My dearest Hattie Belle,

These are difficult times for you and me. I know it’s hard to be six. I wish you knew how hard it is to be 39, with two daughters you love more than you love yourself.

But you: You tell me that you are never getting married, and that you are going to adopt a daughter on your own, so you don’t have to mess with that yucky business of kissing a boy—or marrying a girl, kissing her, and then procuring the necessary boy stuff to make a baby. Whatever you do, I’ll be behind you.

“Will you come and visit me when I adopt my baby? Or my four-year-old?” you asked me yesterday. (You think if you adopt a four-year-old of your choosing, you can pick the “perfect” one, and there will never be a hard day between you.)

I said, “Of course! Are you crazy? I’ll be there as much as you want me to! I’ll babysit!”

You smiled, pleased. You let me see that much.

Know this: I will be there as much as you want me to be there, for your whole life, in any way I can.

This morning, you pitched another colossal fit about getting ready for school. You crumpled in a cranky, defeated heap in your pajamas, just outside the bathroom door. “I CAN’T STAND UP! I CAN’T GET MY LEGS UNDER ME! YOU HAVE TO PICK ME UP!”

My beloved spirited one, I said no. I refused to play along. I told you that I expected you to stand up on your own, to get dressed, to go to the bathroom, to brush your teeth and hair. I told you that, like it or not, being six meant doing all those things. And if you wouldn’t do them, I would put you in the car in your pajamas, without breakfast, and drive you to kindergarten as you were. And that we would then have a word with your teacher.

To say you did not like my response is putting it mildly. You wailed. You shrieked. You screamed. You howled that I didn’t care about you at all, that your life was horrible, simply horrible.

I told you that I loved you very much, but that this behavior of yours was unacceptable. I told you I would not play this game.

You bawled, “I CAN’T STAND UP! I CAN’T STAND UP BECAUSE I AM SO TIRED AND YOU JUST DON’T CARE!” Then, lying in the hallway, you kicked the floor, the bathroom doorframe, the wall—anything your little feet could strike.

I walked away from you.

I went downstairs and made your lunch. I let the dogs out. I let the dogs back in. I put your lunch and your sister’s lunch into your respective backpacks. I fed the dogs. I fed the cat. I made sure your mittens were dry, behind the hot copper pipe, where I had wedged them the night before. I called your sister downstairs. She is eight, a fact that you know and hate. She has other issues, but getting dressed in the morning is not one of them. I brushed your sister’s hair into a ponytail and gave her some cereal. I drank some iced tea. I tried to breathe. Still no sign of you.

I went to the base of the stairs and listened. I heard it: the battery-operated whirr of your butterfly toothbrush. You could have turned it on and simply held it in the air like a fairy wand, wishing all of us away. I hope you actually brushed your teeth with it. But I knew better than to head back upstairs.

You finally came downstairs, dressed. You were cranky but subdued. I had brought a comb downstairs with me. I handed it to you. You pouted and asked me to wet it, to tame your wisps, your flyaways—inherited from me, so I figured that was a fair request. I ran the comb under a faucet and gave it to you. You combed your own hair. I poured you some cereal, and reluctantly, you sat down and you ate it.

We all managed to get into the car and to school on time. You didn’t feel like saying goodbye to me when we got to your classroom. I didn’t much feel like saying a proper goodbye to you, either.

I asked your teacher to come into the hallway for a second. I asked for her advice. She said, “Kids have a funny way of trying to make happen the very exact thing they are most afraid of happening—what they never want to have happen.”

Ah.

You are pushing me hard, pushing me away. Honey, I am not going anywhere. I am not going to lift you to your feet if I know you can stand on your own. I may walk away from your maelstrom, but only as far as the kitchen.

I am not going anywhere without you. Even when I must go somewhere without you, I am not going anywhere without you.

I know that you feel you must be perfect at school—you have told me this, many times—and your teachers tell me that that is all they see of you there: perfect Hannah. I know you must be working very hard to hold it all together for long school days. I am guessing that’s why you fall apart at home. Because no one can be that perfect, all the time.

I wish I could make you understand that it’s okay to spread out your mistakes during a 14-hour-day. It’s okay to spread out your mistakes during a lifetime, in fact. That’s going to be my number-one priority as your mother, I see now: teaching you that it’s okay to make mistakes. I want to teach you to spread out those mistakes. I want you to know that you will always and forever be so much more than the mistakes you make.

But your mistakes will be part of you, too. You couldn’t be human without them. You couldn’t learn without them.

I must find a way to teach you that we—your father and I—will never be far away with our love. We will never take our love away. But we know you can stand up. And you know you can stand up, too. So fall down, but get back up, and brush your teeth. When in doubt in life, get back up and brush your teeth. Floss. Wet your hair and comb it out of your face, so you can see.

