Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!

by Sandra Tsing Loh

  “I will SO send Hannah to chapel,” I whisper to Brenda. “She LOVES Bible stories.”

  “Hrmph?” Brenda replies. She is gazing longingly out the window, at trees, I think, at a small remote copse of trees. Smoking trees.

  “We used to send Hannah to Lutheran Sunday school up north, where my brother lives.” (As with the Cal playdate, my attitude about Lutheran Sunday school was: “So you want to take my daughter for three hours for free? Gee—what’s the downside?”) “Man! There were songs, coloring books, finger puppets, cut-up bologna sandwiches, carrots, punch…The Lutherans ROCK at Sunday school!” I make a tight fist at the word ROCK.

  “Yes, they do,” Brenda manages, continuing to stare at the trees, in a glaze. But I sense she must, in some way, be enjoying my little ode to Lutherans. I press on:

  “One time Hannah got invited to a picnic of UNITARIANS and…I don’t know. There was too much drumming, they were disorganized, the field was cold and, let’s face it, the children were hungry!”

  Crossing back into the hallway, I see, on the wall, a poster for an impending biopic, Luther, starring…Joseph Fiennes! A Fiennes brother, no less! Up and coming, are these Lutherans!

  So up and coming that, back in the front office, when I write out our application check, I notice the annual tuition for kindergarten has gone up. The original $4,500 has been crossed out. Next to it, in black pen, neat teacherly handwriting now indicates a fee of $5,200—

  But the second child gets 10 percent off. And Lutherans, too, have got to eat! And someone has to pay for that pleasing sea of rubber.

  I do the math in my head, and I figure it’s still manageable for our family. In one stroke, two kids, Blue Ribbon school, K through 12, I already have the route highlighted, in yellow…AND the excellent parking spot…

  We are done!

  We go out to lunch at a restaurant that is as enigmatic as Brenda.

  It is called RANDI’S!!!! It’s on Moorpark. It’s not quite American, not quite Mexican (although it does have a “Mexican omelet”). While it’s not really a bar, little placards on the tables welcome you—hey, no judgments!—to have a glass of Chablis or rosé, or even a carafe, with lunch.

  It is no genre at all. It is theme-free. It is RANDI’S!!!!

  We sit in white, ornate, quasi–New Orleans–style steel chairs on the patio.

  “Welcome, ladies! What can I do you for?” says our waitress jauntily. She is also chewing gum, as Brenda and I now busily chew gum.

  And looking up into the weirdly tanned Wizard of Oz apple-tree face of our friendly waitress—Suddenly it occurs to me, maybe it’s a smoker’s restaurant! Maybe that’s the genre—smokers! Biggest smoker of them all—RANDI!!!!

  “Get the tuna melt,” commands Brenda. “Small tomato salad, blue cheese, dressing on the side.”

  Not on my wildest day would I think of ordering a tuna melt, but after the hazelnut incident, I do it. I obey.

  “I’ll be back,” Brenda announces, abruptly rising.

  My phone chirps. It’s Mike.

  “How’s your lunch date going?” he asks. “Having some laughs? Womanly laughs?”

  “Sure,” I say, uncertainly. “It’s fun.” I am burning to tell him that I’ve gone ahead and enrolled Hannah in a fantastic kindergarten—that in one blow I’ve solved our L.A. school problem (complete with secret knowledge of how to park)—but…In marriages…When the mother is manually overriding the father…All information has a season.

  “Hope you’re letting your hair down,” he says. “Enjoy yourself.”

  All right! He’s right. When I hang up, I decide I should treat myself to something special and at least personally celebrate, so when Friendly Apple Tree returns with two ice waters, I…well, I order a glass of Chablis! When it comes, I take a sip and instantly realize this is a mistake. As the Chablis enters my system, I almost cave over with the rank, even dank (can a white wine actually be “dank”?) Boone’s Farm sweetness of it.

  Brenda returns, sees me recoiling from my white wine.

  “Oh!” she says. “Well.”

  “It’s a bit sweet,” I say.

  “Yah!” she replies, like it’s obvious. “THAT I would not order here.”

  And I realize that while I am IN Brenda’s world, I can’t stray even a foot off her yellow-highlit path.

