Tag Archives: family

Naked

Have you seen the photos that models, movie stars, and musicians have been posting of themselves all this week in honor of World Breastfeeding Week 2014? (Who even knew there was such a thing)?! With glamorous insouciance and in the hazy glow of soft focus lighting, these modern day Madonnas gaze lovingly at the infants nursing at their perfect, discreetly draped breasts. Here’s my own contribution to the mammary glam-fest: a repost from last summer.

Thirteen years ago the unthinkable happened. The experience was so deeply painful that I never breathed a word of it to anyone. I desperately tried to banish it from my memory. For many years, whenever the slightest tendril of remembrance began to lick at the corners of my brain, I would violently stamp it out with a shudder. Last week, I was finally able to bring myself to confide the terrible truth to my sister.

The truth is…these people:

(My In-laws)

…have seen me naked.

You have to understand that I’m an extremely modest person. Honestly, the thought of walking around in a burqa is not at all unpleasant to me. At the gym, I like to get changed in the bathroom stalls. I’ve become extremely adept at doing an entire wardrobe change with a towel wrapped around me the entire time. One of my worst memories of high school (and there were some seriously lousy times during those four years) was being forced to parade naked in front of my P.E. teacher who waited with a clipboard by the showers to check us off as we filed past. (It was agonizing then, but it’s only now that I realize the full extent to which that whole situation was seriously messed up). Hell, I don’t even let myself look at myself naked. Which is all to say that my in-laws seeing me naked was truly, truly, traumatic.

Having a baby is painful. For people like me, for whom nudity is torture, having a baby is…well, torture. It’s not the contractions. Sure, contractions can make women writhe and shriek and and even vomit from the pain. But to me, that pain was negligible to the pain of having my privates suddenly, ruthlessly public. And I mean: bright-hot-lights-shining-on-those-parts public. I tried, unsuccessfully, to make my husband stay by my head during the whole protracted and ghastly process. He defied me. Even though I was laboring for almost an entire day pushing out his gigantic child, who broke my tailbone on the way out, he defied me. If that weren’t enough, whole platoons of doctors, nurses, and medical school students traipsed by me all day long, occasionally sticking fingers in me as casually as they would rummage around in the fridge for a snack.

Even after the baby was born, the torture continued. The lactation consultant came into my hospital room as I was fumbling around trying to shield myself from full view while also trying to figure out how to get my baby to latch on. She nonchalantly walked over, pulled open my robe, and grabbed at my breast, manipulating it as if it were a joystick. WHAT?!

Before I had my first baby, I thought nursing was something that happened effortlessly. I honestly assumed that the baby could basically just sidle up to the bar and order himself a pint with no fuss, no muss. Kind of like this cheeky little fellow:

Nursing Madonna

She makes it look so easy!

How very wrong I was.  Who knew that nursing a baby would hurt like a mother and bring tears to my eyes, until I “toughened up.” Who knew that I would walk around for months with the front of my shirt soaking wet, despite wads of nursing pads stuffed into my bra, because the crazy “let-down” reflex would betray me over and over again? Who knew that the same bastard reflex would make me start squirting like a fire hydrant whenever I tried to take a relaxing hot bath? People: there is simply no way to relax when something as freakish as that is happening to you.

I was completely undone by the project of feeding my child. Whenever it was time to nurse, I would take him up to our bedroom and shut the door all the way. The first few weeks were complicated by the fact that my son had a very bad, lingering case of jaundice that made him extremely sleepy. The treatment was to wrap him in a “biliblanket,” a glowing phototherapy wrap plugged into a machine that would make the whole room stifling hot. I was given strict orders to do whatever it took to wake him up to nurse as much as possible. It took all my powers of concentration. Picture me clumsily, sweatily trying to maneuver him into position with the biliblanket wrapped around him, while also trying to wake him up with a cold wet washcloth on his face.

"Leave me alone, can't you see I'm trying to sleep here?!" (Can you see how he's giving me the finger)?

“Leave me alone, can’t you see I’m trying to sleep here?!” (Look! My baby is totally giving me the finger)!

Now picture me naked. (No, never mind! Don’t do that)! You know how some people have to strip naked to do a number 2? I had to strip naked to nurse. There. I said it.

I was a sweaty, hormonal, bumbling mess. And it was really hot. Our bedroom was cramped. The glider would only fit at the foot of the bed. It was set up so that it was facing the door. There I would sit, desperately trying to get the baby to nurse. After all I had been through, I thought I had reached the nadir. I thought it couldn’t possibly get worse. I was wrong.

Back then I had a sweet, needy little dog, who never wanted to leave my side. He was unaccustomed to being left to his own devices. He was unaccustomed to closed doors. As soon as he realized I had gone upstairs, he would come silently bounding up the carpeted stairs on his soft little paws and then BOOM! he’d open the door by pouncing on it with his two front legs with all his might.

The first time it happened, (because, yes, it happened more than once), I was sitting in the glider topless. My striated, busted out belly and my weirdly lumpy, leaky mammary glands were exposed to all the world. O.K., I’m exaggerating a tiny bit. I was only exposed to my father-in-law, the consummate decorous English gentleman, who happened to be standing right there.