These are not easy days. You don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you. You shrug at my questions. You say, “I don’t want to talk about that. That’s too sad.” But I see that you are sad. And I wish so much you would let me in, so I could try to find the words to make it better.

This morning, I could have come back up the stairs, lifted you under your armpits, raised you to your feet. I could have cooed and coaxed and cajoled until you let me brush your teeth for you, like I did when you were very little. I could have overlooked your tantrum, your rudeness, your messy hair.

I chose not to put you back on your feet.

Hear this: Despite the fact that I am human, and you are very precious to me, and I hate confrontation with you more than I can express, I will almost always choose not to put you back on your feet.

Because I know you can put yourself back on those small, sweet feet that I love.

Because my gut is telling me I am doing the right thing, as your mother.

You hate this now. You hate my rules, you hate my expectations. You make this very clear on a regular basis, these days. I am not making your life easier, is how it feels to you now. You feel like a mother should make life easier, all the time, like Snow White did for the Seven Dwarves, and Cinderella did for—well, just about anyone.

I am no fairy-tale, my love. I will never be a fairy-tale. I am your mother, and that makes me as real a thing as ever existed.

And I am exhausted, my darlin’. 

But I believe—I have to believe—that by being firm with you, I am making your future life easier. 

I don’t want you to push me away. I don’t want you to thrash and scream and yell like you did when you were 2, 3. But I want to be here with you. And the only way I can help you see that I am here with you, that I am never going away, is to be here, is to be the boundary that you bump up against. Again and again and again.

We are both going to be very tired for a while, this I can see.

I reiterate: I will walk away from you sometimes, like I did this morning. But I will only go as far as the (metaphorical) kitchen. No matter how hard you push.

I love you. I am worried about you. I don’t have all the answers. I am frustrated. Sometimes, I would like to walk farther away than the kitchen, I admit it.

But I don’t ever take a step without you (and your sister) taking it with me. You are in my heart, every minute of every day.

I am sorry you are hurting, that you are angry, that you are desperately afraid to make mistakes. Someday, I hope I can read this to you, or that you will read it to yourself, and you will know that your mother loved you (and will always love you) powerfully and completely. Hattie Belle, I love you unconditionally. Unconditionally is a big word, and most grownups don’t know what it means, because they’ve never seen it in action. But unconditionally means that I don’t care how many mistakes you make. I just want you to learn from them. I will help you learn from them, but you’ll need to listen sometimes. Really listen.

And: I’ll love you even if learning from your mistakes takes time. Every time. There is no shortage of mistakes in a life, and yours will be no different.

You are beautiful, Little-Almost-Big One. You radiate charm and charisma that have the ability to trip you up, confuse you. Your shining personality and cute-as-a-button appeal are not lost on others, and you are starting to know it.

“Everyone loves me at school,” you said to me last week at bedtime. “I don’t know why, but they do.” Your voice: a mix of pride and wonder, with the slightest brushstroke of smug. You are six; I do not fault you for this. Popularity is confusing at any age.

When you spoke those words to me, I tried to swallow my instant fear that you would become Beautiful and Popular from the outside-in, instead of the inside-out. There is no use in being Beautiful or Popular on the outside if your insides are empty and dark. It’s a surefire recipe for disaster, turning you into Little Red Riding Hood, led astray by the Big Bad Wolves of the world.

I have seen you at school, in action. You are always surrounded by adoring friends and admirers. Funny that this worries me, that this is the kind of thing a mother should be concerned about. When you adopt your baby or your four-year-old someday, maybe you will understand.

I tried to explain to you that night that people are always going to love you in life, because you are deeply, wonderfully lovable. Bright. Funny. Lovely. Generous. You listened, gathered Blankie to your chest and sighed.

As you drifted to sleep, I tried to explain that you—you!—will need to keep your eyes and heart wide open. As your breathing became slower, and your warm hand twitched under mine, I tried to explain that you will always need to be vigilant about giving as much love as you get. And being sure to include others—especially the overlooked ones of the world—in your circle of light.

But you had fallen asleep.

Don’t worry. It was a dry run for me. I know now that this is a topic we will need to revisit again and again. We both have a lot to learn, baby.

Just keep standing up. Don’t pretend you can’t stand. Someday, when you really can’t get your feet underneath you, I’ll know it, and you can bet I will be right there to help you up. 

I love you. I see you. I am yours. But you are yours, too. Always remember that, my love.

Mommy

Unsure what to say, to you, to anyone. My beloved Nina dog is dying. Only she knows if she is dying slowly or not. She is now almost completely blind, or at least that’s what the vet thinks, and is how it seems to be. She has an open sore on her graying face that won’t heal. I come home to find stained circles of blood, blood rings, pressed into the linens of my bed, the upholstery of the couch, wherever she has been sleeping.

