We Will Begin Again

I doubt persimmons are on very many people’s comfort food list, but they are at the top of mine.

Most Americans don’t have any idea what to do with them. When they are ripe, the tangerine-colored skin crawls back nearly on its own, like it is being skinned alive, revealing a bloody orange pulp of thick mucous, like the slime sold to children in the 70s. My nearly grown children cringe when I separate the pulp in the sink, my fingers drooling orange goop. “How can you do that? It’s so gross!” they crinkle their noses at me. I reply that it’s not animal guts, it’s not like I’m not oozing through somebody’s insides. They shrug, unconvinced. I continue to separate skin from pulp and measure it out into Pyrex containers, labeling it in tidy ziplock bags for the freezer. I will cook with the fruit later, will savor the smells and the texture and the tastes, but not today. Cooking with persimmons is a ritual that requires a particular premeditated attention I need time to create.

My maternal grandmother taught me to do this, not through words, but by ritualizing the motions like a religion. I would watch her silently go through these steps with deliberation, a repetitive rhythm of separating and measuring, in a meditative trance that looked something like joy.

Now it is a familial ritual of mine, and it’s the only thing I do that I can directly trace back to her influence.

Grandma Ruth had a stroke when I was 5 years old, and our extended family was told she wouldn’t ever speak or walk again, that her life would be still and silent. I remember how my grandfather retorted, “No sir, she won’t live like that, not her, no siree,” and how completely he dismissed the doctors’ prognostications. She lay in a coma for over three weeks, and as valiant a patriarch as he paraded, Grandpa couldn’t dismiss how much he needed her, how she simply had to recover, come home, earn their income and pay their bills meticulously from her fold-out accordion desk, cook, clean and care for everyone, including their mentally ill daughter.

And so, quite miraculously, she did.

Two years later, with a slightly drooping face, Ruth was impatiently trying to teach me to play classical piano, sitting next to me on the narrow bench, pointing to the notes with fragile frustration. She would get angry that I couldn’t play pieces she used to soar through with ease, but even at that age, I knew her desperation had nothing to do with me or my lack of discipline. Against all odds, she was able to move her fingers deftly along the keys, but not the way she used to, and she didn’t have the language or the patience to effectively guide mine. Even though I was a child with no training, she needed me to take over, to play Chopin as he was meant to be heard, with precision and nuance and clarity. I let her down.

Nevertheless, Ruth managed to run her home efficiently, re-learned to drive, shop, cook and choppily coach piano again, seemingly unaffected when her husband died, continuing her work and her routines throughout the next decade. But it was a small and ever tightening sphere of competency. By the time I was in my early teens, she was a widow with diagnosable Alzheimers. During those years, when our parents spent most of their time leading survival workshops in the mountains and outlying deserts, or prostelytizing across the nation with a bus full of boys, my sisters and I lived primarily with Grandma Ruth and our schizophrenic aunt. We weren’t told there was anything wrong with her, but my mother’s youngest sister clearly believed we were sent from the Devil to set her on fire in her sleep, and guarded the kitchen like a gargoyle. I would wake up on the couch with her steely eyes honed in on my face, where I can only assume she kept constant vigil. Looking back, I have no idea who was taking care of whom. Five intergenerational women in a two-bedroom home, none of us functioning as fully formed adults.

I never heard my mother or grandmother speak to one another.

I have pain in my belly when I realize I have no memories of my grandmother as the woman she must have been in her vibrant years as a bustling matriarch. There are so many memories of her anger and frustration, of fits of rage and constant confusion. I never got to witness the decades she raised her five children and cult-leader husband, how she supported them all through her skill and will, long before my sisters and I added to her cadre of burdens.

But then, there is also the memory of watching her separate persimmons and cook them into puddings and breads and cakes, and I hang onto this as an oar that guides me to compose the image of a matriarch who raised five children and several of her grandchildren without the income of a man.

And so I separate persimmon pulp, contrary to all logic, thinking I will summons either her energy, or her ghost. With open palms, I humbly and gratefully accept whatever wisdom she can impart.

