Idling

My mother launches into a tale I've never heard before--giggling through it like a girl, recounting the day in Ireland that her father brought home a Kerry Blue. A dog they named Nigger. The word paralyzes the moment; L, who memorizes what I tell him about hot words and replays like he's the law, says, "Granny, how could you?" She's still laughing. "It just meant black then--the dog was black. I don't remember whatever happened to Nigger. Think he ran off." Again the kids freeze, waiting to see what I'll do. Her giggles make me laugh, though I'm shaking my head, signaling to both audiences at once. "That's a very bad word," L says, not remotely amused. "It's the worst word anybody could call a black person," he keeps going, my in-house judiciary. "That word is an ugly word. No wonder that dog ran away."

I can't watch Obama and Clinton without seeing black and woman first--before any value, before anything they say. It's a pleasing aspect to sit with, having never had the luxury before, though we're supposed to feign blindness to such things. ("Is he black or African-American," M asks me. "He's black," I say. "I think that's a bad word," she says.) I've read Obama's books and I haven't read Clinton's. I'm terribly taken by him; I stop whatever I'm doing to listen when he speaks; he inspires, certainly. Conversely, I'd rather put a knife in my ear than have to listen to her numbing drone. Gloves came off a bit today. Wonder when we're going to start hearing again about his middle name and ties to the Middle East. Before Ohio, betcha a dollar.

Nader--goddamn--the man needs a day job.

We're driving home from Maryland last night and M floats the idea of attending a performing arts high school in Baltimore--a school where her father used to teach acting. "What do you think?" she asks me, all bright eyed in the back seat. What do I think? That I'm pissed her dad's been planting the idea? That it would kill me--utterly kill me--to send her away at age 13? That it kills me that she can even entertain the notion? That--performing arts high school?--there's no way I'm raising up a kid who can't support herself?? (Sorry. Money worries suck the soul dry. I am not expansive this way.) That, in short, blah blah blah over my dead body?? "Well, that's a long way off, honey," I say, a little too brightly. "Let's see how things look down the road." She knows me; she knows there is broiling in the silence. "I know you don't want me to go, and I'm not mad at you," she says quietly. "And I know you want to go, and I'm not mad at you, either," I tell her. And then I spend the next hour thinking about how my dual roles--the one who should not stand in her way, and the one who should assert reasonable guidelines and boundaries--are often in conflict, or at least not easily rendered, both so informed by the fears and jealousies of my own small places.

Not for sissies. None of it.