Unsure how to proceed. She only eats some days. She’s drinking too much water, a sign of something not good, says the vet. Sometimes, while she sleeps, she wets herself—my pristine first daughter, who never before had an accident in the house. 

Unsure. She is still delighted to be with me, and I with her. She can still get up, barks happily upon my return, loves her walks. She bumps into any furniture that’s shifted position, bumps hard into doorframes, but she shakes it off, keeps to her path. There is—of course—a new caution about her.

Sure of this: Today I am going to take her on a walk alone without her brother, in the woods. I will let her off leash, because I know she will stay close. I will stay close. As she listens for me, I will listen for her, try to hear her, try to understand where she is on her journey, the one that is leading her out of my life.

Sophie, tonight: “I’m so glad I’m your daughter. I just feel like we have a really special bond.”

Some women live lives hoping to hear that sort of beauty, and there it was, pressed gently into my hands and heart by a beautiful eight-year-old girl who makes me believe there must, there must be a God. I struggle with the paradox of such beauty and such sadness. I don’t know why they live side-by-side as uneasily as they do right now. I want to believe I will heal, in time.

But for tonight, I will take those words and wrap myself in them, and sleep, and sleep, until we all must begin again tomorrow, another flawed, funny, exasperating day.

Try freeing the weight of yourself
from a meat hook, is how it feels
today. I ask the gods (demoted to
plural, lowercase g) why they
ever allowed me uncomplications,
lightness of being, carbohydrates.

There are not enough pails to hold
the saltwater. One perfect day in
a country across the sea, and the
gods smile and wait at home for me,
poised with their odd tools, sharp
sticks. There is no going back to
happiness. No one can convince
me otherwise. They were right to
worry over that apple, and where
to hide the core.

Somewhere there is a woman who
is clever, who is living her grief
backwards, shedding it layer by
layer. Once a miserable child of
shocking misfortune, she will die
happily of happiness at 90, face
split open from too much smiling.

I don’t know where to go, where
to hide my own swollen face, not
the face of a clever mortal. The gods
jab me good, hard, with their sticks
until I agree to clad myself in each
heavy new layer of losing.

I don’t want this. I don’t want this.
I want new gods and new words
and new eyes and new ears and
new flesh to remember nothing
that came before. I carefully wash
the torn flesh that wants to scar
over, wants to be done with itself,
wants to come together again.

mommyjenny I cannot believe they got a Canadian mime to pretend to fix the Olympic cauldron. Even H is speechless. #ocanada #fearthemime
45 minutes ago via web

jennyfromtheblock I sort of love that they got a Canadian mime to pretend to fix the Olympic cauldron. #sortalovemimes
44 minutes ago via web

thesueyside If those white-clad Gidget snowboarders make a maple leaf, I will slit my wrists. In a maple leaf pattern. #fml #readyformyclosingceremony
22 minutes ago via web

mommyjenny @thesueyside Stay alive. The Marriage Ref with Seinfeld and Baldwin is next up. #laughteristhebestmedicine
15 minutes ago via web

jennyfromtheblock OMG. THEY PUT RUSSIANS IN INFLATABLE HAMSTER BALLS WITH CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AND EVERYONE IS KEEPING A STRAIGHT FACE. #killmysenseofirony
14 minutes ago via web

mommyjenny If I can’t get my kid to brush her teeth, I sure as hell can’t get her to the Olympics #parentingsux
12 minutes ago via web

thesueyside The Dan Jansen commercial makes me cry. Joannie Rochette’s hat makes me cry. Shawn White’s coif makes me cry. #wishiwerekidding
11 minutes ago via web

jennyfromtheblock @thesueyside The head of Canada cannot speeekez les Francais. I bet you can say merci beaucoups without pronouncing the p. #blamecanada
9 minutes ago via web

mommyjenny Bob Costas just said “Amen” to Neil Young. No, seriously. He actually said, “Amen,” and I snort-wheezed drool on the dog. #neilyoungwhatiswithyourhat
6 minutes ago via web

dreamyjenn WTF? Why is Doc Baker tooting into a harmonica under gigantic icicles? Where’s Project Runway? #adhdnotjust4kidz
4 minutes ago via web

thesueyside Someone just said AS IT WERE. Show me to the bridge. I want poisoned candy and I will lick and lick until I can lick no more. #arsenicnotSplenda
3 minutes ago via web

jennyfromtheblock Oh, William Shatner. You have never made love in a canoe, and we all know it. P.S. They spelled ‘prairies’ with only one ‘i’ on the big-ass floor postcards. #atleasticanspelleh?
3 minutes ago via web

mommyjenny O, CATH-er-ine O’Hara, I love you, but I hate the writers who gave you this material. Sorry, eh! #noEmmysontheway
2 minutes ago via web

