Art is Pain

I spent the day in a high school auditorium yesterday watching one act plays while wishing for a merciful death.

It wasn't exactly how I thought I'd be spending my time.

When I agreed to attend the festival I told myself this was a chance to relive my glory days as a theatre geek while celebrating my daughter's triumphs in her drama program.  

I was wrong.

I should have realized some memories are shinier when they are coated in dust and haven't seen the glare of daylight in years.

As I took a seat at the end of a row, I ignored the kids around me who all looked vaguely horrified to have their space intruded on by an 'old' person. 

I'm young. I'm hip. I am not the oldest person in this room, I told myself as I nervously twirled my chin whisker. 

I was the oldest person in my row but whatever. My brother-in-law sat right behind me and he's like a decade older. 

Then the house lights dimmed and the adjudicator took the stage, welcomed the audience and introduced the first play.

It was the play my daughter and niece were in! 

I was so excited.

There's my niece! She looks great! 

Ha ha! This play is so funny!

A kid in a wheelchair playing a zany grandmother!

Oh! There's Ken! Holy cow. Her cheek bones are so sharp she could cut glass with them.

She's a twin! Um she's a little creepy.

Holy cow, I may have nightmares over my creepy kid. Thanks Ken.

HAHA. FUNNY NIECE.

Wait, what? Oh! I GET IT.

HAHAHAH.

Oh, that's a little dark. 

Suicide jokes. Bomb shelters. Starvation. Woah.

Oh! But there's a game of charades and someone is eating kleenex! I'll laugh!

Wow my kid does creepy evil twin really well. Weird.

It's over? That's how it ended? Really? Who cares! Well done kids! Applause! That's right. Take your bow! It was a dark subject with a tough theme and you made it awesome. Suck on that one act festival! My kids rock! 

The house lights came on and the adjudicator walked out and introduced the next one act. 

The lights dimmed.

Please don't be more awesome than my kid's play.

A smaller cast. My girls were way cuter. 

Oh, they're singing.

What? This makes no sense.

Oh no.

Oh crap. 

Seriously? A one act play about the guilt a mother feels when her kid suddenly dies? Are you freaking kidding me?

Wow. They're good. 

I mean, I think they're good. I'm all conflicted and reliving the guilt and horror of when my kid died. THIS IS NOT FUN.

First a play about being locked in a bomb shelter and starving to death and now this?

What the hell is wrong with kids these days?

I want to look away but dang, those kids are really good.

I hate this play but wow.

Could this get any bleaker?

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Oh thank God. It's over.

I will conceed they were really good. But my daughter and niece were way cuter. Who would have thought bomb shelter insanity was funnier than a child's sudden death.

HAHAH. Twitch.

Oh, here we go. There's the adjudicator. Last play of the afternoon. This is it. 

Clever set. I like it. 

Whoever that kid is playing the soldier, he totally reminds me of my brother.

No.

NOOO.

What is wrong with kids these days? Another play about death?

THEY ARE CANNIBALS?

OHMYGODHEISEATINGPEOPLEMEAT.

Is that? Are you kidding me? A BABY? In a BOX? 

I can't take much more of this dystopian post apocalyptic themed play.

DONT EAT THE MEAT.

I have to pee. 

SHE IS STABBING HIM TO DEATH WITH A RUBBER KNIFE.

Crap. I can't leave. My kid's teacher will see me walk out if I do.

This couldn't get any bleaker if they tried.

ANOTHER BABY IN A BOX?

WHY ARE TEENAGERS THESE DAYS SO DARK AND ANGSTY?

This is all Justin Bieber's fault.

I think it's ending. 

Please be ending.

Oh thank the baby jeebus, it's over.

WHAT? FAKE ENDING? IT ISN'T OVER?

NOOOOOO.

I don't know if I can hold my old lady bladder for much longer.

I will clap the hardest and cheer the loudest if this will just end.

My brother-in-law just finger shot himself in the head. Good to know it's not just me. THIS PLAY IS UNENDING.

It's done! It's done!

I can totally clap and cheer as I waddle to the bathroom. It's not rude.

Oh no. The adjudicator. I forgot about him. I can hold it a few minutes more. I want to hear what he has to say about my kid.

No! Don't do reverse order! GAH.

Yes yes. They were all dark themed and dramatic.

Yes they were exceptional actors, blah blah blah.

WHO CARES ABOUT THE TECHIES! Sorry techies, I don't mean that. I just really have to pee.

Pay attention Tanis, he's talking about your kid's play now.

Oh! He liked the twins! He liked her! He really liked her.

That's it? He prattles on and on about the other plays and that's all he says about my kid's play?

Lame. Merciful gods, he's done.

Yes, yes, cheers and applause. Move kid! OLD LADY BLADDER EMERGENCY!

THERE IS NO TOILET PAPER IN THIS STALL.

I am stuck in high school hell.

I am too old for this. 

I hate one act play festivals. How did I ever think this was fun?

What? That's it? No more plays for the afternoon? I can leave?

FREEDOM.

Some high school experiences are best left trapped in the boxes of your memory. Much like those poor soon-to-be cannibalized babies on stage. 

Thumbs Down

I'm obsessed with thumbs. 

I can't stop worrying about my son's thumbs.

Especially his right one. It refuses to listen to me. It's stubborn and willful, defiant in it's rigid deformity. Every day and every morning, I take those thumbs, especially that right one and I hold it up to my lips and I kiss it. 

