Musings of a Midlife Mama and Other Stories

I’m an old dog.  I don’t mean this chronologically, although let’s just say if I were a dog I would be getting up there.  What I mean by old dog is even when I was a pup in my twenties I was set in my ways.  I had a sense of righteousness that was way beyond my young years.  It was my way or the highway.  This was true even when my kids started questioning this and my other motives and actions. 

When Molly and Kelly were in elementary school and someone cut me off, they begged me to stay in my car.  They knew my impulse (and righteousness) propelled me out of the car to give the other driver a piece of my (crazy?) mind.

“Mom, you need to mellow out,” Molly said.

“No, that woman needs to hand over her license,” I said.  “She’s a menace to society.”

“Really?” Kelly asked.  “I don’t even know what a menace is but I don’t think she’s that.”

“Girls, when you start driving, you can have an opinion.”  This day seemed so far away, eight and eleven years for Molly and Kelly, respectively, that I felt secure in my place to be right about driving and a myriad of other things for many more years.

But, oh, late at night, when the girls were asleep, I beat myself up with my my refusal to be open, to be soft and vulnerable. My compulsion to be in control and to be seen as a perfect mom, wife, and woman was a defense.  I’d learned in childhood the importance of being strong.  Weakness equaled vulnerability.  Vulnerability equaled pain.  Weakness equaled pain.

But life has a way of beating down those defenses.  Thank God!  Divorce happens, children grow up to drive and have opinions, parents die, money problems happen and if you don’t open yourself to learning new ways to handle heartache, handle life, then you are destined to be alone in your lonlineness (and righteousness). 

As this old dog has gotten older, my kids have given me the gift of learning everyday from them to do better. 

From Kelly I’ve learned that it sucks to be the middle child after being the baby of the family for eleven years.  “Mom, keep your eyes open.  Watch me.  Don’t let me get lost between Molly and Jack.  You do, and bad things will happen.”  Baby, I’m watching.  Kelly has taught me the importance of friendship.  She has shown me how to love your best friend fiercely, even if there is the risk of your friends moving on.  And in Kelly’s case, they have and she has handled this with grace, too.  I’ve learned from Kelly that appearances don’t mean shit, and second chances should be given to people when they mess up.  Kelly is a fashionista.  She loves clothes and she is one of the most beautiful people I know.  But it is her big heart that is the loveliest part of her.

From Molly I have learned to let go.  I’ve let go of my control–for the most part–I’m only human and an older dog.  I’ve let go of grinding square pegs into round holes.  Because of Molly, I’ve let go of home being a physical place.  Home is where the heart is, and Molly is my home and I think when she went away to Sacramento State she felt the same way about me.  Molly is the bravest person I know.  It wasn’t just her ruptured appendix, the appendectomy, the seven days in the hospital that illustrated how brave Molly is.  It is how she beat down her insecurities and debilitating anxiety to get good grades, make wonderful friends, become the Norseman volleyball player of the year, make homecoming court, win Best Personality in senior standouts, and leave the comfort of home for college. And it is how a year and half later, she knew herself well enough to know she had to come back to San Diego despite the crap she’d get from friends and family (and herself) for failing to finish college up in Sacramento.  Molly showed me to be myself despite the costs or fall out.

From Jack, oh, Jack, my late in life boy is going to be the life or death of me.  Jack challenges me every day, and I think this has been his biggest gift to me.  He has questioned my sarcasm. The other day I was behind a driver and said, “Can you go any slower?”  Jack responded, “Oh, sarcasm.”  I stopped and thought about my impatience.  Jack made me question AGAIN why I can’t just enjoy the ride.  Jack has been challenged by sitting in a classroom Monday through Friday. He’s had his share of Think Sheets.  These are pieces of paper where he has to write whatever he did wrong and what he’s going to do in the future to stop himself from doing it again.  “I can’t control my brain,” he’s said on numerous occasions as his defense for doing what he does.  “I have too many things going on inside my head.”  I’ve told him he’s a very smart person and it will continue to be hard for him to “control” his brain.  “I’ve had trouble controlling mine,” I said. “Did you get in trouble in school like me?” he asked. ”No, not at school.  I get in trouble from my lack of focus more today than back then.”  Jack’s struggles remind me to focus, but more than that to not beat myself up for not being able to.  Write a Think Sheet and do better next time.  Jack is one of the funniest people I know.  There are too many instances to tell here, so take my word for it.  It is his humor that has kept the challenges of raising a brilliant boy in check and kept me sane.

