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somewhere over the rainbow (and other stories)

  Exactly two years ago I found myself flying through a corner of a rainbow, and landed in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the last film festival I traveled to, a brutal and sweet experience in the harshest of realities, trying to wrap my arms around the slipperiest industry and failing magnificently. Surrounded by fresh faces and eager eyes I ran from the rooms and into the street time and again, wandering off with the camera in my bag as a companion. I took pictures of a blind man that sang on the same corner every day, of wedding parades, of an old woman waiting to see the dentist.  Literally somewhere over the rainbow, I met the ugliest answers to questions I had been dragging my feet towards for years. Cramming the most delicious food into my mouth, joking at the nightly rooftop cocktail parties, grinning like the Cheshire Cat it was all coming to an end. Actually, it had ended before it even started though - and on the plane back to New York and finally Moscow the bone-crunching undertow

blindness and insight



It is dark outside and the traffic is trickling along the river. She knocks on the thick glass of my bedroom door. Her lower lip hangs loose. She is crying. I am awake in a breath, carry her around the house, her chin digging into my shoulder. 
I ask if she had another nightmare.
"No." She says. "I don't want to go to school tomorrow."

My heart falls. 

It took months to organize documents and navigate through old rules and new ones to find a school that would be good for her. The children are gentle, the teachers thoughtful, the class is small, it is a few minutes walk from us. 
I ask her what happened.
"Nooooooothing." She says.

I am suddenly brought back to last year when she cried like this every night - about the old detskie sad with its intrigues, the barking Soviet system of child education that taught her nothing, the cruelty of the children around her, the scandals, the chaos and the labyrinth of rules. I grew to understand what kind of grotesque place it was over time. It was very difficult to grasp what brand of overpriced madness was really going on there once I left her. I also did not have a choice, as her mother had enrolled her and I could not imagine how I would be able to change her school as a foreigner with no official status.

Walking around the halls of the apartment in the middle of the night, turning and taking tiny steps she rests her face against me. I remember the struggle to dress her, to leave her there. Once she threw up in the street, hysterical, terrified. I thought this was behind us. Maybe she is manipulating me, I ask myself. Maybe a page from her mother's book, or her own. Maybe she knows how to get what she wants from me with some well placed tears. Maybe she is a normal kid who just wants to stay at home surrounded by her toys, next to her father I tell myself. 

These are familiar tripping stones, these questions. Raising a child alone is difficult in the moment when you hunger for the reality check, the guiding hand, the reflection of your fears processed and smoothed out. The easy decision is an agreement between two people steadying the course, not a shot in the dark by an exhausted and disappointed solo pilot.

This is the bubble.

She falls to sleep and I slide her back into bed. Her mouth turns as she grasps for a favorite animal, clutching it to her chest.

I think of my favorite book from college, its simple robin's egg blue cover making me peaceful just seeing the spine on the shelf. How many times was I reduced to a few milk crates of possessions, with this as one of them? Blindness and Insight by Paul deMan. How I warped a book of critical modern literary theory by a mercurial author into parenting advice is no mystery to me. He had a single idea that explained quite a lot of life to me, much more than the trick of being a good reader. When we are very close to something - a story, a child - the details are overwhelming. We get lost in the space between the words, the nuance of every playground. When we get some distance, say when we have closed the book and absorbed it for some time, or when the child has been away for a few hours we gain perspective, even become detached. Both positions offer intense experiences for some, but leave you lost, half-baked and incomplete. The only solution is to dance between the two, between blindness and insight to find some kind of useful truth.

Things get very very simple.

We have a quiet talk at seven. I sit at her level, looking her right in the eye. I explain what it is to be six and a half. I explain why she needs to be around kids, not just me and her legos. I explain how there are things to be learned beyond the alphabet when she is in the new school. She stares at me the whole time without blinking. She is already nodding, understanding, coming to terms with what we will do.

We walk in silence, the joy sucked out of our usual morning walk. He lower lip hangs from her face, eyes giant and staring up at me. I wonder, maybe she is fooling herself and doesn't even realize it. I bring her inside, dress her in the summer clothes they wear within the warm thick walls of this place.

I promise to take her early, to buy her a cupcake or an eclair or anything she likes.

Pulling her wild hair into a ponytail, I rest my hands on her shoulders and guide her into the room. The children are poking their heads from the door in anticipation. They cheer when she enters the room. I know this was the right decision, the right place to be now.

She looks back once at me, not even moving her hand to wave. Her face is apologizing in a way, saying thank you, saying she is scared, lonely, full of doubt, but that she will be fine.


On the way home I feel awkward, alone.

The house is silent, dark. The breakfast plates stare back at me.

Outside I see a tree shaking wildly. A worker is whacking it with a long stick, forcing the leaves to fall as he rakes them up. I find this profoundly disturbing, assuming it to be an extreme act of laziness.

Let the leaves fall all by themselves, I want to tell him.





Comments

Suzette Sommer said…
Oooh, those deep dark eyes.
Suzette Sommer said…
Oooh, those deep dark eyes.

Every parent goes through the -- I do not want to go to school -- thing. You are correct, how to know when it is justified or not? Could be either way.

But, something tells me you made the right call this time.
liv said…
She lives in a very complicated situation. She is, even at her little age, becoming a complex person. You are a complex person. But that great parental skill you have of sitting down with her, on her level and connecting with her eyes is a pathway to the truth. Encouraging her to work her way through the labyrinth in her head to that truth is what parenting is all about.
You are a good parent.
katie eggeman said…
How wonderful that you were able to find a better school for her. You handled this just right.As she sees that this school is different she will be more and more comfortable.
I love how you can see in the dark, Marco. And how she leads you into the light. A marvelous post. (and sorry, if you're seeing this TWICE. It doesn't want to post)
Annie said…
And here I am, the experienced mom, with a spouse......and I went through the SAME thing this week. The SAME thing. Oh, you said it well: "to dance between the two, between blindness and insight to find some kind of useful truth".

It is so hard when there is more blindness than insight! But, in any case, it is easy to ignore the insights, and allow them to bow to your "usual style".

I BET they cheer when she arrives! I bet she is quite an interesting classmate!
Annie said…
Also - one hard thing about kids is that they are human. They may want to gravitate to the easy and familiar even in the face of something more splendid that involves risk ane effort.

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