Maternal Magnetism

  

7.3.11

     We weren't ideal together in this world. When you lined us up, more often than not we repelled, my mother and me, like certain magnets, the highly-charged space between us impossible to bridge. Only later in her life did my mother loosen her grip on my free-spirited world enough to see me in the context of who I'd become.
     Whatever rebellions I'd led against her in my youth, whatever assaults on her maternal authority, were forgotten by her in those last years.
     In the end I was a perfect daughter, she would say. And I gratefully accepted the gift of her selective memory, relaxing my own notion of her judgemental world, once and for all.
     She was a lefty. Her handwriting sloped downwards and her penmanship was decipherable, at best. When the dog chewed up the Valentine she'd sent that year, I didn't know it would be the last. But something in me gathered up the tooth-punched pieces for safe keeping. Once in a while on a slow morning I'd pull the scraps from the plastic bag and strain to read the looping script. Her message was hopelessly lost to me, but it was always just enough to bring me to tears, the thought that my mother's hands would never again write me a love note, Valentine's Day or not.
     Anna Mary Allen was born on July 3, 1918, the daughter of Victorian parents, eldest of two. She was not like the other girls -- she moved far from home for an Ivy League education at University of Pennsylvania, mastering psychology and social work. As an aside, her brilliance led her to fluency in French and German, mainly because it enhanced her love of classical music. She knew Mozart's works by heart, and recited their Köchel chronology by ear. "Accchhh," Mom would say, uttering the sound of appreciation beyond words in any language. "That's Mozart's piano sonata K330 in C Major. First movement," as a flurry of notes spilled from the hi-fi, always tuned to WFLN, Philly's classical music station.
     Her compulsions were expansive, beyond vinyl recordings of every great composer known to man loosely arranged and overflowing into a compulsive collection of storage cabinets. She also chain-smoked into the early 1970s, and collected small colored-glass vases, for rose buds, and bone china teacups, for afternoon tea. She subscribed to so many monthly magazines that the stacks were piled two-publications wide by 2-feet deep for all the 19 years we lived together. She read promiscuously and voraciously -- D.H.Lawrence to Billy Graham.  She later discovered she could listen to religious cassette tapes while she read, sponging up every kernel of knowledge available. 
     For all the flaws I've ever ascribed to my mother, I don't know if I ever fully understood or appreciated just how boundless her capacity for knowledge was, even now.
     I was more preoccupied with the idiosyncrasies of her intelligence and how she relied on regimentation to survive, just as she came to be tethered to an oxygen tank in the end. She had a specific way of watering her African violets, of hanging laundry to dry in the bathroom, of leaving herself copious, cryptic notes detailing everything from grocery items to affirmations from Jesus. She dusted around objects and vacuumed a solitary path through the living room. She drove to the supermarket, daily, in her old '55 Chevy to answer God's calling to find those in need of prayer, who would turn up in the cereal aisle, finding what they really needed -- a dose of my mother's spirit-filled, prayer-inspired social services.
     When my mother gave up the writings of Edgar Cayce for the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I was relieved. At 14, my mother was so distracted by her new-found gifts of the spirit that I could finally breath the sweet air of freedom that had eluded me, under my mother's controlled atmosphere.
     So if I spun a little out of control, maybe it was because my maternal string had been so tightly wound. 
     I hate to think I had screwed things up for myself.
     Still, when I had to tell my mother that, at 16, I was going to make her a grandmother, I did not expect her inner social worker to wrap me up in a protective blanket of understanding, but she did.
     Looking back now, it was the best gift I could have given her at 58 -- I had apparently done enough to single-handedly wear down her sharp edges so that, when my first born arrived, my daughter could be received, completely and unconditionally, by her grandmother's open arms.
     And that is when the secret of motherhood magnetism began to reveal itself to me. It is an organic, unflinching force beyond our ability to control it, obvious to me as I saw my mother latch onto her granddaughter with the subatomic urgency that had escaped us. I began to realize that it wasn't her, or me. Our mutual complexities interfered with the natural pull I thought she lacked. But reflecting on it all, here and now, I know my direction in life was set by the precarious pivot on which we intersected. 
     Like a compass needle, her magnetism pointed me exactly in the direction I needed to go, whether we ever really knew it or not. Just as the invisible moon pulls at the ocean, even through a sky of clouds, my mother continues to move me. She did not fail me. I did not fail her. We were the best we could be together, and in that way, we are ideal; the space between us no longer impossible to bridge.

Three-minute Fiction

Hovering is for the Birds*
A short story
By Carol Robidoux

Ramona+ hovered daily over the nest hidden in the rhododendrons. In her heart it was no coincidence that the sky-blue eggs arrived on Mother's Day. Robins nested there before, next to the gladiola stalks and papery daffodil rot. Two days later three of the four eggs hatched, and she started snapping photographs.

She did a cursory search for the fourth egg but never found it.

Every time Ramona curled back the sturdy green leaves and burgeoning fuscia buds to snap a one-handed portrait of the feathering chicks, the mother bird's frantic screams echoed from a telephone wire as she hopped from ground to perch and back.

“It's OK,” Ramona told the puffed-up bird. “I won't hurt your babies.”

Ramona Googled “robins” and found that her adoptive brood would fledge in 14 days. Incredible, she thought. From invisible life form encased in porcelain shell to fully feathered red-breasted predator of worms in two short weeks.

Daily photographs were posted online. Ramona's social network liked the photos, and thanked her for sharing. Someone commented on the construction of the nest – perfectly formed cradle of sticks, leaves and bird fluff.

