I gave up on a fourth. Only one of the books is really capturing my attention. It’s the biography of Stephen Sondheim and I just read that “Someone in a Tree” is his favorite song that he’s written.
Sondheim had a lousy childhood. It was privileged as all get-out but he had no parenting for a long time and then he had very bad, psychologically abusive parenting.
I’m cooking dinner right now (I’m waiting for the pot to boil) and thinking more about my post below, which I am unhappy with. It didn’t come out right.
My blog is a place for me to practice writing and to keep track of this and that with the kids and my life. Sometimes something I’m trying to do works and I’m happy and sometimes what I’m trying to do doesn’t work and I’m just waiting for it to fall off the page. That entry below? It totally doesn’t work and I can’t wait for it to drop.
A friend of mine once told me that every Sunday night his family took a bike ride together and stopped to get ice cream on the way back. I was in my late teens when he told me this and even though I know his family life was far from perfect, I couldn’t help thinking that anyone who complained about parents who would take a bike ride with their nearly-grown children must be crying wolf. See, by that time I was really missing all of those surface things that say “happy family” even though I felt very cynical about it all.
But now that I’m a parent, I find these efforts so moving and sometimes so desperate.
I remember that my parents told me about the divorce while we were all sitting around the table one weekend night eating grilled hamburgers. My mother says that’s not when it happened at all and that they sat us all down much more formally. I wonder if my juxtaposition of memory is because I lost those family dinners in the divorce.
I lost the way my father’s hamburgers tasted after a long summer day playing with friends. I lost the way sitting next to my sister made me feel crowded. I lost the company of both my parents at dinner (my mom never sat down with us when my dad was out of town because she was perfectly happy eating a sandwich after we went to bed).
What I remember, clear as day, is biting into my burger fixed just the way I liked it — mayonaisse and pickles, nothing else — feeling perfectly content and then the news and my parents’ apologetic, sympathetic smiles when I said, “You’re joking, right? This is a joke?” (My mom does remember me saying that but is adamant it didn’t happen at dinner.)
That photo album I looked at this week, the one with the black and white photos, it made me think about outward appearances and good intentions and inevitable failures and the tension between these three things. the way that a child who feels betrayed will reject the trappings even when they yearn from them. The way a parent sometimes can only communicate by ritual.
I think between this entry and the last one, I have enough down to remember if I ever need to go back to it.
Related posts:
My parents divorced when I was 11. I didn’t hate the divorce so much as I hated their remarriages. I have no problem with either of my parents. They made mistakes, but none so large they color my life.
I don’t like my step-father, and haven’t really liked either of my father’s wives. I liked a couple of his girl friends though.
This does color my life. At the times when I am the most at odds with being married, it never crosses my mind to divorce. I wouldn’t want my children to deal with step-parents or step-siblings. I know there are some really great second families built, but in my life they have caused lots of pain and anxiety.
I thought it and this were both very evocative pieces.
It helped me bring light to the subject of my own parents and to go off on my own tangent.
Thank you so much for that.
um, I suggested that movie to you before even reading this post!
You are absolutely correct in your memory of how the news was broken to you about the divorce. I can’t imagine why I would have told you differently……
I think that this is a really good post (although I’m sympathetic to that feeling of not quite saying what you mean to). It amazes me that, at 37, there are still times when I am jealous of other people’s happy families.
The one thing I’ve learned from having children of my own is that I finally understand how intensely my parents loved me. With all their failings (and there were many), I never could have imagined how much they loved me until I stood in their shoes. I just hope I’m still alive when my son figures this out for himself.
And I liked the photo album post — it evoked in me what you intended.
I really love your blog. You’re a very thoughtful person — by which I mean that you think very deeply about things — and it comes out in your writing. My parents divorced when I was less than a year old, so I have no memory of that, but I do remember the few times that I saw my dad throughout my life and being baffled that someone could be so clueless and hurtful without realizing it. (Luckily, I had a strong and supportive extended family.) But as a parent now myself, I am more sympathetic to him. It’s such a huge job, and so hard to do well. Thanks for reminding us.