The Great Escape
What are you running away from?
Deciding to live in the North East year round comes with the unspoken agreement that you must escape at some point during winter. The first year this reality dawned on me after moving from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, I made the arrangements. I was slated to work a wedding in Jamaica that December, had a bachelorette party to attend in Mexico that January, and a vacation in Santa Barbara planned with my husband in the Spring. Then I got pregnant.
While visiting my OB at the time, my husband and I were given a long list of what I could not do/eat/drink/be and we were about to leave the office when I remembered to ask her: Oh yeah, I’ll be in Jamaica in two weeks, are there any types of foods or things I should avoid while I’m there? Her answer: all of it. You’re not going to Jamaica, she said. Or Mexico. Maybe you can get down to the beaches here when it warms up, she offered. Apparently Zika was still a thing.
I told myself that it was fine. A bummer, sure, but whatever. Once the baby was born, we would move on with our lives. We’d come out of our sleepless haze and plan a trip to hike the Camino de Santiago. We wouldn’t become those parents that give up their lives and dreams and plans just because our family grew one person bigger.
I should have known from those early days of pregnancy— when the little alien inside of me dictated so much of what I felt; reverted me back to a child-like version of myself and dictated I eat the junk food of my youth— that adding another person to the family means making space for another voice. A third POV to shape our story. Another person with their own opinions of how much stimulation is too much and how much attachment is not enough. My first son was really fucking hard to deal with in his first year of life, and when he was about 6-7 months old, we moved out of the city and simultaneously entered a global pandemic. We didn’t go anywhere for a long, long time.
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When my second son was born, his first year of life looked much different. By the time he was six months old, he had traveled to the Berkshires, the coast of Maine, the heart of Connecticut, camped on Long Island and in the Adirondacks and hopped all over central and western Mexico. Mexico was particularly special. We met a large part of my family there for the first time, but it didn’t feel like a first. It felt like a forever.
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Recently, I’ve been reading a handful of essays by Toni Morrison about war, language, citizenship, race and lots of other light topics that wake me up at 4am with an urge to write about the complexities of my own privilege. She says there are two human responses to the perception of chaos: naming and violence. But she proposes a third response: Stillness. “Such stillness can be passivity and dumbfoundedness; it can be paralytic fear. But it can also be art.”
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This winter I started my MFA program which kicked off with ten days of intensive workshops, lectures and programming in southern Vermont. Getting there was a dream come true and consumed most of my head space the entire year prior. It was a relief that felt too good to be true. My first trip to campus held so many promises. One of them being a break away from the mundane cycles of my life with kids, the abyss of rhythmic care. The first night I arrived to campus, I set up my room just in time to come down with Covid. The illness I’d completely avoided for four years — my moment of breaking free, of stepping out into the world to make art out of all the isolation and pain and confusion I’d been carrying since my life turned upside down— decided to tag along. I felt like I was being tested. Is isolation not what every writer desires? this cruel sickness seemed to be saying. Go home. You don’t deserve to be here.
The next month, one of my favorite women in the whole world had a birthday. She is also a writer and a reader and I suggested we take a little staycation together to celebrate, as we had done for my birthday a few months prior. I pulled into the hotel parking lot, had not even greeted her yet, when my phone rang. My husband was at urgent care. My youngest had a high fever due to RSV. Since he wouldn’t be able to go to school the next day, I had to come home from my trip early.
Similar to being in my naive, pregnant state, I’ve lined up so many opportunities for myself these last few months, yet I’ve continued to feel as though I’m having a door slammed in my face over and over again. As someone with debilitating anxiety, I like to know where my exits are. Not just physically or geographically, but in everything I do. The fight-or-flight I can’t seem to turn off is self-sufficiency, but in parenthood that identity of strength and independence has been completely dismantled. You need to be cared for by others in order to care for your children. I knew this in theory and in the expected practices deemed social norms (like meal trains) but the trip we took to Mexico when I was postpartum with my second baby opened me up to this concept in an entirely new way. Everyone- my cab driver, my waitress, my Tias no longer strangers to me- stepped up to the plate and held my baby and played with my toddler in such meaningful ways… but it was less of a tiny gesture that piles up with others and amounts to its own type of support. It was a complete embrace. There was absolutely nothing foreign about it. I’d never felt more at home.
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A few nights ago after dinner my kitchen sink was full of dishes, I stepped in urine I failed to wipe up off the hardwood floors, my son only spoke in whines and these beautiful children of mine were orbiting me with their requests, their booger-coated fingers, their marker stained cheeks, more! more! more! Mid-sentence to their requests, I cried. I am so easily overwhelmed by the job of mother I never seem to be able to escape. When the act of staying shifts from choice to trap, that primal anxiety kicks in with such ease and the little girl I once was, trapped inside of me like a Russian doll, fills with dread that someone is going to leave her again. Only this time, I’m the adult that wants to get away.
This little girl who had to parent herself at much too young an age confesses through tears, “I don’t think I can do this,” and her partner places his hand on her shoulder and says, Go. She scans the room as it shrinks in on her. Go upstairs and read, he says. And this, she remembers, is the only reliable exit that has the power to ground her.
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Morrison asks her readers, “What is the matter with foreignness?” She suggests this uneasiness with foreign feelings is what works in tandem with the fraying of our sense of belonging. Perhaps this distance I long for isn’t a running away from anything, but running toward what I don’t know. A reeducation of sorts.
