Category Archives: memoir

Jun4

Duck! The Pendulum is Coming Back… #Psuedomutuality in the Family You Co-create

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

This is an excerpt from my as-yet untitled WIP / memoir. Any comments would be most welcome. I have thick skin. xoxo

Because I grew up the way I did, I was determined to create a loving, balanced, healthy and safe world for my children. Am I alone in that? Because I thought that way does it mean that my parents went into their worlds, and intentionally fractured, scared, and traumatized me? I don’t think they did. I don’t think anyone does that. But what my parents didn’t do is step back, look at the trajectory of their lives, their pasts and how those tendencies, habits and patterns would affect a child they parented. I’m sure my parents might’ve thought that they had it all figured out, “Sure, maybe we’re a little unbalanced, but we’re not UNSAFE, I mean, I’m not…” is something I can imagine each of them saying.

It goes beyond “trust” as in, “would you trust your child with that person?” because trust looks like a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In terms of my parents, I’d have to look at it like this: How long would my kid be with that person? What would be the context of my kid being with that person? Would it be one-on-one, no distractions, on land away from a car, outside, and away from alcohol, pills and rage? Ok, I’ll trust this for about an hour, max.

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I was delighted. I had just returned from a long weekend meeting my very first genetically related baby; my nephew. I remember holding him and saying to Dan, “I want one of these.” He nodded and we felt we were ready. We’d been a couple for seven years and married for three. We’d traveled, we’d exhausted a lot of baggage out of our systems and we had a dog. READY!

Genetically, I only considered alcoholism and addiction as major threats to my children’s health and happiness. I also considered the possibility of a genetic retinal disorder affecting my sons, but I felt the chances would be slim because I understood it to be carried by the mother, and I didn’t have the disease.

What I never considered; what never, ever entered my consciousness was the possibility that my sons would have mental health issues and that I would be tossed into the rodeo of depressive disorders, suicidal ideation, crippling anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Even though I knew it: my family, for generations back, had these traits. I spoke about it with my friends, therapists and other people — mostly as survivors of parental cruelty, narcissism, neglect, and aggression — but I naively never considered it as part of my being a parent. I wasn’t going to be cruel or neglectful or depressed. RIGHT?!

And so, decades into my marriage and into parenthood, the inklings grew into curiosities that developed into signs that evolved into disorders that bloomed into illnesses.

In 2019, we went to Ireland to visit our oldest son, the one I said I wanted before I knew I was bearing him. We walked around Galway, Dublin, the Aran Islands, Cliffs of Moher. On Good Friday as we walked Quay Street in Galway nearby our hotel, we passed a store called “Fields.” Its blinds were drawn, signifying that it was closed. A woman passed by and I asked her to take our photo because the letters were legible and it was our last name and because we were in a group, we were the plural of Field, as the store was named.

She gladly obliged. The weather was cold, we were in a seaside town (a very easy thing to accomplish in Ireland) and we crouched below the letters. We’re all hunched together to fit and to stay relatively warm. I loved that moment; the trip was food for the soul and my beautiful sons were doing well. Or so it seemed.

When I printed that photo several weeks later and put it in a frame, it dawned on me how we were all playing a part in that photo. We were all performing to crystallize a narrative. A narrative that we were healthy, well, and prospering. The truth had come out in the weeks since that photo and its printing. We were not at all all well. I was aware of my own baggage and pains but I didn’t consider that my kids were in their own bubbles. In a way, it was a type of narcissism; that they weren’t allowed to be sad, or down, or struggling because that would mean that I hadn’t created a fabulous world; it meant I was failing.

The truth is that we were struggling; we were creating our own version of pseudomutuality, our own version of a “pretty on the outside, crumbling on the inside”; and when I realized that, my heart broke. I felt that I had failed; that somehow, I’d injured them, that I had created a world for them that was not only unsympathetic and unsafe for their pain and suffering, but also that I was the cause of it. That in the world I’d worked so hard to shelter them from repeating the types of pains I endured, I had created an environment where my children could find no succor. It wasn’t that they weren’t allowed to have a mental illness, it was that I was going to take it all on — I would simply STOP IT from reaching them.