mommyjenny @jennyfromtheblock They photographed PEE IN THE SNOW. Please tell me you saw that too. #urinedoesnotbelongintheclosingceremonyoftheolympics
1 minute ago via web

thesueyside I love Michael J. Fox. #totally
1 minute ago via web

mommyjenny I love Michael J. Fox. #absolutely
1 minute ago via web

jennyfromtheblock I love Michael J. Fox. #alexrulesbutiwoulddojasonbateman
1 minute ago via web

thesueyside But he said back bacon and poutine and now I want to cry again. I am pathetic. Pathetique. #fixme
45 seconds ago via web

jennyfromtheblock @thesueyside Buble Alert! With Mounties! SHUT OFF THE TV and call the Good Samaritans, stat #weloveyouandinflatablemountiesblow
30 seconds ago via web

mommyjenny @thesueyside @jennyfromtheblock THEY DRESSED A CHILD AS A HOCKEY PUCK AND BY GOD I WANT TO SMASH IT, HARD #sowrong
30 seconds ago via web

dreamyjenn Are those inflatable mountie sex dolls or should my mom be adjusting my med trays? #mountthis
25 seconds ago via web

jennyontheblock OH MY FUCK THEY ARE BRINGING IN THE BEAVERS #ohmyfucktheyarebringinginthebeavers
20 seconds ago via web

mommyjenny I think I just saw a mountie blowup doll hump one of the beavers #bleachmybrain
20 seconds ago via web

dreamyjenny @mommyjenny No, no, it was a beaver mounting a canoe. Someone stand on guard for me or I am going to piss myself in my sleep. #withglowingfarts
15 seconds ago via web

jennyontheblock I think the maple leaf nymph with the big titties just touched herself inappropriately #dragqueensfindingwork
10 seconds ago via web

thesueyside @jennyontheblock @mommyjenny @dreamyjenn I feel much better now. Made it to the Marriage Ref and they taxidermied The Fonz #perfectending
5 seconds ago via web

Do all moms hate themselves a little bit
is what she asks me. She has heard me
arguing with my own mother, and I have
said, Yes, I know, my life sucks, thank you

(voices like bones scraping bones clean)

You said a bad word about your life,
is what she says. It is true, I have. One night
later and they are both screaming, wailing,
and I refuse to give in

(stone becomes stonier)

I’m supposed to be watching the Olympics,
my teacher said she’s not giving us too much
homework because I’m supposed to be watching
the Olympics, she says

(stretched and tearing)

Your teacher is your teacher and I am your
mother and you are not watching the Olympics,
not tonight, I say

(heat rises)

You should have done your homework earlier.
You had all day. That was your responsibility.
I know you are in between being a little girl
and a big girl and that is a very hard place to be,
but you still have to do your homework

(pack the soil, hard)

She cries into the bathroom mirror. I am ugly,
she says. What? I say. I am ugly, she repeats,
and I want to shake her and hold her and rock her all at once

(throat like scars on scars)

You are beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and that is
that. You still have to do your homework. Brush
your teeth and do your homework and no Olympics
and you are beautiful, period, forever, amen

(pulling, until rope burns through skin)

Stop being mad, she yells.
I’m not mad, I’m frustrated,
I say. THEY ARE THE SAME THING she insists,
and I say, THEY ARE NOT. Brush your teeth. Then
do your homework and I will come in and rub your back
when you are done

(claws stay in stay in)

The little one wants all, wants now, wants
chocolate croissant, wants water, wants ice
skating and bobsledding and no socks, not
ever, not ever, socks are stinky and so there
are screams, thrashing, gnashing teeth

(blood boils)

No one is happy and everyone is acting half
her age including the dismayed mother who
wants to know when why how here?

(vomit stay down stay down)

Skin is what quiets the night, coaxes the
beasts to settle, lie still. Rough hand on a warm
back. Whimpers subside while my heart pounds,
begs silently, pleads for the not guilty verdict

(throb but do not swear)

The little one sleeps at last while the older
one puts her finished homework into her
backpack and climbs into bed. Her hand
seeks mine and we squeeze. I know you
do it for our own good, I know that is why,
she says, and I hug her and the jury is dismissed

(breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out)

She is a stranger more strange than anyone in the land she is in. She wonders if they sense this, if they will ball their fists and gently offer them to her to sniff before taking their seats.

Christ. She is flummoxed and exasperated already, with herself. She surveys the calm faces of the writers’ group, filing in to Gayle’s oddly sparse, yet oddly cozy living room. A sitting room? A setting room? What room is this? Where is she? Where is she, ever, anymore?

