The Ethan Allen Houses

Six pairs of gnome eyes stare at me from my desk…the gnomes are refugees from daughter’s room as we tear apart walls and paint. They mix well with the silk screened poster of a horse in vibrant primary colors (a gift for my daughter on her birth), the Native American “courage” fetish (my sister gave me that when I started a new job so many years ago), the big pink H (brought back by The Beast and the Husband from their visit to the Sesame Street backstage over a decade ago) and the cup from Lithographers’ Union (scored at Housing Works Thrift Shop in NYC). These tokens of my past and present are mixed in with my old philosophy books, poetry collections and theater of the absurd books that my father passed down to me. This is one small corner of our house. But everything in our house is a memory and also a reflection of who we are…who we were…who we want to be.

Like my childhood home, we live in a busy, messy house which constantly annoys The Husband. We do not live in an Ethan Allen Showroom House. Sometimes when I pick up The Beast from a random birthday party at a McMansion development and I am forced to enter these showroom style homes. Here, where every bit of personality has been scrubbed from living spaces, I desperately search for information about the parents. I look for books, travel souvenirs, hobbies, interests, yet there is nothing to help me.

Walking past the matching wing chairs that flank the seemingly never used fireplace and into the perfect kitchen which makes me clandestinely look for Alice from the Brady Bunch—I wait for The Beast to collect her things from the basement “family room” after a sleep-over. I smile at the flawlessly coiffed mom in leisure attire. She is holding a small dog that is so perfectly groomed he looks like a plush toy come to life. I think—drugs would make this experience truly enjoyable or, maybe, scarier. I wait for the commercial to start, because for a second I think I am transported to a commercial for a cleaning product when suddenly I remember—“oh that is right—this IS reality. “ I continue to search for clues about who these people are or what they do or what they are interested in…a photo of a vacation, a memento of an event, signs of interest in cooking, music, art so I can strike up a conversation….but there is nothing but clean. I finally sink back into the alternate commercial reality and I know my lines…“How do you keep the white rug by the fire place so clean?”

Sometimes when life is surreal—you just have to go with the flow and wait patiently until the commercial ends.

How Not To Be Scared

Laughing and screaming through the summer storm, as thunder rumbles around us and rain starts to pelt us, we tumble toward to our red VW microbus. A mass of rubber boots, rain ponchos, shorts and tan little bodies all pile into the side door of the bus. Before anyone is in their seat….or for that matter…before even the door is closed…we are traveling to the front beach to better experience the storm moving over Cape Cod. This was my mother’s reaction to storms—“Let’s get closer so we can see it better and really feel the thunder in our chests!”

My grandmother, on the other hand, was home at the beach house hiding in a back bedroom with the curtains drawn and the lights out and jumping in fear with every thunder bolt or flash of lightening.

I asked my grandmother once, why was it that she was so scared of storms whereas her daughter loved them. She said that her mother was deathly afraid of storms and she passed that trait on to my grandmother when she was little.

My grandmother said she was determined not to do the same to my mother—she wanted my mother to be strong and fearless. My grandmother realized she would have to pretend not to be afraid of anything. So all through my mother’s childhood, my very fearful little grandmother would bravely sit quietly through storms, swim with my mother in the cold and rough Marblehead waves and keep her eyes open on scary amusement park rides.

My grandmother said with pride—“and see your mother is not afraid of anything. She won swimming championships, she traveled to NYC and started a new life by herself and now she runs toward the storms. That is what I always wanted for my daughter—to be brave and strong. “

So as I watch The Beast running towards her future with a wild abandon that excites and frightens me—I want to grasp her hand like when she was little crossing a busy street, but instead--I smile calmly. I take a deep breath and try my best to convince her I am not scared because I too want my daughter to brave and strong.