Gayle died when we were fourteen. We were roommates in the Hematology/Oncology ward in Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles the spring of our thirteenth year, both theoretically in the eighth grade, though neither of us actually went to school. We kept up a constant chatter about blood counts and needle marks, cafeteria menus, diet softdrinks, jealous siblings, the trials of our wayward hair, even as hers fell out daily in clumps, what our chances were of ever growing up, whether we would get to go to high school, whether we would ever get to kiss a boy.

People said we could be sisters, twins even. We kept our window shades open, grateful for our tiny corner view of the mountains, the television conspiculously off, our dialogue dramatic, until one day, after multiple blood transfusions and an experimental splenectomy, I was discharged with high hopes of a full recovery. We waved goodbye, said our girlish goodlucks, and I tucked her picture into my wallet, her cursive writing wide and smiling on the back, dotted with purple hearts: here’s to a happy high school. We wrote to each other with devoted regularity, until she died nine weeks later, at which point I secured her letters and picture in the back of my makeup drawer and moved on. I didn’t like to think of her in the months or years after that, of why God apparently wanted her next to His side, certain that she was more of an angel than I would ever be, but not daring to question that line of reasoning. I closed that chapter definitely, turned away from the memories, tried desperately to acclimate to a life where people didn’t talk about white blood cells or platelet counts. My drive to be normal (fueled by what I now recognize as survivor’s guilt) kept me from contacting her parents, from offering her letters to them, from ever acknowledging their perpetual grief. I left her and them behind, sprinting toward what I assumed would be an early finish.

Here is her picture. I still look at it from time to time, at the frozen child she will always be in a world I have long since outgrown.

My youngest daughter is fourteen now and to me, she is a little baby. I look at her sometimes and time stops; I remember Gayle’s blonde wig, designed to look like Farrah Fawcett. I remember Gayle’s father kneeling at her bedside, his trembling prayers to our Heavenly Father, uttered aloud, prayers that ultimately would go unanswered. Can I still be angry at that God, even now?

I didn’t earn my life. Gayle and I were interchangeable. There was no method to the madness of our illnesses, no reason why I got better, why she did not.

During college, I received a registered letter in the mail from Children’s Hospital, suggesting I get my blood tested immediately. The blood donated in the eighties was not screened for AIDS. Children from those months in those wards now had HIV. I should be informed and seek appropriate counselling.

This didn’t frighten me in the least. I went to the clinic with barely a thought of the past or of the future. If my luck had run out, I had lived more years than I had once hoped for. I had made it to college, experienced love, trusted in all my youthful naivite that I had already lived a full life.

My twin daughters are now twenty years old. I look at them and wonder what I could have been thinking.

Gayle has no daughters. Gayle has an eternal adolescence looking back at me from her angelic photo. Is this any consolation to her father, her mother, those who knew her as the baby she was? As grown up as we thought we were, I know now that our lives had not yet begun, that the decades since have changed everything we once knew. I see my son and my daughters and my heart crushes the air from my chest for Gayle’s parents. I am so sorry I didn’t keep in touch. I am sorry I didn’t know what you lost. I am sorry my memories of your daughter are worth so very little in their belated attempt to keep her alive.

I saw a man I used to love on the streets, homeless and in hospital blue paper pants. This is not a metaphor.

I loved this man once, many years ago, for all the reasons one loves another person: he was smart and funny, kind and loyal, and we thought we could read each other’s minds. We hiked the national forests and chased waterfalls, ate Rocky Road ice cream from the carton, competed in Scrabble and listened to his stacks and stacks of music, testing each other on artists and song titles, brainstorming which tracks we would use as theme songs for the movies we would make from our favorite books. We had our inside jokes and our secret language; we shared our mindless minutiae and we spoke of forever.

A social worker called me a few weeks ago because I was the only contact she had. He had been admitted to ICU several times the past few months for drug overdoses and she predicted he was close to death. She apologized to me and said my number was the only contact he would give. I told her I hadn’t seen him in over ten years, that his family all lived in different states, but she said she didn’t know where to turn. She asked me for his full name and birth date, for the numbers of any living relatives I knew. I gave her what I could from memory, which was far more than she had hoped. I asked to speak with him, but she said he was unconscious. He had been living on the streets for over two years. I said I was sorry. She said God bless you. We both hung up.

