by Theresa Garee | May 12, 2019 | Blog
I don’t remember which one of us decided to reclaim Mother’s Day, but it began with an impromptu day-long road trip. With little fanfare or notice to anyone except Ed, the #onehundredpercentgoodhusband, my sister Amy and I hopped in her convertible and drove north up Route 23 to Putnam County, the part of Ohio where both of our parents were born and grew up. We visited our grandparents’ houses, the cemeteries where our grandparents and other relatives on both sides of the family were buried, and we stopped at fast food restaurants to eat.
We bypassed the buffets in restaurants with white linen tablecloths and the brunches in popular breakfast places.
It wasn’t the food.
We were hiding from the mothers and daughters.
I’ve always said my biological clock never went off. My niece, Jamey, was the closest thing to a daughter I ever had. To claim I did anything close to parenting her would be an outright lie. She was simply the first young person in our family with whom I spent more than the occasional holiday. And she was my sister’s daughter, her only child.
And then Jamey died.
And then our mother died.
And then it was Mother’s Day.
No thank you.
So we took off.
Another year on Mother’s Day, a close friend was in the psych ward. The friend’s own mother was dead and her daughter was unable to visit. So Amy and I reclaimed Mother’s Day by spending a few hours with our friend. After, Amy and I drove through Taco Bell and ate in the car in the parking lot. We talked about our mother’s chronic cough and how crazy it made both of us and how we wondered if that made us horrible daughters. And we talked about Jamey’s illness and how that had turned the world upside down. And we talked about how much we loved Taco Bell.
Year after year we have continued the tradition, avoiding the malls and the restaurants and, for the most part, the mothers and daughters who celebrate, blissfully unaware (or so we project) of the clock ticking down the minutes until they will no longer have each other. And we usually eat Taco Bell.
This year we again reclaimed Mother’s Day, but with a twist.
This year, we both have “children” — sort of.
Three days after Mother’s Day, my “baby,” the memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink is being released by Mango Publishing.
And last year, Amy got married. Now, she and George, her husband, are raising his three grandchildren.
So we reclaimed Mother’s Day this year by celebrating so much new life: my book, Amy’s marriage, and the little people in her world. Instead of just the two of us eating in the parking lot outside a hospital or at a drive-through, we ate in their new home. Instead of Taco Bell, Amy and I, along with Ed and George, ate the chocolate chip pancakes and sausage links, strawberries, and whipped cream George prepared in their lovely kitchen.
None of this will replace our mother or Jamey, of course. Some wounds never completely heal. But we hold our love for them alongside these new loves.
Our hearts are big enough for it all.
by Theresa Garee | Oct 5, 2018 | Blog
On Wednesday nights, a small contingent of my running pace group meets for a few mid-week miles. This week we did four in the thick, humid, central Ohio air. Still green trees and three small deer cheered us on.
After, some of us often go out for a meal, but this week, everyone else needed to go home. I hadn’t eaten so I drove through Taco Bell for the bean and rice burrito.
It was not in the least reminiscent of my years in New Mexico. Instead, I remembered evenings with my sister when we would dine at Taco Bell, enjoying not so much the food, but the company. She lived ten minutes away for many years. This summer, after she had retired, she moved to a small town an hour away to live with her long-time boyfriend and his three grandchildren.
After I ate, I texted her. “I went to Taco Bell. Miss you.” She texted back, “Miss you too.” She’s happy and I’m happy for her. Knowing that made the mostly dull burrito taste better.
by Theresa Garee | Sep 3, 2008 | Blog
“Blank pages inspire me with terror.” – Margaret Atwood
After listening to me whine, a friend decided to give me a copy of Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path: The Journey from Frustration to Fulfillment by Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott. The authors – a writer and a psychologist – found a patten to the writer’s angst. My friend quickly diagnosed me. I’m at a stopping point on one project, but not ready to launch into something new. “It’s just unhappiness,” she said cheerfully. “That’s the first step on the writer’s path. You’re just circling back to the beginning.”
Unhappiness, huh? This is not news and yet it is somehow helpful. It has a name. Other writers have survived it. I’ve completed my MFA and am shopping my book to agents. I want to push the pen across the page in some meaningful way, but little comes. This is unhappiness.
Unfortunately, my friend has been unable to put her hands on another copy of the book. While I wait for her to locate one, I’ve asked everyone else what they would do. One author suggested giving myself some space. Sit in a café for three hours and just write for ten minutes. Don’t work on anything in particular. Let your mind wander and let something float up. Another recommended writing from the type of writing prompts which call up two stories at the same time. Things like: From where I sat, I could see what they were chasing. My husband, a more practical sort than most of my writer friends, suggested taking care of the things I put off when I was in school – little things like getting new glasses.
I’ll take these excellent suggestions. Next week perhaps. In the meantime I’m taking long walks with the dog and trying not to feel as if the floor has fallen out from under me now that I don’t have an advisor giving me feedback or deadlines requiring me to send 40 pages out every three weeks. I secretly hope an agent will appear in my future to say my book needs tons of work so I can launch myself on it again.
But just in case I locate a copy of the Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path, I’ll go ahead and get new glasses.
(c)Nita Sweeney, 2008, all rights reserved
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by Theresa Garee | Mar 8, 2008 | Blog
“The one thing all nations share is the fear that a member of the family will want to be an artist.” – Robert Frost
My family’s fears have come true. An excerpt from Memorial, the book I’m writing about my father, has been published in The Pitkin Review, Goddard College’s literary magazine. As excited as I was to have the excerpt accepted, my fear of my family’s response outweighed the joy ten to one.
The only way I know to overcome the fear that my family will be unhappy with what I’ve written is to let them know what’s coming. This won’t work for everyone, but I don’t like surprises and I doubt they would either. Some memoirists never show work to family members until after it’s published. Some show the drafts to anyone who appears in the work. Others, like me, have a conversation with family members about the work before it appears in print. My goal is to travel with as much ease as possible balanced by my need to tell the story.
A few members of my family have read the piece and, so far, no one has thrown any stones. Of course, the section published is a rather mild part of the book. But I’m testing the waters and getting my family ready for the more difficult sections to come. When I’m confused about whether to reveal something, I choose to honor the story. The story always wins. I hope it will win my family over as well.