The writers take their seats, smiling with cautious welcome to her. This is Jenny. They do not know her trail, her M.O. They know little of the little she pretends to understand of herself. Perhaps a few know that she is a writer, perhaps not. She does not want them to think she has worn her underwire bra for anything but support. She worries suddenly that her V-neck t-shirt is cut too low. She does not want them to judge her by her flushed cheeks, her too-frequently careening speech patterns. She holds her own reins tight, has promised herself that she will behave, behave.

Still: I write better than I knit, is what she manages, in greeting. And: I left my writer’s card at home. This is followed by a silence that is terrible to her ears, the roar of surf overhead and no air left, face planted in the sand under the sea. Oops! Writer’s card!

It’s a joke, she says quickly, struggling to come up for air once more.

Ah! Of course! All in good fun. They are smiling again, friendly souls — writerly Brits and an Irishman, getting settled now in the navy-blue cushions, shuffling their papers. She is savvy enough to know that her awkwardness has a brief, safe home here. Like Jenny, these writers travel with an eye out for comic fodder, puddles of tragedy, metaphor in progress. Jenny catches one or two of them acknowledging in her a brushstroke of vulnerability, so key in the success of a principle character. It was a joke is four-word proof of the human condition.

She digs her new knitting needles into a ball of wool and tells herself she will keep her head up tonight. Perhaps someday, again, she will be a principle character. For now, though, she is here — well — she doesn’t know why she’s here. She hasn’t known for some time.

Kentish apple cake is served. Coffee, tea, are served. It was a joke slithers down the upholstery and under the sofa, where it will curl up with the boys’ pirate coins and take a nap. Unless it is not a sofa after all, and it is a settee, or a fainting couch, or some other such piece of English furniture. Writers’ group is about to begin.

She finds herself easily confused and full of questions, in this country. But she is no principle character anymore, so she tries to calm herself, not ask more than one out of every two dozen questions that pop like bright balloons in her mind as the writers’ group chats. Gayle grins at her reassuringly from across the room. Gayle still has faith in her, although Jenny has lost faith in herself.

The Irishman, he has lost faith in Anna Karenina, and his commentary is frankly hilarious. Too many “-skys.” All their names end in “-sky”! Ridiculous!

In truth, she has not read Anna Karenina. She does not want to. She is mildly humiliated that she does not want to. These days, Jenny is humiliated by the sound of her own breath. She is humilated by her wide hips, the beginnings of jowls, by what remains of the person she was.

She is humiliated by the lump of chaste white wool and twee teddy-bear-headed knitting needles in her lap, gifted to her earlier in the day by G’s pal Kath. Kath had assured her that she’d learn, with a spot of practice. But perhaps Jenny had not understood. Perhaps Kath’s mild-mannered British accent had confused her once again. Perhaps it was a spot of whiskey that was needed, for her knitting. Yes. Whiskey would help the knitting.

Earlier in the day, Jenny had been afraid to put her stockinged feet down after lunch when Kath mentioned a terrible infestation of encrustaceans. Noticing Jenny’s unnerved expression, Kath was quick to explain that no matter now much English livestock was roaming about the house (a hamster named Freddy; several stick insects, one dangling an egg from its leg), there were merely encrustations of unidentifiable dried messes — not crabs and lobsters scuttling about, preying on the toes of awkward Americans, who still insist upon referring to prawns as shrimp.

Listening to the writers talk, Jenny catches herself sighing, wishing her English and Irish ancestors had simply stayed put. Most Brits are quite able and willing to tell you about their lineage, she thinks. Even the most common commoner seems to have some fabulous tale to tell about vicars and viscounts and Stonehenge orgy participants, plucked directly from their clean, double-hung DNA.

Fewer Americans are able to tell ancestral tales. Even fewer are suave when it comes to expressing their horror at being American ducks on the other side of the Great Pond. The problem, of course, is that everyone sounds so damn smart, in England. What is left for an American to say? Jenny wonders. The apologies alone would take years. So sorry about the tea. So sorry about the tarring and feathering. So sorry we sound so sublimely, bumblingly stupid as we rave like loons about your yogurts.

Two writers have brought new work. They read their own work aloud, in this group. Jenny does not know where to look. At first, she cannot help but try to absorb the writer as he reads, but then she notices that the rest of the group stares politely at the floor, nodding. So Jenny looks away, at her toes, at the fire.

But it wasn’t delightful, Simon’s date with Angela, she finds herself saying. The words want out. He says it was “delightful,” but it wasn’t. Or — if it was — we want to know why. A brushstroke, too, of what he’s missing from his failed marriage to Anna. It’s Anna, right? Something vulnerable about him. An anchor.

Jesus. She sticks her nose quickly into her coffee mug. How dare she? And yet, they accept her easily, consider her points. The writers’ group is tight, quite erudite — she can see — and being heard is pleasant. She wonders what it would be like to have a writers’ group like this, in rural Massachusetts.