Such brushes with nature always stirred Ramona's humanity. Her thoughts spiraled deep into the substance of life, how every little facet of every little ecosystem is equipped to handle itself. Birds somehow know what to do to keep their species going. Without a network of friends and family or an information highway, they figure out nesting and hatching and feeding and protecting.

By day seven the babies were ruffled, their diamond-shaped beaks stuck in overdrive, expecting worms instead of zoom lens hum whenever Ramona visited.

Still at an impasse with mother bird, Ramona tried sitting on the porch steps, hoping mama robin would trust enough to nest while she was present. It never happened.

“I wonder why she doesn't do more to protect them if I'm such a threat?” Ramona thought, switching mental gears long enough to consider her own human brood of four.

In a few more years, her youngest would be off to college. Ramona figured bird years to be condensed dog years. In two weeks the robin was accomplishing what Ramona had spent more than two decades doing.

“You're obsessed with those birds,” her oldest son said in passing one day. Fully grown, he was between adventures, staying on for only a few more weeks before flying to Tokyo to take a teaching job.

“I'm not obsessed,” Ramona said, defending her right to be fascinated by a nest full of birds. “It's just that I know they're only here for a short time, then I can't hover anymore.”

Obsessed.

Her objection to the word her son had used to describe her maternal instinct didn't override the fact that he was right. Whether measured in bird years, dog years, or humanity, the part of motherhood that requires vigilance ends almost before it begins. After training yourself to nest, hatch, nourish and nurture, all the while deflecting danger, eventually they fly.
Day 11 her younger teenaged son arrived home from school. “Your birds are gone, huh?”

Ramona rushed to the rhododendrons. One forgotten, perfect blue egg inside a masterful cradle. On her knees she probed the weeds for signs of life.

They should have been there, testing their wings.

As she turned back toward the house, she heard an unnatural shriek, overshadowed by a shrill caw, caw, caw. Ramona's heart raced. In the time it took to turn around, her eye glimpsed a crow in flight, a limp bundle of blue-gray feathers in its talons.

She searched the wires for mother bird.

Ramona gasped in vain, knowing that her vigilance had served the crow well.

+ ramona: spanish in origin, means "Wise Protector"
*Inspired by the birds in my rhododendron bush.  Fiction prompted by NPR's "3-minute Fiction" spot.  Many will enter, few will win...

The Shape of a Mother's Heart

Today is Aimée's birthday. I gave her some gift cards and a little crystal elephant necklace last week when she came up to New Hampshire for a visit. Sounds lame, but after 37 years, picking the right gift is still as hard as finding the right words to express what she means to me.

Nothing seems to measure up.

Fortunately, the universe sent me inspiration.

….

Pregnant at 16 is not where I ever expected to be, but there I was, eating for two; my future – our future – unsettled. I imagined that there was no way for me to be a competent mother. I had barely made it through Algebra 2. Things between me and my boyfriend had ended before I knew there was a baby coming, and there was no looking back. Without much family discussion, it was understood that the best thing for my baby was not necessarily me – not at 16.

By June, someone pointed me in the direction of an adoption agency, the Children's Home Society of New Jersey. I agreed to go to counseling sessions, to fill out the preliminary paperwork – at around the same time the boy who had planned to be my husband professed his eternal love for me and for my baby.

I told him he shouldn't give up his freedom for the burden of a girlfriend with a baby.

He still never listens.

It was also around the same time I began to sew an elaborate baptismal gown to dress the baby in for when she left me, and the hospital. My intention was to relay a message to the fortunate woman who was to become her mother, who would recognize the love that went into every stitch. I wanted her to know that this baby hadn't come from just any wayward teen mom, but rather one who had managed to recreate her heart into the exact shape and size of a delicate dress, fit for an angel. 

It was a true labor of love.

With no skills, beyond the basics of ninth-grade home-ec, I purchased a few yards of white dotted-Swiss, some lace and yellow satin ribbon. Not knowing if this would be a girl baby or a boy baby, I instinctively picked up two daisies to add to the coat of the three-piece ensemble, and five delicate buttons – three yellow luminescent ones for the overcoat and two tiny duck buttons for the back of the gown.

I labored over this project for weeks, using my mother's old cast-iron sewing machine, a relic from the 1950s. It had a sticky foot pedal, a temperamental bobbin and a dull needle, but I was not deterred.

By August, the outfit was finished, not coincidentally around the same time I stopped meeting with the social worker at the Children's Home, and around the same time I'd accepted that the boy who planned to be my husband was truly, honestly, whole-heartedly excited about being a dad.

By September 12, my beautiful baby girl was born, and I had never felt so perfectly suited to anything in my life. Loving her was more than instinct – it was like we'd been together forever. Meeting was just a formality. I already knew everything about her, from her familiar nose to her exceptionally flexible toes.

By December, a dear woman from church, Debby Clarke, had stopped by with a gift from the heart – unlike me, she actually had skills and had sewn a beautiful baptismal dress for Aimée, trimmed in pink, with a lacy bonnet. I didn't mention the dotted-Swiss gown to her, and accepted it with sincere gratitude. By January, Aimée was baptized in Debby's dress, and the three-piece dotted-Swiss, already relegated to storage.

Over the course of my life I have lost track of plenty of significant items, some I have been searching for, with no luck, for years.

So when I went up to my closet this morning, hoping to find an old photograph that might punctuate a birthday post for my daughter on Facebook, the swatch of dotted-Swiss draped over the side of a cardboard box under the weight of some stored sweaters caught me off guard. I had almost forgotten about it.

I tugged on the sleeve and pulled out the dress. Next to it, a pile of once-important papers was harboring a length of yellow ribbon. It was the little bonnet, which had somehow gotten separated from the dress. I instinctively clutched the fabric to my chest and started for the stairs when I heard myself sobbing. Halfway down I turned around and went back up to the closet, tossing sweaters from the box until I found the third piece, the jacket with the daisies and tiny yellow buttons.

