Note to Readers

For some reason it is very difficult to leave comments on this blog. I don't know why. People tell me they have written long comments, only to have them disappear. I know I have written people back, only to have my comments disappear.

Please copy whatever you write before you hit "publish."  It IS definitely possible to leave a message, but the system is a little quirky.  Please don't give up - I really want to hear from you!

Thanks for stopping by!

- Nellie

Entry #22: GIFTS FROM GAMMA

When I tell people stories about the gifts my mother gave, they believe I'm lying. They think I'm making things up to get attention. Her behavior was so outlandish people simply refuse to accept it. If you have read any of the preceding articles, however, you already know it's all true.

Receiving a gift from my mother was exactly like being Charlie Brown when Lucy would hold the football for him. Every single time, Charlie Brown would persuade himself that THIS time, Lucy was not going to pull the ball away at the last moment before he kicked it. And every single time, Lucy did. And Charlie Brown would fall flat on his back.

My mother liked to build up the excitement around her gifts well in advance. She would tell me, "I found the PERFECT present!", and she would praise the gift so extravagantly that, against all my experience and better judgment, a little ray of hope would enter my heart. Was it possible? Could it be? Would this be the ONE time she actually produced a nice present?

Odds were against it. My mother did not believe in spending money on gifts. Instead, she recycled. Apparently she had never heard the expression "'tis better to give than receive." She was all about receiving. Giving - not so much.

My father bought me the cheapest little black AM/FM transistor radio from Radio Shack for my tenth birthday, and I clearly remember being thrilled for one brief moment. But then I looked up at my mother. She was ENRAGED. My father was an idiot! A fool! Whatever had possessed him to GO TO A STORE? Money was not to be wasted on gifts - certainly not for children! Her fury continued for the rest of the evening and sucked the joy right out of my birthday. I felt confused and guilty.

My father never made that mistake again. To celebrate my thirtieth birthday, he gave me a used metal three-hole paper punch.

Occasionally my mother would ask what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday. This was actually one of her best tricks. She would invariably produce a gift close enough to the request to show she had heard it, but not near enough to be satisfying. The message was, "I decided NOT to buy you what you really want, because I can't be bothered, and you simply aren't worth it." For example, if I asked for  a blue scarf, she would find a hideous pink one and expect me to be grateful. When I was in college, I dared to hope for a collection of all the Beethoven symphonies - something I very much wanted but could not afford. My mother gave me one discounted LP of one symphony. I learned if I really wanted something, I'd have to get it myself.

After my mother inherited her millions, she had three additional houses full of things to give away. She quickly sold anything of value, leaving behind plenty of detritus from which to choose. Who would get the random silver teaspoons this year? The silver tea caddy with someone else's indecipherable initials? The used kitchen towels?

My mother once made a great fuss about giving me an item of china from a pattern she called "Rose Medallion." The piece was clearly missing a lid, and had been cracked and re-assembled at some point. My mother admonished me that it was a precious antique serving dish, and I should be careful with it.

Well, times grew hard, and I had no choice but to try to sell the precious serving dish. We needed more important things. I dropped it off at a high-end consignment shop in New Canaan, CT, where the nouveau riche on the way up could purchase all the trappings of aristocracy from the debutantes on the way down, like me.

The shop called and said they were terribly sorry, but there was no market for a broken china CHAMBER POT. When I think of my mother serving food out of her precious dish, I throw up a little in my mouth.

A really exceptional present from my mother would be something she found at the Dollar Store, or Job Lot, or in the clearance department at BJ's Wholesale Club. For example, a very small scarf of thin fleece made in China, or a black plastic men's wallet.

Ever the nonconformist, my mother preferred to approach holidays in an unpredictable way. One Easter she sent packages to my kids, who were about ages 2 and 6. One present was a large rubber insect that resembled a locust, and the other was a black rubber snake. It was hard to determine which one was more vile. My mother said she assumed the children already had enough chicks and bunnies - because, of course, I was such a overindulgent money-wasting mother. As always, she knew perfectly well what was appropriate. She just refused to play along.

My parents came to visit for Easter the next year, and my mother went on and on about the marvelous Easter Egg Hunt we were going to have. Again, I felt a little ray of hope. Really? Could it be true?

After drinking her lunch, my mother kicked us all out of the playroom and hid the Easter Eggs. We waited with great anticipation. Then she allowed the kids back into the room for the great Hunt. A dozen brightly-colored plastic eggs were in obvious places... and every single one of them was empty.

The kids looked at me quizzically. They knew how to take apart a plastic Easter Egg and look for the treasure inside. But there were no treasures. It was an Easter Egg Hunt for nihilists.

My mother enjoyed giving empty things. For one of my birthdays, she went on ecstatically about my fabulous gift. When the highly anticipated moment arrived, I unwrapped a nice box from a jewelry shop and was pleasantly surprised. When I opened it up, it was empty. Just black velvet inside. Whatever she had purchased for herself she had taken out, giving me the empty box. I am not making this up.

No matter how godawful the present was, my mother would talk about it for days or weeks in advance as if it was the one thing that would make your life complete.  One year she waxed eloquent in repeated phone calls about the PERFECT gift she had mailed to my daughter, who was turning eleven. She even added, "in the store, it would cost fifty dollars!" 

By this time both of my kids knew not to get excited, but human beings are wired to have hope in the grimmest of situations. Even I had a hard time accepting how truly terrible her gifts always were. How could I expect children to understand?

I have no idea how she acquired my daughter's gift, but it was a fake gold, over-sized, costume jewelry owl - perfect for fifth grade.