He would call and leave me voice messages over the years, as his locations and circumstances changed, mostly when he was high and believed he was invincible. I was tolerant of his delusions of grandeur when I had known him. I wanted to believe his tall tales of adventures, his conquests, his plans for a glorious future that was surely coming, just as I once believed my grandfather’s prognostications that the end of the world was nigh.

A few weeks ago, my old friend rode the train without a ticket, walked to the Claremont Public Library and waited for hours until it opened for a used book sale on Saturday morning. I didn’t know he was in town or that he would be there, but I recognized him the moment I walked in. He was well over six feet tall, even with his hunch, and emaciated, weighing 140 at most. He looked 60, though he just turned 40 this year. His hair was thinning and I couldn’t tell if the blond was deeply dirty, or if it had turned a dusty grey in the decade since I last saw him. He reached out to hug me. The smell was palpable and I hope I didn’t flinch. I let him hold me while one librarian and hoards of books stood as witness. His ankle was healing from a break over a year ago that he never had set, so he dragged it behind him when he walked. I took his elbow and seated him outside, then walked across the street and bought him the largest sandwich CKs Café could make, and we sat on the bench outside the library while he ate it. I asked him to please use my phone and call his father. He shook his head, “Don’t be silly, I am a grown man, and can’t be bothering Jim with trivial things.” I asked him if he needed money, where he would go, who I could call and he said, ”I require no funds. All I need is right here,” pointing to his wrinkled temple. I stopped talking and watched him eat. He asked me if I still listened to music. I said yes and asked him what he wanted to hear. He said Chris Cornell, “You Can’t Change Me,” so I toggled my phone and played it for him. He smiled wide and proclaimed, “You are positively magic.” I laughed, “everyone can do this with phones these days,” and he chuckled back, like I was being modest. We sat on the park bench and listened in silence, the entire way through. He smiled wearily and said, “It’s good seeing you Krankstressa,” and he shuffled off into the dark misty night. I did not try to follow him and he did not look back.

There was something so final in this journey of his, crossing state lines to listen to an old song in the steely rain. I don’t know whether he believed he was about to die, but either way, I think it was goodbye. I don’t think I will hear from him again.

This is not a metaphor.

I wish it was.

Occasionally, I startle someone I have known for years by singing battle hymns. “Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe, forward into battle, see his banners go.” I try to insert this as comic relief during a serious discussion, but eyes generally widen in disbelief, not humor.

I swear, I don’t do this very often.

Like many Christians, I was raised on the war of principalities. We sang songs about “marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus, going on before.” We were taught to see life on earth as a source of perpetual tension, that as the Devil’s domain, the earth is something to overcome. God ordained us to assert our dominion over the fish and the fowl, over all the beasts of burden that walk the earth– which includes, of course, our primal selves, long ago cast out of Eden. We were at constant war against the flesh, whether it was managing our weight (required daily weigh-ins), or resisting cold or heat or fatigue, while valiantly overcoming the desire for affection, comfort, and security.

I took for granted the notion that preparing for war is an essential component of growing up.

At chapel, we showcased a mannequin onto which we dressed layers of military garb. “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” We ceremoniously placed the helmet of salvation on the wooden head, the breastplate of righteousness on the planked trunk, the sword of the spirit into the rigid fingers of one hand, the shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of the wicked in the other. We wrestled not against flesh and blood, but “against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” We girded ourselves with Truth, to withstand the temptations of pleasure.

No one defiled their bodies with tobacco, liquor, or other harmful habits. We had white glove tests and timed endurance runs, hiked in the snow and rain with loaded backpacks, tackled family KP and Police Call at the command of a whistle. “Let this faith of mine is tried, for the Lord is on my side, I am ready, I am ready, I am ready you can pass the cross to me.”

I am still a light sleeper, attentive and on call, resting with one eye open, waiting for an attack I am prepared to predict. As Christian soldiers, we march onward, for “hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise; brothers, lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.”

I don’t know how common this sort of training is, but I have not yet found it useful in my civilian life. I resent this sometimes.

