining. Afterwards, we started decorating for Halloween, and then suddenly it was 8:30 and I told her I was leaving.

She sulked; I got annoyed. "What is it?" I asked her. "Why don't you just tell me? Do you not want me to leave? And if the answer's no, then I want you to try to tell me exactly why that is."

She sat on the couch and said, "I need you to sit next to me." Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. I did.

"It was snowing," she said. "And that didn't happen very often in the (state where I came from). And it was foggy. I was dressed as a princess, and my brothers were Tigger and Pooh. My father was taking us trick-or-treating, but we weren't dressed right, and I was shivering. And he was acting like a good father."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He said if anyone bothered me he'd hit them with his flashlight. And my older brothers were with us. And then there were two dogs. I don't know whose they were. My brothers started to beat them."

"What happened next?"

She stopped then, and I could feel her body against mine struggling for control. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hurt something, somebody, to lash out in violence, to scream, or if she should stay here, on this couch, in this safe house, and keep on talking.

She chose, for the first time ever, I think, to do the second. And the memories came out like this for hours, in this much detail, her voice soft and clear, tears running down her cheeks. The numerous animals her brothers abused and killed. All of the places and ways her father raped her and her brothers. How her mother said she would kill herself whenever any of the children said they would tell; how she would sit in the room and just watch, her face blank.

"Thanks for not talking," she would say once in awhile, and then she would go on. She held my hand. The dog and cat occasionally jumped up on her lap and licked her face, but she seemed not to even notice them, though sometimes she would absentmindedly run her fingers through their fur.

After a few hours of this, she stood up rather suddenly and said, "I think that's enough for tonight. I don't think I could take any more memories, so I'm going to shut them off now." The entire time, Halloween music had been playing on the recorder, but I hadn't dared to get up to turn it off. She did so, saying, "I think the scary music helped me remember for some reason."

Then, she came back to the couch and sat next to me, laying her head on my shoulder. "I'm glad you're my mom and I'm glad you listened to all of this w/o freaking out, even though I know it was hard to hear." And she said she thought she needed to do that more often, to just sit quietly and try to remember things, because already she feels like, as she put it, "some of the black hole is getting filled and I have more control over myself."

"You're brave to want to do what you did tonight," I said to her.

"I have to. Otherwise, I would have to just kill myself, because I can't go on the way I was. I wouldn't have a future." It was a really scary thing to hear her say, in a way, but I also totally get what she means. She can't really just go on carrying all that stuff in her body and mind without telling the stories.

At one point, she said, "I used to feel bad for my brothers. I thought they didn't know what they were doing because they grew up the same way I did. I was mad at my parents, but not at them. But now I remember how the cats would shout out and how horrible it sounded, and how they did it so calmly, and in so many violent ways. Sometimes afterwards they'd just calmly rinse off their hands with the hose. Or how when they tied me up they were so calm about what it was they were doing. Or how they would look at me and say so calmly that if I told anyone anything, they'd kill me."

"Did you believe them?"

"When my mom said she'd kill herself if I told, I believed her because I'd seen her try to kill my brother. Did I tell you this, that she stuffed pills in his mouth because she wanted him to die? So I thought it wouldn't be too hard for her to kill herself, if she could do that to my brother. But I believed them even more, because they had killed so many innocent beings. Why wouldn't they kill me? What would stop them?"

We were silent for awhile, both of us crying. And then she raised the volume of her voice, and it was strong, sure of itself, but still even. "Anyway, I don't feel bad for them anymore. I mean, why did they end up so mean, so heartless, and I ended up with such a big heart so that I have to feel all of this?"

I can think of some reasons: S was younger when she got out, 10 to their 18; she's had safe places to live since the age of 10, even if they weren't ideal; she's a girl, and that alone means she's been subtly socialized to be less violent, even in the midst of that level of abuse.

Still, I know what she means. When Doty writes about the hand raised to strike, the finger on the trigger--how it could have just as easily been his as his mother's or father's--I believe this, I understand it. But I can't take that same leap when I think of boys tying up their sister to gang rape her, or breaking a beer bottle and stabbing a cat to death with its shards while their sister watched. I can't understand or imagine that kind of cruelty. Does that mean I'm in some kind of denial, or that, truly, some people are either born or made more cold-hearted than others?

I guess I'll never know for sure. What I do know is this: just after S said she could never forgive her brothers, the cat crawled into her lap. She stroked her and said, "I would never hurt you, I would never hurt you," over and over, this mantra. And the cat purred and turned over to show S her belly.

"That means she trusts you," I said.