One year she gave my son a sweatshirt that not only had the tags cut out, but also was clearly dirty. Where the hell did she even find it? Another year she gave him a huge Christmas gift bag with a bright, jolly Santa on the outside. All of us felt a little excited. My son pulled forth a dead animal skin - perhaps an arctic fox? - that my mother had left on the couch in her living room for the previous 25 years. It was filthy, and shedding its dead fur from around its gouged-out eyes. We all shrieked.

With a huge amount of fanfare, she once gave me a black beaded evening purse with tassels. You know, for all those balls I attended. Several times she gave Artiste old sweaters of my father's, each time pretending the gift was new.

And always, ALWAYS, she would expect to be effusively thanked. That was the most important part of the game: giving us some random piece of shit, and then getting us to thank her. She demanded that the children write her Thank You notes, and gave me hell if they didn't. 

Fortunately my mother could not WAIT to stop giving presents altogether. She would grasp at any excuse, from the random declaration that "nobody gives presents any more!", to "the children are too old for gifts, don't you think?", to "I'm BLIND, I could not POSSIBLY buy a present." (She was nowhere near blind - plus she had many personal assistants who would have been glad to help.) Her interest in gift-giving went from punitive to non-existent.

Despite these lessons learned at my mother's knee, I absolutely LOVE giving presents! If I had money I think I would buy a present for someone every day. Think of all the delightful things there are in the world! Wouldn't it be fun to share them with everyone you love?

A friend of my daughter's once asked her in college, "Why does your mother send you so many presents?" Well, DUH. I can't think of anything more fun!

Often I will see something cute and think, "Oh! Who could I give THIS to? Do I know anybody who is having a birthday? Graduating? Expecting a baby?" But really, you don't need a reason to give someone a gift - especially if that someone is a gift to you. 

Living for others makes for a full life.
The more you give away, the richer you are.”
— Lao Tzu

Entry #21: FOOD

I first met Artiste my freshman year at Bennington College, in 1972. My bold friend Betsy was not intimidated by the handsome graduate student, so one evening we went and sat down to eat dinner with him in the dining hall.

As Betsy and I tucked into our spaghetti and meatballs, or whatever it was, we noticed that Artiste was eating salad. He said he was vegetarian. I was genuinely shocked. I had never met a vegetarian before. I believe my first words to the man who would eventually become my husband were, “What do you eat?”

“Beans,” he answered cheerfully. “I cook up a pot of beans on Sunday and eat them all week.” He laughed as if he were joking, but I found out later it was entirely true.

I don’t think I’d ever eaten any beans at that point, other than baked beans out of a can, and frozen lima beans. I’d never seen a lentil, or a black bean, or a white bean – just as I’d never seen Chinese, Japanese, Thai, or Indian food. My parents did not believe in multicultural eating. They also refused to eat Italian food (unless you count canned spaghetti) and “Jewish food.”

My mother had no domestic skills whatsoever, and did not wish to acquire them. She served only Food of Hate. As a child I never ate breakfast at all, and at school I always purchased the hot lunches, which I thought were delicious. I have no memory of my mother ever fixing lunch for me, although she must have fed me something when I was very little. I do remember being young enough to sit up front in the grocery cart at the A&P, where she would open up a package of the cheapest hamburger meat and let me eat it while she shopped. She called it “steak tartare,” which it clearly was not. It was ground e. coli. This was another one of her attempts to bend the world to her “nothing is anything” rule, as when she dabbed cooking vanilla behind her ears and called it perfume.

I had an early start on disordered eating. I remember crawling up onto the kitchen counter, reaching into the cupboard, and eating peanut butter by the tablespoonful. I have no idea where my mother was. As soon as I was old enough to open a jar of jellied cooked chicken, I was on my own. I discovered I was able to make mayonnaise sandwiches, with white bread and mayo and sometimes a piece of iceberg lettuce. When I got a little older, I boiled eggs for myself, and as soon as I could open cans, that opened up vast new possibilities that included canned tuna and canned baked beans. I ate a lot of combinations of those foods: tuna and mayo on white bread, tuna and egg and mayo on white bread, baked beans and eggs, baked beans and tuna… you get the idea. I was not in charge of the shopping, so I was not able to expand my horizons into other canned goods.

When I switched schools in seventh grade, the Shipley School sent me the name of a student nearby who would be in my class so we could make friends. This was a very nice idea, but it was like expecting a swan to entertain a donkey. Susan – the swan – politely invited me over to her house.  She was wearing nicely pressed pants and a shirt starched at the cleaners. Later I would go through many cans of spray starch, laboriously ironing my uniform shirts at night, realizing they would never look as crisp as the real thing, but also knowing that my parents would iron my hands before they would pay for starched shirts. For my father, yes. For me, never.

Susan’s house was beautifully furnished and seemed like a museum. I had never seen long drapes before, or a four-poster bed with a pretty coverlet, or a bathroom with hand towels and soap that smelled nice. At lunchtime we went into the kitchen and there was a housekeeper who served us lunch. I was stunned. She gave us tuna sandwiches and glasses of milk. Susan didn’t realize this was anything special, but I had no idea there were human beings who would make lunch for you. It was like a restaurant!

My mother did produce one meal a day: dinner. There was still the expectation that The Husband would work all day at the office, then come home and have a cocktail and eat a meal prepared by The Wife. Since children were to be seen and not heard, they were fed separately ahead of time and then sent to their rooms.

It is difficult to do justice to how truly terrible my mother’s meals were. She would take the A&P hamburger, form it into round blobs, and burn the shit out of them in a frying pan. Generally the burnt hamburgers would be served with a block of frozen sliced green beans that had been boiled until they turned grey, and some “mashed potatoes” made from potato flakes out of a box. My middle brother shot up to a great height in fifth grade and was always starving, so he would cook himself “mashed potatoes” from a box to survive. He was so skinny his knees were knobby.