  “We put my older son, Daniel, into Luther Hall two years ago and he just loves it,” Brenda says, newly invigorated by her short but clearly refreshing break from humanity. “And earlier this year, I got involved in the booster club. We threw a carnival last year and it was SO much fun. Through a special deal with my husband’s company, we got one of those really giant Knott’s Moonbounces—you know them? Those really big Moonbounces?”

  “You mean the really—?”

  I don’t actually know what a Moonbounce is. Is it the same as a bounce house? To make things simple, I simply borrow Aimee’s “hopelessly big as L.A. Unified” gesture again.

  “THOSE Moonbounces?” I say, arms wide apart.

  “Yes!” Brenda exclaims, making a pointing “You got it!” gesture at me, although her point is not a one-fingered one but a telltale two-fingered one.

  “Hopefully, this year we can drum up more publicity. What with the Blue Ribbon Award, this is really going to be a big year! I’m on the PR committee—”

  “PR,” I proffer. “Well! Maybe I can help with that!”

  “Yeah?” Brenda’s voice sails up, interested.

  “I don’t know if you know, but I work at a radio station. I do weekly commentaries. Literary, sort of slice-of-life commentaries.”

  Brenda is enthused. “A radio station? Really? Which one?”

  “KCRW,” I answer, trying to sound casual, like it’s nothing. For many in Los Angeles, KCRW is only the hippest radio station on the entire planet.

  Still smiling, Brenda says, “I’m afraid I…don’t know it. Oh, wait a minute—is it like a rock-and-roll station? Classic oldies? 93.1! I love KCRU!”

  “No, it’s…public radio. You know, NPR. Public radio.”

  Brenda shakes her head.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  I can’t help feeling a tad…deflated.

  Not knowing further what to say, I take a bite into my tuna melt…and…

  Oh my God! It is so warm and toasty and good, I literally want to drop to the floor, rend my clothes, and scream. It is an amazingly good tuna melt.

  Driving home up Burbank, then borrowing Brenda’s tip and doing her weird little Fulton thing, which IS much nicer than my usual route, what with all its lovely picket-fenced farmhouse-like homes, why have I never noticed this—?

  Well! I think. It’s all right.

  It’s another of the curses of my forty-second year. A Law of the Universe. Kids and mothers never match. If your child and another child adore each other, you and the mother will have little in common. But when you and the mother are instant best friends, when you fall into each other’s arms like long-lost sisters, as though she’s the best friend you lost…

  Perfect example: Leah at Gymboree. When I first saw Leah in the hallway, a too-bright jumble of parachutes and onesies and stuffed-animal toys, Leah was laughing. She had a chime in her laugh like one of my girlfriends of yore.

  This was a stunning contrast to the continual gray drizzle of Mothers of Small Children—their furrowed-brow looks, biting their lips as they strained to duck under strollers to pull out wipes, blankets, diapers, hats…No. Light on her heels, Leah was wearing a batik skirt, she had long brown hair, hoop earrings, and she was laughing.

  Leah was a painter who was instantly wry and funny about our eerily corporate, relentlessly commercial Gymboree surroundings.

  “Look at this!” she confided as we stood yet again at the flapping Sisyphean tent that was the parachute. “I could sew something better from scarves out of my own drawer!”

  Later on we stood together in the parking lot…When I think back, I realize this is where some of my bes
t conversations with mothers have occurred. It is the sheer transitoriness of the parking lot, the traffic blatting by, the fact that either mom may be spirited off in a second, via a gust of wind, the shriek of a child, the scree of a cell phone, or a sudden move across the country, a decision made in thirty seconds—It makes you want to open your heart immediately…because you may never see each other again. Leah confesses she just comes to Gymboree to get out of the house since, living up in Topanga, she has no mother network. She is surprised to find herself with two children so relatively late in life, everything has seemed so unplanned. She invites me for dinner in Topanga. Mike is so delighted at the prospect of my making a new “friend,” he hugs the girls and waves me off.

  I find myself driving up to Leah’s home in Topanga with that breathless first-date anticipation—that shy junior-high gawkiness…Will this mom be my new friend?