I sat down on the floor and carefully slid the sleeves of the gown into the jacket, noting the elastic had lost its stretch. I snapped the snaps and smoothed the wrinkles, running my finger along the hem, admiring the workmanship that I'd forgotten went into this little dress that had never been worn.

I marveled at how beautifully the yoke was seamed to the bodice, and how both hems were hand sewn admirably straight. Somehow, with no guidance, I managed to attach the tiny sleeves to the flowing garment without puckering the delicate fabric, and judged the circumference of a baby's wrist, tacking elastic in place, stitch by stitch, turning the cast-iron balance wheel of the sewing machine by hand.

And that's when it hit me.

I will probably never in my life be able to put into words what motherhood has meant to me, but if pressed, I would say that it feels a lot like holding a three-piece antique dotted-Swiss christening dress in my hands, a remnant of a place and time that changed everything. Every stitch, a labor of love; sewn with the best of intentions, perfect in all its imperfection.

Happy Birthday, my Beloved.

Confessions of a Prom Mom

Harry S Truman Prom, 1994. Andreas Scheerer and Aimeé, in blue.

I want to start this by saying I can comfortably write a column about my 17-year-old daughter and our perfect relationship because we share a unique understanding that would make most "regular" mother/daughter duos extremely jealous.
But why resort to blatant lies?
Truth of the matter is I can write comfortably about my daughter because she's out of the country. She's in Canada with her high school chorus. And since the bus isn't due back in Levittown until later tonight, I should have enough time to curb the Sunday paper this is printed in, along with the trash and recyclables, before her dirty laundry hits the hamper.
Next weekend is her senior prom. These are the six scariest words in the Maternal language.
What's so scary, you ask? Perhaps, you, who have never been a hormonal teenager girl, would need to ask. Me? I've been to that party, pal, and I know when to pass the onion dip.
Not that I don't cherish the opportunity to share this once in a lifetime moment with my daughter. But I've barely survived the Prom Mom preliminaries. I'm not sure I have what it takes to make the final cut.
First, there was pre-decision purgatory. That was the month I spent emotionally suspended between Audrey "I Could Have Danced All Night" Hepburn and Sissy "Doesn't Carrie Make A Lovely Prom Queen" Spacek. While all of Aimee's friends were talking about prom gowns and the fashion risks they were considering, from hair to toenails, my daughter refused to throw her hat into the ring. She waffled on her potential prom candidacy with the eloquence of a young Republican.
"I don't know if I want to go. I hate all that catered food. And anyway, it's really just an expensive dance. And I hate to dance."
So I get used to the idea of playing cards and eating mass quantities of Ben & Jerry's with my daughter on prom might when, out of nowhere, she says, "I want to go dress shopping on Saturday. Are you free?"
Am I free?
Would Naomi come of out remission for Wynona?
We decide to hit the rent-a-dress place on Route 1. That way we don't really have to make a commitment. We can sort of scope out the fashion trends and see what styles we like. And if we should happen to find the perfect dress, we grab it. After all, with only four weeks left to dress hunt, our fashion rifles are loaded; we will shoot to kill.
Without dwelling, I'll just say that it was the most traumatic experience of my life. She tried on one dress. THE dress. Long, black, beaded, elegant, sophisticated. It was magic. it was expensive. It was already reserved for her prom night by another hunter, an out-of-town prom-goer.
I learned that in the rent-a-dress jungle, there is only one of each species. Even the assault weapons shoot blanks.
It felt like the part where Cinderella loses her shoe and the coach is a pumpkin again. I was in mourning. My daughter shrugged it off like a household chore.
Suffice it to say that four bridal shops, two major malls and one week later, I found myself hoping for some mice and birds with well-developed sewing skills to whip something up just before an ugly step-sister says, "The carriage is here."
I even considered dusting off my old senior prom dress and offering it to my daughter as more of a sentimental bonding gesture than a last resort. But I found out that the beautiful navy blue dress I left hanging safely in my mother's closet had been sabotaged by the fashion police. My daughter broke it to me gently.
"It's tacky."
I'll admit that it does have more tiers than a Richard Simmons infomercial, but tacky?
Well, the shopping safari finally ended when we bagged a shorter, more practical version of the dress I had loved and lost. It has cobalt blue sequins and beads. Maybe she can make a case for it in 30 years when her 21st Century daughter has trouble finding the dress of her dreams after a few frustrating trips down the fashion Information Highway.
With one week to go, it's not over yet. There are hair and nail appointments to keep. There are still pantyhose to buy (in triplicate, in case of runners or manufacturers defects).
And there are all those overblown, over-analyzed Prom Mom fantasies that I am about to lose.
I bet, if I asked my own mother, she would remember the kind of stuff moms remember, like how long I spent in the bathroom doing my hair, or how nice it was to see me out of my faded Levi's and in a dress for a change. Or how it felt to see me walk out the door in that navy blue layered chiffon gown with the boy she'd one day know more intimately as the father of her grandchildren.
If I could look back, without all the romantic fuzzy edges that time adds to our memories, I would probably see a 17-year-old girl in heels too high and too uncomfortable to walk gracefully in, never mind dance. I'd see Sterno trays filled with food groups I'd never had a first person experience with. I'd see an expensive dance.
In a way I'm glad Aimee won't get a chance to read this.
I have to admit it's really not so bad, being a Prom Mom. And, quite honestly, my daughter packed most of her annoying hormones away in the same box as the New Kids On The Block memorabilia and her entire ninth-grade fluorescent wardrobe.
The scary part is really that anticipating her senior prom means she will be graduating from high school in four weeks.
It means she will be turning 18 in September, and starting college. It means she is pretty much grown up now and, the real truth be known, I would just like one last chance to pick out her shoes, or dress her in something frilly, or rock her gently when she cries.
This prom night, for her, will one day be a memory of how great her friends looked, all dressed up, without big T-shirts, baggy jeans, or backward baseball caps.
And this prom night, for me, will forever be the last ritual of mother/daughter relationships, that reminds me of what it was like to be a hormonal teenage girl.
Maybe, if I hurry, I can make it to the drug store for extra film and a big  box of tissues, before the Canadian tour bus gets back to the school parking lot.