The cocktail ritual fell by the wayside when my mother started drinking before lunch, and she drank her way through preparing dinner. Often she took the cheapest cuts of chicken, put them in a pan, and smeared them with a mixture of grape jelly and hickory smoked salt. She called this “sweet and sour chicken,” and it tasted like ashes. Sometimes she would put cheap cheese on top of white bread, melt it in the oven, and call it "Welsh Rarebit." Another standby was chipped beef on toast.  She would make a kind of glue out of flour and milk, then add corned beef of uncertain origin that was so salty it was inedible. Then she would put a blob of this mixture on a piece of toast. I would eat the white bread with the white glue but avoid the inedible brown lumps of super-salted beef. Later I found out you can soak corned beef in water to get the salt out first, but that would have taken an additional two minutes.

By the time my brothers were in college, my mother would start her second round of drinks for the day promptly at 5PM. Eventually my father would get home, and the three of us would sit down in silence to some godawful meal. Having eaten many different things since then, mostly what I remember is what we did not have. There was never any salad. My father would take some iceberg lettuce, dip it in the mayonnaise jar, and call that “salad.” There was no fruit, except oranges in winter. There was greasy margarine instead of real butter. Items that never entered the house included: roast chicken, quiche, fresh fish, steak, and any type of pasta. There were no fresh vegetables, ever. There were no grains. And forget about “foreign” foods like pizza (“is that made with eggs and cheese?”) or lasagna or bagels or borscht. Both of my parents were insulted at the idea of eating food from other cultures. I tried to tell them about yogurt, but as usual they thought I was being stupid until someone else came along and said the same thing.

My father and I would choke down some bites of whatever was on the plate, and my mother would immediately start a fight about how hard she had slaved over dinner, and how we should be grateful for the time and effort she had put into this delicious meal. She would complain and complain, then cry, then leave the table in tears and go to bed. Every. Single. Night. I would go up to my room to do homework, and my father would do the dishes. That was the routine for about five years.

So when Artiste came along, I was woefully unprepared to be a vegetarian. At his apartment I saw my first fresh vegetables and actually freaked out. I couldn’t get over how beautiful they were! I had no idea there were vibrant green, red, and yellow peppers. I had never seen an eggplant, with its remarkable purple skin, or a heavy head of green cabbage, or a clove of garlic. The layers of an onion were all new to me, as were the glistening green skins of zucchini, and the undersea ruffles on red lettuce. I had never seen the inside of a cauliflower, or the way broccoli makes little trees. I never realized there were different kinds of potatoes, and that all you had to do to make genuine mashed potatoes was boil one of them. I could not tell the difference between a peach and a nectarine, or an orange and a tangerine, or a Macintosh and a Red Delicious apple. I had never heard of ricotta, or feta, or mozzarella cheese. I couldn’t get over the fact that an unassuming, inexpensive bag of lentils could turn into a whole pot of delicious and healthy soup, and that a little yellow packet of yeast could turn flour into fabulous steaming loaves of home-made whole wheat bread.

When my mother found out that I had become vegetarian, she accused Artiste of  “trying to make me fat so all my other suitors would go away.”  I think we can all agree that is an interesting take on vegetarianism. Also an interesting perspective on my control of my own destiny. She claimed there was a “secret Nellie” inside of me that actually agreed with her. It is very disconcerting to have your own mother tell when you are eighteen that she knows that you have another personality hidden inside of you, and you should let it out. Which train is the crazy train?

Once I got away from home, I realized that there are innumerable types of food to try, and innumerable ingredients to discover. I learned there is such a thing as Food of Love, and that meals are meant to bring people together and to make them closer. There are so many important rituals around food that signal “we are family,” or, “you are a welcome guest in our home.”  Going out to dinner should not be an exercise in finding the cheapest rubber chicken, but a pleasurable learning experience where you eat something new, prepared with pride, in the company of people you enjoy. Every meal is really a window into what and who you love - and Food of Love, however humble, sustains us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Entry #20: SHAME

My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Thomson, was old school. She had snow white hair, a harsh face, and a slash of red lipstick. We didn't get along. I did not find her likable, and she felt the same way about me. This may or may not have had something to do with the time that I (a ten-year-old) accused her (a veteran teacher) of being redundant in front of the whole class.

Mrs. Thomson assigned our seats by last name, so - having a surname that started with Z - I had the misfortune of being the last desk, directly in front of hers. I spent the entire year next to the brilliant Rebeccah Ruttenberg, who kept herself amused by writing notes in Hebrew, and in front of Todd Vunderink, who was a nice boy with a round head, a fuzzy buzz cut, and plaid shirts.

One fall morning I realized to my horror that I had completely forgotten my homework assignment: to write a poem about Thanksgiving. I had about ten minutes before I had to get to the bus stop, so I ran upstairs, sat on my bed, thought for a couple of minutes, and scribbled out the following:

I'm thankful for the home I have

The food I have to eat,

The Liberty that I enjoy

That makes the two ends meet.

The bed I have to sleep in

And the clothes I have to wear,

Are just some things I'm thankful for,

Along with health and care.

It didn't stop there. Somehow before I was done I threw in money in the bank, higher education, and the American Dream of one day owning my own home.

About a week later Mrs. Thomson entered the classroom looking like an entirely different person. She was beaming, and her eyes were positively twinkling with excitement. She was holding something behind her back like a big surprise.