  I just love Leah’s house! It’s humble but charming, with skylights, winding decks, and Tibetan prayer flags. Leah’s rustic bungalow is small, just three rooms really, but wonderfully livable, what with the ingenious system of loft beds and cozily built-in window seats custom-built by her husband, Finn, a sculptor/carpenter. Leah’s is a perfect dollhouse, a cheery boat abob in life’s ocean. There’s a red velvet love seat and Leah’s paintings hung everywhere, a torrent of horses, nudes, dragonflies, giant sunflowers, wild, arcing splashes of color.

  “Welcome!” Leah exclaims, handing me a glass of (not dank but refreshing) Chardonnay, and leaning down, she puts on a record—“Yes, a record,” she cries out, “we still have these!”—of, yes…

  Joni Mitchell’s Blue.

  When I hear the familiar, gentle, slapping dulcimer opening, and then I hear Ms. Joni herself half laughing, half crying the long-forgotten words: “I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, traveling, traveling…” I am once again on that lonely road…that lonely road which, at twenty-four, I used to walk on, in my mind, so many times. But it was never a lonely road, it was a happy one. Blue was the road of my youth—above, the sky was a celestial blue bowl of endless potential. This was a time when I thought making Art would be life’s greatest gift, my cosmic solution, as opposed to the Thing, in my thirties, it became.

  In the gathering aromatic Topanga night, Leah shows me her marvelous forest world—her painting studio, her sketching deck, her Mother Garden.

  “For when I need a break from the children. Here…” She bends down, pulls off a strip of plant, gives it to me.

  “That’s my crazy lavender. I call it that. Crazy lavender! I break it into my bath!”

  “It smells incredible!”

  “To Mothers Without Borders,” Leah declares as we clink our wineglasses.

  As she sets colorful hand-painted dinner plates out on the table (an antique chest) on the deck, Leah reveals that she, of course, loves KCRW, she seems to remember half my commentaries, half my whole life, she has read two books of mine, she even saw an old solo show I did—

  “But then what happened to you?” she says. “After that you seemed to drop off the map!”

  “Well, in a nutshell, I guess you could say I started my career planning to be the next Amy Tan…unaware that decades later there would still be an Amy Tan,” is what I lamely say. Which is part of the truth.

  Leah grasps my wrist, urgent.

  “NEVER stop creating. Never stop writing. No…matter…what. We women artists are fierce, fierce, and we have to be fierce! And you know who are fuckers? Men! The men are fuckers! Men!”

  Although I am not ready to leave the small, safe hammock of public radio obscurity I’ve carved out in the middle of my life, hiding out in the leafy enclosed hamlet of Motherland, it does my heart good to hear her voice her “Rock on!” support.

  In short, Leah and myself…We are a match made in heaven!

  At which point I feel an odd sort of…stinging sensation in my right ankle. And I look down in the gathering aromatic darkness to see…Well, it appears to be Leah’s six-year-old son, Coltrane, curled around my leg. He is—FUCK! Biting my ankle! He is literally BITING MY ANKLE!

  “Shi—!” I squat down to extract him. “Jesu—”

  I hold the wriggling boy at bay, jaws first, like a rattler. “It’s nothing,” I find myself babbling, “I’m sure Cole didn’t mean to…”

  And to my greater surprise…Leah doesn’t leap up in alarm! She just gently coos, holding out her arms: “Come on, baby. Mama doesn’t want you to do that.”

  Cole utters a strange gibbering howl and flies to Leah, who sinks down in a rocking chair, and cradles him, dreamy-voiced.

  “Boys—in particular indigo children, like Cole is? They have such a hard path in this world. Such a hard path. This teacher Cole had, at his other school? She would just snap at him, snap!” Leah makes a little snapping gesture with her forefinger and thumb. “Snap! That teacher! Mrs. Arnold.” Her voice slides into high-pitched mocking. “She was all ‘Sit in your chair, Cole! Sit in your chair.’ Or ‘It’s a pencil, Cole. It’s called a pencil.’ Or ‘Now it’s lunchtime. Now we eat lunch.’ Fuck it!” she exclaims angrily, now veering into a more widely free-ranging monologue about how society willfully oppresses boys and will stop at nothing to punish and put down their questing human spirits. I’ve never seen anyone become so viciously rageful on white wine. It is truly an eye-opener.