Again, though, it’s a fine line: is this their pain to fix or mine to be blamed for creating — narcissism is insidious as hell; before you know it, if you’re not careful you will be just as guilty of stealing their pain and making it all about you as well as stealing their joy… The reality is that I needed to allow them all their own spaces to be whatever they were going to be. My job, as a parent is to observe and help, not take over. If I take over, they can’t solve their own problems or learn to tie their own shoes. Buying them Velcro shoes or loafers all the time does not avoid the reality that tying a knot — just like getting help — is a life skill.

It’s always the mother, as many psychotherapists have said. Surely, I was not immune from infecting my children with my trauma. That sent me down a spiral that got me back on the couch for the fifth time and into a clear space where I have been able to write these words and share these stories. It has taught me about epigenetics, about how traumas are passed through the genes just as easily as height, blue eyes or the ability to sing, work on machines, or design buildings.

The idea of duality, that we can be one thing and another at the same time is simple, really. As a friend once said to me when she told me about her cancer diagnosis. I said, “Not you! You’re so wonderful and fabulous and dynamic!” She said, “Why not me? I am also flawed, jealous and controlling.” How can we be so blind to the other side of the coin? We must open our eyes and allow the truth: that we can be wonderful AND have depression; that we can be clever AND be a rape survivor; that we can be talented AND struggle with crippling self-doubt. Even more, we can be seemingly totally normal and come from generations of hard-scrabble, boot-strapping, persevering survivors of famine, of war, of genocide, of slavery and possibly not connect the dots that all that boot-strapping includes self-doubt, anxiety, fear, rage and dedication that is largely misunderstood or worse, taken for granted as just being “how she is.” We are more than the people on our birth certificates; we are ALL the people who came before us and the people who come after us will include us and our baggage as well.

I will not share my children’s’ stories; I feel I’ve already gone too far. I’ll bring you up to speed though, to let you know they are doing well; they are “adulting” the best they can and we are much more aware of each others’ needs for space, for time, for compassion and for a spontaneous hug.

Thank you.

Mar11

Struggling with #Writing. Struggling, Period.

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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I have had a hard time of late writing my memoir, about all of this: unearthing. Despite some of it being a totally fun ride, a lot of it is heavy stuff.

A book about healing ancestral trauma recently came out this week which both delighted me and sent me into a vortex.

It delighted me because it affirms what I’ve been feeling in my bones and also reading, discussing with my therapist and friends and learning about in recent years. It’s that we all are part of a web, no matter how far we are out on the line, whether we are poor or rich, tall or short, pasty white or bronze toned, male or female: that we are affected by stuff that happened hundreds of years ago; stuff that is unresolved, unattended and still festering in our genes. Don’t believe me? That’s ok. You keep doing you.

None of these past hurts and wounds are our fault, but once we learn about the patterns in the web, we are confronted: stay there and let the spider (past wounds that aren’t even ours) consume us or stare at the spider on its approach and wriggle ourselves free.

I have chosen to wriggle myself free. I’ve been wriggling myself free since before I even knew there was a web. I have always been ready to stand and resist.

I have not read the book that was recently released and I have no doubt it’s brilliant because its author is a psychologist I do not know yet I hold in high esteem. She is vulnerable and real. She puts herself out there and I sit with sincere admiration for not only her work but also her Work and the effort of writing a book, which is NO simple task. Writing a book requires either thick skin or complete arrogance because you are putting yourself out there — no matter what the genre is, you are literally saying “these are the words I’ve strung together to compose these sentences to complete these thoughts and I’ve done it consistently to the tune of about 300 pages and if you think they’re brilliant or if you think they are dull, it doesn’t matter: I can’t unring this bell.”

That is guts. It’s a similar energy required of actors, singers, dancers, artists and anyone (apparently other than politicians) who aims to express themselves through a certain medium.