A Mother's Day Gift Like No Other

Amy Marturana, left, and her mom, Joan, Sea Isle City, NJ, summer of 2010.

"Is this Carol?" said the voice with the familiar Bucks County twang. "You used to write for the Courier?"

It was a man named Dave Marturana, of Newtown. He remembered me from my years writing a weekly column for this newspaper. He found me, long distance, in Manchester, NH, where I've been living and working for the past decade.

He had a story to tell me, and I'm still a sucker for a good story.

Occupational hazard.

"Do you remember writing something called 'Happy Birthday, my Beloved"?

I still had one eye on the TV as I sifted through my unreliable memory banks.

"Well, I wrote a lot of stories in my life, Dave," I said. "Can you give me a little more to go on?"
He said it was something I'd written on the occasion of my daughter's 21st birthday.

"That makes sense, because I have a daughter named Aimee, and Aimee means 'beloved' in French, so yeah, I'm sure I did write something like that," I said, moving into the kitchen for a quiet space.

"Right. I know that because I also have a daughter, Amy, only we spelled it differently," Dave said.

"When you wrote that story it really touched my wife. She cut it out and saved it so she could give it to our daughter on her 21st birthday. She said it really captured everything she felt about motherhood, and expressed all the things she wanted to say to our daughter when she turned 21."
I was really starting to like Dave.

"Aw, that's so cool," I said, still wondering why someone would travel across 10 years and 350 miles of airwaves to remind me that I have a way with words.

"In fact, our Amy is going to be 21 on Thursday," and as Dave went on, I did the mental math, concluding that I must have written that column back in 1997.

"My wife actually has the same birthday as our daughter. Unfortunately, she died a few months ago," said Dave, collapsing my ability to subtract in my head or wallow in the glory of my lingering fame as a memorable columnist for my hometown paper.

"Oh Dave, I'm so sorry," I heard myself saying, still not sure where we were going.

Then he explained how he'd come across the yellowed newspaper clipping in a box of stuff he had been sifting through, things left behind by the woman he'd married not long after meeting her back in 1981, on the job at Betz Laboratories. She was a lab technician and he was an engineer.

"I was going to throw it away. My wife was a real collector. But then I started reading it, and it was like, 'Oh my god, I remember when she cut this out, and why she cut it out. I have got to give it to Amy for her birthday. I've got to do what her mother intended to do with it ."

At this point Dave didn't really need to finish his story. My mind had already raced ahead. I knew exactly why he'd called me.

"My wife had also bought a birthday card ahead of time -- that was Joan -- and it was in the box, next to the clipping," said Dave.

I couldn't say anything. My heart was in my throat and tears were taking me over.

"Anyway, the reason I'm calling is just because I wanted you to know how much it meant to my wife, how much it means to me that, even though Joan can't be here for Amy's birthday, I have this to give her, a last gift from her mother."

Dave told me that in a couple days he was going to drive to Syracuse University, where his daughter is a journalism student, and hand deliver the card.

I learned that Joan Marturana was only 55 when she died on Valentine's Day, just two years after her cancer diagnosis. She also left behind a son, 23.

I thanked Dave again for finding me, and we hung up.

Now, I needed to know what it was that I had written about motherhood that was so important.

My own four kids are mostly grown now. Yet, after 34 years in the trenches, I still find myself questioning my ability to get it right.

I knew my old Courier Times clips were in a shoebox in the basement. Despite my disorganized attitude toward most everything, I had filed the little manila envelopes chronologically before stashing them, which made it easy to find the one marked September 1997.

I unfolded my own yellowed copy of the column that, turns out, was a letter to myself. I read it and cried again -- not just for Joan, but for all the moms still in the trenches, who are never quite sure if they're getting it right.

And so, with permission from my former editor, Pat Walker, I'm sharing Dave's story -- and that old column, which seems like a fitting Mother's Day tribute for Joan Marturana, who couldn't be here this year to soak up the love and gratitude from the family that must somehow find the strength to go on, without her.

Happy Birthday, My Beloved

If only I'd known then what I know now, I could've written myself this letter 21 years ago and saved myself a lot of guesswork, not to mention guilt:

September 12, 1976

Dear Carol:

It's a girl! But then, you knew she would be, somehow, didn't you?

First things first: Stop looking, because there's no owner's manual, no deposit, no return and no money-back guarantee.

Pick a name that seems to suit her. It should be meaningful and, hopefully, pay tribute to someone special in your life. Something like Aimee Jeanne -- Aimee because it means 'beloved;' Jeanne, for your sister who, with any luck, she will grow up to favor.

Now, let the fun begin with your first bonding moment.

Take her gently, apprehensively into your arms and size her up.

Make sure you hold her firmly by her fragile pink blanketed body and kiss her no less than 10 times, covering cheeks, mouth, nose and forehead thoroughly. She will instinctively root around for anything that feels like a food source. It's OK -- let her gorge herself on your chin. It's a phase that won't last long enough.

