January 17, 2008

• The Persuasion

  “So I’m dating someone….” I say as I light my cigarette. Mom pauses and turns the hose away so she can hear me. “He’s not…. he’s not the type of guy I usually date.”
  She moves to the next plant on the patio and answers, “My friend told me I’m not supposed to over-water these orchids. She said they should dry out between waterings.”
  “Yeah, you should prolly listen to her.” because I’ve told you the same thing a couple of times now, I finish in my head.
  “I don’t think so.” And because I’m her daughter and I think because I even expected this answer from her, I know she’s talking about the man I’m dating and not the advice about the orchids.
  “He’s not book smart, I know….. He didn’t …… he didn’t grow up here – didn’t have the same opportunities.” And even to myself my voice sounds quivery and the argument is weak.
  She has that look on her face now. That tightly controlled exasperation, the slight anger, the barest hint of disappointment.
  “Then he’s not enough for you.”
  “He has a Good Heart. He’s a counselor – a rehab counselor.”
  She turns the hose off and kneels beside a hydrangea bush which I’ve told her before needs to be moved to a shadier location, its delicate leaves burning to a rich blood red and yet it still stubbornly blooms with a profusion of hot pink flowers.
  “It doesn’t matter if he has a Good Heart,” she mutters, but the clipped consonants sting me. She tries to avoid my gaze, but I can tell she’s watching me when I turn away and I can’t help but feel small and green and young as I whither under her scrutiny. It doesn’t help that I’m wearing my froggy pajamas under the peacoat with a scarf wrapped all the way to my lips.
  I don’t know how to answer and I’m reminded of Austen’s Persuasion and how if I think about it, that story had a happy ending…. didn’t it?
  “It doesn’t matter if he has a good heart,” she repeats, “Or that he didn’t have the same opportunities because you did. You’ve invested so much in your life……. ” We’ve invested so much in your life “and now you’re too busy looking for something you think you need, when what you need is to aim higher.”
  I’m quietly smoking, the cigarette ashes falling into the crown of a succulent between my feet as she continues to say and not say the reasons there’s always a tension between us.
  “You need a partner that can support you – “
  “You’re saying I can’t support myself?!” I ask with indignation that’s only half-mocking. Of course she doesn’t think I can support myself – her Dreamy Child, her Helpless Warrior, her Boundless Soul.
  “I’m saying …..” and here I can see she’s choosing her words carefully, “I’m saying what if you get laid off, what if you get injured?” what if you can’t continue pretending to be normal and the rug gets pulled out from under you by people who don’t understand, can’t understand, won’t understand?
  “Not everything is about money,” I whisper.
  She puts down the hose and turns to face me. “I want you to look for a better job.”
  I gawk at her. Of course I knew she would get around to this eventually.
  “I like my job,” I protest, and I’m ashamed of the weak mewling of my voice. Really, I don’t want to cry in front of her.
  “Take advantage of the time you have now and look for a better job with a better salary,” and I remember that I’m supposed to be making at least twice as much as what I’m earning now, since I’ve got a degree and everything but still….
  She must see some defiance in the way I set my mouth, because her tone softens when she offers “Or go back to school. If what you have is not enough….”
  I mentally calculate expenses and tuition before realizing that she’s talking about taking on a different degree or pursuing my doctorate rather than money. And I have to agree with her. What I have – if I’m indeed expected to support myself in the way she wants me to – is not enough. Not nearly enough. But how can I tell her that the problem is me, within me, and most likely something that further education could not augment.
  Because I excel at languages but lack the attention to detail that would make a successful programmer. I have the talent but not the strength of will to make a formidable writer. And I have the desire but not the mathematical intuition that would lead to a career in the sciences.
  I am lost.
  So I did what I always do when I find myself facing the obstacle of a purgatorial oblivion. I said:
  “I shall try.”

  • 2:29 pm
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