"I know," said S. "And, for the first time, I think I trust you, too," she added, and I breathed in deeply, letting the words sink into my gut, mix with that grief, that holy darkness.

"Hopefully someday M (her brother) will tell F (his new adoptive father) the things I'm telling you. I think it's the only chance he has to survive, if he can tell someone. I hope someday he'll trust F the way I trust you."

And I remembered how F had written me earlier in the week, two sentences: "Even though M can be unresponsive at times when it comes to talking, every day I find him more sweet and good-hearted. I feel I really made the right choice and was so lucky to find him."

"I hope so, too," I said to her. Then I kissed her forehead and added, "I am so lucky I found you."

"I'm lucky, too," S whispered, wiping the last tear from her cheek.

Homecoming

The last week I spent with my father offered new challenges; he didn’t, after all, qualify for a home care program, so we had to determine a way to pay for his care, using some money he’d hoped to keep in Greece for his eventual move back there. There were other legal and financial challenges that needed to be sorted out. In the end, when we left, my father was sitting on the couch where he’d been spending his days and nights, sobbing. But, he also thanked me—and I am not sure he’s ever done so before. The drive home was bittersweet; the warm, sun evaporated into thick, cool fog before our eyes; we started the drive in shorts and t-shirts and ended it in sweats. But, it was also so lovely to be home; I teared up when we got to the kennel and our dog greeted S with his usual leap into the air, and she almost fell backwards.

My last day in Ohio, I got a call that my dear friend G had died. He was in his 80s and still teaching until, a couple weeks earlier, his health had declined to the point that he couldn’t anymore. He was old, and he had begun to suffer, but I wasn’t ready to let him go. “I know how much you loved him,” my friend said. “I didn’t want you to find out over e-mail, but I’m also afraid, now, that you won’t be able to safely drive home.”

But I did, and S transitioned back into school relatively smoothly. The first week proved to be more challenging for me. There were tensions with co-workers that needed to be aired out; they did, but doing so was exhausting. When we learned there would be no public funeral for G, some of us who knew him well found ourselves weeping together over the news; we had wanted some way to get closure, though of course we also wanted to respect his wishes. A former student who recently dropped out of school came by to say goodbye, and ended up weeping in my living room for hours. I was glad to have had the time to talk with her, to hopefully play some role in pulling her through her depression (though I’m not sure I helped much), to give her a blessing for her new life across the country—but again, the conversation took what little emotional strength I had left.

I was so tired by Wednesday night that I felt utterly numb, unable even to think straight. I did probably the stupidest thing I could have done—I got very drunk with a much younger friend who is a good listener and also very funny—and who can drink as much as me with even less obvious effects.

Last night the stupidity of this decision became clear when I completely lost my mind last night. I’d worked for 12 hours straight, and in the midst of the day had been a crying jag with another friend of G’s, a challenging conversation with a co-worker, and a phone call from an agency I’d tried to contact more than 10 times while in Ohio, finally getting back to me. When I got home, S’s college buddy told me she’d refused to do her homework. When I questioned her about what was due, she was confused, so we went online and realized she had a test on material she had not yet studied. I lost it, shouted at her, told her she needed to be more responsible. Of course, my temper tantrum only sparked the same behavior from her. Needless to say, no studying got done.

I realized I was feeling the same kind of helplessness and rage I’d felt before my summer retreat. It’s no wonder; while the outcome was manageable, I’d been fighting a completely bureaucratic health care system and dealing with my cranky father for two weeks while also essentially home-schooling my kid. Of course something relatively small was going to set me off. Even S said, reasonably, that this was only one test in one class and I didn’t need to get so upset about it. “If you have that attitude you’ll NEVER pass high school or reach any of your dreams,” I yelled, which, now that I am typing it, totally sounds crazy.

Today was a decent day overall. I felt my students were finally excited about their community-based research projects. I had one of those conversations during which I realized our office had already accomplished some important goals. I got to see both of S’s college buddies together in one place and sit briefly with them while I ate a late lunch. It felt good to take a break. So, while S was having a horse lesson, I decided to go through a pile of “not pressing” papers on my desk, including my student evaluations from last semester.