It was the local newspaper. My poem was smack in the middle of the front page. There was my name, "a student in Mrs. Thomson's sixth grade class at Radnor Elementary School." She was THRILLED. We bonded over how exciting it was.

I brought the newspaper home and gave it to my mother. Taking my cue from Mrs. Thomson, I thought she would be pleased.

My mother read the poem and scowled. She became FURIOUS. She hated the poem and thought it was inferior doggerel. She also hated Thanksgiving and wanted nothing to do with it, so to her the poem was just propaganda for the masses. She was embarrassed that ALL HER FRIENDS were going to see my inferior poem. Her reputation was RUINED by my display of bad taste.

I was confused. I went from hero to villain in ten seconds.

My father must have heard about the  poem, but as usual he said and did nothing. I was on my own, trying to sort things out. I concluded that I had brought disgrace upon myself and my family, and I was deeply ashamed of my inadequate poem. My mother was angry for days, but she never referred to my crime again. Apparently the incident was to be forgotten as quickly as possible.

Fast forward a couple of years to the summer of 1968. My mother and I were spending the summer alone in the big house in Rhode Island. My father was back in Philadelphia, working. My oldest brother was dead. My other brother had gotten a job as far away as possible - on an oceanographic vessel in the middle of the ocean. My mother was always drunk and depressed, and I was on my own - too young to get a real job, too young to drive, and forbidden to go to summer camp because I had to stay home and look after my mother.

One evening a couple of friends and I found some colored chalk. We took to the street in front of my house and drew silly pictures. One friend wrote in pink, "Pepto Bismol is an interior decorator," and added a stomach for good measure. I thought this was hilarious. We drew flowers and animals and funny faces and put our initials in hearts, knowing everything would soon be worn off by car tires and washed away by the rain.

My mother came outside, saw what we were doing, and brought the wrath of Zeus upon our heads. My friends were sent home. I was banished to my room, grounded, and forbidden to see my best friend - who lived next door - ever again.

My mother was in high dudgeon. You would think I had just been found in the center of town shooting heroin and having sex while pregnant. If she could have killed me, I think she would have done so without hesitation.

"A LADY HAS HER NAME IN PUBLIC ONLY TWICE IN HER LIFE," my mother seethed, her eyes narrowed with rage, "When she MARRIES and when she DIES!"

I was confused again. Apparently I had, in all innocence, made a terrible spectacle of myself again. My mother's white hot rage branded itself into my teenage psyche. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

As I sat upstairs in my room, I could hear my best friend's family next door having a grand old time. They were laughing and hollering and enjoying each other. Nobody was in trouble over there.

My house was silent and vibrating with hostility. My mother went to bed drunk, and I stayed up alone, feeling sick to my stomach.

And that's the way things went for weeks. Being forbidden to see my best friend for half the summer was cruel and unusual punishment. My friend had a brother and sister and two fun parents, and every day they did things together like go to the beach, or go sailing, or drive down to Aunt Carrie's for clam fritters. I would watch them happily coming and going, wearing bathing suits and wrapped in colorful towels. My mother was like a corpse, and my house was like a crypt. I wasn't allowed to do anything or go anywhere, and if I complained, my mother would say, "The INTELLIGENT person is NEVER bored."

Now fast forward to 1985. After working in publishing in New York for four years, I set up shop doing freelance writing and editing from home and had two kids. Since then I've worked with hundreds of authors, doing book proposals, editing manuscripts, and writing collaborations. I create credibility for authors by providing them with a coherent description of what they do. I invent self-help programs out of thin air, fashion steps to success out of unfocused ideas, and match problems with cures. I've published a dozen books with traditional New York publishing houses.

But here's the thing: editors and collaborators are usually invisible. Authors rarely boast about all the help they received from their ghostwriters. They want to look as if they wrote their own books. Sometimes they get delusional and start to believe they really DID write their own books. So I've worked tirelessly behind the scenes, making other people look good and helping them make money. How stupid is that?

A therapist once looked at me and said I was behaving as if I'd been gagged. I was operating under the idea that it was OK to write for others, but not for myself. In other words, God forbid I make a spectacle of myself again. Because a lady's name only appears in public twice.

My parents gave me lots more to feel ashamed about. They let me know that I was stupid, fat, unpleasant, and greedy. Just my presence was annoying. My mother's favorite expression was, "children should be seen and not heard" - and she meant it.

I've learned a lot since those days. I've learned that my parents were wrong about a lot of things. I've also learned that the shame burned into us in childhood does not just go away just because it makes no sense. We have to go downstairs into the basement of our subconscious with a flashlight and expose the scars. Then we can start to heal them.

This blog has given me a chance to heal old scars. But everyone has stories. Everyone has outdated behavior that was expected or necessary in childhood, but makes no sense now. I hope you will share your experiences so we all can help heal each other. 

I'm willing to make a giant spectacle of myself and go first. 

Entry #19: ROAD TRIP

My mother loved to travel. She was not a critical thinker, and had no interests or hobbies other than drinking. No tennis, no gardening, no Bridge Club, no watercolors, no piano, no PTA, no puppies, no sewing or knitting or embroidery - nothing. She watched Dr. Kildare on TV every day, but other than soap operas, traveling was her only source of entertainment because it did not require anything of her. Just by moving from one place to another, she woke up every day to new sights to distract her.

Before my mother inherited all her millions, her trips were less frequent and less expensive. Every year, she and my father would ditch the kids and go to the Caribbean for a week. Sometimes they would put us all in the station wagon for a Family Vacation - a chance to put the Fun in Dysfunctional.

