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MLK Day, Redux
By Stephanie Kemp
MLK Day, Redux
By Stephanie Kemp
I miss my mom.
It is 6:37 am. MLK day.
Already.
Again.
How can the world be spinning so fast?
Especially upside down?
It is gray here in the canyon that also misses my mom.
Cold.
Or maybe that’s just me.
My mom would be out in the little white chair on the balcony, in her robe, looking at the trees and listening to the birds. I would (try to) make her wear socks when I brought her a second cup of coffee and wouldn’t give a shit that she was smoking, knowing that she was on the last lap of her badass and (mostly) beautiful race.
Actually, that is a lie (the I “wouldn’t give a shit” part), because I wanted her race to be longer.
But it is true that I wasn’t mad. I was grateful to be able to see her happy at the finish, thinking about things over coffee in her little white chair and naked tootsies as her mouth strung silent words between inhales and exhales when she thought no-one was looking.
Mom, I want to tell you so many things.
(It is a rare moment of quiet here, so I have to write fast.)
Adam is at the gym.
Frances’s friend, Alice, slept over and they were up until 2:37am.
Olivia is in college. She goes to RISD, in case there are some communication problems between our current places of business and you haven’t heard this massive piece of news. (I can’t think of the word right now, for what I am trying to say. I will circle back after I’ve had more coffee.) That said - and on a related note - you would have been a great business owner, you know…
When I came up to the kitchen this morning, my throat caught.
The smell of coffee and lingering cinnamon and brown sugar (I made coffee cake last night for Frances and Alice) brought you to me in real time:
We are in your kitchen, bacon made and wrapped in paper towels, barnyard waffles on warm in the oven. Bob is reading the paper at the table, ignoring us, and we are about to go drink our coffee on the back patio while we wait for the kids to wake up.
Ooh wait………Now we are at the cabin. Having a cocktail on the bridge. All four of our knees are still in excellent condition so it is no problem getting in and out of those little beach chairs we bought at Ben Franklin (that same year we also needed to buy the extra fans). We are still in our bathing suits from the day. It is hot. I can’t wait to go to bed after another jump in the river (no shower) and sleep in the Heidi Room with my new fan. (I bought the fans. I just finished working on that big dumb movie and think I am rich. Or maybe I just want you to think I am rich, so you won’t have to worry about me…….ever again.) You put calamine from the 1800s on the bug bites I can’t reach. I am not a mom yet, in this story.
This happens sometimes……..I try to make space for it to happen as often as possible - you coming to me. I have to be (or find) quiet. At the moment, quiet is rare. There are so many things I wish I could tell you, or watch you respond to...So many things I wish you could see, explain through Rita* Speak, or just be with us for.
I think, on this very morning, I would cry my eyes out. There is so much happening that I am trying to carry, feeling like I’m dripping and dropping shit everywhere. You would tell me to go for a walk (which I will) and then clean a closet (which I won’t - at least not today).
I have been working on a project about childhood independence for what feels like 5000 years. We have partnered with a non-profit trying to get kids back on the track of being kids, 70s style (which is why it matters to me so much). Trying to get parents off the helicopter, (snowplow, bulldozer - take your pick) track and (re)build a world (community? possibility?) where “a kid’s job is to have fun and learn.” (I am not making this job description up - a 9 year old named Mathok said it to me in our interview. You would love him, and all of the other 127 kids I have met on this project.)
The reason I wanted to do this film is not just because my mom let me learn to be independent (then resilient), while also teaching me to be selfless (we are making very little money on this and I think Adam might want to kill me), but because I think I might be a closet helicopter parent, and know I am a parent who wants to punch anyone who hurts her kids.
(What would you say to that? Especially because I might have to punch a kid, or two, or three?)
When Olivia was a baby, Adam had to hold me down if she cried in her crib. (She always fell asleep - or back to sleep - within minutes and grew into an excellent now 18 year old sleeper.)
I used to drop the girls off at day care and act like the cool tough loving mom who could just leave them there crying while I drove away to my kick ass job, when I actually always hid out spying on them through a tiny window (or the parking lot, if it was baby recess) and couldn’t drive away to my (actually) stupid job (but we needed the money) until they stopped.
They did. And then I could…..(stop crying).
I let them wander around Garfield Park all by themselves from the time they could toddle only because I had the best group of OG mom friends that were doing this with me (while their kids toddled around near and with mine). Almost every Friday for our kids’ entire early childhoods we ate cheese and crackers from the package (chips and salsa, cookies, fruit, sometimes pizza or Señor Fish, if it was a long weekend or birthday) and drank Trader Joe’s wine from plastic cups on shared tapestries, secretly combining our 14 eyes to scan the park in all directions as we laughed and told funny stories about being moms and or any/everything else we were trying to be.
You taught me about the importance of friends.
You taught me about the importance of sisters.
You taught me what I don’t want a marriage to be. (I hope this doesn’t make you sad - I mean this as a compliment because you also taught me that a husband doesn’t have to define you.)
You taught me so much.
I wish you were here today……..in my place of RESIDENCE.
My place of Residence!
(2 cups of coffee in, but I’m actually not sure that residence is the right word either.)
I hear people rustling.
I am going to go (try to) be of service, and (try to) be nice to everyone, like you taught me to (try to) be.
And if the lines of communication are up and running, maybe you could drop a line to Adam.
He’d love to hear from you (especially if it can come with an offer for “perch that’s to die for! He has certainly earned it.
Ask him to tell you about the “Continental Breakfast”…….It will turn your day around.
More later, but now I have to drink more coffee and finish a film to help save the children (or at least my children’s mom).
* When I was thirteen I started calling my mom (Lynn) Rita for no reason. She loved it. It allowed us to invite a third party into our relationship. It was called Friendship, but it - and we - always knew its place in the queue.