Another writer, mistaken once for a tramp himself at Charing Cross and offered tea (can you imagine, Jenny thinks, the fodder there!), reads a surreal piece about the removal of the frontal lobe, the ability to negate perfection and the disastrous obsession with it, for it.

Bleak, the group agrees. Bleak, but beautifully lyrical.

She does not find the piece bleak at all, although she is blinking back tears.

I was envious, Jenny says. Relieved. For him.

Heads swivel. They are listening, kindly. Yes?

She tries to explain. I would give it up too. The relentless memories. Jenny realizes her hands are gesturing lamely of their own accord.

A slight hesitation hangs in the air.

Really, says the author. Really. Well. How about that, then.

This is certainly more than she has planned to say to the writers’ group. It is not her writers’ group, but just like that, they are comrades. Where does she write? What does she write? What direction has her writing taken? they want to know.

She must say something. But how can one say, I want to die, I want to die, I live for two small children, the pain is unbearable, I belong nowhere, I have lost. I have lost. It is all failure now, coming in wave after wave.

She says something. And then, something else. As soon as the words leave her mouth she cannot recall what, exactly, she has said.

What if it could get better? the Irishman asks, his eyes grave and warm. What if it could?

Jenny can feel the tears coming now. She has practiced for two years, three, to keep the tears in. They shame her. She is a beggar of life, now. No longer a star. Her time came and she squandered it, somehow, by simply trying to live.

I want to believe, she tells him, tells the writers’ group. But, honestly? I don’t believe it. Not today. I cannot see this ending well. I would remove the frontal lobe, I would. Remember nothing of how this came to pass. I don’t need to know. Not anymore.

This is writers’ group, and no one has told Jenny that what happens in writers’ group, must stay in writers’ group. She is off-balance, the silver bullet still wedged in her heart heating up, as it does when on the spot. The pain is searing. They can see it. There is nowhere to hide.

I will never see them again, she thinks. Never.

Angela, she says to Chris. I could write Angela. You wrote her off. You wrote her off too quickly. She would have so much to say. You don’t know.

Yes, he says, to the strange American woman with the wide smile, the bright demeanor, who is dying. Yes. He laughs, because even the dying need laughs.

She is more impressed than ever with this country. She wishes to call it home, but nowhere feels like home. Her children, her beautiful, confounding, dazzling daughters, they are home. But at some point, this will become burden to them. Her writing has been laced with arsenic. It is not what he wishes, what they all wish. But it is what she has left, for now. A blog. A history. Friends she has yet to meet, in person.

She bears witness, awkwardly. If she dies tomorrow, she will have left behind words for them that prove only that she was paying attention, that her fight was fought in words, that she cannot pretend the pain that slices her open again and again is not real. She will not pretend.

More cake? Coffee? She earns her keep, the visiting friend. She will be a serving wench. She has not meant to spill, but she is messy that way, terribly so.

And yet, no one is faulting her. Not here, at least. She is safe, again, if for a night.

What if? What if? the writers’ group asks. A good writer always asks, What if?

What if? she echoes, hollowly. There is so little left of her, although she can leave them laughing when they go. The curse, the blessing, the in-between.

The writers’ group. To belong. This, she thinks, is what is missing now. She would like to belong.

They head on their way to their versions of home. One, expecting a baby any day. Another, moving to a town that sounds so pristine, so utterly perfect that Jenny wishes for lightning death, or a new nationality. The others, all with homes that await them, with loves that await them. Two, three years of failure and loss and humiliating herself — Jenny knows it is time to be done with this, but her frontal lobe won’t let go. Brainfruit, strawberries gone mushy and mild, the reality that 99.9% of us, as the Irishman pointed out, will never reach our dreams, our goals.

She weeps after they leaves, and hates herself for it. How long can this healing possibly take? Will she be anything? Will there someday be someone waiting at home for her again?

For now, the stranger in a strange land gathers empty coffee cups, cake crumbs, folded paper napkins. Tonight, there are no answers, as there have not been for months and years. But it does her heart good to know that a writers’ group meets weekly, to sketch in the blurry lives of the weariest, of the drifters, of all who search for home.

I am going to England. The trip is a gift of amazing generosity from my beloved soul-sista Gayle and her husband.

They have two amazing little boys. The firstborn, a delicious, brilliant blond moppet, is Ziggy. Officially a David in a long, long line of Davids (in proper British style), Ziggy makes me almost forget the cartoon Ziggy when I am around him—but not quite.

Because there is a quiet wisdom to this kid. I like Ziggy a whole lot. I like his younger brother Sam too, but Sam’s less likely to yell “knickers” when I ask him to, and more likely to stare at me like, “Who the devil is Aunt Jenny?”