  On cue, Leah’s two-year-old, Nita, begins shrieking, shrieking, shrieking, like a coyote in the glen…

  And now, materializing behind me in the dark, is Leah’s husband, Finn. He was clearly once a ruggedly handsome man but now is somewhat grizzled, and has an unsettling thousand-yard Vietnam stare. Finn stands so close behind me, light and cat-like, I can feel his breath on my neck. And hey—I know I’m one to talk with my kale farts, but I must say that Finn is exuding this kind of weird Moroccan rotting tobacco/henna/bargain-persimmon smell. What can I say? Parents—we just smell worse than other people.

  Without asking, Finn starts giving me what I can only describe as an inappropriately slow shoulder rub.

  “I lo-o-ove the music on KCRW,” he breathes. “Nocturna is my favorite show. You wanna smoke something?”

  I have to fight the urge to turn to them all and say, “Oh, I know who YOU are. You’re the Crazy Family! It’s not just your lavender that’s crazy…”

  And now, as though sent straight from central casting, drifting down the stone stairs, comes the fat sixty-something seminude Topanga neighbor, crooning Van Morrison, flip-flops slapping. He is wearing only a falling-open Japanese gee. No! What will I be asked to do next? Oil his belly? Is it a marvelous night for a moon dance? I think not!

  Compare to little Cal, star of the first playdate I have ever thrown.

  I can see why Hannah is in love with him.

  Cal is the dream four-year-old. He’s like a little Sun. Blond, blueeyed, a perfectly formed little human. Like Hannah, when he sees me, he bolts to me, his arms fling around me. Why? I guess simply…because I’m related to Hannah.

  Cal thinks our small, incredibly messy house is a wonderland. All Mike’s guitars everywhere! And my cluttered back office, and computer!

  “What is it all FOR?” Cal wonders.

  “Well!” Mike says. “I play music.”

  “And I teach,” I say. “And write!”

  Cal’s eyes open in amazement. “That’s why Hannah is so smart! When we play Candyland and checkers, she always wins. Don’t you, Hannah?” He turns to her, batting big blue eyes.

  “Eh…” she says, though you can tell she is deeply pleased.

  “Hannah is just so smart! Her big brain works so fast! It’s like…” Here Cal does a little tap dance of surprise and delight. “Wow!”

  I put out twin plates of all I actually have in my pantry…toast with peanut butter and honey.

  Cal leans cautiously forward, takes a tentative bite. Oh!

  “This is so…good!” he enthuses, as though I, too, were some sort of genius.

  “Would you like another?” I ask
. This is amazing. Many kids at the preschool respond to even a plain bowl of noodles with a piercing scream: “Euwwww!!!!!! I’m going to BARF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” And then suddenly Hannah, too, is barfing.

  But this guy, no, Cal’s mind is open. Indeed, I think I can expand his world even further. My voice drops a half-octave: “Cal honey, would you like to try, on the peanut-butter-and-honey toast…raisins?”

  When he takes a bite, his small body slumps backward with exhaustion and even a kind of gusty relief, it is so good. “Wow!” he says.

  I’m literally out of kid food, so unused am I to actually line-producing a playdate. Rummaging through the fridge, I locate an expired strawberry Danimal—at least two months past its expiration date. I toss it to Cal. He inhales it as though it were truffles. “So good!” He hasn’t changed color. Seems none the worse for the wear. What the heck. I toss him the remaining expired Danimal. This is fantastic—Cal is actually helping me empty out the fridge!

  Strengthened and invigorated by his expired, processed, artificially colored food, Cal now suggests to Hannah how fun it would be if they…make all the beds in the house! Now he suggests a game of putting all the toys away! Next I hear the whine of the DustBuster. Cal is DustBusting…!

  It occurs to me that Cal may in fact be a small gay child…which may be why he and Hannah are so in love. Their palace all neatened up and ready to receive them, now Cal and Hannah step into matching tutus, carefully slip each other’s feet into high-heeled princess slippers, lifting and draping each other with boas.

  Well! It’s the NEW Luther Hall! Their lapis lazuli Cinderella outfits will coordinate just fetchingly with the Blue Ribbons.

  Speaking of which…

  “Lemonade?” I say, offering my husband an icy glass. He is in the backyard assembling his brand-new fish smoker (which he probably read about in Popular Mechanics). I follow his gaze to the children. I have cannily set up, also in the backyard, twin water tables where the children now bathe a frothing snarl of My Little Ponies. In matching red aprons, Cal, Hannah, and now The Squid look adorable together.