The vortex that I recently crawled out of however, has taken some Work and some standing back and looking at my situation objectively after my pity pouty (and that’s not a typo, I actually pouted, and not in a sexy way). It hinges on the fact that yet another book has been released about transgenerational trauma and it’s a memoir which of course meant that I should not be writing mine. In came the judgment: you suck Who needs another memoir you suck about dysfunctional families, unconscious habits and how you still suck even though that unconscious habits thing might have traction one person has worked to end the cycle? I mean, c’mon, right? It’s just one you suck more person saying mean things about its family, cry baby, you suck its relatives, you suck the neighbors it had and how everyone was against this person? Right?

Well, no. I remembered that a good memoir, one that engages and informs and delights and entertains has a balance of justice, humor, reality, and truth. A good memoir isn’t like tragedy porn, where the writer goes on and on about his or her exploits or the beatings or the drunken nights, or the arrests or the blackouts or the one-night stands, DUIs or even the days at the park with the nanny and butler or sunsets spent sailing after a day of horseback riding with the polo team whilst eating crumpets and sipping a cuppa tea. No.

It’s a mix. Just like life is a mix. And it doesn’t have to include every freaking detail: I woke at 6:52, the brown velvet curtains were drawn but I could see the sliver of light…. I was wearing my Snoopy pjs, the ones with the hole in the shoulder seam, not the ones without the hole as they were in the hamper, with my GAP hoodie, the socks I wore to Alexandra’s fire pit when Sam was there with his new girl. It was 6:53.

The only way to make that interesting: it was 6:53pm

I can include highlights and lowlights. I can include my screwups and my parents’ moments of cogent brilliance. I can include stories about my dog and cats and how the house was broken into and when my dad or mom said really stupid or creepy things. Or when my dad took us sailing and never relaxed the entire time. My dad: Captain Ahab of Buffalo Harbor. It’s all of it. It’s life. The reality though, is that I’m doing it to get some things off my chest, to share with people that ultimately while we aren’t responsible for the stuff that happens to us when we’re younger, at some point the statute of limitations applies when constantly blaming our upbringing.

So it took almost an entire session today with my therapist to get me to turn this bus around and reframe the whole thing. She said, “Well, you could just stop and give up on it; if it’s causing you that much stress. Don’t finish it.” She’s such a minx. I said, “Nope. I see now, better, that what I’m doing is an act of generosity and kindness to entertain and help people heal and maybe feel strong enough to get on the couch or share their stories because that’s how we help each other from the web.” Crawling out and seeing the sun included that I read a text from a family friend who’s LITERALLY got my back. This person came out of the woodwork to offer professional expertise gratis and if that ain’t a sign of go! go! go!, I honestly don’t know what is.

Plus, I think this psychologist who released her book would be right there telling me to run and get writing. This is a big enough world. Everyone deserves a chance to sing their song.

So: I’m back, peeps!

Thank you.

Feb13

A thought regarding chakras and behavior.

Posted on February 13, 2020 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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A thought regarding chakras and behavior.

I’ve always been interested in the unseen; stuff that includes science, but that transcends it because even science and proving its truth has to come from something, like a gut feeling, an inner knowing, something that makes us stay curious and interested in the answer or result.

My mother was super smart, talented and clever; she also (like all of us) battled her demons. Sometimes she won, sometimes she lost. Her behavior though, even in the clear-headed days, was something that I now understand as being mostly in the “upper chakras” of 4th (love / boundaries), 5th (voice & truth), 6th (vision & sound: reality) and 7th (intuition). In her escapist behavior (her “demon” side), she also stayed there, but the behavior was focused on herself: what she loved, what she said and heard in *her* truth, what she felt intuitively. Because those concepts were run through an unhealthy filter, her behavior was unhealthy.

And so the loop continues.

As a yoga instructor and someone who likes to investigate sources of pain or observe confusions in myself or others, the chakras are crucial to how I perceive the world. But my knowledge is limited while my curiosity is constantly in bloom.