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It is 6:37 am. MLK day.
Already.
Again.
How can the world be spinning so fast?
Especially upside down?
It is gray here in the canyon that also misses my mom.
Cold.
Or maybe that’s just me.
My mom would be out in the little white chair on the balcony, in her robe, looking at the trees and listening to the birds. I would (try to) make her wear socks when I brought her a second cup of coffee and wouldn’t give a shit that she was smoking, knowing that she was on the last lap of her badass and (mostly) beautiful race.
Actually, that is a lie (the I “wouldn’t give a shit” part), because I wanted her race to be longer.
But it is true that I wasn’t mad. I was grateful to be able to see her happy at the finish, thinking about things over coffee in her little white chair and naked tootsies as her mouth strung silent words between inhales and exhales when she thought no-one was looking.
Mom, I want to tell you so many things.
(It is a rare moment of quiet here, so I have to write fast.)
Adam is at the gym.
Frances’s friend, Alice, slept over and they were up until 2:37am.
Olivia is in college. She goes to RISD, in case there are some communication problems between our current places of business and you haven’t heard this massive piece of news. (I can’t think of the word right now, for what I am trying to say. I will circle back after I’ve had more coffee.) That said - and on a related note - you would have been a great business owner, you know…
When I came up to the kitchen this morning, my throat caught.
The smell of coffee and lingering cinnamon and brown sugar (I made coffee cake last night for Frances and Alice) brought you to me in real time:
We are in your kitchen, bacon made and wrapped in paper towels, barnyard waffles on warm in the oven. Bob is reading the paper at the table, ignoring us, and we are about to go drink our coffee on the back patio while we wait for the kids to wake up.
Ooh wait………Now we are at the cabin. Having a cocktail on the bridge. All four of our knees are still in excellent condition so it is no problem getting in and out of those little beach chairs we bought at Ben Franklin (that same year we also needed to buy the extra fans). We are still in our bathing suits from the day. It is hot. I can’t wait to go to bed after another jump in the river (no shower) and sleep in the Heidi Room with my new fan. (I bought the fans. I just finished working on that big dumb movie and think I am rich. Or maybe I just want you to think I am rich, so you won’t have to worry about me…….ever again.) You put calamine from the 1800s on the bug bites I can’t reach. I am not a mom yet, in this story.
This happens sometimes……..I try to make space for it to happen as often as possible - you coming to me. I have to be (or find) quiet. At the moment, quiet is rare. There are so many things I wish I could tell you, or watch you respond to...So many things I wish you could see, explain through Rita* Speak, or just be with us for.
I think, on this very morning, I would cry my eyes out. There is so much happening that I am trying to carry, feeling like I’m dripping and dropping shit everywhere. You would tell me to go for a walk (which I will) and then clean a closet (which I won’t - at least not today).
I have been working on a project about childhood independence for what feels like 5000 years. We have partnered with a non-profit trying to get kids back on the track of being kids, 70s style (which is why it matters to me so much). Trying to get parents off the helicopter, (snowplow, bulldozer - take your pick) track and (re)build a world (community? possibility?) where “a kid’s job is to have fun and learn.” (I am not making this job description up - a 9 year old named Mathok said it to me in our interview. You would love him, and all of the other 127 kids I have met on this project.)
The reason I wanted to do this film is not just because my mom let me learn to be independent (then resilient), while also teaching me to be selfless (we are making very little money on this and I think Adam might want to kill me), but because I think I might be a closet helicopter parent, and know I am a parent who wants to punch anyone who hurts her kids.
(What would you say to that? Especially because I might have to punch a kid, or two, or three?)
When Olivia was a baby, Adam had to hold me down if she cried in her crib. (She always fell asleep - or back to sleep - within minutes and grew into an excellent now 18 year old sleeper.)
I used to drop the girls off at day care and act like the cool tough loving mom who could just leave them there crying while I drove away to my kick ass job, when I actually always hid out spying on them through a tiny window (or the parking lot, if it was baby recess) and couldn’t drive away to my (actually) stupid job (but we needed the money) until they stopped.
They did. And then I could…..(stop crying).
I let them wander around Garfield Park all by themselves from the time they could toddle only because I had the best group of OG mom friends that were doing this with me (while their kids toddled around near and with mine). Almost every Friday for our kids’ entire early childhoods we ate cheese and crackers from the package (chips and salsa, cookies, fruit, sometimes pizza or Señor Fish, if it was a long weekend or birthday) and drank Trader Joe’s wine from plastic cups on shared tapestries, secretly combining our 14 eyes to scan the park in all directions as we laughed and told funny stories about being moms and or any/everything else we were trying to be.
You taught me about the importance of friends.
You taught me about the importance of sisters.
You taught me what I don’t want a marriage to be. (I hope this doesn’t make you sad - I mean this as a compliment because you also taught me that a husband doesn’t have to define you.)
You taught me so much.
I wish you were here today……..in my place of RESIDENCE.
My place of Residence!
(2 cups of coffee in, but I’m actually not sure that residence is the right word either.)
I hear people rustling.
I am going to go (try to) be of service, and (try to) be nice to everyone, like you taught me to (try to) be.
And if the lines of communication are up and running, maybe you could drop a line to Adam.
He’d love to hear from you (especially if it can come with an offer for “perch that’s to die for! He has certainly earned it.
Ask him to tell you about the “Continental Breakfast”…….It will turn your day around.
More later, but now I have to drink more coffee and finish a film to help save the children (or at least my children’s mom).
* When I was thirteen I started calling my mom (Lynn) Rita for no reason. She loved it. It allowed us to invite a third party into our relationship. It was called Friendship, but it - and we - always knew its place in the queue.
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