I think back to those days when I had to be right about everything.  I was an old pit bull in my determination to be seen as perfect.  Back then I bared my teeth, growled, and  was ready for a fight.  Because of Molly, Kelly and Jack, I’ve turned into a young Golden Retriever.  All I want to do now is play, have fun and learn new tricks.

Who taught you the most important lessons in your life?  Your kids?  Your pets?  Parents?  Friends? A stranger?  What were these lessons?  Share your story.

“The question remains: Is Michelle Zive going to cry every time she reads the part about Molly’s ruptured appendix?”  –David, Michelle’s husband

“I’m really proud of  Zive.  Her book is going to help a lot of people.”–Jack, age 6 (but really a 40-year-old man inside), Michelle’s son

“After reading Zive’s memoir, I recommend she get on anti-depressants and get herself into psychotherapy.” –John, clinical psychologist, Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, Advanced Memoir Workshop

“I think Michelle should let go already.” –Donna, Michelle’s friend

“I read the memoir in one sitting.  I found the story compelling.  What was amazing was how Zive captured the nuances as well as the heart of the story.  She didn’t miss a thing.  I found myself crying throughout especially at the bittersweet ending.  It was great to follow Zive on this wonderful journey…again.” –Molly, age 20, Michelle’s daughter

“Zive has to get this memoir published.  She is a fantastic storyteller, and this story is going to resonate with people.”–Marty, Michelle’s dad (”Like father, like daughter.”)

“What memoir?” –Kelly, age 17, Michelle’s daughter

“Reviewers of Zive’s early drafts of the memoir found her sense of humor off putting.  One reviewer said, ‘Zive uses her humor as a defense, and it becomes offensive and tiring. I know she’s deeper than this.’  However, I found her humor showed her resiliency.   When children have a difficult childhood, like Zive’s, they use humor to “cope”  or to bounce back.  Zive’s memoir is sprinkled with humor and insight throughout.”–Catherine, psychologist, Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, Memoir Class

“You’re still working on that memoir?”–Rhonda, Michelle’s friend for thirty-two years and a character in the memoir unbeknowst to her.  That will teach her.

Read from the memoir, HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO: A MOTHER’S STORY, the first chapter and the first time Molly’s boyfriend visited San Diego.

“Mom, chill already,” Molly said over the phone.  “Jack’s fine.”

Jack had his first official play date with his friend, Dayle, from school.  When I’d taken Dayle home, her mom had invited Jack to stay for a couple of hours.

“Dayle would love to have him.”

Jack and Dayle held hands and jumped up and down.  “Please, Mom, please can I stay?”

A million excuses popped into my head as to why Jack shouldn’t stay.  Most of them were legitimate.  Would he get hungry and then what?  He ate ten things: chicken nuggets, hamburger patties cooked to a crisp, french fries, fresh berries, cookies, raw almonds, green apples, spaghetti noodles with butter, bread from San Fillipo’s and Danimals.  You think I’m kidding?  I’m not.  Sometimes the list swells to twelve but usually it stays around ten when he bores of one or two of the items.  

Plus I didn’t want him blowing it at his first playdate.  I imagined getting the phone call from Andrea. 

“Jack is having a meltdown.  You know how he acted when you tried to drop him off at Dayle’s birthday party a couple of weeks ago.  He’s doing it again.”

Oh, shit.

But it was more than his finickiness or the threat of a potential meltdown. 

Hours before David and I had taken Dayle and Jack to Coronado Island on the ferry.  They are best friends in the truest and purest sense of the word.  They finish each other’s sentences, share stories and toys, and talk a special language.  Under the warm San Diego sun in January, I watched the two buddies pointing out the Midway aircraft carrier, the seal asleep on the buoy and the Navy helicopters that buzzed over our heads on the ferry.

