The Philosophical Mother: Regina Walker

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Regina Walker

MATERNAL JOURNAL:

Beginning Again (Nov/Dec 2005)
Resurrection (Nov/Dec 2005)
Changing the Script (October 2005)
Gratitude (September 2005)
Spring Fair (July 2005)
Fitting In (June 2005)
What Are You Afraid Of?(May 2005)
My Mother & Me (April 2005)
Sam (March 2005)
Pause (February 2005)
Resurrection (January 2005)
Breaking Bread (December 2004)
Sally Said (November 2004)
Today (October 2004)
a short story of an afternoon (September 2004)
Letters to My Sons (August 2004)
Taking Stock (July 2004)
Having Another? (June 2004)
On Turning 40 (May 2004)
Can You Understand Him? (April 2004)
Mama in Midlife Crisis (March 2004)
In Sickness and in Health (February 2004)
Resolutions (January 2004)
The Gift of Sam (December 2003)
Another Country (November 2003)
Someone Else's Body (October 2003)
Mama of a Gifted Child (September 2003)
Regarding Zachary (August 2003)
An Imaginary World (July 2003)
Knowing Dad (June 2003)
Loss (May 2003)
Brooding (April 2003)
Different Theories (March 2003)
Fear and Loathing in Gymboree (March 2003)

Beginning Again

“To risk nothing is to take the greatest risk of all.”

To paraphrase Albert Einstein, I have been practicing my own brand of insanity by continuing to do the same thing over and over again and hoping to achieve different results. It has taken turning 41 years old and experiencing an existential loneliness that defies a description comprised of merely words to awaken me to the pattern I have lived a life in.

I am pessimistic by nature though I often disguise myself as a realist. I had always thought my inherent pessimism and avoidant personality shielded me from rejection or profound hurt. Then I had children. Though I remained a pessimist, my heart no longer solely resided within me; protected behind walls and within armor. Instead, it wandered around me in no particular pattern while embodied in two little boys who do not wear armor and who have a penchant for bridges.

At first, I ran behind them with my invisible net at which they would laugh and shriek and then run away faster. So I began to change -- to shift -- to become someone else. I have not so much allowed myself to be hurt but something was born within me when my sons came into being. Part of me awoke and I began to yearn for connection.

But connection has never been my forte so I am not very good at it. I have reached out over the last few years; awkwardly and cautiously and gotten hurt. I feel emotionally like a much younger person. Rejection stings at any age but it seems somewhat more intense now. I realize too that I am mourning the loss of that which I have never allowed myself to have which makes the pain even more poignant.

I have come to truly believe and accept that when one door closes at least one other opens. But I have spent so much time and energy in the past banging on the closed doors that I have been unable or unwilling to see the doors that newly open for me. I also think I have been afraid. The risk it would take to cross the thresholds of those unknown doorways has been an invisible barrier for me.

I have chosen, though often unconsciously, to remain in darkened hallways afraid of taking a chance. But in risking nothing I have been taking the greatest risk of all. So I am starting to cross some thresholds. Slowly, fearfully but with a grain of faith and hope. And tightly holding a small hand on either side of me.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Regina Walker is a psychotherapist in NYC. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Hip Mama, widdershins, Mamaphiles 2, Moondance, Motherverse, and Literary Vision. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

Resurrection, Part 2

“Karma is a boomerang”

I have been remembering my dreams lately. This is an enormous anomaly as I normally sleep the sleep of the dead and awake feeling that merely a moment has passed.

My dreams recently have been invaded by people whom I have lost. I dreamed of my father the other night who died nine years ago of cancer. In the dream he is apologizing for never really being there for me. I walk through the dream simply dumbfounded that he is there at all. I remember little of what he said to me in the dream and when I awake, of course, I realize he wasn’t really there.

I have also dreamed of my sister who has been dead for 25 years now. In the dream she is still 19 years old and I am my older, wiser, current version. I am overwhelmed in the dream and bombarding her with questions. “Where have you been? Why did you allow us to believe you were dead so long?”

She responds matter of factly that mistakes happen. She just went away for awhile and she plans to go away again. “You shouldn’t worry so much”. I remember that comment most from the dream as it is something she would say to me often 25 years ago.

I awake from these dreams uneasy and disoriented. Why am I channeling so much of my past? My sister and my father, though close in the sense of biology, remained distant in life. Their presence within the intimacy of my dreams leaves me uneasy and questioning.

And I have been dreaming of other people from my past who have been absent from my day to day life, in some cases, for many, many years. The business that remains unfinished with people in my life both dead and still living emerges.

I am moving away from the belief that I am what I have been through. That belief has limited me but I have not realized it until very recently. Unconsciously and unknowingly I have accepted that what I have done and who I have been before would always be the determining factor on what I could be and do in the future.

I feel in some way I am breaking free. I have begun to see the future as a blank canvas on which the shadows of my past no longer linger. I can create what I want which is both frightening and freeing.

“You shouldn’t worry so much.”

And yet I do. Or I did. Though I fight against myself I know I cannot be in two places at once. The past with all its’ pain and glory is no longer. And the future is mine alone.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Regina Walker is a writer and psychotherapist in NYC. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

Changing the Script

Life is a game where the rules change as you play.

I have recently returned to work. I am again busily involved in managing schedules so that childcare and school and work all exist in a perfect harmony.

Organization and order have usually been my strong points. I loved doing puzzles when I was a kid and the sense of relief and accomplishment that came with fitting the last piece of the puzzle in its place was worth all the effort and time that came before.

Before I had children, I assumed they would be like puzzles. I would put the time and work in and by the time I sent them away to college, the last piece would be carefully and lovingly put in it’s place. They would be complete and whole and ready to conquer the world. And I would have succeeded.

Like most parents, I had a script, which included hopes and expectations for both of my sons. Zachary is incredibly smart. He is in a gifted school program and is an avid and talented chess player. He loves to read and has a wonderful sense of humor. I read every article and did all the things I thought a parent was supposed to do to nurture and support his development. I have even taken a bit of credit for his achievements and allowed myself to indulge in pride.

I, of course, did the same for Sam. We own every Baby Einstein dvd and I even had a whacko bassinet that pumped in the sound of a heart beat and electronically rocked at precise intervals when he was an infant. But Sam has taught me an enormous amount. He can't follow my script. The pieces don’t quite fit. I have to either abandon my hopes and expectations for him or change them.

