My Relationship With My Daughter According to Planetary Influences

All her planets are in Earth signs.
She is rooted like a tree to the ground.
I flutter about, a restless butterfly,
noisily weave nests in her branches,
use her leaves as camouflage
from every conceivable danger.
A tree, this tree, holds steady:
no need to roam the earth
when one is the Earth.
No search for solid ground
drives her. Fire is anathema and
water flows freely above and below.
It is only air she yearns for
and our mutual space has none.
Without air: no respite. Blindly
we choke and claw in futile struggle.
For earth I will trade air on occasion
but she needs none of my elements
and will not sacrifice breathing.

This is a rewrite of an earlier version.

A few weeks ago my seven-year-old grandson asked, “Why do some people have to die?” Reflexively I spouted out some nonsense from the TV show Six Feet Under: “To make life important,” I chirped, and immediately heard my own idiocy.

Lowell gave me a long disappointed look that said, Oh, all right, so you’re gonna bullshit me too. Shame on me: I’d been so freaked by his question that I’d hastened to provide a pat answer. I shut down the subject, when I should have done just the opposite, should have said something to open it up for exploration. Children’s serious questions are opportunities—and I‘d blown it. I tried to salvage the moment by asking if anyone close to him had ever died, and was grateful that he still trusted me enough to speculate. His paternal grandfather, he said, was his oldest relative, and therefore the one most likely to die first. Lowell has shown signs of mathematical brilliance—but who’d have thought he was using it to keep tabs on his grandparents?

It is two weeks since Andrea died, and there’s a palpable hole where she used to be. Last night I spoke with her husband Al for the first time; he is, as expected, devastated. He didn’t say so, but I figured out that what he wanted was my perspective on Andrea; he wanted to hear about the side of her that only I knew. He was gathering information from each one of her friends, looking for pieces he might have missed. He simply couldn’t get enough Andrea anecdotes, not even after her memorial, to which 200 people came, on two days’ notice. One after another people got up to speak; one after another they said Andrea was the most loving person they’d ever known. If I had been there I would’ve said the same.

Andrea was the best friend I ever had, and not in the adolescent sense of  ‘my best friend’. Since the age of six I’ve had dozens of female friendships, all fraught with competition, power plays, jealousy, even cruelty. But with Andrea I learned, finally, what friendship can be. Maybe it’s because we met in our forties–and at the side of a dying friend no less. Or maybe it was because Andrea had so much experience, she’d perfected the art of friendship. With her I always felt loved; I knew in my bones that she wanted the best for me. In turn, I didn’t envy her great wealth or resent her for what she had. This was a new experience.

When my friend Joni’s ex-husband died, her teenage daughter got up the next morning and asked, “Is he still dead?” It seemed like a reasonable question—after all, who can make sense of death? It was an area in which her mother and I, having no religious fables to fall back on, had no explanation. We tried, the way I tried with Lowell.

When it comes to death, we can try all we want but still we fail.

Grief is a deeply private emotion. To some extent it can be shared, but our deepest mourning is internal.  Even writing about grief is a struggle—it’s not, as when writing about other emotions, a re-living; it’s more of an exposition.

Most of what I know of grief I learned when my father died, when I was 33 and open to such lessons. I sat alone in my house for hours every day staring at the walls, not so much thinking or meditating or feeling as just being, creating a space for whatever came. This wasn’t intentional, it was the only thing I felt like doing whenever I had any time to myself. This went on for over a year; sometimes I talked to my father and cried. At times I saw and heard him as vividly as when he was alive. So close did I get, that at one point it was as if I’d followed him into the dark silence of the grave. I learned, among other things, why people frequently avoid deep grieving.

Al is feeling guilty that he didn’t give Andrea everything she needed when she was sick. I said all the reassuring words—that she adored him, that she told me he was wonderful–all of which were true. But she also complained about him, like any wife complains. Besides, Andrea’s need—and not just during the cancer—was so great that nothing would have been enough. If she was larger than life in her capacity to love, her need for love was just as great. Everyone knew this, and accepted it as part of who she was. On balance, it was worth putting up with because of what she gave. For her husband and kids, of course, it must have been more complicated.

Al was unsurprised by the guilt, accepting it as an inevitable part of the grieving process. I didn’t tell him, but my experience with grief has been unexpectedly different. The minute I learned my father was dead, all the fights we’d had—mostly political in nature—melted away. The negative aspects of my relationship with him—and there were plenty—slipped off like the skin of a snake, leaving only love. A poet friend who’d experienced a lot of loss early in her life put it into those words precisely: “All the stuff falls away,” she said, “and what you’re left with is the love.”

The grieving process I went through for my father left an indelible impression on me. Years later, when Marco died, and guilt briefly arose, I was able to observe it and let go. It was even the same when my mother died. While some remnants of guilt or anger still surface from time to time, they’re puny, almost insignificant, next to the vast landscape that is death.