And yet…

There is something to be said for self-discipline, regardless of its origins or its misuse.

Today, on Thanksgiving, I am acutely aware of pleasure and of freedom, of their cost and their value, largely because these were denied me. I am grateful I was raised in a family, no matter how dysfunctional, who taught me to fight for what I believe in. Even if what I believe in now is distinctly different from my upbringing, I know how to fight for my values, to court support, to share the struggle with other likeminded believers. I was taught to build stamina, not dependency, and this has its own logic, and its own reward.

As a mother, I have no intention of teaching these particular lessons to my offspring. But I will give abundant thanks this day for not having to.

Recently, my mother asked me to teach her how to breathe.

Why is this significant?

A) My mother seldom speaks to me.
B) I don’t work in the medical field.
C) My family of origin has never actually acknowledged anything I do.

Correct answer: all of the above.

For my day job, I teach students to write more effectively; in my community, I teach students to move through asanas until they sweat enough to get out of their heads and into their bodies, eventually softening into a relaxation we call savasana. Breathing is an integral part of this ritual, part of the meditative flow, but it’s not the primary method I emphasize, and I am not an expert in pranayama.

My history with my mother is fraught with disappointments on both sides. Arlis is a conservative Christian who believes the end of the world is at hand and she cannot forgive me for leaving our closed community, or for raising her grandchildren in a secular manner, dooming them to hell. I understand this point of view. Although I am a responsible citizen and an affectionate, conscientious mother, I am a failure in her eyes, and she is ashamed of me.

It took me a very long time to accept this.

I recognize that Arlis is a product of a time period when having too many children was not a choice, but merely a consequence of being married. I recognize that mothering is inherently more challenging and less rewarding than teaching, preaching, coaching or the myriad other activities she does so well. Perhaps more importantly, I recognize that we expect our mothers to love us and nurture us, often at the expense of their own well-being, and when this doesn’t come naturally to them, or they can’t sustain this role, we judge them as inadequate and we resent them.

But Arlis is more than a mother. She is a wife and a teacher, a naturalist and a mentor to women who seek the Lord as their personal savior. She is strong and powerful in these roles, and she orchestrates them with confidence. So what if she can’t love her children? Is it fair to judge women for predicaments they got themselves into before they even met us? Do we expect men to nurture offspring they didn’t want, or do we accept that maybe they aren’t equipped, that they simply don’t know how?

When Arlis sets her mind to something, she does it, and she can juggle dozens of assumed responsibilities with more strength than any other human I know. She is a musician and a scientist, an athlete and an orator, a cherisher of dogs and birds and all things green. She knows how to cook a meal and decorate a table, complete with an ornate centerpiece. Because she does these in the name of Christ, rather than for her family, does not make them any less impressive.

Now she has pulmonary fibrosis, and her lungs are stiffening. Her doctor recommended she find a yoga teacher to work with her on her breathing. She emailed me and I said yes. I put her right hand on her belly and her left hand on her heart and I maneuvered her through several body positions, breath sequences, and relaxation techniques. Although she was clearly uncomfortable, she hesitantly followed my instructions. I gave her some recommendations to try as homework, reached to hug her goodbye, and she stiffened. She left without saying thank you.

This is her defense, a stalwart form of pride she clings to like military armor. This is how she survives in a world that holds mothers to a standard she doesn’t comprehend and never chose. I believe women should have options in this world and I advocate for policies that allow us to choose our fates. I respect my mother for who she is, not who I wish she had been.

My father taught me that a good man is, at all times, in possession of two things. He declared this frequently enough that it is the thing I think of most when I think of him. I can count on one hand the number of conversations we have had in our shared lifetime, and none of these lasted longer than three minutes. He never looked at a single piece of my schoolwork, didn’t attend my ballgames, or ever once take any of us out to eat. And yet, I clearly remember my father dictating precisely what a good man must possess.

These criteria are so akin to my view of him, I have never really questioned his rationale or asked myself how I would measure a good man. Perhaps I would privilege a good sense of direction, or a raucous laugh. Maybe, if we’re being literal, a bookshelf with more than 200 authors on it, a consistent paycheck, or a career in some sort of service to humankind. My list might prioritize practical intelligence, streetsmarts, good manners, or basic kindness. Come to think of it, a good man clearly ought to possess control over his emotions, so that he wouldn’t strike a woman or child out of fear or anger. I know on good authority that my father never privileged any of these.