I have decided to follow his script. Each day begins a new chapter that ends with a new cliffhanger. We are writing it as we go along. His developmental delays are our outline but he fills in the rest. I do things differently with Sam. I have to. I follow his lead and he leads me into the unknown most of the time. And often times I must remind myself that the story of Sam's life that I had written before there even was a Sam separate in body from me is actually fiction. It was not the story that was meant to be.

I had already experienced the disappointment of my discarded expectations when I was presented with his diagnosis and truly, and as best I could, accepted his uniqueness. I still struggle though with a sense of sadness and grief that I allow myself to occasionally indulge. But it has been like building up muscles I never realized I had.

Zachary poses his own challenges but on many levels he has embraced my 'parent wish list' for the time being, at least. Sam makes me work. I have to think outside the box. He makes me face my fears and come up with new solutions. I must travel streets and roads without a map. Sam takes me to places where no roads exist so we build them together. We are drafting our own map; composing our own story. And he has made me stronger. Because other disappointments and challenges can’t compare.

I have also learned that I can be dealt some bad stuff and be able to deal with it. I didn't always think I could. I used to feel I had to keep myself safe. That I wouldn't be able to deal with truly difficult situations. But now I think I can because I have to. I may not be great at it but I get by. I guess that is all I can hope for. One page at a time.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Regina Walker is a writer and psychotherapist in NYC. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, Mamaphiles 2, widdershins, Moondance, and Literary Vision. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com

Gratitude

"Dwell in possibility"
Emily Dickinson

I have decided to focus on what is working in my life.

I have been emerging; slowly and with fits and starts, from a very difficult period. I look over my shoulder and see deep valleys and think “I was there?” And though I still fear, at times, that a landslide will return me to the nadir, I am determined to continue climbing up, with all my might and strength.

Zachary is 9 years old and a full-fledged fourth grader. I am amazed at his independence and his strength of character. His hairy shins remind he will never be “my baby” again. Technology of almost any sort is the center of his universe now and his Star Wars obsession persists. In art camp this summer he completed two paintings on canvas. The first was of an X-Wing and the other a Tie Fighter.

We have discussed distant stars and galaxies as astronomy has newly caught his wonder and I marvel at how ideas awaken within him for the first time and fill him with excitement and awe. I explained to him what is meant by light years and he responded with genuine enthusiasm. “Mom, that is amazing” and for the first time in quite some time I realized that it really was.
Zachary bought me roses recently and though my youngest son Sam chanted “flowers, flowers” as if to imply he was in on the purchase, Zach took me aside and said “it was all my idea”.

Zachary stood in front of me proudly displaying a half dozen long-stemmed red roses and I realized in that moment how far I have come. Ironically, the flowers came on a day when I truly needed them and I accepted them with great and genuine enthusiasm and gratitude.

I stood in the kitchen cutting the stems and placing them in water when I noticed in a detached way that I was crying. I wasn’t sobbing or weeping but tears escaped as I prepared the flowers for the vase. Parenthood has been a strange journey for me. In my mind I often experience myself as the 24 year old I was so very long ago. Then moments hit me that remind me that the 24 year old me exists only in a place in history and she is not the me of today. As I placed the flowers in the vase, I remembered other flowers, other vases, and other gift givers. I looked over at Zach who was smiling proudly watching me arrange the flowers as artistically as I could.

“I love you Zach. Thank you so much. This was a wonderful gift.”

“You’re welcome mom. I love you too. By the way, you are beautiful.”

With that last declaration he ran away, perhaps of embarrassment. And I found my tears again. Though now they were flowing as I smiled. Unlike other flowers and declarations of love, I could fully accept these gifts from Zach. Life is made up of moments and this moment, I determined, was a keeper. Later we would argue about dinner, bath, and bedtime but none of that would negate the flowers and the sentiments we so freely shared with each other.

I am learning a lot about love from my nine year old son. He is in front of me much of the time but I often don’t see him entirely. I live inside myself a lot. Too much. And my tendency has always been to focus on what I perceive to be my flaws. My flaws are real as I am terminally human but I am realizing as I focus on them, they grow. Like sun on a garden, my attention to my failings empower them, make them stronger, and define who I am. I am left with a perception of myself that I do not like but which I ultimately created.

“You can change that, you know”. My friend of many years knows me well and can sum up what I am trying to say in a line or two. “Just start watering another part of the garden. You are the one with the watering can. You are in charge. Create the future you want and don’t base it on your past. I like you better now anyway.”

So I am working on being grateful because I see now I have opportunities that I denied myself in the past. There are possibilities that I never would have thought existed. And my decision to allow myself to embrace a different future has left me as exhilarated as the notion of light-years. And besides, my nine year old son brings me roses, tells me he loves me, and thinks I am beautiful.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Regina Walker is a writer and psychotherapist living in NYC. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Hip Mama, widdershins, Moondance, and Literary Vision. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com

Spring Fair

Sometimes I feel like I cannot breathe.

We are at the Spring Fair hosted by my 8-year-old's school. We have spent the morning at a birthday party of a friend of my 4-year-old, Sam. It was a surreal experience. Sam is in a school for children with varying levels of developmental delays. So it was a party in which the participants seemed to be disconnected from one another. Celebrating aside each other but not together. Sam wandered off frequently speaking his own language and ignoring the attempts of others to engage him.

There is a certain poignancy to moments like this. I have grown used to Sam and some of his oddities. But when I see him in context around other children, his otherness makes me feel quite vulnerable. I see us as both being vulnerable and I confront my own sense of weakness and failure.

What did I do wrong? Did I somehow cause Sam to choose to focus in on his own internal world? He seems to have no need or desire for the external world in which most of us struggle and exist. It is an intrusion to him that he attempts to either ignore or fight against. I am afraid I can’t do this mothering thing. And I feel guilty that there are times I just don’t want to do it.

The day promised to be long and busy and I feared its outcome since the night before. I could feel Sam fading on the cab ride from the party to the Spring Fair but Zachary was looking so forward to this fair that I could not let us miss it. My game plan was to keep Sam amused and distracted while Zachary got to play with his friends.

Sam sometimes does well in stimulating environments but if his balance is off he can easily be overwhelmed. I find myself trying to gauge him. Is he feeling tired? Is he thirsty or hungry? I search to find some magic words to use that will comfort him when he starts to appear stressed. But I fear that even if I could find the words, he would not understand them.