Recently, I had a biofield tuning session. (It’s woo-woo to some: energy blended with sound healing science but it has real effects on me.) In that session, I discussed some social interactions I’ve endured with people that have left me confused and exhausted. I explained that I’m so tired of this pattern of people and their behaviors repeating themselves in my life. That they’re so familiar to me — the energy reminds me of my interactions with my mother: going around and around in circles when all I’m trying to do is go from A to B to C. Without batting an eye, she said, “They’re in their upper chakras. There’s no grounding. They just want to exist in the fantasy that all is well and they don’t need the things — like health insurance and consistent income — that you and I and others see as reasonable and normal for a solid existence. The truth is too much for them; they’re not grounded. They want to have it come to them because they ‘wish it to.’ To be grounded means that you have accept and know who you are [1st chakra], what you’re responsible for having created in your life [2nd chakra], and the guts to do it or change it [3rd chakra] if it’s not working … if it’s not healthy or balanced.”

It was literally like a window had been opened and a fresh breeze of clean air had flowed into my lungs.

There’s nothing wrong with embracing love and intuition and vision and singing your song… but launching from solid ground and a knowing of your skills and limitations is the only way you’re going to make any sense. Remember: airplanes have wheels, birds have claws, and angels have feet for a reason.

The other risk — not nourishing or tolerating the upper chakras — is anger, confusion, and disappointment because we have to also acknowledge that we don’t know everything about ourselves [1st]; that there are things we have yet to create / we’re not DONE yet [2nd]; and that we must continue to change and do [3rd] in order to live well and balanced.

I often describe Mom as just being capable of landing one toe on the ground for most of her life. Now that she is with God, free and she is safe, I don’t have to worry about how hard she will crash when she would eventually come down. ❤

Jun24

Goodbye, Terra Centre

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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After 13 years of near daily walks to our elementary school, it has finally happened. We are no longer part of the TCES community; we have “aged out.”

It started in 2003, when my oldest began kindergarten. My youngest was still inside me; he had a few more months to bake. Save for those early postpartum winter weeks after my youngest was born, and about 30 days to use Kiss & Ride on “weathery days” I walked my kids every day to and from school.

The path to school is gorgeous.

Dear Boys: If I Were Dying, Here's What I'd Want You To Know

This is the path to school… about 2/3 of the way there and where I encountered Gertrude.

Hello Rocky! I’m always glad that I have my phone with me when things like this happen. I usually don’t bring it at all on walks to school because I want to be present with my boys, but when things like this happen, I’m so pleased I have it!

This is a very nice way to start your day…

It was perfect to quiet the mind and give the body just a little jump start to the day. Often it was leisurely and we did see all the things in the images above. I am not a huge believer in stressing out being late to elementary school. What do we miss? Perfect attendance? Or the little TV show they broadcast each morning which announced the cafeteria menu, the weather outside, TC birthdays, and anything else of note … but … please. All of my kids say no one ever listens to that broadcast. I could often be overheard saying to the boys, “It’s not Harvard. We have time. Look around the path… look around this place…” And we would.

Once the final baby came along, so came the daily use of the double stroller, that godsend and albatross. I remember grabbing the leash of our faithful golden, Maggie, wrapping it round the handle of the stroller and pushing off for school as she would keep perfect pace with me, never wavering from her parade. My middle son who is my mirror, often made the experience more melodious than many people were likely ready for so early in the morning. Because he wasn’t a student there yet, he saw little need in going to school to drop off Big Brother. We disagreed daily.

We had a song for him,

Oh I won’t ride my stroller to school
I told my mommy I’d walk
But now my mommy won’t pick me up
So I’m gonna screech like a hawk.

More often than not, we were just on time.

Our first year at the school, around winter break, it was struck by a Norovirus outbreak. Norovirus is a vomiting illness. I was walking home the first morning back from break and a TV crew was outside on the main road leading to my house. A well-known female roving reporter, Gail Pennybacher, asked me if she could interview me. With her cameras. I was a new public school mom, recently postpartum with Thing 3, and she wanted to talk to me about the outbreak.