My father, the engineer, was in charge of tying all our suitcases to the top of the car. In all honesty, this is not very difficult. However, he managed to do it in such a way that my child's suitcase fell off the top of the car THREE TIMES. Always mine - not anyone else's. Was this a personal vendetta? I don't know, but it certainly felt like one.

After the first two lost suitcases, I knew to listen for the "kabump" as my little luggage broke free and ricocheted off the roof of the car. The third time, I heard the "kabump," looked out the rear window, and saw my suitcase split open like a clamshell at the side of the road, my clothes scattered brightly all along the edge of the highway.

I hollered and my father reluctantly brought the car to a stop. He did not like interruptions. We hiked back to my suitcase just as a kindly truck driver pulled over his enormous rig and stopped to help. What a nice man. Unfortunately, I was about nine years old and MORTIFIED that his large, unfamiliar trucker hands were picking up my underwear. 

In better news, my Cray Pas coloring crayons were still in their box. And I never, ever let my father put my suitcase on top of the car again. I kept all my precious possessions with me in the "way back," which was my own little jail.

I was ALWAYS violently carsick. (It turns out this is associated with migraine headaches.) It would have helped to let me sit up front, but that was my mother's position. No hope there. My two brothers took the middle seat, and cruelly and repeatedly said I was too gigantic to join them. So I would climb into the back like a dog, my father would open the window just enough to suck in all the car exhaust, and I would be horribly, miserably, desperately carsick within minutes. My father would stop the car long enough for me to puke and then press on, instead of giving me a few moments to walk around, breathe, and feel better.

In about 1964, we visited a ranch in Aspen, Colorado. My parents had the bright idea of taking the family on a cross-country trip, and avoiding hotels by pulling a fold-out trailer behind the car.  The top opened out into two wings that were supposed to be beds, and there was a canopy over the whole thing. There is a reason you NEVER see those things on the road any more.

My parents chose a fairly straight shot west to Colorado, then drove home via a southern route. I remember parts of this vacation very clearly. They just aren't the right parts. Mostly I remember the staggering incompetence of my parents.

My brothers were probably 16 and 17. Before the car even pulled out of the driveway, they were both reading in silence, looking down. I was disappointed. No one to play with. Obviously they were present only under duress. I can't remember speaking to either one of them for the entire three weeks.

Of course the car had no air conditioning - and this was before the days of bottled water. My mother's idea of refreshments was to fill a large, round, dirty Thermos with a gallon of water and then add one small tin of formerly frozen lemonade - just enough to make the water taste "off." This was her signature half-assed approach to pretty much everything she did. Except drinking, which she did wholeheartedly.

We drove hours and hours through the flat heartland of America. I have no idea where we were, but the road was straight as an arrow with puddles of mirage water in the distance. Billboards for the Corn Palace and the Five Foot Six Ton Prairie Dog were placed every hundred miles or so to build up our curiosity.

The camper had a small "refrigerator" where you could stow a bag of ice and some food - and beer, of course. My parents placed the kids' flannel sleeping bags from L. L. Bean on the floor of the camper next to the fridge. Somewhere in the heat of Middle America, a gallon of milk fell out the UNLOCKED door of the refrigerator and soaked into the sleeping bags. My mother refused to accept that the smell of damp, spoiled milk saturating my sleeping bag was a problem.

When we were dying of boredom and heat exhaustion, my mother would produce what she uncharitably called "whining pills." Unfortunately, the whining pills consisted of one pack of DoubleMint gum to be shared by everyone. When you already feel carsick, a stick of gum is NOT what you need. If we were very, very lucky, we might get some Stuckey's Peanut Brittle because my mother loved it.

Treats were rare, so I remember stopping for ice cream in the Badlands. It must have been over 100 degrees. After the warm lemon water and my stick of gum, I scarfed the ice cream in amazement - then threw it all up, becoming more dehydrated than before. 

My parents were intent on MAKING good time, not HAVING a good time. Except for my puking, or the occasional gas station bathroom, we rarely stopped. We never moseyed along side routes, or looked for interesting places or tasty food off the beaten track. The only time we deviated from the course was in the evening, when my mother tried to find free places to set up the camper in order to avoid campground fees. This also meant no running water, showers, or bathrooms for the night.

Somewhere in the mountains she had my father drive up a steep logging road and pull off into the woods. In the middle of the night I had to crawl out of the camper in my pajamas to throw up again, and I couldn't wake up anyone else enough to care. 

In the morning I noticed huge red signs forbidding access to the logging road. Just then a truck loaded with 20 tons of logs came barreling around a blind curve at 80 miles per hour, and I realized it was a miracle we had not been pounded into sawdust.

The other most noticeable aspect of this non-camping-spot was a prison with thick bars in the windows about 100 feet away through the trees. During my midnight puking session I could easily have been grabbed by anyone from this hidden jail, and no one would have noticed. Being that close to prisoners scared me. I was learning not to trust my mother's judgment.

After 2000 miles, my father started driving faster and faster, until the station wagon started rattling and shaking to pieces. He had lost his mind and would NOT slow down. I think he wanted to kill us all. We pleaded with him to stop. Even my brothers stopped reading and started objecting. My mother tried to reason with him. The car rattled so much our teeth were chattering and the trailer was hopping all over the road behind us. Eventually, he stopped and turned over the wheel to my mother.

An hour later there was more yelling and the shaking of maps. We had been close to Aspen, but my mother had driven 50 miles in the wrong direction without noticing she was still going west. My father had to take the wheel again, backtracking all 50 miles and then completing the final leg of the journey. When the game is almost over and you're ahead by 50 points, my mother can still find a way to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.