So we are at the fair. Zach is on line for the dunking booth and I am ineffectively trying to calm Sam down from his second meltdown since we got here. The other parents look away or smile quickly and nervously at me. Sam is screeching a high pitch scream and lying on the ground in his own version of the corpse pose. I try to put the shoes he has just kicked off back on his feet but he just wails angrily and kicks them off again. My attempts become feeble at best so I give up the fight and I resign to carry him and his shoes.

I want to cry. I want to walk away and leave him there -- but I can’t. I am his mother so I walk away only in my mind. I imagine a life without children; without attachments. I have recently become eerily obsessed with the newest Star Wars movie and I reflect on Yoda’s Buddhist, foreboding words to the evolving Darth Vader: "Attachment breeds jealousy, jealousy leads to greed. A path to the Dark Side"

I must therefore be enmeshed in the Dark Side. I am overcome with attachments and jealousy and wants and desires.

I had a dream the other night. In it I was a different person. A younger, thinner, braver, more beautiful version of me. In the dream I was a movie star. I was promoting my newest movie. I was not a mother or a wife. I was at an age before I made those kinds of decisions in my life. In the dream I felt special, important, meaningful, loved, a success.

When I woke to the alarm and the ritual of getting the kids up and dressed and fed and off to school, I felt a great disappointment. And I kept wondering why I feel lately like I have missed something. And I felt guilty for feeling this way at all.

Zachary has successfully dunked the child in the booth and won his fencing match. The fair is far from over but I can contain Sam no more so I tell Zach it is time to leave. He is elated enough by his victories that he does not complain terribly that our stay has been cut short.

I load the three of us into a cab with great difficulty and exhale cautiously as the cab brings us toward home and Sam enters one of his quiet, almost catatonic states. I look out the cab window at New York City rushing by at what seems like an impossible speed and wonder what our ultimate destination will be.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Regina Walker is a mom and writer living in NYC.

Fitting In

I don’t fit in again.

I am standing in the middle of the book fair at my 8 year-old’s school. He has seated himself on the floor and is engrossed in a book based on the TV series, Dexter’s Laboratory. I am looking over the books designated as “for the parents”. There are a multitude of cookbooks, Chicken Soups for the various souls, and a large, coffee-table book extolling the gloriousness of the Reagan years.

I groan audibly.

Zachary is a good student with an astounding vocabulary. When I asked him about something or other recently he responded “I have minimal knowledge in that area mom.”

“Better brush up then, huh?” I responded jokingly. He solemnly nodded in agreement. Humor is not always his strong point.

He is, at times, like a grown-up in third grader clothes. But only in some ways.

Zachary is not terribly affiliative nor have I ever been. Hence, I feel profoundly awkward at the book fair and he has lost himself in the first book he can grab. I should be teaching him more. I should be teaching him how to fit in and be part of the group. I want to teach him to feel comfortable in his own skin. And proud. Proud of the fact that when he doesn’t know something, he still sounds really smart admitting it anyway. It is hard for me to teach what I do not know myself though.

I am not working now and although that has only been true for a matter of months, it is the longest I have been without work since graduate school. I am now a non-working, working mother. I don’t quite fit in with either camp. When I see some of the other working moms they ask “So when are you going back to work?” The stay-at-home moms don’t quite get why I am around so much more lately, and the members of the PTA just scare me.

So I am between worlds and in a way, that is how I have always felt. I have usually been fairly good at conforming but not necessarily fitting in. And Zachary seems to be very much like me in that way. Once I know what they are I can follow the rules and tow the line but my internal landscape consists of a lot of conflict and unforeseen valleys and hidden landmines. I think Zach’s does too though I only catch a glimpse of it during the rare times he lets his guard down. Otherwise Zachary maintains a good poker face. “Everything’s fine Mom” is his mantra.

Sam is different from Zach and me and seems to revel in not fitting in -- in being different. It is who he is and he as yet to be bothered by the expectations of others. Sam came home recently with a photograph from school. In it he is in mid-dance and his classmates are seated and looking on. Sam is beaming in the photograph and proceeds to show it to everyone over and over again. “Sammy dancing” he says with an enormous grin.

Zachary takes me aside and half whispers “I would be too embarrassed to dance like that.”

“I know you would Zachary and that is too bad” I tell him. “You are a wonderful dancer.”

And yet I am like Zachary. I would be too embarrassed to dance too.

If Zachary can’t do something expertly from the start it is difficult for him to persist and transcend his self-consciousness. To enter the unknown and unfamiliar. He is ashamed to evidence weakness. I think it frightens him to make mistakes. I know it frightens me. I explain to him that the flaws are what make the gem uniquely beautiful. Without them they would simply be ordinary.

But Zach still strives for the validation inherent in what is perceived by others as perfection. Sam rejoices in the messiness of it all. He dwells in the process -- in his experience of the extraordinary and the unknown. Zachary and I hold our breath until the conclusion. We are cautious and careful. We miss a lot.

Zachary finishes the Dexter’s Laboratory book and I ask him if he wants to buy it. “No” he says, “I already read it.” We leave having bought a science encyclopedia to donate to his class.

“What’s next, Zach?” I ask. “Want to run away and join the circus?” I ask him this though it something I could never do.

Zach laughs but quickly explains “Mom, I have a lot of homework tonight. It is Wednesday, remember?”

“I do remember Zach. But at least promise me you will consider it. Maybe some time in the future, you know.”

“Yeah, right Mom. Sure I will.”

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Regina Walker is a mom and writer living in NYC.

What Are You Afraid Of?

“What are you afraid of?”

“I am afraid I am going to die.”

“You are. But what are you afraid of?”

My friend’s perfunctory and almost cavalier response annoyed me but I intuitively knew he meant something else.

I had a mole removed. I am always having moles and radical freckles removed it seems. I grew up with suntan oil -- the precursor to sunblock. My family and everyone around us doused themselves in suntan oil and baked throughout the summer months. The more fashionable amongst us used a three-fold silver foil contraption aimed to maximize sun exposure to the face. A golden, bronze tan was the goal and worth any price. Tanning beds were for maintenance during the winter months.

I have always had the palest skin and was horribly embarrassed about it growing up. In the 70's neighbors would shake their heads at me. “Do you ever get any sun? The vitamin D would be good for you.” Kids in school would call me an albino. I remember the Bain de Soleil model with her bronze, gleaming skin. The goal for all of us. I wonder now during my frequent trips to the dermatologist whatever happened to her. I know what happened to the Marlboro Man.

