It is 1-ish, I am 41. I went to Palmdale again today and there is still no furniture in our home. Nonetheless for the first time in 15 months I prepared a meal for my children in my kitchen. Tomorrow I may rent a refrigerator; it’s hell without.
Andy is cooking my quesadilla. John may come over - but at any rate
I have 75% of my progeny and Bekah wrote me a poem:
No one but a mother could devote
so much time
No one but a mother could be
so caring
No one but a mother could
give as much support
No one but a mother could be
happy cleaning poo
And, no other mother could
give me more love
That’s why I’m happy my mother
is...
You!
-by [my daughter]
08-26-96
A chip off the old block, eh?
Rarely do I have them all-
Save this for POSTERITY:
| John | 6’0" | I still look at this |
| Bekah | 5’4 1/2" | crew in righteous awe - |
| Andy | 5’3 7/8" | I made these people! and |
| Rory | 3’5" | their beauty is rife. |
And as you can see, 3 of them are taller than me. What a great example of how "a little while is a long time."
I will be able to take a week’s paid vacation after April 15, 1997. At a baby shower once upon a time I won a contest by being the LEAST traveled person in the room. I have been as far North as 100 miles beyond San Francisco, as far South as Ensenada. I have been to Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe (30 years ago), and Loughlin. I have spent 3 weeks on the Eastern seaboard, mostly in Brooklyn. it was during my marriage. Ex’s brother was switching (Ivy League) schools, so I visited both Princeton and Columbia Universities. We took a day trip to Atlantic City and lost lots of money. Almost every other day of our trip we took the subway into Manhattan. I did NOT see the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty, but I did look down from the 107th floor of the World Trade Center.
I experienced the rudeness of New York. My other brother-in-law lived in a loft in SoHo when it was very trendy to do so - he was a banker and also had a weekend place in the Berkshires and we spent a couple days there. We ate a Nathan’s at Coney Island. Ex was chewed out by a cab driver, which was REALLY funny, since before he came to California he’d driven a cab for 4 years to the point of burnout.
I cannot fail to tell you what else I did in New York - I ate pizza! And more of it, and then some more. I had at least one slice of pizza every day. We closed a bar one night at 4:00 a.m. Ex’s offer of a quarter got him cussed out by a beggar. I looked up from one of my slices of pizza to see a man pissing on the street.
New York was a gas. We walked and walked and walked. It was early April and we had landed in a full-blown blizzard ("6 degrees and blowing snow," the pilot said. It was my 3rd time ever on a plane; I was TOTALLY unprepared for the weather).
Ex was an art aficionado and we spent SO much time doing galleries.
And we went to Tiffany’s and Bloomingdale’s, which is the most humongous
store ever, I guess. Ice skated for the very LAST time (my feet were killing
me!). That was 1982 and pretty much STANDS as the vacation of my life.
The insecurities residing within me are like creatures who grow monstrous at times, shrink to cartoons when I am strong enough to scoff at them. I am up and down, up and down - rarely bored. I do not necessarily rue this: I am a poet, after all, and what allows me that perspective is part and parcel of what makes me so EMOTIONAL.
There is historical and literary perspective to this. And the older I get the more willing I am to celebrate this weirdo I am, the less willing I am to kowtow to conformity even though I know it is probably not this "uneasy." Nor is it this RICH!
Your theory about ethnic and me rings very true - but there is more. From a VERY early age I hated small and closed mindedness. As if that anti-racism was NATURE not NURTURE. My father was a Democrat who cried at movies. My mother was a Republican who did not. I wanted John Kennedy for president. I was FIVE YEARS OLD.
My mother was a generous, LOVING woman who became the confidante of so many people because they sensed her lack of judgment. She was also the epitome of that insidious form of racism I wrote of to you earlier. The kind that does not recognize its own existence. I loved her and depended on her in so many ways to the day she died; I NEVER accepted or espoused her approach to race. I mean from the beginning of my memory.
I still miss her. Even as I know if she were alive she’d DIE over me and you. Unless she would take a minute to let you be human.
Well - whatever. She is dead and I owe nothing to her bigotry and would not even if she still lived.
copyright 1996-2000 barbara bales all rights reserved
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