My father says a good man always carries a pen and a timepiece. The pen is to write down appointments, and the watch is to make sure one gets there on time.

He begat three daughters, but it just now occurs to me that he never mentioned what a good woman should possess. I don’t think he even alluded to this concept. He has never complimented me on anything, never told me I am smart or pretty or nice to be around. I don’t know if he respects me, or even likes me, if I have ever behaved in ways consistent with his criteria for a good woman.

To be honest, I have no idea what a good woman should possess. I know that people prickle at women who are authoritative or domineering, that femininity is presumably receptive, rather than projective, that a good woman ostensibly reflects the light of her man. Yet Proverbs says a virtuous woman “girds her loins with strength, and strengthens her arms,“ that “she considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard,” to “give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.” My father called himself a man of God, but he never mentioned these scriptures to me. I know Christians who quote from Genesis, and many from Apostle Paul, but this homily from Solomon is virtually ignored.

I may never be a good woman in my father’s, or anyone else’s, book, but I know how to move in this world like a good man. I may or may not have my keys or a lipstick, but I always have a pen, and I am on time.

I informed a handful of friends I would be out of town for a few days attending to “unfinished business” at Fight Club. My oldest daughter gave me this unsolicited workshop, ostensibly to encourage a measure of confidence I had instilled in her, but never quite solidified in myself. After I received confirmation of my registration with “Target Focus Training” (Fight Club really is a better moniker, so I have appropriated it), I didn’t read the TFT emails or visit their website. Whatever I need to learn, I vowed to be open to learning when I got to Las Vegas. Knowing what I would be getting into might precipitate fear, so I opted not to look.

I am actually glad I went in blind.

I have long held a custom of learning something new every summer, consciously putting myself into an arena where I have no skill or expertise. I tell myself this is a necessary practice in empathy, so that I am perennially in sync with those students for whom the material I present is a foreign language or culture. To that end, I have, obtained a motorcycle license, backpacked through the Sierras, kickboxed, traveled abroad, and immersed myself in yoga, anatomy, and other practical arts.

Fight Club topped them all.

By the end of a long weekend of absorbing mental and physical defense moves, with a room full of mostly male ex-military and law enforcement students, I allowed a 250 pound man to lift me from behind (my arms pressed to my thighs, feet dangling), throw me down and sit on my hips, holding down my forearms, simulating bludgeoning my face, while attempting rape. I practiced methods of shifting my arms in ways that would challenge his balance just enough to aggressively flip him with my hips, and knee him violently in the groin. He got rougher and I got rougher. I practiced until my body ached in rebellion, but I could execute the moves with confidence.

My teachers called themselves by their first names to remove the barrier of hierarchy. This was one of many strategies to treat us as equals on our paths to self-reliance. As extreme as some of the material undoubtedly was, never once did I find their words or actions demeaning or demoralizing. These men encouraged me to fight back in ways I didn’t know I had inside of me, and they did so with confidence and applause. After our session, the 250 pound man high-fived me and whispered “destroy the fucker,” and I actually smiled.

I hope I never have to use any of these techniques and I don’t know how effective they would be against someone with real intent to harm. But I do know that with every flip of this giant man, I said one more fuck you to my past, and walked one more step of defiance away from identifying as a victim. For that alone, I say thank you to TFT and to my daughter, who recognized that when it comes to empowerment, sometimes words just aren’t enough.

“It was here in Big Sur,” Henry Miller wrote, “that I first learned to say Amen!”

I traveled along the spectacular ninety miles of wild Big Sur coast recently, slept in a yurt, hiked, swam, drank like a writer, and surveyed the beauty, notebook in hand. I don’t think I earned any of these pleasures, but I embraced them, and I remembered to say amen.