I whisper to the air around it, trying to coax it out of it's tightly held position and beg it to just open up. 

"Come on little piggy, you know you want to come to this market," I'll say. Right before stretching it wide open and holding my breath.

Did I break it?

Oh my god, I just broke my kid's thumb.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

Oh wait. No. Nope. Not broken.

Damn it. It was almost there. 

STOP CLUTCHING THE THUMB.

And then the circle repeats itself. Everyday. 

I wrestle those thumbs into neoprene and metal splints. I have nightmares about those thumbs. 

Maybe it's not about my son's thumbs. Not really. Not any more than it is about his feet that are so rigid we can no longer get them in splints. Or hips so tight they dislocate themselves with a diaper change.

Those thumbs, those contorted disfigured little pieces of bone and tissue represent it all. More. Everything. 

My inability to control his health, his future. His siblings stubborn insistence on growing older and the fact that soon, too soon, my son will be raised in a household without any big brothers or sisters around to pester or annoy. Time slips by and I can't keep up or hold on. Everything is changing. Nothing ever changes.

Those thumbs are my dreams refusing to be crowbarred into reality and yet declining to evaporate into the ether of forgotten and lost hopes.

Two little difficult digits that refuse to bend the way I want them to, the way Knox needs them to. Instead they twist and grow, following their own inclinations and desires.

I'm powerless to reverse and prevent the damage, no matter how many times I try and force them into conformity.

Those thumbs, his sweet little thumbs are him. They are his siblings. They are me.

I'm weary from worrying about the thumbs.

I need a thumb-cation.

Swiping

It has been weeks since I did anything remotely resembling housework around our home. One plague-like infection after another rendered me useless for most of the past month. While the teens kept the house from falling into a state of slovenly disrepair, there were things they couldn't do.

Like grocery shop, file this year's taxes or sort through and file the mountain of paperwork I've ignored for the better part of the year all the while hoping it would just spontaneously catch fire so as I wouldn't have to deal with it. 

So I spent this past weekend doing all the things I've put off for far too long.

I went grocery shopping. In the city. On a Saturday afternoon. Because I am a masochist who enjoys fighting angry coupon clippers for the last pack of discounted toilet paper and spending hours standing in unmoving grocery lines.

My kids about wept with gratitude as they hauled in grocery bag after grocery bag of food supplies. 

"Ketchup! You bought us ketchup! I thought only rich people had over-processed tomato condiments! It's a miracle!"

"Bananas! We have BANANAS. I forgot bananas even existed!"

"THERE IS TOILET PAPER AND IT IS NOT THE SCRATCHY KIND!!"

Don't even ask me how they reacted when they realized I bought ice cream. Let's just say, my place as the world's greatest mother hall of fame is guaranteed for as long as the frozen treats and fresh produce last.

But I didn't just grocery shop this weekend. No. I cleaned a bathroom, attended a dance recital, folded laundry, helped Nash with his creative writing assignment, taught my daughter how to write her first cover letter so she could apply for a fancy internship thingamajig AND filed a year's worth of paperwork that had been sitting on my kitchen table, mocking me, for weeks now.

I know, I'm totally bragging. You are all awed and inspired by both my exciting life and unparalleled work ethic.

If only I had known just how truly fascinating my life would one day become. Sigh.

This weekend wasn't a complete wash, however.

While I was filing old tax returns and bank statements and medical reports, my kids wandered into my office (and by office I mean my itsy bitsy teeny tiny bedroom closet where I keep our filing cabinet, hidden beneath dusty dresses and a shiny burgundy suit my husband refuses to let me throw out) to ask me a question.

"Holy cow Mom. Enough papers!" Ken exclaimed as she saw the mess I had scattered about me as I ripped apart the filing cabinet.

"Thanks Tips. I hadn't noticed," I huffed as I tossed another stack of old receipts into the pile headed for the paper shredder.

"Wait, what is this?" Ken asked as she bent down to pick up a small rectangular piece of faded paper.

"What? Oh, that? That's an old credit card receipt."

"But why is it so odd looking?" She held it like it was contaminated and examined it as though it contained the answer to cold fusion.

"It's a swiper receipt. It's how they used to do credit cards."

"A SWIPER?" 

That's when I realized she had zero idea of what I was talking about.

"Ya, back in the day retailers had to make carbon copies of receipts, and there was no such thing as automatic approvals. If you were spending over a certain amount on your credit card the cashier had to pick up a phone, dial the bank and make sure you were authorized to spend that much. Lines were long and shoppers were grumpy. It was about as much fun as getting your teeth cleaned."

"Woah. How did everyone survive like that? It's so inconvenient," she asked EARNESTLY. Like the spoiled, technologically advanced 16-year old she is.

"It's a mystery, kid."

Ken dropped the old credit card receipt and it floated to the ground, another flake of history ready to be shredded with my past. 

I picked up the credit card receipt and looked at the date. 2002. 

I marveled at how much and how little the world has changed in eleven short years. Sure our technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. I can only marvel at what our world will look like in another eleven years.

But as much as that has changed, there will always be parent sitting in his or her closet, trying to organize a mountain of papers while their kid reminds them how obsolete and old they've become.

Thank God she never noticed my very first cell phone I had in the trash pile, buried underneath all the papers. If she saw that old brick, she'd never stop pestering me with questions about what life was like before the wheel was invented.