“Are you a parent at the school over that way?” she asked, pointing to TC which you could see now the the trees were bare.

“Yes… what’s this about?” I asked, I’m sure.

She talked about her intentions.

I had no clue about the outbreak. It was over. I guess there was some form of communication from the school before it opened after winter break but I was barely functioning.

I noticed that the disgusting low-pile industrial carpeting was replaced by shiny linoleum tiles, but that was all I knew. Gail told me about the outbreak and asked me if she could film my then-kindergartener son and me washing his hands. I said yes, immediately followed by the caveat that my student son wasn’t home and that I had to put my kids down for a nap. It being a Monday, a half-day back then, I assured her he would be home in three hours.

But I felt weird, as though I was betraying the school. Being a new mom and knowing NOTHING about FCPS and Terra Centre from a parent standpoint (plus people can be assholes), I didn’t want to make enemies over there. During the meantime, I reached out to the principal to let her know that the news crews were stalking the neighborhood.

That was my first interaction with that principal. She called me back and asked me for intel. She said I sounded like I was someone who was media savvy. She was gooood. I said I had worked in PR and was a freelance writer. She said I would be helpful to her. She prowled up to her saucer, got down on her haunches and wrapped her tail around her hips, slowly lapping. “Tell me more…” she said. I told her about me, and then she asked me how to handle the news crew.

That night, the news was on and I saw our segment. My jaw hit the floor when I watched that woman OWN that reporter. She played me. I was so naive. Over the remaining nine years, she and I barely spoke. Outside of the Carter administration, I considered her one of the least effective leaders I’d ever witnessed. I learned over the years that parents had tried unsuccessfully to oust her at least twice before we got there.

I made friends through Terra Centre. Some I still know, others have faded away or moved away. But while I have faded some, I have not moved, which is an oddity here, in one of many communities referred to as the Pentagon’s bedroom.

Most families who roost here are military or somehow entwined with the federal government in public service, civil service or as a contractor.

Once again, my team is an anomaly of two anomalies. I do not hail from a government family, nor does my husband. His family, I think a third-generation Washingtonian tribe, was in private business and my family was in journalism. I feel confident saying there are not many of us around here, those who’ve been here consistently as long as we have.

We moved into this house in 2000. I met this home when it was under contract.

“It’s under contract and it’s higher than your range. Forget it,” Barb, my ever-enthusiastic realtor said.

“I don’t care. I have to see it. Get me in there.” I said.

Barb used her keypad and we were in. I felt dirty, as though I had to whisper everything I said and thought. It was like breaking into a bank vault.

The house wasn’t well-appointed, but it had my requirements: a fenced flat backyard and a basement. It also had other things I didn’t know I had to have: hardwood floors, a playroom, a main floor bedroom with full bath. It didn’t have what I really wanted: a garage, but I’ve found over the years that those just get stuffed with crap no one uses.

“It’s under contract. You can’t be here…” a little woman whisper-shouted in broken English from the top of the stairs. I remember her to this day: graying hair in a bun, half glasses perched on her nose. A floral quilted housecoat. She thought she was protected by the UNDER CONTRACT sign on the post outside her house.

“I understand. I had to see it. I’m compelled to be here. I have a son, he’s 2 and I’ve got another one on the way,” I said, patting my newly swelling belly with the same hand holding my toddler’s wet sticky palm. He flashed his enormous green eyes, long lashes and deep dimples at her.

Her shoulders softened. Her voice warmed and she descended the stairs to just three from the main floor. She was Filipina.

“My name is Corazon,” she said.

“That means ‘heart?’ I said back, smiling. We nodded.

“If the contract falls through,” I said, “Please call my realtor. She’s leaving her card. Please. I need to be here.”

Corazon gestured to the kitchen and said, “the yard … for him.”