I had pre-booked a consultation appointment at Esalen Institute, a clothing-optional retreat where “seekers” along the coast go to find answers to impossible questions. We were fortunate to be welcomed and encouraged to explore. I wasn’t skeptical about anyone’s intent or mission, but I opted for clothing the entire time. I am not a particularly modest person, and I am not ashamed of my body, so this prompted some inward curiosity. My (intentionally unnamed) companion cheerfully opted for nudity. This made me question myself even more.

I started to think about personal boundaries and what they mean to us. I wondered about the unisex environment and considered whether my discomfort was entirely centered around my formative experiences with male caregivers. Soaking in the hot springs, I was the only one there who wore a swimsuit. Quite frankly, part of me is certain there is something terribly wrong with me, but I kept the suit on. I know I would be a different person if I weren’t raised carelessly; what I don’t know is, whether, even in a bastion of beautiful believers, I am capable of extending unearned trust.

The Verdict

“I do not tell them how the emancipation from pain/leaves nothing in its place.” –Ai

The verdict came to me
via voice message,
driving down
from Cucamonga Peak
where I had gone to avoid the drama,
hiking the highest trail in the region,
while the courts sorted out proclamations
in which I no longer played a part;
cell reception bouncing back,
light flashing, resuscitating reality;
I pulled over cautiously to listen.

The defendant was not exceptional,
merely the most recent
in a line of men who had violated
my body since I was 7, but he was the first
held accountable; as I listened to
the District Attorney blandly
spell out his sentence, terms of
a protective order the judge
procured, protecting me, Jane Doe,
from any future contact from the defendant
or any third party thereof, I sat on the
curb and cried into my cupped hands.

Pulling knees to chest like
a little girl, rocking imperceptibly
until the sun burned harsh
against my wilting cheek,
wondering who I would have been
had I been a girl lavished with love
from a mother, father,
grandfather, or lunch lady,
roaming museums, movies, gardens,
rocky beaches, a girl prone to laughter,
ravished only by the sun.

I don’t care how many times Christians say it’s a metaphor.  There’s something incredibly disturbing about Abraham agreeing to murder his son like an animal sacrifice in response to God’s voice from on high.

I went to church last week as a favor to a friend, and the pastor heralded Abraham as an example of a righteous man. I have a problem with this common tribute to blind trust, for more than one reason. My mother repeated this story as a mantra whenever I asked her where she had been when my siblings and I were randomly raised by a series of families who charitably took us in when we were growing up.  She professed that Abraham was the father of God’s chosen people because he was willing to trust God in all things: “God will never ask of you more than you can give.”  She explained the classic Pauline epistle, how she respected our father as her bridegroom, as Christ loved and lead the Church, but she sacrificed her attachment to her children as God had commanded her. In His infinite wisdom, He asked her to donate us to the Sacred Community, so that we would belong entirely to Him.

I don’t know how she interpreted the part where the angel of the Lord “stayed Abraham’s hand,” took the knife, and Issac was spared.

This idea of sacrificing something weaker for the greater good of a righteous cause is a legacy we promote as a culture when we emphasize the value and importance of obedience to authority. When voices from on high compel us to act violently (or coercively) to prove our allegiance to God, I take the position that it is more human (and heroic) to look at the face of Isaac and put down the knife.

At summer camps all over the nation, children are taught to make a talisman out of yarn and popsicle sticks. They say this “God’s Eye” is a magical object, that this cultural  icon helps us to see and understand what is inherently unknowable.  They say at the center is the eye of God, which protects the health and well-being of children.

I don’t know what popsicle sticks and yarn have to do with God. Or why anyone thinks that God protects children.

Children are vulnerable little people who are victims of a host of natural and human disasters across the globe, from famine and war, to crime, domestic violence, abuse and blatant neglect. Yes, many adults willingly go out of their way to protect children. But if God is omniscient and omnipresent, clearly He could protect, and clearly He does not.

I know by all observable criteria, my mother didn’t love me, not then, not now, but I also know she believes God does. In our nation of religious zeal, she may be extreme, but she is not denigrated for these beliefs, and even I understand her vantage point.

I know my mother prays for me.  I know she believes in a power higher than her own, that all things work together for those who love the Lord.  Our pastors and our politicians promulgate this to people who eat it up.

But when all is said and done, I would rather have a phone call than a prayer.