****

When my parents divorced after 26 loooong years of marriage, they made the necessary phone calls to me and my brother. I was at graduate school in Westchester County, NY—living in a crap apartment, alone. I remember getting The Call from my dad, and listening politely as he went through his version of the events.

I just listened. I may have eaten some chips.

After a while, my father noticed I was not reacting as he’d expected me to react. He said something along the lines of, “Are you okay? You don’t sound very surprised.”

This part, I really remember.

I said, “I feel like a little cartoon Ziggy. I want to run to the top of a little cartoon Ziggy mountain, throw my arms out wide, stick my Ziggy nose way up in the air, and yell, I WAS RIIIIIIIIIIGHTT!”

He was quick to get off the phone. I’d offended him. Or confused him.

I didn’t want to be right. That wasn’t it.

Later, I told my mother the same thing, as she seemed frustrated by my lack of emotion, except maybe relief that they’d finally be apart. I tried to explain I was having visions of Ziggy on a mountaintop, finally validated for what he’d witnessed all along.

She got off the phone pretty quickly, too. I am sure I was zero help, to either of my parents, that first month they split. I feel bad about that.

I’d always felt like the Cassandra of the family—guys, something is very wrong here, it doesn’t have to be this way.

They did the best they could, don’t get me wrong. We all did.

But it was crazy-making for me. It was an intolerable situation for them, as I saw it. I wanted them to be happy.

So I spent years and years of thinking, Wait, am I crazy? Is this really what marriage is supposed to look like?

So when I met D, I was stunned to find that my Ziggy self wanted to run to the top of that same cartoon mountaintop and yell, THIS IS WHAT I WANT! THIS IS RIIIIIIIIIGHT!

My gut served me well for a long time, until it didn’t. It still feels wrong, very wrong. My inner Ziggy is back on the mountaintop, yelling, NO NO NO NO! LISTEN! JUST LISTEN TO ME PLEASE.

So tomorrow I will get on a plane to London and I will ask many questions of the world at large, in a humble Ziggy way. I want to ask people how they knew they were in love, how they knew it was over, and if one’s heart ever truly heals from the biggest loss.

I fear my heart will never be the same again. That is my greatest fear, that it is broken beyond repair, that I will never use it at full capacity again. And I don’t know whom to tell, what to tell, which mountain to climb. And yet, I do move on. I go through the motions. I have moments of delight that surprise me.

But I am not the same. That open-hearted girl is out of reach. And I continue to mourn her, and wonder who will take her place.

So in my continuing quest to upgrade the slime trail of my career to a slightly more 3D installation—maybe a lumpy sludge trail—I joined LinkedIn, the Facebook for “professionals.”

As a longtime freelance writer who’s taken on more random assignments than a windshield takes on bug species, let me just be clear: it ain’t no easy feat to list what you’ve done as a freelancer and make yourself sound remotely stable or solid, no matter how talented you are. Because you wind up filling in the “How long did you work at this position?” boxes by going, Er, let’s see, that article took me a month to write, so, January 2004 to February 2004? And that next one, that was a two-week gig, so….

Which, of course, is exactly what employers are dying to see. “Here’s our shining star! Look at the way she lurched from gig to gig like a one-legged drunk on a pub crawl!”

Doesn’t matter how much work you do, how many hours you spend interviewing subjects, how many days you spend editing and tweaking and crafting—it’s just a harder road, if you’re not working for one place.

So I thought it was a plenty smart, totally kosher move on my part to ask the editor-in-chief of a Big Magazine in Our Little Pond for an endorsement. I thought this was Proactive and Career-Savvy. I’d never bothered him for a recommendation before. But I delivered four feature articles for the magazine, and they wuz gooooood, my peeps!

In other words: At no point did I scrawl REDRUM in my own feces on a wall of the Big Magazine in Our Little Pond’s office and sing, “Sign, Sealed, Delivered” buck-naked with a daisy tucked behind one ear.

So I wasn’t exactly prepared for Mr. Editor-in-Chief’s response today, which was:

Dear Jenn:

Sincerely,
Mr. Editor-in-Chief
Big Magazine in Our Little Pond

Really?

On LinkedIn, an endorsement can be one sentence. I was not asking for a letter of reference. I was not asking him to wait by the phone to recommend me to any potential employer. I was simply asking, straight-out and old school, for ONE or TWO sentences that would acknowledge the fact that I had, in fact, worked for Big Magazine in Our Little Pond several times, and that they had, in fact, published my articles.

I’m sorry, I won’t be able to do this.

Wait, no, seriously? Won’t? Then why not say why not?

Or can’t? That busy? His Facebook update at the time read, “Oh no, I just got Google Buzz. This could well be the beginning of the beginning of the end of the beginning.” I guess dude is busy.