When no one's looking, check for digits -- 10 extraordinarily long fingers, 10 incredible toes. Then, take off all that hospital garb and open up that diaper. See for yourself what a full-bodied miracle looks like at close range.

This would be a good time to thank God for your perfect, wondrous child -- and let Him know He's officially on call until further notice.

The next year will be hectic. You'll spend most of your spare time informing your friends and relatives of how truly gifted she is. They'll want to know about all her firsts. First burp, first smile, first solid food, first saliva bubble, first unintelligible babble. Write everything down in her baby book. Believe it or not, you'll forget the particulars.

Also, you'll need no less than one roll of camera film per week. It's an expensive habit, but there's just no other way for you to capture every average, expressionless moment for posterity.

In two short years you'll learn the difference between spirited and spoiled. The definition of discipline will become suddenly, strangely ambiguous. She'll destroy every theory on child rearing you subscribed to in your childless years.

Fasten your seatbelt.

At 5 she'll impress you with her maturity on the first day of kindergarten. She'll baffle you a week later when she buries her head in your lap, begging you not to make her go back.

Make her go.

You'll cry through her first band concert, the melody of "Hot Cross Buns" barely recognizable above the din of squeaks, toots and misplaced quarter notes. But that's not what prompts your tears.

It's the way she's straining to find your face in the sea of parents. It's the self-satisfied smile she flashes during the roar of the crowd. It's the indelible song she's given you that will resonate on your heart strings for life.

And just when you think you're handling things pretty well, puberty strikes.

For the next five years nothing will look familiar, from her hairstyle to her bedroom decor.

Though you swore things would be different between your daughter and you, suddenly uncomfortably familiar one-liners are spilling forth from your gut. Once you catch your breath, you'll despise the sound of your words as much as you did the first time you heard them -- when your mother spoke them to adolescent you.

But you'll survive.

Go ahead -- enjoy her youthful spirit. Marvel as she overcomes the pain of growing -- her first romantic heartbreak, her bad hair days, her bad decision days, the days you wonder if she'll ever straighten up and fly right.

Then comes graduation. As your daughter walks the walk, clutching a delicate rosebud, you'll have trouble holding back your tears. It's everything -- the road you've traveled, the road ahead. It's more a beginning than an end -- and yet, it's not easy to watch her so ready to sprout wings and fly off, direction unknown.

All it not lost, though, because at 18 she's still your woman-child.

Out more than in, her phone messages pile up faster than her laundry.

Don't take it personally. She's just preparing you for adulthood.

Hers.

And 21 will come with no mercy.

Now, your job is done.

It's time for the final, selfless act of motherhood: Accept her for who she is. Forgive yourself for the things you could've done better. Love her unconditionally. Find the strength to gently, apprehensively, let her go.

Considering Romance, Parenting and a Fruit Fly with 14 Eyes

This mutant fruit fly has two small ectopic eyes in the place of antennae, seen here between 
the large red compound eyes. PHOTO CREDIT: EYE OF SCIENCE LIBRARY.

I remember reading a short but interesting science article in a 1995 Time Magazine. This kind of mutant-breeding information was right up the alley of my older son, Neil, who back then was 15 and a dedicated X-Men comic book collector and connoisseur of news stories about oddities of nature.  So I figured the article might present a great opportunity for a quality mother/son conversation:
ME: "Did you see there was a neat article in ... "
NEIL: "I read it."
He was, as usual, short on words and way ahead of me.
The article, "Jeepers! Creepy Peepers!" appeared in the April 3, 1995 issue of Time and described the latest scientific adventures of researches from the University of Basel in Switzerland.
In a "serious effort to understand how nature fashions something as magnificent as an eye," these scientists created a swarm of fruit flies that had multiple eyes -- not just on their heads. These gnats sprouted eyes on their legs, antennae, wings -- the article says some of these test-tube flies had as many as 14 eyes.
Fourteen eyes! I find that as repulsive as it is intriguing,
I guess it could be that Neil inherited his interest in science from me. After all, I've always been one to linger just a little too long at circus sideshows featuring bearded women and dog-faced boys.
Anyway, I was just wondering what Neil thought of the whole thing. So I asked.
ME: "So, Neil. What did you think?"
NEIL: "I don't really get it. What's the point?"
Well of COURSE Neil didn't get it. He hadn't lived LONG enough to get it. But this mother of four and student of life saw the possibilities, even then. I understand the value of a mom genetically predisposed to actually having eyes in the back of her head, which is how I know those Alpine developmental biologists are standing in some mighty deep and fertile pay dirt.
First, of course, it helps if you understand the origin of this scientific breakthrough.
As the article explained, it seems there is a gene known as eyeless. Fruit flies lacking this gene don't develop eyes. That's why the gene is called eyeless. (And you thought science was so technical.) So they take these eyeless genes, insert them into teeny tiny fruit fly embryos and  -- poof! It's a family of bugs with more eyes than Mississippi.
The thing is, the experiment worked just as well when they tried it with an eye-related gene from a mouse instead of the eyeless fruit fly gene. The result was the same: Fruit flies with multiple eyes.
This is amazing news for all of us.
For scientists, it suggest that mouse genes and fly genes are so similar that they must share a common ancestor -- a "sea-dwelling worm that lived 500 million years ago."
To molecular biologists, it means we are all basically just big flies.
And while I'm not certain how you go from mice and fruit flies to prehistoric worms, I do see the mammal /worm connection. It's believable, even from a layperson's point of view.
After all, haven't we all met our share of people we could accurately refer to as sea-dwelling worms?
But what makes this even more amazing news is that, with just a little imagination, science can use this "eyeless" research to benefit the entire human race.
For example, you know that guy who cut you off in traffic yesterday? The one you called "brainless?" It's not what you really called him, but it's what you meant. Scientists could simply isolate his brainless gene and -- poof! Before you know it, a new and improved breed of driver is born with built-in common road courtesy AND the ability to parallel park.
Or that person you just phoned for assistance at your favorite utility company? The one who was rude? The one who kept you on hold for five minutes only to disconnect you? One successful Swiss-scientist procedure on her tactless gene and you are practically guaranteed a Utopian world where people who answer business phones are never rude.
But it doesn't stop there, folks.
Suppose your kids won't help around the house. Get some professional gene splicers to isolate their choreless gene and before you know it, a generation of children is born instinctively beating each other with brooms for first dibs on household chores.
You say your husband hasn't sent you flowers or surprised you with reservations at a nice restaurant since -- well, he's just never done it? It's not really his fault. It's that damned romanceless gene. Send him off to the University of Basel so they can reconfigure his DNA.
Oh sure -- it will take a generation or two for romantic husbands to flourish. But it's worth the wait.
And think of it this way: While you're doing your part to create perfect husbands for your children's children, imagine, just for fun, how it would feel to have the following conversation at a party:
PARTY GUEST: "Where's your husband these days? I haven't seen him around."
YOU: "Him? Oh, he was a real nice guy, but he wasn't genetically predisposed to romance. So I donated him to science.

