Geralyn Broder Murray's Open Salon Blog

Fabulous Four.

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:11:09 -0500

As of today, my son Finn has officially been in the world for four years, just forty-eight months; I have had car payments that lasted longer than this. I was in college longer than this. His whole life has spanned the length of a presidential term, and yet, his presence inhabits my world so fully, I simply cannot imagine any world without him in it.

Motherhood keeps knocking me upside the head with how much it has reoriented my heart.

Yesterday was exactly one week since Finn joined his sister at "big kid school". He is the youngest student in a school that goes all the way to the sixth grade; Finn still has the distinct whiff of diaper cream on him and yet he is rubbing elbows with boys on their way to needing aftershave. It is a delight and a confusing sight to see him here: he is a hit. Everyone loves him and he them, especially the older kids. "Hey, Finn!" the ten and eleven-year olds call to him, patting his little hooded sweatshirt, his 4T pants rolled up so they don't drag on the ground behind him in the cafeteria. He swoons over the girls twice his height and tries to match the stride of the big boys, joking with them, teasing them, and they return his affections in that way that boys do, making crazy faces and grunting like small mammals, which they are. Everyone is pleased with this situation, save Finn's sister, my sweet girl and soon to be seven-year old, Reese, who is completely mortified by the antics of her little brother. And, in addition to being mortified, is also, loving and worried and overprotective. She tells me lunchtime is stressful, at least for her; Finn won't eat enough and he keeps raising his shirt up and dancing at inappropriate times. She doesn't know if she's up to the challenge of maintaining the force that is Finn. And I tell her, she doesn't have to; there are teachers there, aides and helpers, all she has to do is be his sister, his friend, but she looks at me as though I have no idea what I am asking of her. And maybe I don't. Or maybe I do. To love Finn is a full-time job, even for Reese, I guess.

Like yesterday, when I picked them up from school. Reese was in her class getting her things and Finn and I were in his; he wanted to show me his art work but as he went to turn on the lights in his classroom, he accidentally set off the fire alarm instead. It was instant: the deafening sound, the blinking lights, the kids running all throughout the school thinking there were flames brewing somewhere behind them. At the moment his hand hit the panel, his panicked eyes flew to mine and then he was on me, his head buried in my shoulder, the tears flowing: "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He would repeat it over and over as I ran out of the room carrying him, trying to flag down a teacher to explain, chaos rampant, lines of kids forming the way they'd been taught to in the countless drills they'd practiced. Finally I got the word through that it was a false alarm, but no one could shut it off; the lights and sound continued as Reese made her way to me, clutching her homework and lunch pail, her face confused and scared. I explained what had happened, but she couldn't comprehend it; her do-everything-by-the-book self could not process this huge misstep of her best friend, her shadow.

She'd left him alone, with me, for a moment and look what I'd let happen.

Everyone would think it was her fault. That he was bad. Worse, that she was. The entire evening was spent discussing that Finn is only, just barely, not even quite four and that people understand that accidents happen.

Finn would pipe in intermittently with "accidents happen, Elmo always says."

And then Reese would say, "Finn, this was not THAT kind of accident."

But today was better; I picked them up and we did not set off the fire alarm. Reese reported that he'd eaten his lunch and hadn't flashed anyone the entire day. Finn announced that Reese will get the biggest cupcake tomorrow because she is his bestest friend and her smile told me that she believed him, that she agreed. That she deserved it and more.

This boy, this girl. How lucky I am. How very, very lucky.

Happy birthday, my darling Finn. You are fabulous. I love you madly.

You weren't wrong about me.

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:06:15 -0400

“What did he die from?”

Why does anyone ask that question? No matter the answer, it resolves nothing. Cancer? Horrible. Car accident? Tragic. Suicide? Um. Oh. Gosh.

Suicide is the ultimate buzz kill.

Nine years ago tomorrow, my father took his life in a motel room in Pismo Beach and I still can’t for the life of me make heads or tails of it. I don’t mean I can’t understand why he did it – a history of depression coupled with an unemployment streak and money woes are enough to make the case. What I can’t seem to process is how this decision of his – my father, my mentor – will or will not define the rest of my life, the life of my family. I have spent the past nine years waiting for the grace, to see if some good might slip in through the cracks. And yet, I am as lost as ever for the meaning. All I can see is his absence in every corner of my life. And how I am failing to define his legacy or honor his hopes for me.

What I remember is this: going to lunch with my intended, engaged one month. We have burgers at a café in Los Angeles and our fingers are intertwined, greasy and animated. We are walking out – I can see Chris’ back in my mind and I am following him and his phone rings and we push open the screen door of the restaurant into the sunlight and I hear him say oh god no. Oh god no. We are in front of the restaurant on the corner and it is exactly like it is in the movies: your life falling apart and exploding everywhere and the world walking right by you on their way to the bank, stepping around your mess like a puddle.