So I baked along side everyone else but instead of golden brown I became lobster red. I remember nights awake spraying Solarcaine on my burning skin. Then my skin would peel off in painful sheets and the raw skin beneath would seem even paler. Then I would bake in the sun again.

So the last number of years have been spent getting my skin regularly examined. Rogue moles and freckles have been sliced off before they could become anything too dangerous. But yesterday the one that was removed was different. The dermatologist regarded it with a startling seriousness.

“It is different than your other ones. I don’t like it. Let’s get it off.”

But it didn’t want to come off. It penetrated deep into the skin. And though the dermatologist dug for awhile, the mole held its ground. Its roots ran deeper than his digging. How deep I still don’t know.
“I can’t get it all out. I didn’t know it went so deep. I would have done a different procedure if I had suspected. I will send what we have to pathology.”

And now I wait until the report comes back sometime next week. I feel like I am in a limbo and fearing the worst.

“I am afraid I have malignant melanoma and I am going to die.” I tell my friend this though we are both aware that this is my obvious fear. It is something else he thinks I am afraid of. Something else he is trying to get at.

“But we are all going to die. You are afraid that you are going to die sooner than you expected. Is that it?”

“I guess so” I answer sheepishly. I feel like my fear has been deflated and devalued. It simply isn’t good enough for my friend. Illness and death seem huge to me. To him it is all just a matter of time.

“Yeah. I am afraid I am going to die really soon of cancer”.

I am getting upset because I feel like my friend should understand and be comforting me. Instead he is questioning me. He refuses to indulge me.

He knows me well and that is the problem. I fear so many things that I tend to approach life with a constant veil of anxiety. I am never at a loss for something to fear. I ruminate or I anxiously anticipate. Or I am asleep.

I can’t even go over with him all the tragedies that would be borne of my early demise: motherless children, a grieving family, the vast unknown that is death, a life cut short before it has been truly lived.

A life cut short before it has been truly lived.

“So what are you going to do until you get the result?”

He knows what I will probably do but somehow it is less comfortable for me to say “worry obsessively” out loud.

“I guess try to stay distracted. Be busy I guess.”

“Excellent idea!”

And now he is truly annoying me.

“Live, right? I suggest you stay distracted until you die. Whenever that is.”

So what am I really afraid of? I wonder that more earnestly now. Everything, I guess but in that case, nothing at all.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine (www.philosophicalmother.com). Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, Goin’ Granola, Literary Vision Magazine, Healing Mama, Bio zine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com . Her work will be featured in an upcoming issue of Lone Star Ma. She is the creator and editor of the zine "Recovering Me". She is the author of the Clinical Viewpoint column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. She received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

My Mother & Me

When I was pregnant with my youngest son, my mother had a sudden medical crisis. An ulcer (we did not know she had) perforated and she was profoundly and acutely sick for much of my pregnancy.

My mother required emergency surgery and spent several weeks in ICU. My sisters and I would visit her daily and decompress in the hospital cafeteria attempting to determine what to do next. We were like soldiers planning our strategy; receiving our orders.

My eldest sister is a physician and is the one most versed in medical-speak. We knew she was the most likely to be taken seriously by my mother’s caregivers. That was her role. She would make any important medical decisions. She would filter the medical complexities down to us in language we could understand.

My other sister has been a hospital-based social worker for many years and is both experienced and gifted in managing systems. She expertly took over the arrangements for my mother’s ongoing ancillary care and case-management needs and post-hospitalization care. I was not sure how I fit in or what I was going to do for my mother. I would listen to my sisters and agree with their plans and opinions. They were right as they most often have been. I was unclear what my function was going to be. How was I going to be useful. How was I going to help in this battle?

At these hospital cafeteria sessions I found myself drawn to the hospital food. Soft dinner rolls with pats of butter, soup mostly made of broth, and jello. I found myself entranced by the jello. Especially the jello that trapped the petrified canned fruit within it and would quiver with every motion of the tray. One afternoon in particular I lost myself in methodically digging the fruit out of its jello prison much like digging out a splinter deep beneath the flesh. Digging, digging and making a mess but eventually setting the fruit free. I triumphed on behalf of the canned fruit but still had not determined how I was going to be of use to my mother.

Neither my mother’s illness nor my pregnancy proceeded smoothly. I experienced numerous frights and complications relating to my son’s health and my mother’s illness worsened before it began to improve. During that time I reflected a great deal on my growing up. I had inherited much from my mother -- my ability to worry about just about anything, as well as a certain dogged perseverance that has always defied logic.

My mother was basically alone in raising us. Growing up was like being in the cabin of a boat that sailed often in troubled water with little or no gas and a broken compass. Yet my mother was always at the helm. Some disasters were narrowly averted while some ended in crashes that, at the time, I believed there was no coming back from. And yet, somehow, we did. Something would be missing. The configuration was permanently changed. The boat forever damaged. The course unclear. Yet we would go on. There were no other choices.

My mother grew stronger as I neared the birth of my son. Her frailty though, once seen, could never be erased. She returned to work and Sam entered the world in a dramatic and distinct manner. As is the case after traumatic and life-changing events, nothing and no one is ever the same.
I have learned since then that Sam is a more complicated and complex being than I had envisioned. My plans -- my script -- need to be rewritten. Everyday brings questions and some days hint at answers. But we must keep moving forward.

Now I am at the helm and the water, it seems, has sadly remained often choppy. I look back at the cabin and see Sam and Zach depending not solely on me but on me nonetheless. My dogged persistence remains though it is challenged by episodes of self doubt and fear.

Truly the unexpected is all that we can expect. And the future is written in the sand.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine (www.philosophicalmother.com). Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, Goin’ Granola, Literary Vision Magazine, Healing Mama, Bio zine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com . Her work will be featured in an upcoming issue of Lone Star Ma. She is the creator and editor of the zine "Recovering Me". She is the author of the Clinical Viewpoint column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. She received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

Sam

Your wavy hair glistens

Your dark eyes glow

They tell me you are broken.

When you are happy and smiling

Your dimples deepen and

The corners of your eyes turn up.

They tell me you are slow.

When you are laughing

Your whole body joins in

and your giggles overcome you.

They tell me you are delayed.

When I look into your deep, brown eyes

I meet a soul much older and wiser than my own.

