Iguana Dreams

I don't like reptiles, but this post gets its title from the iguana because it changes colors to blend in with its surroundings for survival. Dreams are the stuff of both sleep and waking imaginings that keep a person moving forward. They are the big and little aspirations that futures are made of. When I was a girl, I dreamt of being a world class tennis player. As a teenager, to get through college, as a college student, to be smart and have fun, as a waitress, to not have to work at Sambo's on the graveyard shift and as an assembly line worker, to do something besides move my hands and arms in the same motion from 8am till 4:30pm as I listened to my mostly hispanic co-workers tell off-color jokes that I didn't understand as they also dreamt about their weekly paychecks, getting new carpeting and having better cars.

After I finished college, I dreamt of getting a good job and marrying for love. I wanted to enjoy the spoils of summers spent waitressing to help my dad pay for books and tuition that my scholarships didn't cover. I married for love and got a job with a good company and a less than satisfying role for the more creative sides of me.

For three years, I spent my days authorizing payments to people who had injured themselves on the job; some were malingerers and others had devastating lifelong conditions that limited their abilities to fulfill great aspirations. Money was their compensation, but I'm not sure it ever made up for the physical limitations that affected their lives. How can 500.00 replace a baby finger and 2,000. make up for the loss of a thumb?, or 200,000. make up for genitals lost in a farm machine accident and permanent loss of consortium with one's wife? I spent those days in an orange cubicle with large file folders, a telephone recording device to secure an account of how injuries happened and a ten thousand dollar settlement authority to make people I'd never seen face to face go away when the company had met its obligations under California law.

I dipped my toes into legal depositions, court trials, property losses and gin and tonic lunches with attorneys who represented our company. I considered going to law school at the time, but the sides of the law I had seen were full of delays, "sub rosa" contracts (private investigators with video cameras spying on people claiming injuries) and a kind of proffering that didn't sit well with me.

I learned a lot, but wholeheartedly disliked the workplace and all but a few people I worked with. Nobody "dreams" of working for an insurance company. I think everybody that ended up there did so out of chance and opportunity. The culture of my unit was cohesive to the extent that claims adjusters would clock out precisely at 11:30 to go to lunch and be back minutes before 12:30. These excursions were often to the Pizza Cookery where they served hot rolls made out of pizza dough till our salads came. My mid-life female companions used to fight over who was taking too much butter. That was one of many clues that I might want a change of course. We were salaried employees, but bound to ticking clocks, productivity numbers, unpaid overtime because we were salaried, three weeks of required training and company dress policy (if you go to the "home office" in San Francisco, suits are required, and only in gray, navy or black; no brown allowed).

My husband and I had our first child my second year into that job. I was nearly grateful I had delivered her by c-section because I got twelve weeks to be home with her before letting her infant self experience "day care." If I had delivered "naturally," I would have only gotten to be home for six weeks. In my marriage I was expected to bring income into the household. We placed her into the home of what seemed like a good woman and nice family for about three weeks until I witnessed the seven year old carrying her around, only to seat her on their big dog as if riding a horse. Frantic at that sight and other things that concerned me, my maternal instincts snatched that beloved child out of that home, breaking our contract while keeping my commitment to this beloved child to ensure her a loving and safe environment.

I am fairly certain that God and fate intervened with Sirvart, a middle-aged Albanian woman who was expensive, but only took children ages two and under. My daughter received her first "socialization" in a gated room empty of furniture, full of learning toys and five little friends. She had regular naptimes and diaper changes, and when ready, healthy natural lunches made of delicious vegetable and chicken stews Sirvart served lovingly to the babies lined up across her kitchen in six little high chairs. There is something about "knowing" one's child is okay that makes it less excruciating to work away from home, despite the unpeaceful rumblings in a mother's heart that go with handing any child over. I never liked it and felt pangs of worry and self-consternation that continue to this day.

A set of circumstances converged to change that course and give me relief, radical clarity and newfound happiness. The company was "downsizing" and rumors spread like a game of telephone in our office of roughly 200 people. Line managers who had spent nearly 25 years with the company were to be let go. My line manager was pregnant in her late thirties with her first child and worked up till the day before her child was born and returned to work only two weeks afterward. Two male line managers who were married with families got wind of the layoffs; one of them drove his car off the cliffs at Mugu Rock into the Pacific ocean, and another shot himself in the chest on a weekend in the office building attached to ours. No job is worth taking your own life. And no job is worth sitting at your desk until labor starts. As remarkable as this all sounds, it is true and this diabolical cluster of "adult" decision making gave me the permission slip I needed four months into a pregnancy with my second child to leave without so much as a glance back. I would be home with my first daughter for several months before my second was born, and I would be free of the dark energies in that place that consumed people's vitality and hope.

The only person who wasn't happy about my decision was my husband, who worked overtime tending bar to pay the bills. He never said too much to me about it, but grew more angry with each passing former payday. He was under substantial pressure to provide for us and was probably too tired and dumbstruck about what to do about it that he simmered through the birth of our second child and my neediness for adult company when he came home. Ironically, I loved that time with my babies.

They did new things every day, cracked me up and made every second worth it when they smiled. I bathed and powdered them, dressed them in adorable clothes, handed them over to their grandpa when he popped by allegedly to see me (only I knew better!), enjoyed their naptimes, mealtimes, new discoveries, imaginations, speech learning, first steps and endless hours with Runaway Bunny, Dr. Seuss and the "B" book that I think I have memorized to this day.

My first born loved men, strangers, friends, relatives and talked it up with all of them. She was also Daddy's girl; he called her "pea pod" and held her in the crook of his big arm as she found comfort in feeling his five-o'clock shadow, playing with his ears and hair and testing her leg strength on his leg. She moved quickly and constantly, watered my carpet through the open sliding glass door with a water hose, checked for a moon every night, changed shoes and clothes several times a day and paid attention to every detail of everything around her. She noticed ants, pill bugs, fresh paint and curling irons. She wanted to see and touch it ALL.

Baby sister posed new challenges and lessons in parenting. She didn't like everyone and made that clear when someone she didn't know entered the room. She loved sitting in one place and arranging things--a farm house with animals, magnetic alphabet letters on the refrigerator, and doing things carefully with sustained concentration. She, too, loved the crook of her Daddy's arm as they sat quietly, in harmony with each others' character and style. She was quiet except when she chose to exercise her lungs and vocal power. She knew how to walk well before she showed anyone she could and when she began to speak, it wasn't in the garbled language of her own, but in clearly pronounced words or full sentences others could understand. She accepted the frequent hugs and direction of her older sister, knowing that they were companions at bathtime, mealtime, bedtime and naptime.

I lived a dream in those days, full of familial love and intention. I could have continued living that way for a very long time, but an earthquake of magnificent proportions created a time for new dreams and practical solutions to be conjured, leading in new and unexpected directions that would change all of our lives forever.