We spent the next few days in our apartment and then flew to Monterey to spread my father’s ashes, which promptly blew back at us in the surf, sticking to the green sweatshirt of his I was wearing. I kept having to dust him off of me. Then we came home and I alternately worked, planned a wedding and laid in my bed reading the letters my father had written me over my lifetime.

He’d always expected more of me, my father. He’d always made me expect more of myself, maybe deluded me into thinking I was special. In the years he’s been gone, I suspect I’ve let down the both of us.

I’d been a mediocre college student, lazy and social. He’d written me then, calling me on it:

First of all, I appreciate the fact that you’re on your own for the first time and it takes a while to get the hang of it. I’m quite sure you’re excited by all your new surroundings. The point is, don’t be a three-legged chair. By that I mean, don’t allow yourself to wind up in the position of relying too heavily on any one thing to support your life’s balance. Try and maintain a broad approach both socially and professionally. It might look as if you have all the time in the world. You don’t. Life has a nasty habit of closing in on you before you have all your ducks in a row. As far as your grades are concerned, I’d almost rather see you flunk out that get average grades. NO ONE EVER SET OUT TO BE AVERAGE! If being average is okay with you at this point, you might as well French fry your hair and get over to Burger King. You did not spend the better part of your life in accelerated educational programs to wind up average. Average sucks! The world has become an average planet and has just about sealed its fate by the acts of average people doing average work. It’s too late to be average, we need excellence and we need it from you. Take a good look around and you’ll notice that everyone is sitting on their fat ass waiting for someone to come along and fix the mess we have created. That isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Geri, it will take people like you, young people with original ideas, to take charge. You have a gift of insight and compassion that enables you to see a bigger picture. You should be taking responsibility of some sort to share your vision of a better world. While it may appear that I’m beating up on you, I’m not. I’d like to get your attention, that’s all. Do what pleases you and be aware of the consequences.

The consequences were a by-the-skin-of-my-teeth college graduation and a career in advertising, neither of which have done much for the planet or its fate. I’m turning 40 in five weeks and I can’t imagine that when he wrote this to me just before my 19th birthday, he was hoping I’d turn out to be the slightly chubby, well-intentioned, mother of two I’ve become – harmless at best. The definition of average, maybe. My “original ideas” tend to be ones that sell a healthcare system or energy drink for one of my advertising clients . The only thing I’m taking charge of is my three-year old, and honestly, there are times I’m not sure who’s winning that battle either.

You have a gift of insight and compassion that enables you to see a bigger picture.

And I know that I do. There is a kernel of a gift still in there. But my picture is so blurry these days between remodeling our little house and working full-time and raising these wonderful children of ours, it’s all I can do to keep our own tiny world of four from spinning off its axis, much less tending to the larger, important world outside our door. And I know the planet needs me, needs us, but it’s all I can do just to get to work on time and not forget what I was supposed to bring to the Kindergarten post-graduation potluck. Was it plates or napkins I signed up for?

Our neighbor Frank, our beloved adopted grandfather, is dying. His wife Heidi says he’s not concerning himself with the inconsequentials anymore, and that we should all live that way, not just when we’re on the way out. And I couldn’t agree more. I don’t want to be a three-legged chair. I don’t want to be missing the big picture. My almost forty year old self has learned that life does have a way of closing in on you and the last thing I want to be thinking when it does is: why didn’t I listen to my father?

Why didn’t I listen to my father?

So, for now, I will take responsibility for my vision of a better world and I will do it like this: I will make lunches for the emergency school for homeless children this month. I will collect swimsuits so every one of them can swim this summer. I will yield the right of way to the old man waiting to cut in. I will smile at people as I pass by them on the street. I will teach my children compassion by example. I will plant our tomato garden and I will make spaghetti sauce from scratch. I will make brownies from a mix and let my six-year old lick the spoon. I will enjoy being the lucky wife to my lucky husband. It’s the bigger picture, in bite-size portions, the only ones I can manage at the moment. And when I can do more, I will.

And I hope by doing all of this Dad, that you will know that I am OK, too. That the world, as cracked and battered as it may be, has a lot of goodness left in it. And that even though you left my life, you have not left my heart. And that even though I haven't been excellent, not even close, you were not wrong about me. You were not wrong.

Finn the Wonder Boy.

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 07:04:50 -0400

As usual, it was nothing like I planned.

I'd showed up at Finn’s school, bright red soccer ball in the crook of my arm, ready for a little outing, just the two of us. Finn greets me like he always does, as though I’m a movie star and he’s a tourist on the Sunset Strip.

“Look, look everybody,” he yells, pointing to me wildly, “it’s my Mom! Look!”

Then he runs to me and jumps into my arms, trampling whatever toy or toddler might be in his way.

We walk over to the park and the whole way he’s calling out landmarks to me. Look at that, he says, Look at that, Mama. He is a running narrative, one that is actually running.