For them, I thought to myself. Peering through the windows, I agreed, “it’s lovely.”

“Shade,” she said.

I continued out the kitchen door on to the “deckette” to look at the flat fenced back yard, feeling a little breeze and cooler air than the front. We were nestled beneath a canopy of Oaks, Dogwoods and Sugar Maples. I tried to keep my composure. I needed to be in this house.

It was August. We were still in our bright and airy seven-year-old townhouse. Well, sort of.

Y’see, we don’t have much luck with real estate endeavors. Long story short, our first buyer was under-qualified. I knew it when I saw him cross the threshold late during our open house. When you’re pregnant, you don’t ignore your gut. They wanted to close within 30 days. They were hot to trot. We hadn’t found a house yet. So we got cooking.

Most of the houses around here don’t last long on the market, but it was a weird time. The ones that lingered were absolutely horrendous, smelly, dark and dreary as though the people in them were having to leave against their will. “Aren’t these people motivated to sell?” I would ask my agent, shaking my head and feeling lost every time we unlocked a door.

After living here, in Burke, for almost 16 years though, I get it. People DON’T want to leave here.

Eventually our townhouse sold. It might’ve even been larger than the house we’re in now. My husband likes to think so. I heartily disagree. Doesn’t matter. The first buyers of each house fell through. Our buyer was a cabbie. I knew it was him and he was a cabbie when I saw him drive by in his work vehicle and slow down in front of the house, indicating to his riders (I think his mother and wife or sister) that this was going to be their new home.

My stomach fell out of my body, My vision honed and I got prickly all over my skin witnessing his gestures and sitting there in front of my house under the hot sun. There was no way they had the money. I panicked. I called my husband, he was certain I was wrong. I called our agent, she was telling me I was pregnanty-nervous. She used to be a nurse. I’m really glad she got out of that gig, she had no empathy skills. She listed “weight lifting” as one of her hobbies.

I knew it would fall through. It did. It fell through likely about two weeks after our contract on this house was accepted. The good news is that I wasn’t nuts and pregnanty-nervous. I pointed at my husband and chided my agent. The bad news is that we were effed.

The first buyers of this house walked on the contract because of a Radon issue. Two days after we dropped our card for Corazon, they walked. Her agent called my agent at night. My agent called me. The next morning we went to put an offer on the house contingent with Radon remediation, which she had a contractor there installing that afternoon. My husband hadn’t seen the house until we wrote on it.

Our agent was all “this school and that school… and oooh and shopping and oooh metro… and banks and conveniences…” and I was all, back yard. Shade. School? What do I know of schools… It turns out we landed in a really good school district.

I remember when my husband first stepped on to the tiny deck, “Land!” he said. It’s not a lot, but it’s ours. The kitchen is modest. When my children were very busy and smaller, it was manageable. We did finger painting and conducted general mayhem in the kitchen. Now that they’ve grown, it’s a little tight a lot of the time, even after our renovation. They “eat” (it’s more of inhaling and grunting) at the breakfast bar. We don’t have as many family dinners as we used to. I have two man-childs and another one, the one who just left elementary school, burgeoning. Soon though, the biggest man-child will be off to college so it will be less man-childs.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that either. It feels like it’s all happening so fast.

Terra Centre used to be underground. Well, not really underground, like sub-level, but it was covered in grass. We used to call it the EduCave. But it’s been renovated and that renovation came with a new principal who is leaving…. TC teachers are strong, many of them have been there for at least 10 years and despite the administration being yet again in flux, I have very few reservations about TC’s promise. The class sizes rarely hit above 28 because our neighborhood is 30+ years old; all gross residential development is over. It’s a good school. It’s so good that it’s hard as heck to find a house in this ‘hood.

The other day a realtor came to talk to me about the house next door to me that sold in 4 hours. I had met her clients when I was staring down my sprinkler. They asked me questions about drainage and the walk to the school. They didn’t win the bidding war and the husband was in tears. They loved the house. They loved me too.