Meh - Another Valentine's Day? Take Heart

Hey you Spartan heart-breaker: I'm taking the 'meh' out of anti-Valentine's Day memes.

I'm mostly a traditionalist, which I guess is synonymous with being a slave to human ritual. But for the record, my dear husband of 34 years is my one and only Valentine. We will share a romantic candle-lit steak dinner followed by some decadent chocolate dessert, and some romance.

I'm one of the lucky ones, and I know it – especially based on all the anti-Valentine's Day memes I see posting across my social network.

For those suffering through another Valentine's Day, I only wish I'd written this sooner.

This, my friends, is for you:

Turns out you don't have to feel any moral or historical obligation to have a loved on on this particular day, or shop for a heart-shaped anything to bestow upon anyone.

Forget the hearts and flowers, the pricey chocolates. There is no verifiable connection to the vague historical saint named Valentine and our obsession with this emotionally draining Hallmark holiday.

No Cupid connection. No candle-lit dinner for two required. 

I've done the research.

According to scholars who kick this stuff around in their academic circles, it all points back to the ancient Roman cleansing and purification ritual of Februalia (from which the Romans named the month of February).

And that devolved into another pagan ritual, Lupercalia (derived from the Greek word for "wolf"), a three-day fest held around the ides of February, meant to drive away evil spirits and encourage health and fertility – mostly by bathing, and abusing their women into submission.

There's more.

Pan, the naked flute-playing god of shepherds.

Pan, the naked flute-playing god of shepherds who wore nothing but goatskins for skivvies, is a key figure here. The highlights reel would include the sacrifice of a goat and a dog, followed by the preparation and burning of salt mealcakes by the Vestal Virgins – aka nun-like women who were excused from marriage and childbearing in exchange for tending the Roman perpetual hearth fires.

Looks like it was Victorian-era pranksters who may deserve credit for the idea of delivering "valentines" – on Feb. 13, according to this BBC history lesson, those in the village known to be unlucky in love became targets of England's bully class. These twisted jokesters would leave a huge present on their target's doorstep who, upon finding the anonymous gift, would tear through several layers of wrapping only to discover a nasty-gram of lovelorn mockery scribbled on paper.

Around the same time, the historic Norfolk legend of Jack Valentine emerged.

Side note: I'm actually shocked this one hasn't been turned into a holiday-themed horror movie, not unlike the "Halloween" series, featuring masked murdered Michael Myers.

Be somebody else's guest, Lumiere.

In the Disney version, Jack Valentine is an AC/DC chap who can morph into Old Father Valentine or Old Mother Valentine at will, knocking on doors and leaving gifts for good kids. It could feasibly involve a talking candelabra or dwarves in tights – I'll leave that to the animators.

However, in the Rob Zombie version, Jack's alter-ego, Snatch Valentine, knocks on doors of children anticipating happy Jack, and leaves a present with a string attached so that when said kid opens the door and reaches for the gift, Snatch yanks on the string and the gift is pulled away from the kid's grasp.

That ritual is repeated, several times, like a cruel knock-knock joke. Kids are warned not to follow the runaway package "or else" and so the wicked game continues until, finally, Snatch stops yanking the string and the traumatized child can finally get his hands on the elusive gift which, by this time, has triggered PTSD in said kid and, likely, has diminished future expectations of gift-associated holidays, including Christmas and birthdays.

So as not to be a complete Hallmark holiday heart-breaker, there is one shred of dignity in the legend of St. Valentine's Day.

In one historical account that has survived the rigors of distilling fact from fiction, there was a particular Valentine (among many historical Roman priests named Valentine) known for two things: performing weddings for soldiers who were otherwise forbidden from marrying; and spreading Christian ideals of faith and love to those persecuted during the Roman Empire.

The man, they myth, the legend: St. Valentine.

After allegedly healing the blind daughter of Asterius, he was martyred, tossed in prison and eventually beheaded on Feb. 14, 280 AD. He left a note prior to his execution, signed, "Your Valentine."

While I realize this debunkery of Valentine's Day may not help you all that much, the take away is that love is not just important to the human condition, it is the human condition.

It's not as tangible as a heart-shaped box of chocolates.