The ranch in Aspen was great, although I was was humiliated to be assigned a pony with a surly personality named Butterball. We were riding the ski lift up the mountain, watching the leaves of the aspens quivering in the breeze, when the bar across the front of my chairlift suddenly swung wide open. My heart stopped. The chair continued to move along, 50 feet in the air with nothing between me and the rocks below. Somehow I closed the bar without slipping out of my seat. No one noticed. 

The trip home included more heat, discomfort, and KOA campgrounds. We spent one night in an actual hotel.

In New Mexico we went out for cheap Mexican food. My mother got drunk and - against better advice - insisted on eating hot sauce straight out of the serving dish with a spoon. This was due to her "nothing is anything" philosophy; the ultimate nihilism that extended from the afterlife, to birthdays and holidays, down to hot sauces in Mexican restaurants. Nothing matters, nothing makes any difference, everything is the same and equally meaningless. This is the same philosophy that led her to her rub all the wooden furniture with mayonnaise instead of furniture polish, or to wear a nightgown instead of a ballgown, or to combine grape jelly with hickory smoked salt and call it "sweet and sour sauce," or to give newlyweds old tea towels with HER initials monogrammed on them instead of buying a proper wedding gift.

She ended up coughing and choking with tears streaming down her face. The rest of us were delighted.

Proving that details do indeed matter, my father parked the car under a streetlight, and the next morning it was FILLED with shiny hard-backed bugs that crawled out of every crack and from beneath every seat. It was like Bugs on a Plane.

Next my brother became extremely uncomfortable, and it gradually became known that he had a rash on his botto. I can't think of anything worse to happen to anyone on a long, hot road trip. My mother was convinced he had picked up syphilis or gonorrhea from a public toilet. I could hear her stage whisper all the way from my jail.

"DIDN'T YOU TEACH THEM TO PUT TOILET PAPER ON THE SEAT?"

My father did not answer.

"YOU DIDN'T?" Horror and disbelief. "YOU NEVER TAUGHT THEM? YOU HAVE TO PUT TOILET PAPER ON THE SEAT!!!"

My father said nothing.

This lecture continued for hours until they somehow found a doctor en route. My brother was diagnosed with poison ivy from going to the bathroom in the bushes.

By then it was clear we had to get home fast. We zoomed up the Eastern seaboard, back to Philadelphia. I remember nothing between Texas and Pennsylvania.

There would be no more family vacations. But over two decades later, I put my lessons from this journey to good use. After I had children of my own, we did NOT attempt any three-week road trips. When we leased our first car, we got air conditioning. for trips we tucked in the kids with pillows and quilts. I always brought Travel Toys for long rides, and the only rule was that we had to actually be on a highway before opening the first one. And we didn't have "whining pills," we had food, drinks, cookies, muffins, and anything else my son's allergies would allow. We played kid movies on a tiny portable TV, we listened to kid songs on cassettes, we used books on tape, we sang out loud to the radio - and we stopped, often. I did not want my kids to measure their miles of memories by throw-ups and fights, but by discoveries and treats.

Kids in the back seat are not guaranteed to get along. My daughter once softly sang a long recitative from her car seat about killing her brother, and he once went into a rant about throwing her out the car door into traffic. But today, both kids are extremely good travelers. For our last family trip, I tried buying Car Toys one more time... but it ended up being for me more than for them.

Entry #18: VOODOO DREAMS

My earliest memories are nightmares. My childhood before kindergarten is mostly a blank, but I remember specific nightmares.

When I was born, my parents moved to a bigger house. Instead of converting the room next to theirs into a nursery for the new baby, they made a home office for my father. No sweet decorations, no adorable wallpaper, no musical mobiles or princess furniture. Instead there were books up to the ceiling, a desk, a lamp with a low shade, filing cabinets, and a twin-sized bed for when my father wanted to escape from my mother. Oh, and a crib against one wall.

I remember nightmares I had in that crib. A parade of crazy animals once came marching out of the wall and terrified me. Another time my father's books ballooned to enormous sizes, swelling out of the shelves and burying me. I had no words, but I still remember the pictures.

So I grew up in an office. It was a dark and serious room, and I stayed there until I was old enough to manage the full flight of stairs that led to the bedrooms on the second floor. Then I got kicked upstairs with my brothers.

I remember lots of nightmares from my bedroom upstairs. I would have the bejesus scared out of me, and I would wake in the dark, too afraid to move. Often I would be sideways or upside down in bed, and I would lie there and look for light from the windows until I could figure out where the hell I was.

I remember trying to call for my mother, but I was so scared no sound would come out. I sounded like a baby bird. Eventually I would muster up enough courage to make the long march down the stairs, past the scary front door, past the darkened living room, and down the hall to my parents' room. Their door was always closed. I would stand there forever, trying to get up the nerve to knock. I knew I would be in trouble for waking them up, but by then I was too afraid to go back upstairs by myself.

After a lifetime of nightmares I've sorted them into four categories:

STRESSMARES are exhausting and endless - you can't find the right classroom, you're on the wrong train, your pants have disappeared, that kind of thing. They are semi-related to events from real life. They can be heart-pounding and unpleasant, but they aren't usually very mysterious.

NIGHTMARES are terrifying and random. Although in my daily life I avoid anything violent, scary, or occult, my nightmares are filled with everything from flesh-eating monsters, to evil ghosts (they look like multi-colored vapors), to being hunted down by guerrillas. These nightmares are vivid, detailed, and horrifying. Often I have to turn my head or cover my eyes in my own dream to avoid seeing something especially grisly or unspeakable. I have no idea where these horrible images come from.