They tell me they don't know.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Pause

The fog, the rain, and my sick Sam slumbering fitfully on the sofa. I feel as though I am trapped in the movie Blade Runner sans the action. Lately I feel in between things, as though I am on pause.

I tried to meditate the other day and it became profoundly clear how addicted to distraction I am. Trying to become comfortable with reflection, I am caught mostly in projection.

What is next? Where am I going? When will I get there? It is difficult for me to stay in the here and now. Impatient. I have always been impatient. I see that in my Zachary too. As he tackles long division he grows tired with the process and is most interested in results. Where is this all leading? What is the answer? Life is lived in the dash, but I am obsessed with the finish line. I think he may be too.

So I am attempting to slow down and as I try this, my mind speeds up. I am thinking about changing careers. I am thinking about moving away. I am thinking. Always thinking. For now I would like to try to be. Just be. For now.

Sam is muttering semi-coherent words in his sleep. I recognize them from the Spongebob Christmas Special. Soon I will have to disturb him to change his diaper and attempt to get some fluids in him. Although I know it is nothing more than one of the multitude of garden variety illnesses of childhood, it saddens me to see Sam distraught and uncomfortable. It is amazing how deeply a parent can feel the pain of her child. And how powerful the ability to soothe that pain can be.

I am in a moment between things. Soon I will need to rouse Sam so that we can pick Zachary up at school. It is Friday. Being “Mommy” will fill up the rest of today and the weekend fully. I look forward to it to the same degree that I dread it. And possibly I fear it since being Mom is the most responsibility I have ever had. It is a career I cannot change. A location I cannot move from. Not that I want to, but the reality that I can’t can be scary.

Sam moans as I wake him and I try to be as gentle and soft as possible. He remains semi-asleep as I slip him into the stroller to pick up his big brother. We quickly blend into the anonymous chaos of the NYC streets and travel the blocks to Zachary’s school almost invisibly.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine (www.philosophicalmother.com). Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, Goin’ Granola Milk zine and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com . Her work will be featured in an upcoming issue of Atheist Bear. She is the author of the Clinical Viewpoint column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. She is the creator and editor of the zine “Recovering Me”. She received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University.

Resurrection

I am looking at a picture of my sister from the summer of her death 24 years ago. She is 19 and standing in a group of others from the summer stock theater group she is traveling with during the break between her freshman and sophomore years of college.

She is an actress. Beautiful and blonde; distant and profoundly disturbed. In the photo her smile is understated and fading and she appears to disappear the longer I look at her. A month from this photo the deed is done and she is dead.

The weeks and months that follow are dark. Dark clothing, dark thoughts, dark days. We are each in our own daze. Not quite understanding, not yet accepting. I move about, but feel disconnected. A surreal film now covers my world and I realize that it will either fade or I will grow used to it.

The years pass and my sister fades away from me more and more. She fades initially from my nightmares and eventually from my daily thoughts until she becomes present only infrequently when a memory of my early life includes her or conspicuously excludes her. I rarely acknowledge her in my present life and when casually asked I respond that I have just two sisters, never three. Though all three had been integral in the landscape of my first 16 years.

I saw my niece this Christmas. It is 24 years later. She is almost 19 and almost finished with her freshman year of college. She is an actress. Beautiful and blonde and dramatic in a confident and genuine way. Her smile is powerful and present and seems to emanate from a deeper, organic place; her soul perhaps, and offers yet another possibility.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Breaking Bread

I think my family was strange while I was growing up. Unique, maybe is a better word. Unlike others, I suppose. I was always so self-conscious growing up, I never knew if it was me or my family. Did everyone’s family follow bizarre customs all their own? Did they all act as though it were the norm? Was it just me who wanted to blend into the woodwork? Was I the only one with a barely part-time dad who appeared almost like an unknown celebrity or an angry god?

In my family we ate dinner at 4 PM every night. Hungry or not. And since there were four children and my mother liked to cook in bulk anyway, there was always a lot of food. My mom would use a measuring cup to dole out soups or stews or chili or other liquidy, one bowl meals. And we shared the communal family towel instead of those wasteful napkins. We were a “green” family without my mother ever knowing it! Not all meals were of the one dish variety but to me those were the most memorable and bonding to me. My mom took her job seriously.

On the occasions I ate at friends houses I saw just how different every family was. There was my best friend who went to public school whose parents were alcoholics. She was an only child and since her parents would be blitzed by dinnertime, we would get to choose any fast food we wanted. Chinese usually won out and we’d order egg rolls and shrimp in lobster sauce and feast in her room while her parents drank Old Milwaukee in the living room. It was always exciting to me because, in a sense, there were no rules. It didn’t matter what or how much we ate or how much of a mess we left. It was all okay to her parents who were basically oblivious to us. The family had a maid who would come in the morning and do away with the old beer cans and Chinese food containers; the evidence. In a way, it was almost like being an adult. Doing our own thing, making our own decisions without anyone else’s input or permission. Her parents depended more on us than us on them.

I had another friend from my Catholic, all-girls prep school whose family approached mealtime in a somber, reverent, and proper way. They were a well to do, intact, and religiously devout family. Plates were filled by mother in the kitchen and each looked identical. The expectation was that everything on the plate would be eaten and with minimal table discussion. The food was always in shades of brown and off-white and even the vegetables had lost their vibrancy, spice, and uniqueness from kitchen to dining room. There was meat, a starch, and a vegetable. End of story. And there was prayer before the meal. “Thank you Lord for this bland and ubiquitous food.” And then silent consumption.

I was a bit of an oddity. I did well in school. Had good manners, but came from an untraditional family. I was a great student and a pro at fitting in.

When I was in college, food became something dangerous; worthy of fear. Puberty and my teenage years brought curves and awkwardness so my penchant for anything chocolate or fried had to be contained. My appetite for such foods was like a beast within me with an obvious goal of making me fat and possibly ridiculed or rejected by my peers. I was alone now in college. No one else’s rules to follow so I had to create my own. Since my earlier years were without specific boundaries, I was at a loss. I started to measure my food. A little brown rice, a little steamed broccoli, a bit of roasted chicken. It was shades of mom and the measuring cup. Food and my power and ability to control my intake of it in itself became a ritual and a display of my ability to overcome temptation, desire, and appetite. Food took on a different meaning. It had less to do with nourishment and more to do with self-control. How would what I eat make me look? How would others judge me? Who was I?

