I stare at myself in the mirror, imagining a baby growing inside of me. I step out of my pants, then take of my shirt, and stare at the thin body reflected back to me. I take off my bra and cup my reconstructed breasts, pinch my tattooed nipples, and run my fingers across the scars of either side. I will never nurse this child, I think to myself, and then wonder if my breasts will still get swollen and engorge during the pregnancy. A sadness washes over me as I realize how absurd that question is, and the reality of how lucky I am to even get pregnant after all I put my body through five years ago makes me feel ashamed. I hurriedly put my clothes back on, knowing that Scott will come knocking any minute, wondering why the door is locked, wondering why I’ve been in there for more than a minute, wondering what’s wrong.
Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, I’d tell him.
And then we’d make love and he’d forget he ever wondered.
Just like clockwork, I see the doorknob shake back and forth just as I had reached out to it, the sound startling me. I unlock the door quickly, anxiety filling my throat and belly and shoulders.
“Why was the door locked?” Scott asked, searching for signs of rejection in my face, convinced he’d find them if he only looked hard enough, desperate enough.
“Can’t I lock the damn door?” I snap back, annoyed.
“Yeah, but I’m just wondering why. You never do. Are you okay? Is something wrong?”
I look at his eyes. They are beautiful in their pleading. I feel my resistance falling away, my conviction that I can do as I please melting despite myself.
“Babe, I’m pregnant.”
He looks over my shoulder to the garbage can by the toilet, searching for the pregnancy test as proof. He spots the box, and quickly returns his gaze to me. His shoulders visibly relax, He grabs my hands with his hands and squeezes them.
“Well then, let’s have a baby!” He answers, then turns around and walks off with a bit of a skip to his step.
I smile, and shake my head.
Well then, here’s we go, I think. Here we go.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
This is near where I am.
Mari and Scott in college
The Pet Shop Boys blast through my earphones as I walk across campus toward my morning class, Philosophy of Religion. As I near the crowded green space, I put on my sun glasses and blast the music even louder, drowning out the multitude of Hellos and invitations to play hackey sack. Usually I’m my chipper self. Today, I’m not.
I’ve got the brains
You’ve got the looks.
Let’s make lots of money.
I pull a cigarette out of my bag, and look around nervously, still not used to this bad girl persona I’m trying on for size. Its pathetic, I think, just a little. I’m still a virgin. And I’ve yet to ever get into trouble. But between my sunglasses, my cigarette, and a song about embezzlement, I feel powerful, bad, raw. Like a spy, or an evil anthropologist. I pretend to pretend to be a straight A college student, who is really stealing ideas from top researchers and selling them back to Russia or China or New York City.
I dart around the corner and head toward Baker Hall, feeling strong and sexy and mysterious and dangerous. The music slips into me and I feel transported to another world.
Scott.
All power comes crashing into a screeching halt and a flood of nervous embarrassment takes over. He hasn’t seen me yet. His long body is turned away from me, moving excitedly as he speaks to a professor I don’t recognize. The professor is clearly taken by him, engrossed in his passionate brilliance. As if sensing my presence from afar, he turns his head, meets my eyes, and turns up his lips like a perfect capital U, teeth hidden, eyes squinted, cheeks suddenly flush. He dismisses the professor as if he were simply air and begins to walk my way.
“Hey! Where you off to?” he asked, almost rocking back and forth on his feet.
“Umm, Philosophy of Religion? Hello?” I turn my head, unsure whether to roll my eyes or smile.
His cheeks flush crimson. I find this endearing. “I’m just kidding,” he answers, and I can’t tell if he’s lying. “What did you think of the reading?”
I love and hate when he asks me this question. Inevitably, this will become one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve had. But also the most infuriating. He throws out ideas like wrecking balls, destroying whatever I’ve just stated, regardless of its points, or whether it aligns or contradicts his last argument. But I can keep up with him, a challenge that, it seems, few can do. I know he loves me for this. In fact, I know he stalks me for this. I just can’t tell yet if he scares me, or thrills me, or both.