NIGHT TERRORS are nightmares on steroids.  I get covered with goose bumps and my heart pounds so hard it feels like it will crack a rib. If I ever appear to "die peacefully in my sleep," it will actually be because a night terror polished me off. Night terrors are hyper-real, all-consuming, and almost impossible to escape - plus they often come back. They feel like your brain has been hijacked by terrorists.

There is one more important category, and that is MESSAGE DREAMS. I believe there is a lot we could learn from our dreams if we only knew how.

Before I was diagnosed with uterine cancer I had three very specific, urgent dreams that something was wrong with my abdomen and I had to find a doctor. So I did.

For the last year or so I was plagued by recurring nightmares about being stuck with hundreds and hundreds of pins and needles. I'm a human pin cushion. My feet are studded with the flat, round tops of dozens of pins. My throat and mouth are filled with cross-crossing silver needles, so I can't breathe or speak. I pull fistfuls of pins and needles out of my arms and legs and throw them to the ground the way Pigpen shed dirt. Everything hurts.

I knew these dreams were message dreams, but the symbolism escaped me. Did the multitude of pins indicate a cellular problem? Maybe a blood disease? Diabetes?

Then it hit me like a blinding flash of the obvious. Voodoo. I was a human voodoo doll. The pins were attacks - a lifetime's worth; every incident of physical and emotional abuse and neglect, plus every insult, slight, and under-cutting word or deed. And I was frantically trying to pull them all out.

I have no doubt that in another culture my mother would have been a malevolent Voodoo queen. Not all Voodoo is malevolent, but - despite her convincing "poor little me" act - she was one hell of a powerful, vicious, destructive woman. She was like an insect that lived by sucking the nectar of joy out of the world, replacing it with rancid poison. It's easy to picture her with three primitive little dolls representing her children, who were nothing but aggravation and disappointment to her. She didn't want children; she wanted little robots that would perform on cue to make her look good, and then go back in their cages.

I don't pretend to understand the mind/body connection in health, but I know there is one. To me it seems quite logical that if your own mother spends every year of your life resenting, insulting, and disdaining you; neglecting, molesting, and abusing you; being jealous of you; and wishing you would go away and stop bothering her; this constant onslaught of hate has to have an effect. 

If you read Entry #8, you already know that my oldest brother took my parents' wishes to heart and decided to make them happy by removing himself from the planet. My brother and I struggled with the same questions. Should I fulfill my mother's fondest wishes and just die? Or, in spite of her contempt, do I deserve to live?

For me, the Voodoo curses of a lifetime seem to be constantly doing battle with the forces of good, because I keep getting sick, but I'm not dead yet. I should be healthy. I have good genes. I don't smoke or drink. My cholesterol is perfect. I eat organic, non-processed foods, and drink only spring water, or lemonade made with fresh lemons. But I'm a wreck. Why?

•. As a toddler I got tonsillitis several times a year all through grade school. I lived on penicillin.

•. That turned into chronic strep throat as a teenager.

•. That became abscessed tonsils - a constant infection. The doctor recommended that I have a tonsillectomy, but my mother would not allow it. (In college I finally made my own arrangements to have my tonsils out, and stayed at my boyfriend's house.)

•. I had mononucleosis twice by the age of 20.

•. By age 23 I had shingles - an old people problem!

•. At age 30 the chronic migraines started after I had an epidural during childbirth. (I still get migraines 30 years later.)

•. I developed gall bladder disease, which the doctors missed, and eventually had emergency gall bladder surgery.

•  I got Cushing's syndrome from being prescribed too many steroids for the migraines. The doctors missed that, too, until I was half dead.

•. I got uterine cancer because the Cushing's made me fat and knocked out my immune system (among other things).

•. The arthritis in my back is now so painful that I can't walk more than a few feet, and I need a wheelchair to get around. 

•. Oh yeah - my teeth are ridiculous because my mother never took me to the dentist, and I'm paying for it now.

These illnesses could be chalked up to bad luck and bad parenting. But I also believe that abuse sets up survivors for a lifetime of emotional and physical difficulties. I believe Voodoo and ill intent can make another person sick, especially when the victim knows they are being cursed. That is a heavy burden. 

Fortunately, I now know that this is not the whole story. 

Researchers have tried to study the effect of prayer on health, but without a lot of success, because they asked random people to pray for random patients. For some reason, no one seems to have studied the effect of receiving moral support from friends and loved ones. I am positive that when friends, acquaintances, Facebook buddies, and even health care providers send good thoughts in your direction – encouragement, light, love, prayer, or whatever makes sense to them – their personalized good intentions can do a world of good.

Sick people were asked the single most helpful thing you can do for them, and the answer was: send a card. That’s it. Just let them know you are thinking about them and wishing them well.

Good thoughts can beat bad juju. How do I know that? Because I am blessed with wonderful friends who keep pulling me back from the brink. Thanks, guys.

Entry #17: RESTAURANTS

My parents were born without taste buds. OK, maybe not. But their idea of fine foods included orange-and-red port wine cheese, Philadelphia's finest scrapple, canned Old El Paso refried beans, and premium wine at $5 a bottle. When choosing a restaurant, more thought went into the bar than the food.

My mother had several alcoholic tricks. The first, of course, was to get drunk at home before she even got in the car. Drinking began every day at 11:00 AM. If we had to go out to lunch, the early start would fortify her until we reached the closest cheap restaurant, where she would stop at the bar to get a drink on the way in, then carry it with her, rather than waiting to order a drink at the table.

Refills after that were ordered from whichever waiter or waitress was being punished by God that day.

All drinks were straight up, because "ice took up too much room in the glass." Once she gave the waiter instructions for a martini ... with no olive and no Vermouth. He said evenly, "So, what you want is a glass of gin?"