Al’s guilt buttons were being pushed by reading Andrea’s email messages. I can’t believe she didn’t dump them; she used to scold me if a message was the least bit indiscreet. To hide her shopaholic tendencies, she stuffed a suitcase full of clothes for me, some never even worn, on our last visit. Yet she left her emails, journals, and poetry easily accessible. I can’t help but think it was intentional, that she wanted Al, or her kids, or whoever, to know certain things about her. Or maybe it was less specific, that she just wanted them to know her, period. It’s inconceivable to me that Andrea would do something like that unconsciously, and I’m dying to talk to her about it.  The conversation even played out in my head—and then I remembered we won’t have that conversation.

When Marco was in the hospital, his intubation preventing speech, all sorts of drama swirled around his deathbed. Word spread quickly that he was dying, and women came crawling out of every corner of New York: this one had been in a Marxist study group with him a quarter century ago; another had met him in an ashram; an estranged ex-wife telephoned. I sat there all week while the women came and went in a choreographed dance, leaving the room to give each one private time. There were bitter arguments about “pulling the plug” — Andrea, as his executor, tried to persuade the hospital to do so. There were tears and laughter and story-swapping; old hurts and new revelations; competition and cooperation; small acts of revenge and atonement. Each of us subtly staked out our territory. One wife tried using scrabble tiles to communicate with him. I brought in picture cards. Neither method managed to penetrate the AIDS dementia.

One night I told him about the loony lunch I’d had with two of his women that day, and when his eyes lit up expressively, I burst into tears. “Marco,” I said, “you have to get better so we can talk about all this!” But he did not.

It happens with all of them: my father, my mother, Marco, Andrea, my friends Richard and Barbara: something comes up that reminds me of them, and for a brief flash I imagine telling them about it. Then comes the thud of reality. And that’s the big bitch about death: no more talk. It’s done. Finito. Over. That is what it’s about: finality. The grief, the mourning, the fascinating human dramas; the ghosts in the night, the strange and wonderful dream visitations–none of it matters one goddam bit. I’ve been shown, through death and grief, that “there’s more on heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy,” and though I take some comfort from it, I still have nothing substantial to tell the grandchildren.

There are aspects of my life I am always trying to understand better. One—what else?—my relations with my mother, but what interests me now is not the narrowly personal aspect. I was in nervous flight from her ever since I can remember anything, and from the age of fourteen I set myself obdurately against her in a kind of inner emigration from everything she represented. Girls do have to grow up, but has this battle always been so implacable? Now I see her as a tragic figure, living out her disappointing years with courage and with dignity. I saw her then as tragic, certainly, but was not able then to be kind. Every day you may watch, hear of, a young person, usually a girl, giving parents, often a mother, such a bad time that it could be called cruelty. Later they will say, “I am afraid I was difficult as an adolescent.” A quite extraordinary degree of malice and vindictiveness goes into the combat. Judging from the histories and novels from the past, things were not always like this. So what has happened; why now? …

For years I lived in a state of accusation against my mother, at first hot, then cold and hard, and that pain, not to say anguish, was deep and genuine. But now I ask myself, against what expectations, what promises, was I matching what actually happened?

From Under My Skin: Vol. One of My Autobiography by Doris Lessing, Harper Collins England 1994

The aging process, they say, is all about loss. You lose your eyesight, your agility, your courage. You lose your hair, your friends, your memory; your speed, your skill, your confidence. You lose your children. Not literally—the fortunate, and this includes most of us, do manage to maintain relationships of some kind with our kids. But who those kids are has changed dramatically: they’re grown-up adults, people we may or may not like, and who may or may not like us. They’re no longer babies, toddlers, cute little girls and boys. Those little munchkins we cuddled on our laps are gone forever. They  left a long time ago, in the blink of an eye. “Left, went East. See u soon.”

I miss my babies. I miss the sweet little apple-cheeked girl who giggled when I tickled her belly. Today is that little girl’s 42^nd birthday, and all I can think of is her second.

Zen Dream
(Cape Cod, 1980s)

I’m flying thru the sky, very high, super conscious, seeing blue, only blue, incredible blue, and I’m ecstatic, so ecstatic I’m crying—not only in the dream but for real, crying in ecstacy. Suddenly I land with a thud on a city street and begin having sex with a stranger.
Next scene: I’m sitting on a corner with my friend Larry eating rare London broil. A voice says, “You were pulled down by sex.” Pause. Then the voice says, “You were pulled down by eating meat.” Pause. Then, with dry finality, the voice says

“You were pulled down by gravity.”

See my curmudgeonly thoughts on Mothers Day.

Spoiler Alert: I am about to discuss the ending of Spanglish, having just seen it for the third time—so anyone who doesn’t want to know “what happens” better cease and desist or accept the consequences.

This spoiler is also posted on my other blog, Dirty Laundry.