“Well, to tell you the truth, the author’s description of the Tao reminds me a lot of the fundamentalist idea of surrendering to Jesus and the New Age idea of releasing control to the Universe that guides you. Its like, you let go of the ego, let the Spirit take over one’s judgments, decisions, giving up control for a full trust that leads to peace and happiness.”
His smile widened and opened as if I had just given him a Christmas gift. “You are SO fucking cute when you are wrong!” he joked, pushing me a bit on the shoulder until I lost my balanced, forcing him to grab me by my side, toward him.
“No I’m not!” I push off of him, dust off my clothing, smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt.
“The Tao has nothing to do with letting a spirit guide you. There isn’t even a real concept of spirit or God. It is abso-fucking-lutely NOTHING like you said,”
“But it is about the idea of surrendering control, letting go, simply being. I think that is the same state that the fundamentalist Christian or the New Ager gets to, even if the Taoist conceptualizes it as a sort of nothingness, and the Christian conceptualizes is as the personal Jesus entering and controlling their consciousness, and the New Ager conceptualizes it as a conscious love-energy that can sorta see the bigger picture better than the individual person’s mind can.” I can tell by the way he raises his left eyebrow that he agrees with me, but he’d never admit it or the game would be over and defeat would be mine.
He strokes the sides of his mouth, pretending to be fake pondering while he actually thought about his next retort. “Except that the Christian and the New Ager, which is really just based on Christianity at its deepest level anyway, are letting go of control with the assumption that this will make them a better, more moral, more prosperous, more MORE person. The Taoist doesn’t give a shit. There is no particular morality, no good or bad. No God judging, or Universe made up of love. Its totally morally agnostic.”
“Well, I guess then it depends on how you see human nature, Scott.” I answer forcefully. “In my view, it’s the same thing. There might not be a particular moral code like the Christians, or all love like the New Agers, but the Tao leads to inner peace, harmony with oneself. I don’t believe that its possible for a person to truly be at peace and be a genuine asshole at the same time. They might be counter-cultural, they might even be antisocial, but they would be unable to hurt others. I think the person at peace is still the better, more moral person. There is no such thing as a Taoist serial killer.”
“Oh sure there is. A serial killer can be a perfect Taoist. He would find his own moral code that would allow him to be in harmony with who he really is.”
I stop, frozen in his words. I turn my head and look over, his capital U beaming at me. “Dude, we past our classroom like 5 minutes ago!” I turn and start walking quickly in the other direction, already suffering the humilation of walking into the classroom in session, eyes stating, professor annoyed, discussion suspended because of my lack of courtesy. “I blame you, Scott!’ I tease, yelling over my shoulder as I quicken my pace. “Every time I’m with you, I completely lose touch with reality!”
Day 4
For a while his obsession was with antique shaker miniature furniture. A miniature pedal lathe from 1887 that he paid $500 for. An miniature pedal buzz saw from the same year, for $600. For his birthday, he asked me for a miniature Shaker bicycle router from 1927 and when I told him that we didn’t have the money for another one of these toys, he looked as if I had told him that I slept with his brother. Shocked and heartbroken, full of fear, too scared of the fury hidden behind his own emotions. I relented and put it on our card. He was sober at that moment. I knew because he was complaining of a headache, and seemed more exhausted than usual. When I told him, in my most sincere attempts to undo the pain I had just caused him, that, actually, his birthday was more important than our silly debt, which at this point was assuredly going to necessitate bankruptcy anyway because of the mounting medical bills of all of my various procedures, that really I’m the expensive one of the family, he softened into the face of a newborn puppy, and broke into an easy, excited, grin, “Really?!” He looked 7 at the moment, being told that this birthday party would involved ponies. He stroke what was left of my hair (for some bizarre reason I refused to shave it off even though I looked like a freak), and kissed the gray bald spot in the middle of my head. “Babe, can I get you tea?” he asked, sweet, soft, gently. I didn’t want any. My stomach was too queasy even for sips of liquid. “Sure babe, that would be awesome” I responded. He left to the kitchen, put on the kettle, then slipped into the bathroom where I heard him unfolding the newspaper, where he stashed his pot. Lately I had wanted to smoke some, too, to ease my nausea. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask him for any. It felt like giving up a battle I had surrendered too much for already. It would be saying that the drugs, the shopping, the explosive anger that appeared randomly and without warning were all okay. A part of me thought maybe he needed that validation, that to withhold that from him was partly causing his downward spiral, that I refused to accept him and his flaws, that I judged him. A part of me wondered if asking for some of his pot would be perhaps the greatest gift I could offer him at the moment, an invitation to relax and just be. The way he had always been with me. But I refused. Despite my own need for the comfort the marijuana might afford me, despite the intimacy we might gain, despite the gift it would perhaps offer him, there was another message that rang far louder in my head. My life was once a perfect Disney movie, and you have trapped me into a David Lynch hell. Fuck you. Suffer as I do.
