One Plus Two and Then Some

I hold my parents entirely responsible for providing me with a stable home, childhood, family and deeply rooted belief in each. I was "one" in the midst of five, and if they messed a few things up, the whole of it is good. My mother is responsible for digging tight fisted tentacles into the ground of Camarillo for eighteen years as I navigated small but significant dramas of childhood, adolescence and transition to adulthood.

She was the "ghost" of strength, meaning that the other four of us didn't give her enough recognition for her hard work, restraint at the right times and ability to say no. I hold my father responsible for my belief that men are good, caring, loyal, playful, happy, hard working and devoted. Both of them have always been there to pick me up when I skinned a knee or showed up with a shattered heart. But if I ever called broken-hearted, my father would immediately hail, "Doris, Bam's on the phone."

I was born with a little bit of my father's daily restlessness that led him to be on the move at all times. I inherited my mother's curvy build and laughter. Yet she was heavy-hearted (for good reason) and my father, light-hearted, while showing rare glimpses into tough territories he had managed to negotiate. My stubborness is a mirror of both of them. Another way to think about this is that I inherited hard wired tenacity, optimism and a distinctly maternal approach toward others. These have proven to be strengths and challenges over the course of my adult life. I have been gifted or burdened with a bit of wildness--a pioneering spirit full of leaping risks while simultaneously exercising a commitment to familial and economic stability and an ability to say no when it became clear to me that I needed to.

The last part of that sentence is important because I found saying no to be easy with toddlers, children, teenagers and students. I had fairly clear ideas. I had grown up on beaches in sand, and drawing lines was a matter of hunkering down, activating a finger and crafting that line. In other matters, that clarity confounded me or came late because times, places and persons were sprung out of that safe nest into a new familial structure of "One" plus "two".

I was the lone adult in a household of three females and felt responsible for teaching my daughters what I knew when I was making some of it up as I went along and trying to pass along lessons about what it means to be a lady of quality. I had learned these things from my mother, brother and his friends and other women in my family. Having been launched into a world outside of a nuclear one, I did what I could to protect that "three".

I remember driving in the car with the girls when at age five, Amanda asked me, "Mommy, where do the poor people live?" I came up with some answer that seemed to satisfy her, but at the time I was relieved that she did not think it was us. I had very little money, a long term plan and my own questions about whether or not I could actually get to a secure sense of completion.

As I carried out that plan, I met up with new friends and tested romantic interests along the way. It is not easy to date, hold a family together and carry out a long term plan for security to completion. I made my biggest compromises in the realm of dating, whether by expecting less than what I deserved, compartmentalizing that part of my life or getting myself into a deep hole that I had to climb out of. I was off the beach in deep waters that had their own tides, seasons and shorelines--murky, tangled, separated from or overwhelming solid ground. But the best way to get out of a bad current is to flow with it and give it time. At some point the current will weaken enough so that it is possible to swim away.

There was a thoughtful and artistic cabinetry craftsman rooted in my home county who knew better than I did how much I needed to carry out my trajectory when I left for Utah. He was my rebound, ten years my elder and probably knew it though I enjoyed his company, clever and earthy ways, guitar playing talents and the songs he sang. He had a house full of plants that looked like they'd been tended to lovingly, a giant album collection and his own wooden craftsmanship. He had also raised two boys by himself.

If he met the kids, it was as a friend who accompanied us to a Cal State Northridge softball game as I swung the bat, caught and threw balls and celebrated the completion of my M.A. Around the same time, a good looking Jewish guy took me roller skating and invited me to a home cooked gourmet dinner where he read Shakespeare aloud to me. We talked about life, teaching, classes and our dreams. These were both nice distractions from the mounting responsibilities I was taking on. I had preferred the man to the boy and am not disloyal to myself or another person, so I guess I learned the difference at that juncture.