Please Call

I tell my child all the time--"It is not that I don’t trust you or that I feel you lack common sense…you just have no idea HOW incredibly morbid by imagination is—please call when you get to where you are going"

The Beast, unlike her mother, thinks the best of everyone. I am sure she has Beethoven’s 9th symphony cheerfully playing in the background of her psyche at all times, while I have the 5th symphony as the sound track of my life—that of death approaching me and all my loved ones…

At the subway turnstiles I steel myself …”I love you. Remember to stop and think if you are unsure. Never be too polite to tell some creepy guy “NO!” and I mean LOUD. Remember “NO!”…no other word is needed—everyone knows what it means and people will help….but you will be fine. I will be the one to worry—remember…PLEASE CALL WHEN YOU GET THERE.”

She takes her Metro Card out and like a pro slides it through the turnstile and turns briefly to me with a smile to tell me to be brave. She is off—without a concern. She knows where she is going—she has the inspirational Ode To Joy theme song playing in her head as she bounces down the subway stairs and off to SoHo and her new life as a teen writer.

It is so hard to let go—and to balance my clawing fear against the knowledge that independence is something to be encouraged—hanging with city kids in niche bookstores, eating exotic food from hipster food trucks, daydreaming in cool designer boutiques….

It is the beginning of an adult life, of life that is widening beyond…sniff…us

She arrived back at my office after her solo subway travels. She had a glow of success radiating from her. The office IT guy comes up and says, “You know, city kids ride the subway all the time by themselves. It is not a big deal.”

She looked him up and down and said “No! It is a big deal for me and I am proud. You cannot take that away from me.”

Hearing the word NO—my co-worker Debbie, like all good New Yorkers, comes over to assist—“You tell him girl!” she cheered.

And that is what we give our kids when we let them go—we are giving them a confidence and a pride that no one can take away from them.

Nice, JUST Nice

As we walked toward the adorable la Maison Rose in Paris that some famous artist had painted once and was now café for tourists like us—The Husband, The Beast and me, two older British ladies were walking out the door. One exclaimed in her loud, exacting English accent—“that was nice…JUST nice.” To which the still diminutive Beast, unable to control herself, automatically mimicked the condescending phrase with voice and pinched facial features to a T. Leave it to the British to travel around the world and make judgmental pronouncements STILL and even about food.

The phrase “ That was nice…JUST nice.” Has become a family favorite insult.
And I bring this up now…because as The Child and I were biking down to the beach she said in all seriousness—“It is nice hanging out with you, but I would like to have a friend come up.” I looked at her and I said: “I am nice...JUST nice?? She smiled—her teenage smile and said…” Well…”
I have known for a while that the mommy and me days were numbered, but I thought, here, at our little family beach house that time might be frozen—but apparently time stops for no one, anywhere…

Life is an Open Book Test

“You are not going to know everything when you walk in the door. No one does. Remember that” I tell The Beast as I check to make sure she has the map I printed out for her and the voluminous list of cellphone numbers of everyone in the city she may need to contact in case I am abducted by aliens.

It has been a week of new experiences, really new experiences, for The Beast. She has gone from going to a little camp in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania with a bunch of nice, crunchy Quaker kids to a competitive writing workshop at the center of the world and intellectually sparing with kids who are older and come from backgrounds that are far different than the comfortable middle class suburban kids she is used to.

“If you are unsure of something—ask.” I tell the child as I tuck an emergency $20 in her pocket.

I guess like everyone--It is just before an event that I always have my greatest doubts. “ Is this too much for her? What if she hates it and hates me?” I think as I put extra money on her Metrocard.

She comes back to me in the lobby of the building. “ I am scared...everyone will be older than I am. “

“You will be fine. You will have a great time. I promise. Just remember to ask questions.” I said making sure she had tissues in her bag.

I met The Beast at the Starbucks a few blocks away 5 hours later. I had my sister by my side for moral support in case there were tears. But The Beast was bubbling over with the energy of a new found passion. She loved it. She loved the other kids, she loved the writing, she loved the “literary excursion” to a gallery and she loved the teachers.

Yes—she said that she felt like the young country bumpkin from upstate NY, but they accepted her. She said she had questions and she got answers. She looked and sounded grown-up. It was heartbreaking for me.

We walk down the bustling, beautiful streets of SoHo toward the subway and I breathe a sigh of relief. It is true what a teacher told me once—life is an open book test—you just need to be brave and ask the questions to get the answers.