Day 3
The first time this notion was challenged, the idea that I was different, was perceived differently, was something other, was so shocking to me that it felt like a slap in the face I had only imagined in my head. It came to me as part of my Welcome Packet, after registration, after my parents had hugged and kissed and cried me good-bye. An additional event, given to not a single of the thirty or so people I had met so far. A presentation, a panel in fact, for students of color. My first reaction was to yell out to my new friends around me, “Hey look at this! Did you get this?!? What the hell?!?!” But it occurred to me as immediate as my shame that, in fact, there was no way they got this. They were Americanos. I suppose I realized this. I just didn’t know I was going to be singled out so soon, so… violently. I read it again: student of color. “Dear Student of Color”. I looked down at my arms. At their color. I looked over the arms that flurried around me, holding their Welcome Packets, giving them barely a glance. I looked at the various shades of white, tan, pink, olive. I tried to spot those whose arms looked about as olive as mine, and I wondered if they were branded the same title. I had never heard of the term Student of Color. Person of Color. All I had ever heard of was Colored Person and Coloreds, a term I knew referred to African-Americans back in the days when bad things happened in scary places like Mississippi or South Carolina. Was I being called a Colored? I slipped into the crowd, not that anyone was watching me, and looked, frantically, for a restroom, since I was blocks away from my dorm, and had already met too many people there that I would likely run into and burst into tears in front of, and then compulsively explain my tears, and then regret the moment of shame for the rest of my life. I felt myself panic, as I asked whoever I bumped into where the nearest restroom was, holding back tears that were quickly becoming inevitable. Finally, I located one. I ran in, tore off my pants and underwear, and exploded in diarrhea as I convulsed in nervous tears. I read the letter, tears blurrying its offensive words. A presentation by the office of retention, talks on how to stay in college despite the extra challenges of being of color. The titles included, “Creating a Community of Color as Part of the Undergraduate Experience”, “Navigating the Office of Retention”, and, Holy of Holies, “How to Find a Mentor of Color”. I felt a fury form in my throat and burn into my face. Was this a joke? A trick? A mistake? Why are they worried about my chances of staying in college if I was the top one percent of this high qualified applicant pool.. An exceptional person and an outstanding scholar. How was I simultaneously a valuable asset and a student at risk of dropping out? And who the fuck said I wanted a Mentor of Color? I wanted John Keating! I wanted someone with a corduroy jacket and leather elbow patches. I wanted a modern Socrates asking the exceptional person that I was to tell him who was wiser than he? The last motherfucking thing I came to motherfucking college to in the middle of motherfucking Americanotown was to have a mentor that reminded me of my mother and her riding lessons or my father, who considered Reader’s Digest high art.