Today I seem to have no rituals around food. I have been able to let them go. It is freeing. I wonder if my kids would do better with formality around mealtime though I don’t know that it did much for me. We have picnics of pizza (too often!) on the living room floor. Oh and chicken nuggets while watching Spongebob Squarepants. I guess those are rituals in themselves. And ones we truly embrace.

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Sally Said

Short Fiction by Regina Walker

Sally said that my knee bones stick out too far so that means I’m chicken-footed. She also said my family is dirt poor cause we got plastic wrap in the windows instead of glass, but momma said that plastic wrap costs more than glass so we actually got more money and we change the plastic a lot and people with glass only change it when it is broke.

Sally said we’re friends but only sometimes when nobody’s watching cause her mother sez that my momma’s trash cause she’s got loads of kids, but no husband and no money. And Sally’s mother said I wouldn’t be no better ‘cause the apple don’t fall too far from the tree and Sally don’t need no friends from that side of the track. Sally said she likes me anyway but she hates my sister ‘cause my sister picks her nose and doesn’t wipe it with a tissue when she sneezes. She also said my sister’s always got a scab on her knee and it’s always bleedy because she picks that too and eats it, but I never noticed.

Sally always asks me about my dad, but I don’t know. When I ask momma she sez he died in a war in England before I was born but Sally said that’s not true ‘cause her mother said there ain’t been no wars in England and my brother and sister are younger than me. My momma said Sally’s mother don’t know what she’s talking about ‘cause she ain’t worked a day in her life.

Momma told me I don’t need a friend like Sally and I should stick with my brothers and sisters ‘cause they’re the only ones I can count on in the end and she heard Sally’s mother was making a stink at the school ‘cause people like us was moving into the neighborhood. I told Momma ‘bout Maria’s nose always running and her knee always bleeding, but she said she never noticed it neither.

I like Sally even though momma told me not to ‘cause she’s the only one at school who lets me borrow her pencil and she sez that even though I’m chicken-footed I got nice hair ‘cause it’s blonde. She said if I wash it more often it might be blonder but momma said that’s a load of crap and Sally’s just jealous ‘cause she’s got mousy brown hair and her eyes are too close together. Momma said that Sally’s mother is prejudiced against us cause our clothes are old and one day Sally’d be just like her and I don’t need no friends if they’re gonna have their noses up in the air.

Sally said she saw Maria kissing some fat boy behind the school and that Maria’s probably pregnant because of it, but she said her mother said my momma wouldn’t even notice ‘cause she’s already got so many kids and they’d all probably become tramps like her. Sally’s mother said my momma’s ignorant ‘cause she’s got holes in her shoes and does other people’s laundry, but don’t do her own.

One day I told Sally we probably shouldn’t be friends no more since her mother don’t like my momma and my momma don’t like her mother, but Sally said it was okay because she didn’t mind. Sally said she felt sorry for me because her mother told her people like me never get anywhere ‘cause even if I’m smart it costs money to get an education and money is something that people like me just don’t got. Sally said maybe if I washed my hair her brother would marry me, but her mother said she didn’t raise her son to marry trash and besides people like me ain’t for marrying. Sally said she still thinks I got a chance but Maria don’t ‘cause of her knee and her nose and ‘cause of the fat boy and all. Momma said it’s okay ‘cause you can’t depend on nobody anyway and Maria can’t get pregnant from kissing.

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com. Her work will be featured in an upcoming issues of Atheist Bear and Motherload. She is the author of the "Clinical Viewpoint" column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. Regina received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She is a social worker and addiction treatment specialist in NYC. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

Today

I am squished in a mini-school bus with Sam. He is 3 1/2 years old and today is his first day at a therapeutic nursery that serves children with speech delays, PDD, and Autism. I still do not know where on the spectrum Sam falls and I no longer care. I just want him to get to school safe and be okay. It seems like a reasonable, reachable goal but I fear, as a mother, that such goals are often not so simple. Sam is nervous. He doesn't have the words but I can sense it in his body language and feel it in the energy he is emitting.

I murmur reassuring words to him and rub his head. But the truth is, I am unsure too. Where is this bus taking us? Where will Sam end up? All of these questions are mine, but my job now is to make Sam comfortable and to allay his fears. This is one of the primary jobs of motherhood, and I have finally realized and accepted it.

We arrive at the school and I hand Sam over to pleasant strangers. He cries fat tears that fall over his fat cheeks. I apologize, I wave, and I am ushered out by professionals who see my behavior as making things more difficult. Separation is difficult, I am told. It is a process, I believe. But I am instructed by the staff that it is an action I must just take. So I leave. I walk home -- fifty New York City blocks. And for some reason on this day, I notice every oddity on display. I see the bums rummaging through the garbage, the religious fanatics warning of the impending apocalypse, the political zealots shouting their beliefs. I think about Sam and wonder how he will do in school; in life.

It is 2:30 and I am awaiting the school bus. They warned me it is often late so I am not concerned when 2:45 passes. At 3 p.m. I call the principal who tells me calmly the bus had an accident. She tells me to go to an uptown hospital where the children have been taken. Sam is okay she assures me.

I finally find a cab which crawls uptown because President Bush is in town. I decide for sure I will not vote for him -- this traffic he created prolongs my agony. I think all kinds of things. I feel guilt for leaving my baby with strangers. I feel inadequate for being a mother who is unable to keep her child safe. I wonder if what they say about the impending apocalypse is true. I wonder if I am on the threshhold of a personal apocalypse.

I get to the hospital and find the children from Sam's school. But Sam is not there. No one knows where he is or who he is. The staff confirms that a bus from his school was in an accident and the children were brought to this hospital, but no one knows Sam. The hospital is busy and I panic. Sam does not speak much at all and trusts strangers. "WHERE IS HE?" I find myself shouting at the nurse. She pages the bus company. The principal made a mistake. It was not Sam's bus in the accident, but a different bus from the school. Sam is okay. He is home. His father picked him up.

But it could have been him. And I realize the lessons of this life start early. I crawl back home in a cab and weep warm tears the whole way. Both relief and fear are washing over me. Sam is okay. Today. His brother is okay. Today. Today.

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com. Her work will be featured in an upcoming issues of Atheist Bear and Motherload. She is the author of the "Clinical Viewpoint" column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. Regina received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She is a social worker and addiction treatment specialist in NYC. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

a short story of an afternoon

Fiction by Regina Walker

Tick, tick, tick……when you get up at 6 a.m, 12:00 p.m. seems like an eternity away. But "wait until noon" is the vow you made to yourself and it is one you plan to keep. If planning goes well and luck intervenes, Little Sister will be asleep by 1 p.m. and Big Brother will not need to be picked up until 2:40, so that leaves you almost two hours to “relax”.