I braced myself; I knew last semester was comprised of some of the worst months of my adult life, and that I’d spent much of the semester angry and scattered—but I had no idea just how bad they would be. Prior to reading them, I had been informed that a student was fighting the grade I’d given him; I was relatively unconcerned about this until I saw just how bitter my students were about everything, in both classes. My first reaction was to be defensive, but within a half hour, I realized that their criticisms were right; I really had not taught well, at all, last semester, and I’d known this was the case even as I was in the midst of it. I reviewed the facts; I had worked through a lot of my anger, self-doubt, and frustration over the summer and was, once again, a teacher who cares about her students. I’d also spent some of the summer getting organized and even read about ways to overcome my usual scattered methods of time management (though I didn’t realize how badly these problems were effecting my students, I did know I needed to improve these skills in order to a good job directing the new community engagement office). Finally, I’d been working on ways to separate my personal and work life so that S’s issues or my dad’s illness aren’t bleeding into my work or becoming excuses for why I can’t be effective. I left work feeling like I had handled this blow well. I made the decision to make an appointment with my supervisor to talk about the evaluations and tell her what I’d been doing to prevent another semester like last spring.

Then, I got home and promptly went to sleep. I slept deeply until K, S’s horse teacher, called to say they were done and that S wanted to talk to me. “Can I go to the Homecoming dance tonight at 9:30?” S asked, “Pleeeaasssee…”. I went over all the obvious reasons why she couldn’t: no dress, she was in trouble for not preparing for her test, etc. And then I relented, because I was honestly too tired to deal with her whining. They got home, and when I heard them opening the door I felt tears coming to my eyes; “I can’t do this,” I thought to myself. “I really am in no shape to be a parent right now.”

S bounded in and immediately went upstairs to search for a dress. K sat down and told me S had told her that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore about anything because everything stressed me out. “I don’t want to make her cry or yell,” she’d said, which immediately caused me to burst into tears.

Suddenly the faces of all the students I’d not served well went through my mind, literally, and I cried harder. I thought about G, who had been my mentor--how much he'd loved his students, how he'd never gotten lazy or frustrated, how his pep talks had always involved the question, do you care about your students?--and when I said yes, he'd say, then you'll know what to do.

I felt like, in the last few months of his life, I had sorely disappointed him--even though, of course, he had no idea that I'd had the worst teaching semester of my career.

“I don’t think I can do this right now,” I said. “I just can’t hear anything else about what I’m doing wrong.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” K said. “I just think you need to talk to her, that’s all.”

And so we did talk. I cried the entire time, but S was calm, just petting the dog, who was lying still for once. I apologized for yelling, she apologized for not trying her best. She said she wanted to go to college but I’d scared her into believing maybe she couldn’t; I said that she would need to work harder but that one test was not going to ruin her life.

“I think you’re just stressed out about Papou, and about your friend dying,” she said, maturely. She sighed. “I know how that feels, because remember, I was close to Honey, and first she got sick, and then she died.”

“That’s true,” I said. “And you weren’t yourself for quite awhile. But still, I need to be able to handle those things and still be a good parent.”

"G was important to you," she said, patting me on the shoulder. "I know that. He was teaching you to use that press. Maybe you should try to get that going again and you'll feel better."

It should have been comforting to hear her say that--but currently, the old press is in storage (due to some remodeling on campus), and no permanent home has been designated for it. During my last conversation with G, we were strategizing about how to convince the administration to care about it as much as we did. There had been no conclusion, and no goodbye. I didn't even know for sure if he could trust me to do what he'd asked me to do two years earlier--take over the press because he couldn't run it anymore. "I'm afraid I forgot how to run it," I said. "It's been in storage for a whole year now." I felt, again, like I was nothing but a disappointment to everyone.

Luckily, we got interrupted then by her friend, who came over, had dinner with us, and then, on her way out, accidentally let the cat out.

Suddenly, we found ourselves in the dark, in the rain, weeping and calling her name. I irrationally thought, “I don’t think I’ll survive if we don’t get this cat back in the house. If she gets lost or hurt, I’m going to have a really hard time believing that there’s not some kind of evil force out to get us right now.” As if my dad’s illness, G’s death, my former student’s depression, and my bad evaluations-–three of which I couldn’t have controlled, and one of which I need to simply learn from and move on—somehow indicate I’m a bad person, or especially cursed.

At one point, after over an hour of searching, I decided to drive around—and realized my car keys were lost. In the same moment, I also realized just how disgustingly messy our house had become, and felt, again, like a total failure. It’s been a long time since I felt shame—I have somehow managed since becoming a parent to let that feeling of guilt and self-hatred go and learn from each mistake, and then just move forward—even in the worst of last spring, I felt grief and anger and maybe even, at times, enough guilt to make me realize I needed to change my behavior—but never shame.

But there it was again, that old demon. I’d spent so much time in counseling on it over the years. I thought it was gone, but it was gripping me again, and I felt like I couldn’t face anyone at all.