I ripped the paper into shreds and flushed it down the toilet, deserving to wade in my shit and my piss. The entirety of my prep school fantasy, of being Among the Greatest, destroyed before it even began. I left the bathroom and began to walk. I walked passed the Welcome desk but couldn’t bear to stop. I walked past my Orientation team, and I mumbled something about needing to use the restroom for a second, and kept on passed them, I crossed the edge of the 2,000+ crowd of incoming students, broke through and kept walking. I had no idea where I was going, no idea why I wasn’t stopping to join in on the fun, no idea why this was such a big deal why it was getting to me so deeply. I just kept walking. Suddenly I felt scared, away from home, in a foreign place full of hostile people. With every person that walked past me, I looked at their arms, briefly lifting mine in a feign scratch for better comparison. Lighter, Lighter, Barely lighter. The same. Darker. Lighter. Lighter, The same, almost. I continued for what felt like hours, until the screaming crowd became barely a hum, the marching band replaced by the horns of traffic, the people around me no longer students, then no longer city folks, into a residential neighborhood covered more by trees than streetlights, nary a person around. I had no purse on me. No phone. No money. No clue as to where I was. Nobody was around, except the families in their homes, surely clearing off dinner. I was lost. Lost in a way that I had never been. I had no way home, nor any idea where that might be.
From my second writing day
If I am a bit more honest than that, I would say that we were there for each other. Not because we both shared in the pain of my struggle, although we did, but because he was never so out of control as he was during those years. And then there was the shopping. Compulsive online shopping for antique miniatures, which to this day I don’t understand. But we have over 2,000. And you might wonder how he could have possibly been there for me during such a time, but he was. At every appointment, during every night of vomit and tears, through every nightmare that had me waking, screaming through the night. He yelled at the nurses who could not longer find any usable veins and caused me so much pain with every prick that I once actually lost my bowels. He haggled with insurance agents, followed up with letters in writing, called the doctors and administrators demanding letters of medical necessity, and showing up at their doors before they even opened, standing over them until they were typed, and sealed, and stamped, and handed to him to take to the post. He did these things stoned or drunk or high, but he did them, effectively. Then he would rush back home to me, squealing in delight like a schoolboy at a toy store when a package containing his latest antique miniature would arrive. He’d leap in what looked like innocence and genuine joy. He would run to me, knife in hand, and open the box gingerly, eagerly, open the flaps completely with exaggeration, throw out the plastic bubbles or foam peanuts into the air behind him, then gasp. Slow, long gasps. He’d show me the three-inch antique wooden piece of furniture, which only ever looked like doll house toys to me, and then explain its history for the next hour or so, stroking my hair, jumping up to make me some tea (sometimes taking a few minutes too long to bring it to me and I knew why, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t care).
Mid-way through the month and I finally get my blog on
I read the sentence again, You are an exceptional person and an outstanding scholar. And let it wash over me.
I fucking knew it.
I threw my head back onto the soft pink and white marbley swirls and hugged the letter to my chest. I closed my eyes, and felt every part of my body relax into the validation, the acceptance, the…
My eyes popped open. My body sat up fast and hard. I caught my breathe and felt a dizzying electric vibration course through my body until I began to shiver.
A full scholarship. All four years. In Pennsylvania. My dad can’t say shit to this. He agreed. My mom would have to face the truth. Her daughter is exceptional and outstanding. Not just in her 19th century British prep fantasies meant to boost my self-esteem, but in reality. I’m leaving.
I’m going home.
“Maaaaamiiiiii!!!!” I yelled so loud that Chuchi actually lifted her droopy head and looked my way for a full 5 seconds before resting back onto the floor. “Mom! Mom! Mom!”
“Que pasa, Mari! For Christ’s sake I almost burned myself, me diste un susto!”
“I got a full ride to the University! All four years!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Mentira!”
“I swear! Look!” I leapt to my feet and practically flew to my mother, whose fingers still dripped in chopped garlic and onions.
“Aguantalo, I don’t want to mess it up!”
I read the letter out loud, my mother’s eyes widening, looking at me intensely, her head slowly cocking to one side, her eyes now narrowing then widening again. I can feel her breath stop This year we received over 10,000 applications for admission and you can feel proud to be among the top one percent of this high qualified applicant pool. You are an exceptional person and an outstanding scholar.
She cuts in, she can’t help it. “But mija, you don’t even study!”
The moment freezes. A tension builds as quickly as it washes away. “Whatever mom, I’m a genius.”
She lets out a nervous chuckle, releases her breath, relaxes into her pride. She throws her arms around me, “Coño Mari, you really are. You really are. No se a quien salistes.”