Flashback to the year after college when you first thought this might be a problem. But going to bars on weeknights was common and social and fun and none of you had responsibilities or kids or important jobs. Hanging out four nights a week was acceptable, but hanging on the other three didn’t seem quite right.

12:30 p.m.: Little Sister is asleep and you feel that unequivocal sense of anticipation and relief as the cork pops when you pull it desperately out of the bottle. Things are on glorious hold now, at least for a little while. Everything can wait -- must wait -- and Little Sister sleeps on.

People in the know say alcoholics spend most, if not all, of their lives in denial. You disagree. You believe no one is more acutely aware that something is wrong than the alcoholic herself. Only a very short, wonderful time early on is denial. The rest is grief and isolation and fantasy. And wishful thinking. Wishful thinking that the early, wonderful time can be recaptured and sustained somehow and that that older, haggard face looking back at you in the mirror will disappear. The unreachable goal of escape remains and the pain, at least for the moment, is blunted. The haggard face blurred.

Little Sister stirs and it is only 1:35 and you hold your breath. Certainly you could handle a crying eight-month-old, but you’d rather sit there and sip and think and feel sorry for yourself a while longer without distraction. And plot and plan because the future never looks quite so bright as when you have an afternoon buzz on.

You know a Mom shouldn’t do this, but what you don’t know is what a Mom should do. You knew back then you needed to get your priorities straight. Most of your bar companions of the 80’s had moved on but when a graduate degree and a marriage didn’t help you to get it right, you thought kids would.

And they did. For awhile, at least. Two sober postpartum periods followed two sober pregnancies and it all seemed possible for a minute. Both times postpartum depression hit you around Day 90 and alcohol seemed to be the only thing to really help you out. For awhile at least and besides you were celebrating and adjusting and whatever else.

You look at the clock and it is 2:20 and Baby Sister is wide-awake. You put her jacket on, put her in the stroller with a bottle, and return to your high school trick of sunglasses and perfume. You get to school at the bell -- just in time to pick up Big Brother. Big Brother explodes out of the school door like only a Kindergartener can. He runs circles around the schoolyard with his comrades and you start to get antsy about leaving. “Let’s get going sweetie. Mommy has some work to do at home.” Big Brother pleads with you with resignation.

An alien voice behind becomes louder and closer. “Oh my. I had no idea you were his mother. This will sound funny to you but I thought you were his nanny”.

“I am” you facetiously respond and alien voice laughs awkwardly, unknowingly as she walks away.

The walk home is both long and short and filled with anticipation and rumination. The promise gets made; the promise always gets made that today will be the last day. Tomorrow will be a new start. A sober new life filled with promise and hope and devoid of the shame. But just for today . . .

“Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY" -- the small voice gets louder and pulls you back from that place you go to when you need a drink.

“What is it sweetie?” you answer back lovingly.

“I’m hungry. Will you order a pizza when we get home?” You nod wearily.

Your acquiescence is met with cheers.

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com. Her work will be featured in an upcoming issues of Atheist Bear and Motherload. She is the author of the "Clinical Viewpoint" column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. Regina received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She is a social worker and addiction treatment specialist in NYC. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

Letters to My Sons

Dear Zachary and Sam,

First of all, I love you both. I love you more than you can imagine and in a way that I never could thought was possible before you were born. I have your pictures on my desk at work and sometimes when I look at them I am in awe. The reality of the two of you astounds me.

I remember the minute I found out I was pregnant with you, Zach. I stood in the bathroom with my drugstore pregnancy test result and just stared at it, disbelievingly, but with a sense of excited joy that I can not describe even now. I remember walking around the apartment for what seemed like an eternity afterwards reveling in the “secret” that you were there. A microscopic dot deep within the core of me growing. I, me, had become “us”. My secret slowly then quickly was revealed but those first moments remain a point in time when my life changed profoundly and in ways I did not yet comprehend.

And I have watched you grow, Zachary and become You. You are eight now and have your secrets too -- your journal which I can not read -- your private thoughts that are yours alone and define who you are. You fascinate me. As you grow away from me I feel both the pride that you are mine and the sense of loss that, in fact, you really are not mine. You are your own.

Samuel, you are a magical mystery to me. I look into your deep dark eyes and feel a connection to a soul that is ages older than mine with a wisdom far greater than my own. You too are of me, but distinctly separate. At three you are a whirling dervish. You dance and smile and though your words often elude me, the intensity of your spirit reaches me like very few things can.

You both know I love you or at least I hope you do. I sometimes wonder why fate has allowed me to be your guide for a time. And the enormous responsibility of that can feel crushing. I realize I have this privilege for a finite period. There will be other guides in your life and you will guide others. My journey will end and yours will go forward.

I feel like there is so much I need to teach you. I want you to be careful, but not fearful. I want you to be safe, but remain open. I want to shelter you from pain, but also give you the skills to handle the inevitable pain and disappointment that comes with living in such a flawed world. I want you to have compassion and empathy and still be strong. And I want you to take care of each other no matter what. The world can be a dangerous but beautiful place. You need to have friends. You need each other.

Sometimes I become afraid and I falter. Can I teach you what I may not know or always practice myself? Learning these things is my own process and journey and I have not yet perfected much of it. But then I decide I must let it go. And eventually let you go. I make mistakes and so will you. Forgive yourselves. We go on and don’t give up. Don’t give up.

Love,

Mom

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com. Her work will be featured in an upcoming issues of Atheist Bear and Motherload. She is the author of the "Clinical Viewpoint" column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. Regina received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She is a social worker and addiction treatment specialist in NYC. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

Taking Stock

I have been taking stock a lot lately. Maybe it is my age or maybe it is the time in my life. Maybe it is because it is spring and turning 40 in spring has been a difficult adjustment for me.

I have been feeling a great sadness and loss for parts of me that I have not realized and disappointed for some of what I have become.

I lost my best friend to cancer about two years ago. Though I have never been under the assumption I was immortal, I thought maybe she was. Or should have been.