The walk to Terra Centre, for me, was part of my routine too. It is 1/3 a mile door to door. Going there and back twice a day ensured I saw other people. It meant exercise, community, sisterhood. I volunteered at the school to assist the teachers, absolutely, and to help the children, no doubt. But I also volunteered to improve my life. To not feel like a failure for not having a job, and for not sitting on my ass eating bon-bons.

I’m not a nostalgist in the least. I’m a “GSD” (Get Shit Done) person. But I am sort of taking my time here. I think that makes people nervous: when someone like me, who’s normally driven, Type A and a go-getter, decides to sit, feel and write and emote… it can be off-putting. Luckily for me, my boys know how I value feeling the feelings so we can process them and get through them. They know I’m not going to run off to the basement with a bottle of vodka and deny myself into oblivion.

The fact of all of this is that I’m a little blue. I feel like I’m losing a part of myself. And I guess I am. Will I get over it? No, I will get through it. I don’t want to “get over” anything; I want to process things.

Undoubtedly, people tell me to think of the happy memories. That change is good! That I should remember to concentrate on the tremendous growth the boys have achieved. It’s hard to witness it all, frankly. There was a time when I felt that their growth meant I stagnated, but I see it now, we’ve all grown.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: EVERYTHING and EVERYONE we encounter is our teacher. Sometimes they are teachers reminding us to hold our ground, and other times, they are teachers telling us to get our shit together. Terra Centre taught me about service, friendship, neighbors, boundaries, and duty.

I remember early in my volunteering that it had occurred to me that I wasn’t much of a volunteer. I sort of got down on myself a little about that. I grew up in a largely narcissistic environment, so I was conditioned to deal with and for myself because, well, that’s how a kid survived narcissists. You had to be a narcissist… When in Rome…

But I also gave myself a pause. How do we change? By changing. So it was at Terra Centre. It was the first time I was a mom of a student somewhere. At the preschools, they’re all about getting moms out of their houses and out with others: shopping, doctor appointments, taking care of themselves. They are purposely short days 3-4 hours apiece so the kids don’t get antsy and the moms can maybe get a nap.

I was nudged by a neighbor to volunteer at Fun Fairs (think mini carnival populated by drunken toddlers). She is a child of service members and married to one. I learned that Fun Fair isn’t my jam. So she suggested a dance. Tried it. NFW. Movie night. Nope. I realized eventually, while jumping through the proposed hoops, serving on the PTA, presiding over the PTA and other involvement that I’m more about GSD than telling kids to stop running or to “put that down” and getting other parents to see me as a performer.

While I’m an extrovert, when it comes to getting shit done, I’m a silent partner. I bought a tiger suit for the school mascot. Either they hadn’t had one in a decade or they never had one (since the present principal at the time arrived). So I bought one and the PTA paid me back. I’ll never forget the first day I wore it. It was after school. The Friday before Columbus Day in 2008 and a young teacher was walking the halls and I was in the tiger suit. She screamed and JUST ABOUT passed out. She almost fell down running away. She left the school after that year. I want to say TC Tiger had nothing to do with it but … phobias be powerful… The story is that got engaged and moved to Ohio…

I had no idea she actually had “masklophobia”: a real phobia of people in costumes / mascot suits. She told me about it later. She wasn’t around to see me when I took the tiger head off my head and said “It’s OK! It’s ME! It’s Molly!”

I wore that suit for school events for little over a school year. It didn’t fit me. I looked like a malnourished fake tiger. “TC Tiger” was the mascot name and the kids simply could not get enough of TC Tiger. I was ready to pass the baton despite my obsession to make sure TC Tiger was well-handled: you can’t see less than 4 feet in front of yourself in a mascot suit and so accidentally mowing down a kid is entirely too possible.

This is me in the mascot suit the day it arrived: the Friday before Columbus day 2008. It’s from an album titled, “TC Tiger Visits School and Molly Loses 4# in the Process.”