We’ve been scheming a way to get back to the midwest of Mexico, only for much longer, ever since we returned. I desire to guide my children toward the culture I’m still acquainting myself with, to learn Spanish at the same time, our voices in tandem as cacophony, maybe some day, a chorus. I’m reminded how necessary it is, for me, to experience foreignness with some frequency; to leave where I am and know with more certainty each time that I will come back with a clearer understanding of what home really is: both a choice, and an act of creation.
Until I have the means to escape, I’ll be here. Reading.
Recommended Reading:
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino
Bertino’s sentences were striking and humorous. Following the life of our protagonist Adina who is an alien passing as human on earth, sending faxes to her superiors about the tendencies of human life, the narrative is one of otherness and belonging that is relatable to all. Her faxed observations are laugh out loud funny and anyone who can help us to laugh at ourselves is rec-worthy, in my opinion.
Oh this book. It was so sad, yet so funny. Both dark and light at the same time. And there’s nothing I love more than holding contradiction. Our protagonist is Martha who has just turned forty and we rewind through her life to see how her once promising ambitions turned out to be such a disappointment to her. Her melancholy is tough to read at times, like having that friend that complains about everything always. Which gets me thinking about the way we speak. How our language is in honor of busyness and productivity and achievement, and it’s like, no wonder we have such an increase of mental health issues.We have SUCHHHHH a LONGGG way to go in terms of treatment for mental health. I’m talking anti-pharma, holistic health. I found this book to be really oddly comforting. Oh and I defffinitely cried toward the end. Her sister was my absolute favorite.
Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land
I didn’t think this book was extremely well-written, but I’m happy it exists. I appreciated Land’s honesty and candidness about her needs and desires as a young woman who also happens to be solo parenting. On top of which, she is a student. This is where my interest peaks. To pursue her bachelor’s degree, and raise a child on her own, her reliability on government programs was not enough. She had to dig herself into a massive hole of debt for the promise that this piece of paper (her degree) would offer a better life. Full-time school and full-time parenting doesn’t leave room for full-time jobs, and to the courts that was seen as lazy and selfish— don’t get me started. Land acknowledges how her whiteness served as camouflage that led to backhanded compliments from social workers about how well spoken for her and her daughter were, a twist of the knife. What I liked about this story was I could feel her anger. She’s pissed that her life has been boiled down to a narrative of “resilience,” acknowledging the lingering effects (again, mental health, people!) that no one wants to see because we’re all so “moved” by pulling up those fucking bootstraps as if that’s all it takes to survive in this country. We need more stories like Land’s to broaden our perspectives of how things “work”.
Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe
Sharpe is the queen of language. This book is heavy. A fast read in terms of length, but a heavy one that’s hard to move through quickly. She holds a mirror up to what the leaders and thinkers in this country have said to encourage the marginalization and discrimination and hate toward Black lives. I analyzed this book for school last month so I’m going to be a nerd and quote myself here:
Historically, our nation has used language as a weapon, to break others down as unworthy. We’ve used language as a shield, something to hide behind for protection. Over time, our words ring empty. A nation’s language, lacking. Yet, we cling to identifying words for dear life. The founders of this country– who have been called “fathers,” though we know men can not birth new life on their own, let alone nations– set out to build a lasting way of governing people through making all men equal in their rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. They failed to know the power of their words, failed to know “the proper names for things,” as Sharpe’s mother ensured in an effort to protect her own family. I say this because this country’s use of language has clearly not withstood the test of time. But what Sharpe has done with her beautiful prose in Ordinary Notes, is use language as a power tool, which is precisely what it is. It has the power to fix so much.
Beauty Talk:
About a month ago I did a major reset on my skin care products and dedicated myself to a new am/pm routine:
Murad Vitamin C Facial Cleanser (am+pm) Even though I barely ever wear makeup, getting into the routine of washing my face with more than cold water has been a refreshing and calming habit to get into. If I’m lazy, I’ll just do PM but I try and do both.
Murad Vitamin C Toner (am+pm) I have seen this toner fight hormonal breakouts in real time and it’s sort of amazing. It feels like it dries my skin out more than the Farmacy one I used to use, but that also leaves my skin feeling tighter and has swapped any temporary blemish for a 24 hr sore spot that never breaks through. I’ll take it.
Shani Darden Moisture Boost Plumping Serum (am) Makes my face feel like a baby’s backside. PTL
Ole Henriksen Banana Bright+ Vitamin C Eye Cream (am+pm) My biggest beef with eye creams is that they don’t always layer nicely with other products or makeup. This one absorbs easily and doesn’t sit thick. I love this brand and I have always been impressed with their products.
Supergoop! Sunscreen Moisturizer (am) Apparently I should have started wearing sunscreen many moons ago, but what can I say? I grew up in southern California and wore my olive-brown skin with pride, even as it peeled around my shoulders at high school graduation. If you look at me now, you’d never know my skin could do more than burn in the sun.
Tatcha Overnight Indigo Repair Serum in Cream (pm) A milky, satiny finish. A little of this goes a long way. (Thankfully$$.) And by the end of the day, I’m always happy to opt for a 2-in-1 product because I’m lazy AF.
Summer Fridays Jet Lag Mask (am/pm) This is a little weekend treat for me. Usually on Sundays, I ditch all of the above, and after a splash of cold water on my face, I apply this mask. You can rinse it off or wipe with a warm rag after a few minutes, but I just let it ride.
Ole Henriksen Peptide Boost Moisturizer (am) For the days when I know I’m hunkering down inside and will not see the light of the sun —hopefully not too many more of these— I choose this as my daytime moisturizer sans SPF.
THANKS FOR READING! xx