"Right," said my mother.

I had to explain alcohol to my kids early on, so they could understand the dynamics, and why Gamma kept wishing everyone a Happy a Memorial Day when it was Labor Day. My son once asked my mother with a cute little innocent face, "Whatcha drinking, Gamma? Iced tea?"

"Whishkey," she intoned as if it were a serious life lesson. "Whishkey."

My mother always made a big fuss about ordering Canadian whisky (spelled with no "e"), as if the restaurant might not be educated enough to carry it. In fact, Canadian whisky was known for being a piss poor choice - like insisting on Velveeta instead of Vermont aged cheddar.  At a high-end restaurant, she once insisted on "Canadian Red," and the waitress was frantically trying to figure out which expensive brand that was. It's not a brand - it's shorthand for "very bad, cheap, blended Canadian whisky of no particular name." 

My mother favored imitation quaint restaurants - Olde Inns, Taverns, Pubs, and so on. The food was irrelevant. She had no patience whatsoever, so it was important to find a restaurant that was empty. Usually a bad sign in a restaurant.

Going out to eat with my parents was utterly humiliating. My mother would endlessly torture the waitress, and my father did not believe in tips. I once intervened and added a 20% tip, and when my parents realized what I had done they insulted me for being stupid and profligate. I thought the waitress deserved much more.

All her life my mother had been called to meals at certain times, and food prepared by The Cook was immediately served to her by The Maids. The concept of waiting for food to be ready was utterly missing from her brain. She did not have the smallest modicum of patience or politeness. Once at a restaurant, she harassed the wait staff mercilessly from the moment she sat down.

I think the most memorable dinner was a family reunion at a restaurant with a name like Beak 'n' Claw, or Hoof 'n' Feather, or maybe it was Scales 'n' Tails. Unfortunately there was a large party going on in a separate room, so the kitchen and waitstaff were very busy.

Our table comprised my parents; my brother and his three young daughters; and my husband and me with our two young children. My brother and my father were down at one end of the table pontificating with each other and ignoring everyone else. My brother's girls were lined up next to him, littlest first. My mother was at the opposite end, with my family.

We were seated directly across from the shiny swinging doors that led into, and out of, the kitchen. Wait staff would suddenly burst forth with dinners for the party in the other room, narrowly missing waiters and waitresses on their way in.

Our waitress arrived and my mother ordered another drink while still finishing her first one - like chain smoking, except chain drinking. Already her face had gone slack, and her movements had taken on an underwater quality. She would reach for her glass slowly and with great concentration, as if moving any faster might startle it.

The waitress returned with her drink and my mother was already restive. This was going to be a long, difficult meal.

We had to order everything all at once, in a hurry, in order to get our food as quickly as possible. My mother always asked the same rude questions that suggested the restaurant was trying to kill us ("Is it fresh?" "Did you make this a week ago?" "How old are these eggs?"). Ironically the restaurant could have served her frozen mastodon burgers and she would not have noticed the difference.

My mother's salad took too long to arrive. She harassed the waitress, who said she was doing the best she could. The salad finally arrived, but battle lines had already been drawn. Where were our meals?

The waitress tried to explain they were busy, but that was a waste of time. My mother demanded to talk to The Management.

An older woman came over and tried to calm down my mother, who was beginning to have an all-out meltdown. "We've come ALL THE WAY FROM NARRAGANSETT," she said imperiously, adding, "THE CHILDREN NEED THEIR DINNERS."

The kids looked surprised, since they were all perfectly fine - except the littlest, who was being completely ignored by her father. She was starting to pick fights to get attention.

The hostess looked at my mother in surprise and said, "Narragansett? That's not very far!" And in fact it was not. "Can I get you something else while you wait?"

"NO!" shouted my mother, deciding to turn on the crocodile tears. Her voice escalated. "We've been waiting here for HOURS!" 

It might have been half an hour, tops. My youngest niece, taking her cue from my mother's behavior, turned to her father and socked him in the arm has hard as she could. 

While my niece was getting yelled at, my mother stood up shakily from the table and set her eye on the doors to the kitchen.

My young son sensed immediately what was about to happen and exclaimed, "Somebody poke my eyes out! I don't want to see this!"

Sure enough, my mother set a course straight through the swinging doors into the kitchen. The rest of us sat aghast and immobilized, half expecting her to be thrown out like a drunk cowboy from a saloon.

I think she may have been the first customer to actually show up in the middle of a busy kitchen to complain. I imagine her standing there, confused by the profusion of cooks because she was no doubt seeing double by then. I doubt there was anyone standing around waiting to listen politely to her concerns.

She made it back to her seat and I kept pleading with her to stop picking on the staff. If you deliberately choose a godawful restaurant, you lose your complaining rights.

There was not enough bread for the table because they had to "thaw out some more." Our meals finally arrived, and no one was more relieved than our waitress. I don't remember if I had the beak, the claw, the hoof, the feather, the scales or the tails - it was all awful, and the children were not allowed to order dessert because they did not finish their horrible dinners. Really my mother - the doting grandmother - just didn't want to pay for any ice cream.

In the car home, my mother sat angry, silent, and slightly at an angle. She would take to her bed immediately, annoyed by everyone. Since this whole exercise gave her so little pleasure, I wondered why she bothered. 

Then I remembered. My mother actually existed in a parallel universe, where she boasted to her friends about these occasions to prove that she WAS TOO beloved by her family, and we all had SO MUCH FUN together. After a few glasses of straight gin, the reality was irrelevant. All that remained was a hologram in her brain of a lovely dinner that never actually took place.