The funny thing about being inside that suit is that you’re smiling but people can’t see you. So when tiny children run away traumatized but you’re in there cooing and making “It’s OK Toodles, it’s just me, Molly,” faces, they can’t see that. All they can see is a giant head, fangs and a stupid smile and huge hands trying to hug (NOT GASH) them.

The principal at the time wasn’t too thrilled with the PTA being so “school spirit-y” she felt that was her job. Sitting in her office, hiding most of the day, biding her time until retirement. She was lukewarm to TC Tiger. Or maybe it was me she was lukewarm to. It was most likely me… By this point, I think all three of my kids were in the school and she and I had cooled from that first encounter when she gaslighted me after Norovirus. Often she was content letting the school be “cleaned” by employees who’d rather be hanging out smoking at Starbucks across the street… Truth. We had issues with that. Hence, the Norovirus.

I learned that exercising my talents: writing, public relations, empathy, awareness of our connection to others, art, rallying for a cause to benefit all, enthusiasm for other people, their right to live on Earth and their promise, is really what works for others and what makes me hum. Doing all the volunteer stuff I was talked into doing didn’t further anythig of any value, for me or them. I learned to advocate and get the attention of the County on important matters such as hygiene, safety and communication.

At Terra Centre, as in any school environ nestled in Power Play central, the real work can be in dealing with adults.

Now I’m talking about the parents… persons with multiple degrees, fancy letters or abbreviations before and after their names, ranks, and connections. I also learned about projection, inadequacy and self-esteem issues, drama, need for excitement, and the predilection for some of those parents to stand on the narrow shoulders of or behind the gentle chests of their children.

The children? They taught me kindness and patience. They taught me boundaries. You have no choice when a little girl grins at you through her gapped teeth, “I GOT IT I GOT IT” when you try to help her with her milk carton.

In May, my youngest banished me from the walk because he wanted to walk alone to school for the last three weeks. A helicopter parent, I am not, but the kid seldom gets out on time, and I like the exercise. We also use that time to chat about stuff. He banished me from the walk home back in November, “I’m 12 now…” so … yeah. There was no excuse / little brother onto place my interest. He was the excuse. He was the little brother.

So we made a deal: he gets out of the house by 8:27 and he could walk by himself. He did alright. But on the last week, I pulled rank. I told him I would be walking with him on the last day of school. To and From. He didn’t balk. I think he got it. For 6th graders, the last day is traditionally a “recognition” ceremony. The kids get “certificates of achievement” of being a student at the school and passing 6th grade. Other awards are given out — it’s lovely actually.

The morning of the last day, it rained, so his dad drove us. The walk home though… I was not giving that up. I would NOT make the day before my last walk home from school. I did not give up a career in corporate communications and PR to miss this moment.

Here’s how it went:

If you watch that video until the end, you’ll see he turns around to look at me. The fades in the video were not my doing, it was the light coming in as we left the shade of the path. The house in my comments is not mine.

At first I was self-conscious about doing it but I quickly put that away. As you will see, our walks to and from school are Rockwellian. I’m good with the video now. I didn’t discover his backward gaze until I watched it last night. That it’s 1:43 in length, “143” being our code for “I Love You” makes the capture all the more lovely to me.

In a sense, I grew up here at Terra Centre. I learned that persistence overcomes resistance and that a gaggle of noisy parents who give a damn can effect real change on a busy over-traveled street. I learned that school principals are just people too and they come with their own dreams, fears, alliances, and hesitations. I learned that rational people can run a school and that kids needn’t be afraid of principals.

Most of all, I learned about myself. I learned that it’s ok for me to miss the school. After 13 years, I felt like family. To my kids, it’s a place they where they learned to tie their own shoes. To me, it’s a place where I liked to walk. I always appreciated my walks to Terra Centre.

I will miss it very much, and so I get it when I see moms of kids in high school or college or medical school or living in Manhattan on their own with a family walking their dogs with the moms of kids in third grade… just to see a little kid again or to mosey beneath the shade on the way to another day to ourselves.

Thank you.