I love you Mama so much. Look at that bird Mama. Look at that bird. Look at that duck. That duck is sad. I am so sad for him. A squirrel, Mama. A SQUIRREL.

We sit underneath the tree while Finn marvels at the squirrel and then, just like that, we are fishing through tree limbs laid waste by last week’s storm. Within moments, Finn has us turned out in “wings” and we are butterflies, waving our tree limbs with their scraggly green fronds hanging, indeed wing-like. We are flying, Mama.

And I am behind him, following the leader, drafting off his enthusiasm. I realize the ball is in the duck pond, unreachable and we are already onto the next adventure, the swings where Finn will plead, higher, higher, higher and I will do my best to comply.

Words, like gems fall out everywhere.

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:04:23 -0400

Woke up Saturday morning with a patio set on my mind.

Momentarily money conscious, I garage sale it, my mind focused down like a clamp: four black iron chairs, one tiny table.

Four black iron chairs, one tiny table. Four black iron chairs, one tiny table.

Do not be distracted by pretty sparkly things, I tell myself. By chandeliers and picture frames, linens and old wood.

Four garage sales later I have a single black iron chair, no tiny table and four perfect books.

Close Range, by Annie Proulx
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard

The chair was five bucks; the books were twenty-five cents a piece, sitting in a cardboard box with so many others, like puppies. I had to limit myself to four, an even number, a dollar.

I can't believe my luck. I open randomly to a page and gems fall out everywhere. Pretty, sparkly things.

From Close Range:

"He used to be a pretty good rancher, but his wife died and he's a dirty old boar in a boar's nest now," their father had said. "Stay away from there." Men had that flaw in them, Inez thought, to go over the cliff of events and fall precipitously into moral ruin.

From The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, page 117:

She tried to keep him out of her mouth but it was hopeless. Her forearm ached at the oddest of moments and she could feel his hangdog eyes on her everywhere.

From The House on Mango Street, page 57:

My Papa, his thick hands and thick shoes, who wakes up tired in the dark, who combs his hair with water, drinks his coffee, and is gone before we wake, today is sitting on my bed.

And I think of my own Papa died what would I do. I hold my Papa in my arms. I hold and hold and hold him.

From The Maytrees, page 122

Jane came back blinking. -Why is it always a big black snake? Have you ever seen a small one? Imagine their eggs. She looked at Lou, who had not budged. -Oh, you and your marble calm! Lou laughed and knocked down her water.

While I am doing this, Finn, my three year old just getting over the flu comes and crawls in next to me, his head on his blanket, his blanket on my keyboard. I try to explain all the books, the computer. I love words, I tell him.

Me too, he says. I love words. My favorite word is pumpkin, he says. But it comes out like "punkin."

My second favorite word, he says, is balloon. But it comes out like "bayoon."

My third favorite word, he says, is kitty cat. And it comes out exactly like that.

I have never thought of words so preciously. Even as I have loved them all these years, fussed over them, seen them in print. I have Sandra, Annie P., Junot and Annie D. to thank for that today.

And Finn.

Today, I am rich.

And then, when you kiss, your cheeks explode.

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:03:55 -0400

This is what it is to have a son, I think. A three-year old son. Or maybe even a forty-year old son.

When I put Finn down for bed tonight, we were kissing good night and he instructs me to fill my mouth with air, cheeks puffed out, and we crash our inflated cheeks into one another crazily. We both fall over laughing on the bed and I wonder where the heck that one came from. So I ask Chris.

"Oh yeah," he tells me laughing a little bit, folding laundry, not in the least bit surprised, "that's the kiss where when you hit, your cheeks explode."

Oh, that one.

This is me in the Country for New Men. I am a visitor here, me a woman raised by women, the mother of a daughter, the sister of one sister, the friend of a hundred women, a girl's girl. I am traveling in a foreign country and I had no idea this place would be so, well, foreign. And so beautiful. As well as fart filled.

Boys are all about farts. There is no conversation with a small boy that does not involve some sort of potty talk.

And when we are not talking about farts, things are exploding. Things are flying. Things are running. Things are being stopped up and stopped down. There is water in places there is not supposed to be water. There is hugging that is really, really tight and looks sweet but might not be. There are a lot of corndogs. There are eight million balls, never ever enough of them though. We need more balls. Many many more are needed.

There is also so much sweetness. Infinite sweetness, but to catch it and hold on to it is impossible; it's in and out like light. Try holding onto light. You can't. You must just watch and remember.

There is also singing. He is standing in his bed, on his stage, lit only by his nightlight, his mouth and heart wide open.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine. I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of miiiiiiinnnneee. I'm gonnnnnnnnaaaa let it shiiiiiiiiine. Let it shiiiiiiiiiiinnnne. Let it shiiiiiiiiiinne. Let it shiiiiiiiiiinne. "

It's a shooting star across my sky in my new country. My Country of New Men. Where both men and mothers are being made daily.