As I watched Jack and Dayle excitedly share these things with  each other,  I thought of all those AWFUL mother-in-laws I’d witnessed throughout my years.  I remember the mother-in-law who got up at the rehearsal dinner of a friend of mine and said, “This is the lovely bracelet I got from my son when Shannon broke off the first engagement with my son.  I can’t wait to see what I get if this marriage fails.”  Or the friend’s mother-in-law who sent a ticket for her son to come home to Texas for Christmas but not his wife.  Sitcoms, reality shows and Dr. Laura’s radio program are full of daughter-in-laws describing the mom who can’t let go of her son and how “the daughter-in-law will never be good enough for her son.”  I watched the six-year-old friends, Jack and Dayle, and I thought, “I know how those AWFUL women feel.”  I had the potential to be one of them in twenty years or so…or now.

I left Jack at Dayle’s house, his enthusiasm and joy radiating from his grin. 

I now said to Molly on the phone, “But Jack was supposed to be home a half hour ago.”

“Mom, really.  He’s fine. ”

“But what if they’ve done something with him.”

“Done something with him?”  Molly said, sighing into the phone. “Like what?”

Like kidnapped him, like crossed the US-Mexico border with him, like held him captive…

When I didn’t say anything, Molly said, “Mom, don’t be a nut.  Jack’s fine. ”  Then she laughed.  “Remember when John came down and visited me from Sacramento State?”

John was Molly’s first college boyfriend.

“Yeah, I was cool.”

“Cool?” Molly said. 

Read from my memoir, HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO: A MOTHER’S STORY and see what you think.  Was I cool? How would you have handled it?  Do you have a similar story?

I blame Molly’s ruptured appendix for her leaving me.

I blame that infected inconsequential sac located between the small and large intestine for Molly moving 600 miles away from home to go to Sacramento State. 

Follow me:

If Molly hadn’t had appendicitis on her field trip in second grade…if she hadn’t puked in the bushes near where the bus was parked, where her classmates could see her…if the bus driver hadn’t yelled at her to make sure she didn’t dirty his bus with her vomit…if she didn’t lay ill in my bed for four days while Bill was in Philadelphia for business…if I hadn’t taken her to Dr. Anderson’s after four days and if he hadn’t told me to get in my car and take her to Children’s Hospital…if they hadn’t admitted her after diagnosing a ruptured appendix, performed an appendectomy and told us she had to stay  in the hospital for seven days while they pumped antibiotics into her system to kill all the bacteria…if from that moment on Molly couldn’t imagine leaving my side the way I’d been in the hospital with her…maybe if Bill and I hadn’t separated and then divorced around this time…if she hadn’t gotten adhesions, scar tissue, from her appendectomy a year later…if Molly hadn’t panicked every day at school (What if I have to go to the bathroom?  What if I start throwing up and can’t stop?  What if I lose control the way I did in second grade?)… if she hadn’t sat rigid in her classrooms, stoic, focusing on the teacher (What is he saying?) and not concentrating on the fact she had to pee or go to the bathroom… if she could have asked for a hall pass…if she hadn’t had a full blown panic attack in eleventh grade while she watched a film about Hiroshima…if she hadn’t gone to a therapist and talked about the what ifs (What if  my appendix hadn’t burst?  What if my parents hadn’t divorced?) and the whys (Why me?  Because I’m a bad person.  I deserved all this.)… if Molly hadn’t gotten well, strong, made homecoming court, and won Best Personality Senior Standout,  and if she hadn’t come to me and said, “I’m not going to San Diego State.  I’m going to Sacramento State because I have to prove to myself I can do it.”

If Molly hadn’t had a ruptured appendix, would she have stayed closer to home?

Read the first chapter of HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO: A MOTHER’S STORY.