Rather, it's a mindset. An action word. A gift with no strings attached. A ritual with untraceable roots that go all the way back to the heart itself – by design the thing that keeps us alive. Strong yet fragile; vital as it is vulnerable. 

Today, let your human heart feel what it feels. Set your mind on love. Take action – whether that means buying your beloved a card at CVS, or committing a random act of love in some thoughtful, charitable, unconditional way for someone else who needs it.

Because, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star . . .

“It doesn’t matter who my father was;
it matters who I remember he was.” – Anne Sexton

Perception is everything.

For example, several years ago my sister and I planned to gather up some childhood memories and present them to our dad for a milestone birthday.

After a few days of mental gathering, we conferred.

I’d come up with a boatload of happy dad stories.

Meanwhile, Jean’s Titanic collection of moments had left her with a strange, sinking feeling.

"I remember one time I was sitting on Dad’s shoulders and he was singing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle,’ to me and I couldn’t stop crying,” my sister recalled.

"Why were you crying?” I asked.

"I was sad,” said Jean in a tone that implied I just wasn’t getting her.

"Why was it sad?” I pressed.

"I don’t really know. But every memory I came up with was depressing," my sister said. "I’m no good at this.”

How could this be? We breathed the exact same evergreen Glade-freshened air, ate the exact same sugar-frosted breakfast cereals and shared the very same wonderful dad.

But her memories were evidently skewed by her own unique internal sentimental, little-girl perception of things.

Perhaps “Twinkle, Twinkle” evoked in her little preschool brain a twinge of man’s constant puzzling over the enigmatic nature of space and supernovas.

Or perhaps she likened herself to a twinkling star, high above the world from atop her father’s shoulders, and feared that no one would ever really understand her.

No matter.

Because the point here is that my sister’s inability to think happy thoughts about our dad made me wonder what my own little kids were storing in their memory banks about their good old mom.

I decided to take a survey:

Me: Billy, what will you remember about me when you grow up?

Billy: How should I know? I’m just a little kid.

Me: I know that. But what will you tell your children about me someday?

Billy: Will you be dead?

Me: Not necessarily. I just mean how will you explain what kind of mother I was, you know; what kind of memories will you have?

Billy: (swallowing hard) Do you think you are gonna die before Dad? What will happen to me if you die before Dad? I don’t want you to die.

Me: Nevermind.

I smiled to myself and hugged my sentimental son, assuring him that I was going to live forever. Just then, Julianna came over, wondering what all the commotion was about.

Julianna: Why’s Billy crying?

Me: I asked him what will he remember about me when he’s all grown up.

Julianna: So why’s he crying?

Me: Because it made him think about me getting old and dead.

Julianna: Why don’t you ask me? I won’t cry about it.

Me: OK. What will you remember about me?

Julianna: Well, I’ll remember when you weren’t an old gramma and when you didn’t have gray hair and wrinkles and I’ll remember that you were funny and nice and soft, and how you always looked at me with love in your eyes. But will I have to push you around in a wheelchair?

Me: Only if you want to.

The moment was oddly reassuring.

You see, my kids have been breathing the same air, eating the same breakfast cereal and loving the same scatter-brained mom for their whole lives.

Despite their different reactions I know they will end up on the same page, just like my sister and me.

Because, concrete memories aside, when Jean and I look at our dad we see a tall, dark-haired, dependable, funny man, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound; a man of much integrity and few words.

We see a man who can sing “Twinkle, Twinkle” with enough feeling to make a little girl cry.

And even though that little girl may not know it at the time, eventually she’ll figure out that what made her so sad was the accompanying thought, that one day she might grow up to be too big to sit on his strong shoulders, or to simply get lost in the sweet sound of her daddy’s song.

Diamond Makes Believers of NH Fans

NH Union Leader, September 23, 2002

By Carol Robidoux

Imagine the biggest karaoke bar in the world and, center stage, a guy in a glittering blue shirt and thinning hair, belting out that song by Neil Diamond everybody loves, “Sweet Caroline.”

Now imagine more than 10,000 people standing, swaying and singing along as if the words to the song actually mean something more than they do.

Right there you have the climax of last night’s show at the Verizon Wireless Arena, only it wasn’t a karaoke bar, and the man with the microphone was THE man himself, Neil Diamond.

It was a first for many New Hampshire fans who’ve waited a lifetime for the seasoned crooner to make his way to the Granite State.

And based on the sell-out crowd that spanned several generations of fans, it’s possible Diamond is even bigger than he was when his string of Top-40 hits began in the 1960s.

The show opened with “Coming to America,” a real crowd pleaser — as if any song about America could be a clunker these days. But Diamond did it right, backed by his 17-piece band that included a four-piece string section, horns, steel drums, guitars, keyboards, and backup singers.

After the first song, Diamond took a moment to playfully editorialize about the quality of the Verizon’s sound system, which has been criticized as too echoey, at times.

“It’s a record crowd here at the Echo Capital of New Hampshire. But don’t worry — the echo is absorbed by your clothing,” said Diamond. “And so I’ve been asked by management to ask that you don’t take your clothes off during the show.”

Of course, the crowd went wild every time Diamond unleashed his subtle sexuality. In particular, as Diamond prepared to sing, “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon.”

That’s when Annette Simard, 70, of Manchester noticed the singer was working up a sweat. So she stepped to the front of the stage, pressed a white tissue to her lips and then held it toward Diamond.

Slowly, Diamond walked over toward Simard, knelt down for the tissue and, before she knew it, was holding her hand. He sang the entire song to her as they shared the spotlight, at times as he sat, or even stretched his body out in front of her on the stage. The swooning Simard covered her face at times and appeared to be weak in the knees, as the crowd erupted in cheers and laughter.