Paz Vega and Victoria Luna in Splanglish

Spanglish is a film that provides a whole new angle on the mother-daughter relationship. The movie is primarily about the immigrant experience, but the mother-daughter dyad is a major component. Writer/director James Brooks has set up an almost too obvious contrast-and-compare of the familial pairings—the American Bernice (Sarah Steele) and her mother, Deborah Clasky (Tia Leone), and the Mexican Christina (Victoria Luna) and Flor Moreno (Paz Vega). The character of Deborah’s mother Evelyn is wittily played by a sardonic Cloris Leachman. The ending mercifully throws obvious out the window and saves the film from the realm of cliché.

In the typical immigrant story, the second generation must defect from the first in order to achieve personal success; they must necessarily distance themselves from their cultural roots and, subsequently, their families. In one life-changing summer Christine Moreno takes her first baby steps into the world of American success, and nearly makes it to the starting line–but before the opening shot is even fired, her mother, in an act of supreme confidence and maternal bravery, slams on the brakes.

After spending a summer at the beach home of the Claskis, her mother’s employers, Christine gets a scholarship to Bernice’s fancy LA private school. This comes about from the meddling of Deborah Claski, who wants to “help” the intelligent, charming girl. On the surface it represents an unprecedented educational opportunity, but when Flor visits the school she rightly suspects it will turn Christine into a slice of white bread. Even Bernice’s father, played by an uncharacteristically subdued Adam Sandler, says he worries about what the school is doing to his kids. Thus, after quitting her job with the Claski’s, Flor delivers the bad news to Christine: she’s not going to let her attend white bread school.

During their walk and bus ride home, daughter confronts mother with the usual tears and accusations. Christine has more of a case than many daughters in rebellion—this is, after all, about her education—and surely some members of the audience are outraged by Flora’s actions. She won’t budge, however, not even when Christine literally pushes her away with that most American of all clichés, “I need space.” Me, I wanted to cheer when Flor stuck her face into her daughter’s and said, “Uh uh, between you and me is no space!” A few minutes later Flor poses the question at the heart of the movie: Do you really want to become someone so different from me?

For Christine, it’s as if she’s been struck on the head with a hammer: she wakes up and makes the decision that will set the stage for her future, recognizing that she does not want to become other, does not want to leave her mother and her culture behind and jump into the flotsam and jetsam of what passes for American success. This represents a stunning new twist in the immigrant story: Flor deviates from the maternal script, refusing to sacrifice their relationship for some dubious better future.

This term, sacrifice, gets thrown around a lot in definitions of the American family experience. It’s a concept I’ve never understood, and am glad to see challenged. I’ve often wondered if my aversion to sacrifice means I’m lacking some essential parental gene–but it just  seemed to me that if every parent sacrifices for the kids, nobody ever gets to live on their own account. Is it ever okay for a parent to live his or her own life? In America not only are individuals expected to sacrifice, but whole generations are supposed to struggle and strive for the one coming up. When does anyone get to relax?

Specifically, when have we ever heard or seen a daughter who wants to be like her mother? Have we ever been shown, in a work of cultural representation,  a daughter whose every move, breath and action is not intended to differentiate herself  from the despised maternal figure? I can’t recall ever seeing a film or play, or reading a book, in which any girl past puberty consciously emulates her mother. Think of  Stella Dallas, a wildly popular story in which a mother parts forever from her daughter so she can marry a wealthy man without her lower-class roots getting in the way. According to the values expressed in Stella Dallas , the mother-daughter relationship is far less important than material gain.

And should a fictional mother prevent her daughter from “bettering” her lot in life, she’s portrayed as deeply neurotic, clinging, and overbearing. But Flor is anything but neurotic: in fact, she’s  worthy of emulation–a gorgeous, smart, kind and loving woman who strives to make her life and her daughter’s life function on a decent level without sacrificing herself to it.

Virginia Woolf, writing of female friendship in A Room Of One’s Own, posed the question of what the world might be like if, in fiction, “Chloe liked Olivia.” What would happen if women, especially mothers and daughters, were portrayed as  liking one another, if daughters admired their mothers so much they aimed to be like them? What if American values were more in keeping with Flor’s ?

As another poet once said, the world would split open.

On a lighter note, Tia Leoni is hilarious in Spanglish, an absolute gem and a pleasure to watch. Given the stunning looks of Paz Vega and Victoria Luna, as well as their performances, whoever played Debora Claski had to be something special to hold her own here—and Tia Leoni is.

Foreign Tongue
Kay Bynum

I read a book of poems
by women
and wrote one of my own
perfect rhythm, meter
and no boring, girlish rhyme
but in a foreign tongue
stranger than my own words
are to me at times
I cried because
my mother could not
understand it
or me
and would perhaps shed
her own tears
at the words I write like
masturbation and thighs
and men
coming into me
has been hard
she stood beside me
labored for me and with
me through it all
and still I cannot write her
a Hallmark rhyme
or Valentine