Mabel Dodge Luhan, Me & Dorothy Brett (1938)

My new best friend is someone who died the year before I was born.  Her name is Mabel Dodge Luhan.  Here’s the thing about my BFF.  In 1917, at age 38, Mabel Ganson Evans Dodge Sterne, moved to Taos, New Mexico with her third husband.  She left behind her privileged life in New York and Europe as a salon hostess, wealthy patron to the arts and spokeswoman for the East’s avante-garde. When she arrived in Taos, she said, “My life broke in two right then, and I entered into the second half, a new world that replaced all the ways I had known the others, more strange and terrible and sweet than any I had ever been able to imagine.”  

I sat down with my best friend in the lovely kitchen of her adobe home.  The sprawling house is situated on a quiet road near the town of Taos and butted up against the Taos Pueblo, the original home of her fourth (and final husband), Tony Luhan.  The kitchen is warmed by the kiva fireplace and the peachy colors of the stucco.  Southwestern tile and vegas complete the feel of the room.  The scent of pinon and sage fill the room.  Mabel and I sit at one end of the long oak kitchen table over cups of tea.

Me: Why Taos, Mabel?

Mabel: I followed Maurice, my third husband, who is a painter, to Santa Fe.  He knew I would fall in love with the landscape, with the Indians, and the simplicity of the life.   He said to me, “Do you want an object in life? Save the Indians, their art-culture–reveal it to the world!

I was curious about Taos.  I’d heard it was uncorrupted by human intervention.  And when I arrived it was like “the dawn of the world.”  When I arrived in Taos after the day long horse and buggy ride, I knew I was home.

Me: Home?  Hadn’t you lived in a lovely villa in Italy and wonderful apartments in New York?

Mabel: [Waves her hand dismissively at me.] Those places, those things, didn’t mean anything to me.  It was the utopia of the Taos desert, the spirit of the people.  After World War I, our society was spiritually bankrupt.  Everyone around me was about things, possessions, status, and I felt empty.  My reaction to New Mexico was this, ” There was no disturbance in the scene, nothing to complicate the forms, no trees or houses, or any detail to confuse one.  It was like a  simple phrase in music or a single line of poetry, essential and reduced to the barest meaning.”

Me: Didn’t you feel scared to leave the known for the unknown?  The civilized for the uncivilized according to the times?

Mabel: [Laughs] Never.  I don’t know what is with women, especially middle aged women who should know better.  What are you so frightened of to try something different?  Why can’t you carve your own paths?  Stop being followers! Why do you hold on to ideas, to possessions, to a life that doesn’t work anymore?  Death is knocking on the door.  Live.  Live life.

Me:  It’s a scary proposition to do something different from everyone else, especially when you have children.  You should act and be a certain way.

Mabel: [Pounds the kitchen table.] Who says?  I was married three times.  It wasn’t until I married Tony Luhan I knew I’d found my soulmate. 

Me: Soulmate? Maybe you didn’t try hard enough with the other three.  Just maybe you let go too soon…

Mabel: [She looks out the kitchen window out on to the Taos prairie, miles away is the big Taos Mountain.] Michelle, do you know I don’t remember a time, ever, that my mother kissed me?  I didn’t have affection, a connection, until Tony.  My life was filled with words, promises, when Tony came along there was a silence, and he only spoke words that truly mattered.  Once I asked him, “What is your religion?”  He told me, “Life.”  And that’s what we’re doing honoring our lives.  Honoring life. 

Me:  Describe what your favorite day is like.

Mabel: Tony and I ride our horses up near Blue Lake, the sacred lake.  I’m not allowed near it but we go up Taos Mountain as close as we can to the lake.  We build our teepee on the hillside under the desert willows and Rocky Mountain Junipers.  I breathe in the smell of sage, and for miles you can see the pink color of the Desert Sand Verbana and the yellow of the Blackfoot Daisy.  We build a fire of pine, and sometimes we talk and other times we lay on the desert grass and look up at the moon.  In the morning, we eat a breakfast of eggs, flatbread and canned sausages. 

Me: Sounds simple…

Mabel: Exactly.

Read “Edge of Taos Desert”  by Mabel Dodge Luhan and catch the second half of my interview with Mabel Dodge Luhan in the upcoming weeks.

What woman do you admire, alive or not, fictional or real, middle of life or not, brave or bitchy?  Why do you admire her?