Mom

When I was seven years old, I was fat. When I was ten years old, I weighed more than what I do now at twenty-eight. But it started when I was seven. When before I was chubby, now I was fat. Just like my mother. Just like most of the other women in my family. Fat, we were all fat.

About this time in Hobart, there was a Katie’s Potato Chips. In the strip mall by Paragon Family Restaurant. At least I think this is where it was, in my memory it was, and so in this story there it is. My mother and I were in this strip mall, and I was whining, probably because I wanted candy. I was throwing a tantrum. I don’t remember any of my other sisters being there. This makes me think that maybe I wasn’t seven. Maybe I was five. Maybe this was before I started kindergarten, and it was just the two of us, me and mom. Just the two of us out running the errands that a mother needs to run, and she would rather not run them with her five-year-old daughter who was becoming fat.

So we were out on the sidewalk of the strip mall, and I was throwing a temper tantrum. Maybe Pop Rocks. Let’s say that I wanted Pop Rocks. I want Pop Rocks Pop Rocks Pop Rocks. We were probably just coming out of Save More. The grocery store. I want Pop Rocks Pop Rocks Pop Rocks. She wouldn’t let me have any, for whatever reason. Probably too much sugar. Maybe because I had horrible teeth as a child, she didn’t like the idea of me chewing on some Pop Rocks. Of course, this is all speculation, because it probably wasn’t Pop Rocks that I wanted. I’m just using them as a placeholder.

But I wanted something, and I wanted it bad. We were on the sidewalk of the strip mall, and I was throwing a fit, and all the housewives of Hobart were staring.

My mom tried to compromise. I wonder how many compromises she had to make with four daughters. I imagine she was wearing a threadbare lavender shirt, and her hair was messily pulled back. And she was fat, and we would all be fat with four daughters.

She tried to compromise. "How about we go to Katie’s and get some potato chips?" She grabbed my hand and we walked that way, and I dragged my feet and whimpered, “I don’t like potato chips.” I was probably wearing Velcro shoes. Cotton shorts that rode up my chunky little thighs.

Of course I liked potato chips. But I didn’t like to compromise. I was seven, I was five, I was a bratty little kid who had a mother worn down by three older children, a mother who was mid-thirties and whose huge spirit was hidden by her huge body and huge pain of all that had not gone right.

So I said, “I don’t like potato chips.”

My mother yanked my arm in the other direction, into the parking lot towards the station wagon. “Fine,” she said, her tone tired and angry. “Then you won’t get anything.”

I got nothing. That’s what I remember. The nothing that I got. I also remember that as soon as my mom yanked my arm, as soon as that tone made its way to my understanding, I felt like a horrible person. I was seven, I was five, but I understood that I had made my mother sad, that she was trying to be nice, that she was trying to be generous, but I was being a brat, I was being ungrateful, I was being a hurter of feelings.

This is my earliest memory I have of my mother. I have a poor memory, but I remember this. It was the first time I realized that I had the ability to cause pain.

Books are friends

Shh. Don't tell anyone, but I steal copies of the Chicago Tribune. Only on Sundays. Some phantom beast lays it upon my doorstep, probably for a neighbor, and though I have not paid for it, I snatch it up, run inside, and put it under my coffee table and maybe read it a week later, maybe just look through Parade and clip coupons.

But recently I read this article in the Tribune. It’s about how children in violent Chicago neighborhoods have fearful, compromised summers because they cannot so much as play Double Dutch in their front yards without being threatened by stray bullets.

It's a very sad tale, and one I wish more people would think about. Perhaps then people would speak up a little more about the dying Chicago children. Maybe then I wouldn't have to listen to crap stories like this one, about oh, pity the rich white people in Lincoln Park, condo sales are down 3 percent and Goose Island almost went out of business. Perhaps then I could hear more stories about unrest, about uprising. Compassion.

But I digress.

The Tribune article mentions that children in violent neighborhoods spend a lot of their summertime in libraries, which are safe havens from gangs. And this led me to think that if there is one positive in all of this (and I hesitate to say that there can be anything positive about children living their daily lives in fear), then it is that children are looking upon libraries as places of safety and leisure, and perhaps this will lead to a lifelong love of books.

And this led to thoughts about our modern digital world, and the passing away of the CD and the physical book. My conclusion is, perhaps books are not in as much jeopardy as the CD. When you are young, after all, a book is tantamount to a toy (unlike a CD). Books are magical. Children love to touch books, to turn pages, to look at bright colors. And this, I would think, leads to some level of respect and appreciation for the physical book. Am I right here?

Bill and I recently bought four new bookshelves. They are huge. They cover one wall in our living room. We must have 500 or so books. They are so pretty. They smell so good. I want to eat them. I want to drive a motorcycle and put them in my best buddy sidecar. Is this because when I was six I flipped the pages of Danny and the Dinosaur and the sensation of going to the museum was real? Because I had never been to a museum, but holding this book in my hands meant that I was there, that I did meet a dinosaur. I was Danny, as long as I carried the book around with me and traced my fingers along its smooth, vivid pages. Did these tactile experiences with a book lead to my respect for books?

Maybe not entirely. After all, not everyone who read Danny and the Dinosaur when they were little grew up to build a large book collection. But I think that most people own at least a handful of books that they treasure. Most people would agree that there is something about the physical book that makes reading an experience instead of just an occurrence. Perhaps it is the kid in all of us that sustains our belief in the magic of books.