“Has anybody got a cigarette?” asked Diamond at the end of the number. “Thank you, my darling. I’ll take experience over youth any day. I like a woman who comes and gets what she wants,” he said, as Simard stepped back to her front-row seat.

Throughout the rest of the show Diamond proved that there are perks to sustaining a career for more than four decades.

For one thing, your fan base keeps regenerating, evidenced by the age span of the crowd that included plenty of mother-daughter duos, such as Patricia Salois, 51, and her daughter Christine, 26.

“I like the way he moves,” said Christine.

“He seems like an honest, down to earth guy,” said Patricia.

“There’s no such thing,” said Christine.

“He looks just like my father,” said Patricia.

And there you have the essence of what it is about Neil Diamond that makes it possible for him to keep a sold-out arena full of devoted fans swooning for two-and-a-half hours.

Midway through the show Diamond started churning out his hits, including “Solitary Man,” “Holly Holy” and “Cherry, Cherry.”

He even launched into a few of the songs that have made others famous, like “Red, Red Wine,” which was never a hit for Diamond, but that put UB40 on the map, and “I’m a Believer,” which has rounded the charts twice — for the Monkees back in the 1960s and again last summer for Smashmouth as part of the “Shrek” soundtrack.

Just before 10:30 p.m. Diamond finished up with “I Am, I Said,” then rewarded the crowd with an encore that included “Cracklin’ Rosie” and “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.

Bon Voyage: On the Edge of Certainty

Nine days until Julie takes a giant step into the unknown. On Dec. 30 she will board a plane bound for Cyprus, where she will be a nanny for the Brady Bunch.

She will welcome the New Year with a great family that is not her own, on an island about as far from Syria as New Hampshire is from my childhood home in Pennsylvania.

As her mom, I am standing here on the sidelines, as uncertain as she is about how the next six months of her life will be – unsure of what she will learn about herself, how it will feel to live so far from everything familiar.

The adventurer in me is certain she will have the time of her life. It is the mother in me who is teetering on the edge of certainty.

Stay tuned.

The power of a wilted 4-leaf clover through 16 years of marriage

What do you figure the odds are of finding a four-leaf clover without even looking?

I know -- but I'm not telling, just yet.

But I will tell you it's been more than 20 years since I plucked one from the yard at my mother's house.

And wouldn't you know, there was one sitting on my washing machine in the kitchen this morning -- just in time to remind me how lucky I was to have been in Mr. Nelson's ninth-grade honors English class at Woodrow Wilson High School back in 1974.

We were in the midst of a fascinating rotation which included Greek mythology, Shakespeare, Hemingway and public speaking. And we were just getting our final pep talk on how to speak effectively to a bunch of ninth graders (talk fast and use a visual aid), when I noticed the kid sitting next to me looked a little green about the whole prospect.
"Whassamatter?" I asked him.

"Nervous, I guess," said the quiet kid who lived down the street, whom I had known casually since seventh grade.

Since it was my nature to be helpful, I had a brainstorm. I reached into my 14-year-old bag of tricks. It took a minute of sifting through some other good stuff -- notes passed to me by my friend Irene in science class, pencil stubs with big rubber erasers, loose lunch change and a broken cigarette -- but I found it.

It seemed as if I had pulled a stubborn sword from an ancient stone.
"Here. Maybe this will help," I said, offering a little green clover encased in Saran Wrap to my jittery friend.

"What's this?" he asked, perhaps thinking I was peddling some unrefined drug.

"It's a four-leaf clover. I found it the other day in my back yard -- without even looking. You can keep it. Really."

And my token was just in time.

"Jimmy Robidoux -- you're up," Mr. Nelson bellowed in his best baseball umpire voice.

And thanks to the lucky charm, Jim hit a homerun that day.
"I got an A," he mouthed the words to me, once his heart had found a normal pace again, following his dynamic speech on biblical truth and the end of the world.

Later that day, he even had the courage to stop by my house and thank me again, this time with sound.

"I thought I'd better return this -- in case you needed it for your speech tomorrow," he said politely.

I shrugged it off and told him to keep the clover. I guess I had more than enough confidence in my knowledge of surrealist painter Salvador Dali, my topic of choice.

And besides, I had a really cool visual aid prepared -- a decent reproduction of Dali's "Melting Clocks" -- just in case I didn't fascinate my peers for three minutes with the content of my research.

And I would have invited Jim in for a Fresca, at that point.

But he said he'd better get back to his girlfriend, Jennifer, who was busy digging her toes into the gravel at the bottom of my driveway.

Anyway, it only took us about three more years and a few failed attempts at finding true, teenage love with other partners until we were able to fully comprehend the power of a wilted weed.

Five years later we were married.

And this Friday will be our 16th wedding anniversary.

So when I saw the familiar little rectangle of Saran Wrap surrounding a green, four-leaf clover on top of my washing machine, naturally, I had to ask my husband, "Where'd this come from?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you. Aimee's friend, Kira, found a bunch of them. She said she was getting out of Aimee's car right in front of the house and she saw one -- a whole bunch of them, in fact. I wrapped one up for you. I have one in my wallet, too," said my husband, marveling, "What do you figure the odds are of finding a four-leaf clover, let alone a whole bunch of them, just like that, without even looking?"

I suppose it was a rhetorical question.

But as I said, I suddenly know the answer.

The chances of finding a four-leaf clover, just like that, without even looking, are probably once in a lifetime.

Unless God decides to send a simple anniversary present to a couple of impulsive teenagers who survived ninth-grade English class and went on to find each other eventually, against all odds, like a tiny miracle in a field of clover.

Originally Published June 5, 1995

Bucks County Courier Times