And then, suddenly, I found myself standing quietly right next to the cat, and caught her. S was overjoyed. She immediately wrapped her in a blanket and cuddled her. We dried off and warmed up. She took a bath and got dressed for Homecoming. She looked stunning. I found the car keys. And we still had a half hour to spare before the dance started. We talked about things she could say to the people who were there and made a plan for what she would do if she got anxious or angry or bored and wanted me to come—and the next thing I knew, she was walking into the dance, handling her high heels more gracefully than I could have never managed, at 16 or any age, for that matter. I watched her, moving slowly but confidently toward the door, her purse casually thrown over her shoulder—she didn’t look like my nervous, awkward kid at all, and in that moment, I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Irrationally, I thought, what if she gets smart enough to realize how badly I’m fucking this parenting thing up, how I’m not really a good teacher or person?

I got home and started to clean house—and then I stopped myself and realized what I needed was to sit, to center myself, because only silence and stillness were going to get me past my self-hatred and back into my right mind. Only prayer was going to help me to see clearly what I could and could not control about my life, and how to move forward. Only meditation was going to help me to be glad that S was, on this particular day, handling life with more grace and confidence and maturity than I was. The voices were there, saying, nothing you do will make up for how badly you fucked up last year; S will be calling you in about 10 minutes and there’s no point in trying to work through this now; you totally cursed yourself when you admitted to yourself that you didn’t want her to become a better person than you are; but I just sat and listened to them and, eventually, things got quieter. I started to cry from the deep places—not from shame, but from grief. And then the crying dissipated, and I felt like studying a spiritual text. On a whim, I picked up, instead, Anne Lamott’s book _Traveling Mercies_, which I hadn’t read since 2005.

It turned out to be exactly what I needed. The way she writes so vulnerably and openly about her struggles with parenting and her spiritual path have always moved me—but now, I think, they resonate so much more deeply. She is, after all, a single mom who decided on a whim to keep her baby, not having a clue about what she was getting her self into, as well as a sometimes reluctant, sometimes enthusiastic, Christian and spiritual seeker.

I laughed and wept and got through half the book before S called, at 11:45. It touched on every theme I was struggling with this week—aging parent, resistant, refusing-to-work kid, dead friend—the beauty and transcendence of grief, the importance of working within rather than trying to escape its depth, its raw suffering.

I was so into the book that it wasn’t until I was pulling up in front of the school that I realized the dance was going to be over in 15 minutes, and that S had been there for almost three hours. I could see her standing there by the door, alone, leaning into the glass and squinting, waiting for me. I saw in her for the first time my 16-year-old self, who traveled a narrow road between confidence and terror at every moment.

I had connected with that girl briefly while I was in Ohio—by chance, S and I had driven by my old high school right before the Homecoming game, and I’d seen the high school band students excitedly gathering in front of the school, in the exact same place and with the exact same uniforms we’d had when I was in marching band. I’d immediately, inexplicably, started to cry, but now, seeing my daughter at the front door, I realized why. I was remembering how, on Friday nights, when dusk was falling and I was playing my scales, getting excited about the upcoming game, I managed somehow to believe that anything was possible, and instead of great confidence or great terror, I felt a strange sense of peace. From her posture, I could tell S was feeling the same way, even though she was alone.

When I asked her how it was, she said, “Alright.” She described how she had told several people about her cat-capturing adventure. She said that several of her peers had laughed at her “cat-turing story—get it, mom? Cat-turing.” But, it hadn’t been perfect. She’d run into a boy who had treated her badly last year, but she’d figured out a way to ignore him by imagining donkey dicks hanging off his forehead. And nobody had asked her to dance.

“So, basically, here’s what I’m hearing you say,” I reviewed. “Instead of panicking when you saw that boy, you found a way to manage it and handled it perfectly. You had conversations with your friends and made them laugh. It wasn’t amazing, but you stuck it out and did what you could to have fun. Is that right?”

“Right,” she said, adding, “these damned shoes aren’t comfortable at all.”

“I’m so proud of you,” I said. “Do you realize how much more mature you are now than you were even a few months ago? Remember the spring formal? You only made it through the first hour, you had no idea what to say to people, and you refused to go unless I was a chaparone. And this time you went by yourself, stayed for almost the entire three hours, and had appropriate conversations with people.” And then I did start to cry a little, but only a little.

“You’re such a lesbian,” S said, smiling and shaking her head.

“And you’re such a straight, 16-year-old girl,” I said back.

“You’re my lesbian mom, the only mom I’d ever want.”

“You’re my straight daughter, the only daughter I’d ever want.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“OK, Mom, let’s go home so I can cuddle my cat.”