Committed (Part II) and Becca's House

In her book, Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert discusses the Marriage Benefit Imbalance. "Married men live longer than single men; married men accumulate more wealth than single men; married men excel at their careers above single men, married men are far more likely to die a violent death than single men; married men report themselves to be much happier than single men; and married men suffer less from alcoholism, drug addiction and depression than do single men."

"Dishearteningly," Elizabeth writes, "the reverse is not true." Married women don't live as long as single women, don't accumulate as much wealth, don't thrive in their careers as well as single women do, are significantly less healthy than single women, and we're much more likely to die a violent death than single women -- usually at the hands of a husband.

I'm confident that Brad would never hurt me but I'm also sure that marriage has not made me a better person. For every personal sacrifice I've made, I lug behind me about 10 suitcases bulging with bitterness and regret. They take up all the rooms in our house. And our house is big. Yet I am the person who has made the decisions that have carried our lives so off-track. Adopting twins from a family that clearly has some sort of mental disorder -- now there's a recipe for certain unhappiness. Moving us all to Gilroy, effectively cutting us off from every friend we have. WTF?????

So the question becomes -- how to steer together with Brad so life feels hopeful again instead of sitting here in Gilroy waiting to be hit by yet another loss in a long series of failures and bad choices.

I'm thinking about all this when we go to Becca and Allyn's house for a surprise party for Suzie. Becca and Allyn's house is a bungalow, in a neighborhood that is a long way from gentrification. They give us the tour, the huge cellar with a wine press in one corner; a high ceiling that -- when they tore down the low, rough ceiling that hid it -- showed the scorch marks of a long-ago fire. There is something about Becca and Allyn in this house -- their simple happiness at creating a place that is theirs that reminds me it's not so simple to say no to love, to a first house, to companionship, to children. We want those things. We think... we hope our family life will be free of the upheavals, the despair, the violence and fear that marked the low points in our own childhoods. How dim-witted am I to think our family life could possibly be free of upheavals? Life is upheaval.

I think about this as we wait for Suzie and Steven to arrive. Suzie comes through the door, and all of us, 50 people, jump out and yell "surprise" at her. Suzie is shocked. She covers her face with both hands, and stands in the doorway not moving, then she shows her face again and laughs, clearly at a loss. Later, when the color is back in her face, we stand to one side talking.

"Do you like surprises?," I ask her. She grimaces, tilts her head, shrugs, makes an "eh" sound, and laughs. "Your daughter," I say, and what I love about Suzie is we speak without words. That Becca admires her mom and loves her and arranged this party to show how highly she thinks of Suzie, how much Suzie means to her. And Suzie, maybe, in those first seconds when she walked through the door, would have preferred a quieter Valentine's Day with Becca and Allyn, Steven and Rachel, but as the party moves through Becca and Allyn's house, the kids all tooting on their glittery party-favor horns, there is only good will and peace and community and the love between a mother and a daughter.

Steven, who has helped Becca and Allyn lay the wonderful dark red and yellow checkerboard kitchen floor, is in back, manning the barbecue, turning turkey burgers. And the table shows how this group knows Suzie because the turkey burgers are the only meat in sight: there is a carrot salad that practically glows it's so orange, and a salad of pristinely tender Little Gems lettuce leaves, a lentil salad with incredibly ethereal feta, and the most beautiful plate of asparagus, and even a salad of shaved Brussels sprouts and almonds. And an enormous bowl of potato salad that Becca has made. I have three helpings of that potato sald and even take a fourth helping with me for the long drive home.

And I think about weathering the upheavals, using whatever means you have: meditation or religion, yoga or Feldenkrais, travel or singing or reading or whatever gets you through the really bad patches. So you can be there on those radiant days when the love shines clear.

copyright 2010 Ann Krueger Spivack

Committed (Part I) and Potato Salad

Brad says to me, "why can't you just commit?" As we've been married for 25 years and lived together for more than 27 years, this strikes me as odd. I'm pondering this -- the fact that I still hesitate to commit after all these years -- while making potato salad and thinking about Elizabeth Gilbert's new book Committed.

Elizabeth has come through a horrible divorce, is determined to never marry again, but then is put in a situation where she has to marry. The thing that hits me hardest while reading this book is her absolute clarity around that fact that she does not want children. She wants to work. I want to work too. Living in a house with two struggling teens (hell, all of us are struggling) means that time to work is hard won.

It's not just that there are no uninterrupted hours. It's that there are no uninterrupted thoughts. Brad says he thinks about sex every 30 seconds. I laugh at that but thoughts about relationships fill most of my waking hours and not just my relationship with Brad. My relationship with my children (that's the worrisome one), my relationship with my parents (definitely better now), my relation to my sisters and my failed relationship with my sister-in-law. At least four times a day I think, "I'm not the right person; another person could manage these relationships better. There must be someplace I can go to be free of these relationships and then become the person I was meant to be. Mexico? Bali? Iceland?"

Elizabeth Gilbert is maybe not the best person to turn to when one is tempted to run away to foreign lands. I'm stuck on the idea that if I live alone, I could be good. When I live with others (especially sixteen-year-old others) I'm angry, mean, even sometimes violent. This is not who I am in my head, but this is who I become when I'm scared and frustrated, angry and tired. I'm envious of families whose children are in step -- soccer-playing, straight A, polite readers -- and I kill a big part of myself with the thought that my children would be those teens too if I'd just been a better mother.

I think about having twin babies in New York City, moving to Manhattan when they were only two months old. I remember the intense loneliness of it but also days when sun poured through the window, and I lay on my back inside the huge corral that I'd constructed in the center of our apartment. Danny and Rachel would crawl over me, each one clutching a Cheerio between thumb and forefinger. And who they were did not depend on me. Their well-being depended on me, and I did a damned good job of making sure they were never hungry, that they were warm and clean and dry and safe always, always. They were happy. But now, somehow who they are depends on me. The fact that they haven't achieved is my fault. And fear is the ruling emotion, fear that Danny will land in jail, fear that Rachel will become pregnant, fear that I'm somehow keeping them from doing their best or not doing enough to help them become the person I think they could be, should be.

How do mothers bear this?

I drag myself out of bed, and make potato salad. My Dad always made the potato salad in our house, and I think about how hard my parents had it with five children and not enough money. I chop vegetables just the way that my Dad does, small mounds of diced celery, red onion, and sweet gherkins. I leave out the hard-boiled eggs and mayo, and cook really beautiful Yukon golds (a pain to peel but such a gorgeous yellow). I make two bowls of it, one just chunks of potato, a good deal of Olio Nuovo, and a sprinkle of sea salt. In the other bowl, I mix the potatoes with the Olio Nuovo and all the veggies. Danny and Rachel fall on the no-veggie potatoes, and pronounce it "bomb-y." I take a spoonful of the vegified potato salad and there's something about commitment right there: that my parents and I struggled and yet I make the potato salad, I try to stay. That's a sort of commitment.

copyright 2010 Ann Krueger Spivack