I lost another friend recently, not to death, but to poor judgement and terminal humanness: both hers and mine. I am coming to accept that many things lost cannot be regained and things done cannot be undone regardless of how hard I wish they could. My desire to change the past is shifting into a drive to create a future. One in which I can be who I really am and do what it is I need to do. Though I continue to struggle to know what that is.

I am mourning a past that is long gone but completely alive. Grieving what was once ago and far away but feels as though it lives and breathes within me daily. And I am learning that it does not only live within me, it is part of me. My experiences are intractable from my being and that is, I guess, as it should be. The pain and the fear alongside the joy and achievement. Never one without the other.

What does this have to do with being a mother? I have sought many labels in my life: Wife, Mother, Social Worker, and Friend. These identities I wear with complete authenticity at certain times. At other times I feel like a fraud. They are who I have chosen to be but I don’t know if I am really they. They are what I now must do but I question if I am them.

“Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It is what I have never seen before that I recognize." That quote from Diane Arbus was the theme to a photo exhibit I did in college and it has remained with me since. The bizarre and unknown resonate for me in a way the familiar and expected never can. There is no such thing as being prepared.

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com. Her work will be featured in an upcoming issues of Atheist Bear and Motherload. She is the author of the "Clinical Viewpoint" column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. Regina received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She is a social worker and addiction treatment specialist in NYC. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

Having Another?

“Are you going to have another?” I get the question often these days as I am approaching the age when Mother Nature slows down the factory in preparation for going out of business.

“Are you going to go for the girl?”

I am both amused and bemused by that question. I have two sons and I am the youngest of four daughters, no boys. Many people assume I won’t be happy until I have at least one of each.

I answer in a variety of ways, mostly with humor. “Well, I already have my heir and the spare” or “What if I get another boy? I’ll have to sell it.”

People laugh or not, but they usually don’t ask again.

My mother always wanted a son. And as the youngest of four daughters I can say I’m glad she kept trying for awhile before giving up. But I am done. In a good way done.

I do get in touch with a sense of sadness, at times, that that period of my life has passed. The years of thinking, planning, and anxiously anticipating marked a significant time in my life. Now I am raising my sons which is another chapter fraught with its own perils and distant unknowns.

“We need another baby." I am startled by Zachary’s sense of earnestness when he makes this statement. Zach is eight and is looking at me quite seriously as he says this.

“Why do we need another baby, Zach?” I ask.

“We just do.” is his terse response.

I am surprised, but assume it is more of a reaction formation than anything else. Zach has been fighting with greater frequency lately with his three-year-old brother Sam. Either Zach really doesn’t want us to have another child or he is hoping we can trade Sam in for a better model.

“Well, I don’t think we will be having anymore babies Zach. Is that okay with you?” He looks at me with disappointment then goes off to play with his Star Wars X Wing.

My response stays with me. What I should have said is "I" won’t be having any more babies. Zach on the other hand may someday be the patriarch of a large clan of children if that is what he wants and destiny sees fit to give it to him.

I approach Zach later. “You know,” I say, “someday you may be somone’s daddy. You may have babies.”

“Oh. I am definitely having lots of kids Mom. But I still want Sam to live with me.”

“But Sam is going to grow up too,” I point out. “He may want to have a family of his own.”

“But he will always be my family too, Mom. And so will you and Dad, right?”

“Absolutely right Zach. We are always a family.”

Zach starts recalling a scene from Jimmy Neutron so I know he has lost interest in the topic. But I haven’t. I think about the stages of family. It begins by being the child and eventually becoming the parent, but it actually begins so much longer before that and goes on and on after. I think of my place in the line; the lineage and what a small but integral piece I am.

“Are you going to have another?” Well, maybe in a way I might.

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Commie Mommie and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com. Her work will be featured in upcoming issues of Atheist Bear and Motherload. Regina is the author of the Clinical Viewpoint column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. She received a B.A. from Bennington College and an MSW from Fordham University. Regina is a social worker and addiction treatment specialist in NYC.

On Turning 40

I will be turning 40 this month. May 24th to be exact. I have been scouring my mind trying to understand why this is such a melancholy event for me.

I am the youngest child in my family and as such, I have always thought of myself as eternally youthful. I have always been referred to as "the baby" and though it annoyed me to no end when I was younger, the fact that it would be an absurd description of me now saddens me.

I try to focus on the wisdom that can truly only come with time. Age offers gifts that youth can not be given, but I find myself stuck in all that is lost. When I was in my 20's, I had fantasies about what my life might be like when I was older. I envisioned myself thinner, more financially successful, prettier, and happier than I am. This is not to say that I am not happy. But fantasy being what it is allowed me to picture a world of perfection. Reality has brought with it both achievements and disappointments and has shown me that I have limitations that I never foresaw when I was 21.

I have dyed my gray hairs and looked displeasingly in the mirror at the lines at my eyes. I have determined that I cannot reject aging. That is not an option. What I must learn to do is mourn what I feel is lost and begin to identify and embrace what has been gained.

Soon after my 40th birthday will be my 13th wedding anniversary. Soon after that will be my oldest son's 8th birthday. My life has evolved into something that has been both planned and spontaneous. There have been opportunities missed and opportunities created.

While I was in college, I thought I might be an actress or writer when I "grew up". I superficially wanted to be famous — both recognized and acknowledged for being someone extraordinary. I hoped to be wealthy enough to feel safe. Safe from what I perceived were the dangers of having to depend on circumstances for survival. All of these things I thought would just happen. Or better, I hoped would just happen but I never had a plan.

I graduated from college and soon went to graduate school so I could have a "career". I became a social worker and step-by-step pursued a profession that has been satisfying but, at times, limiting. I have been slow to accept the truths and responsibilities of real life, such as: paying bills, making concessions, being responsible on a consistent basis.

Becoming the mother of two people has been a surreal experience that alternately frightens me to the core while validating me like nothing else ever has. I sometimes visualize myself as a helium-filled balloon with my children being the only weights that keep me on the ground. They are my foundation and hopefully I am theirs. My world revolves around them and now has a focus that was lacking before them.

But as I turn 40, I wonder. Is there more of me that I have yet to discover? Are some of the dreams I have abandoned worth resurrecting? I am at a different place psychically these days and ideas like “hope” and “possibility” seem far less corny to me than they once did.

I used to want to be a star, not really an actress. I used to want to be a celebrity, not really a writer. Perhaps I have not so much become pessimistic as realistic. In dreams begin responsibility and at 40, I am regaining my dreams.

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

The Philosophical Mother