I just wanted one crummy sentence of recommendation. He’s a writer himself. That’s the part that knocks me out. Because presumably, he actually knows how hard it is out there.

I have four sentences: Buddy, I spoke up for YOU. I talked up your magazine, whenever possible. I praised it, and the people there. I interviewed my subjects on behalf of your mag with intelligence and professionalism and moxie.

Just. Not. Cool.

*****

I wrote back after the initial intense wave of shame and nausea subsided (they hate me he hates me when did they all begin hating me? did he hear about Mousegate? when did I suck and why do I suck and why did they not tell me?).

I simply wrote:

Is there a reason?

A few hours later, and nope, he’s not offering a reason. Google Buzz has him by the gullet, possibly.

Now, I’m a reasonable sort. Sure, I’d like to think it’s because he’s got cancer and several days to live, and he’s got other things to do, like making peace with all of the other writers who once sought him out for a kind word. Or I’d like to think that his limbs have shriveled up from typing his new book too close to his microwave, and that he can only peck out a few words at a time now with his nose—which leaves him, of course, exhausted and drooling into his anti-radiation poisoning pills and vodka.

I could accept that information.

I would have been okay if he’d simply ignored the request.

But actually taking the time to say no, with no other information provided—that leaves me feeling pretty lousy, pretty sure that a gym membership and pole dancing classes are not a bad way to go. That freelance writing is just not my gig.

Unfortunately, it’s the cat that keeps coming back. And I keep taking it in. Because it’s my only marketable talent, unless you count eyeliner application and Haz-Mat-level dog poo cleanup and an MFA in Acting and Playwriting. Oh. Wait. Scratch the last bit. I said marketable, as in marketable in 2010, as in haven’t seen anyone tossing Elizabethan coins to burlap-sack-garbed thespians in some time.

So maybe I’m down to just the eyeliner and dog poop, and I don’t know it yet.

*****

When my life started to go down the crapper a few years’ back, and the shampoo bottles began singing those arias, I did turn down freelance work from the magazine. And now I’m wondering if that’s the reason there’s no endorsement. She’s wack, yo!

(I’m also wondering if I forgot to wear deodorant the day I went to a magazine mixer, and that’s the reason.)

As far as I knew, I was still on good terms with the editor-in-chief. He accepted my LinkedIn invite. I didn’t take Logic 101 at Grinnell, but seems to me you don’t link with someone on LinkedIn if you don’t like what they do. Uhh?

Or is that just my lacy naivete peeping out? Caught you looking.

No, seriously, am I missing some LinkedIn etiquette? Was there an FAQ I missed? I was all up for trading good recommendations with colleagues. I thought that was what people do there. Am I a LinkedOut doofus?

I recognize that some might consider it (further) career suicide to even bring up this minor development, in Our Little Pond. But living where I live has turned out for me to be effing career suicide anyway. I wasn’t going to tell you guys about this, but it makes me miss the days I worked full-time for Big Butt Magazine in NYC. They appreciated my assets.

At the time, I didn’t realize that I was living the dream, and that’s my bad. So what if my best friend from high school and I used masking tape in our studio apartment to delineate imaginary walls? It was a nice regular paycheck in a city that shows up on TV all the time. That kind of rocked.

I’m going to try to find my old boss on LinkedIn RIGHT NOW and see if I can get her endorsement. Well, first she’d have to be willing to admit she’s heard of Big Butt Magazine. But, oh, if she did, she of her four-inch-long glossy orange fingernails! Suddenly I am feeling downright nostalgic.

Big Butt probably get me further, careerwise, anyway. It occurs to me only now: Who wants to hear about Our Little Pond, when they can hear about Mendi Teats (loved her, honestly, the sweetest gal, she brought me Hershey’s Kisses) and her fabulous rear (it really was) and what all the boys at the state pen want to do to it (not real creative, those fellers, but yes, some of the letters are real)?

Live and learn. When I get my book published and Oprah asks where I honed my writing chops, Big Butt Magazine will get the nod, not your mag, Editor-in-Chief of Big Magazine in Our Little Frickin’ Pond. Big Butt, you and I understood each other. And you’ll get my exclusive photos, too, when I get famous and pretend to go all “unaware” on my equally big-assed yacht. Providing you’ve got a good airbrusher on hand.

Yeah. And I want to say thank you, too. To the good folks out there. Thank you HUGELY (like, BIG BUTTEDLY) to my colleagues that I respect and adore who have endorsed the blog over at LinkedIn. I really, really appreciate it. You’re classy.

Not assy.

I remember having it pretty bad for Almanzo, but Charles Is Currently in Charge. Ooh, Pa, put down that rabid raccoon and git your fine suspendered self over here.

Sex me up, Pa Ingalls: my new post at Work It, Mom! Single Mom at Work.

File under “ULO”: Unexplainable Lust Objects.