In Utah, there was an Economics Ph.D candidate, father of one of Stephanie's friends whose wife had traded him and both of their Mormon upbringings for her secular Finance dissertation advisor. We were neighbors that should have remained friends who found comradery in our respective single parenting (he was raising his daughter). We had some good times, common political views and a shared dumpster where we unloaded our household trash. Those green dumpsters became a very awkward place when it became clear that he was rebounding and I was not interested in carrying his baggage along with mine. The weight of our relationship had been friendship that probably would not have deteriorated had we both not been naive enough to consider otherwise. A year into my graduate program he left for his position at UNLV and I was able once again to freely dispose of my household trash without social anxiety.

About three years later, he paid me a surprise visit as part of a twelve step program to make "amends" with me and admit his former alcoholism, which came to me as a huge shock for someone who had a beer with him once in awhile. Maybe it was the Mormon version of alcoholism. As of this day, his daughter is grown, he has added to his family and just recently married a third time. "They" always show up unexpectedly again.

I have never dated anyone who has not returned to the scene of our mutual "crimes". I am not sure if it is because of a genuine desire to see how I am doing, to see if they made a mistake, to see if I am interested in reuniting (that ship passes the first time it happens for me), to guage how I have "aged" or to determine how their "successes" measure up to mine. It is probably a combination of motivations, but amuses me and gives me reassurance that my choices were not altogether wacky or blind.

Still in Utah, a girlfriend set me up with an Argentine cellular molecular virologist, who was a friend of her boyfriend. We had a "double date" where I and my neighbor Geri cooked for the guys. Jose spoke to me sparingly throughout the evening, but then after the others left, became intensely interested. Put off by that, I shooed him out the door, not expecting to hear from him. He called me that week, asking me to lunch. I was not interested.

Yet he had a swagger in his walk, a broad, white smile, a fun accent and looked like a cross between Al Gore and Ray Romano at their best. I imagined a lunch could do no harm, so as we dined I explained that I was busy with my family, graduate studies and teaching. I had little room for much social life. I guess this deterred him for a couple months. One quiet New Year's Eve day when my kids were in California with their dad and his family, I decided I'd like to go skiing and he had left that invitation open. I called Jose against the best advice of my mother, who had always said I should never call boys. That phone call led to some great days in the snowy mountain landscape in Utah, great political discussions, lessons about how science and cooking are similar activities, my delicate consumption of several great Argentine dishes, dinners and breakfasts in little cafes up the Wasatch front, in Park City, trips in tandem to local music festivals and a relationship that I kept entirely separate from my daughters' lives.

After about two and a half years, he met them and we took a trip to the park together. He had grown up with four sisters and had great fun with the girls. That day may have been a turning point for both of us in distancing from each other. I was looking for jobs, then accepted my job in Chicago, and his boss's lab was moving to U.C. Irvine. He had to go with the lab and grant money that ensured his employment and U.S. residency status. He had been a veterinarian in Argentina, but loved science. He had prints of virus cells on the walls of his living room, subscribed to every science magazine out there and had a quirky love for the old t.v. show, Hogan's Heroes and British comedies. He loved Captain Klink. I loved Jose.

But I had found my first tenure track job after six long years in graduate school in two states qualifying myself for "the job" I was offered in Chicago. It was one of those crossroads that would have required radical sacrifice on both our parts to stay together. So I let the the land between us grow fallow and he didn't argue. He called me the week before I was to leave to take me out to dinner. He stood me up and then showed up on moving day with tears and embraces that I accepted because I got it and it was too late anyway.

I think of my years in Utah as the beginning of the middle of my life. I spent them launching a profession, learning to be on my own, not being so far away from my family that I could not get to them in a 14 hour drive or a short plane ride, and striving to create some stability in a family structure of one plus two. We would leave that way, having had some great fun, valuable experiences, having made lifelong friends and escaping just in time from a land of conservatism that would not have been good for my daughters once they reached adolescence. I had healed a bit, kept my dignity as a woman and found that the passions I had trusted that led me there in the first place were right-minded for creating a strong professional life. There were also choices and trade-offs as there are in any life when a crossroad is reached. I brought phase one of my long term plan for my family to completion and am proud of that.