What could we do? We both pretended that it wasn’t happening. Our eyes became unfocussed and glazed over. I could tell he was trying so very hard to unsee what he had just seen as he slowly backed away. We never spoke of it. Ever.

It happened one more time when both my mother and father-in-law happened to be standing right there when my dog burst through the door. In case you’re thinking, “Big deal? Why’s she making such a big deal about it?,” shall I remind you?

Father-in-lawMother-in-law

Take a good look. These people, my very proper English in-laws, who have afternoon tea served on Wedgwood china and who play croquet on their perfect, perfect lawn, have seen. me. naked.

So how to move on after such a thing occurs? In my universe, and in the prim buttoned-down universe in which my in-laws reside, you keep on pretending that nothing ever happened. You stash it away somewhere deep in the perfectly manicured shrubbery, and you never, ever speak of it.

…Until one day your sister says something that dredges up the memory, and you feel ready to tell her about one of the most traumatic events of your life. And now that you’ve allowed yourself to utter the words, well then you might as well tell your husband. He pauses as he absorbs the full weight of your words. A few long seconds pass as he considers this news, turns it over in his mind, and then he shrugs and says, “Well, at least you were wearing underwear.” (Inside your head, you’re thinking “Yeah, saggy, ratty maternity panties.” But you keep this thought to yourself). And now that you can no longer pretend that it never happened, you might as well reenact the scene for both your sisters at a posh restaurant in New York City. You and your sisters cackle like a coven of crazed witches, almost spitting out the San Pellegrino that you had been sipping. And then? What the hell? Why not write about it for anyone with internet connection to read? Because the jig is up. Now I can only hope and pray that my in-laws never discover this blog. Because then, then: the jig really is up.

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Weekend Snapshots 14

This weekend we celebrated my daughter’s 9th birthday.

She started the day off by opening some gifts and cards:

Hello Dali

We went to the Albemarle County Fair, where we admired these sleeping beauties:

Sleeping beauties

 

The birthday girl wanted Pad Thai and a Shirley Temple for dinner:

We went home to have her favorite, specially-commissioned Red Velvet Cake:

and to shower our favorite girl in the whole wide world with some birthday love:

 

Magic

For years my husband has been entertaining the kids with a magic trick involving two toothpicks. He makes one of the toothpicks jump up and even flip in the air, seemingly with the power of his mind. For as long as he’s been performing the trick, my sons have been begging him to teach them the secret. They finally figured it out for themselves and watching them learn how to do it was…magical.

My husband likes to refer to what I call “concentration tongue” as “genetic garbage”:

Not quite getting it…

Can you see what I mean in this next photograph?

Nope, still not getting it.
“I think I almost have it…”

This next picture had me laughing out loud…

“I think I got it…”
No caption needed!
“My turn!”
“Watch me one more time…”

This one made me laugh out loud too…

VICTORY

Watching the British Open

I always wondered why golf was televised. Who in the world could possibly find it interesting to watch? Now I know…

 

My One and Only

Happy birthday to my one and only…

Then
Now

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo, and then some.

Like a kid in a candy shop…

On Friday night we met up for dinner with a friend from graduate school and his lovely family:

The highlight of the night just may have been the trip to the candy store, simply named “It’sugar”:

“Please, please, please?” “No.”
Friendly Lollipop Fencing
“This place is amazing!!”
The dads

Weekend Snapshots 12

Six summers ago we moved to Carrboro, a great little town right next to Chapel Hill.

IMG_9673We lived in this house for a year while my husband did a sabbatical at the Humanities Center.

IMG_9642The two boys were in third and first grade here:

IMG_2267My daughter and I did our own “home preschool,” just the two of us.

We spent a happy year exploring the area and making new friends. This weekend we went back to attend the 25th wedding anniversary party of two of these friends. It was lovely to meet up with old friends and to revisit some of our old haunts. More on this later this week. For now, just a few snapshots from the weekend…

Friday

Dinner at Southpoint Mall, Durham

Saturday

North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill
Ultimate on the campus of UNC
Bolin Creek, Carrboro
Snipes Farm Retreat

Sunday

Watching the British Open before check out
Elmo’s, Carr Mill in Carrboro
Museum of Life and Science, Durham

Stories from Easter Island

My father occupies any space he is in with a stoic, silent, and monumental presence. His impassive demeanor has prompted us to call him (behind his back, but with the greatest of affection!): The Easter Island Head.

When he was an active minister, my father would break his silence once a week on Sundays to preside over a Korean congregation in Northern Virginia. For one hour a week, between the hours of eleven and twelve, he would undergo a remarkable transformation. I couldn’t understand the sermons he would preach, but I could practically surf along the dramatic swells and crests that would come billowing into the pews from the pulpit. His animated face would glow and he would gesticulate to emphasize a point. Every once in a while, the congregants would burst into appreciative laughter and I would wonder what he could have possibly said that was so funny. During the hymns, he would forget to step away from the microphone, so his strong, fine voice could always be heard over everyone else’s. At the stroke of noon, the spell would be broken. He would fall silent and the impassive façade would settle back over his features like a mask, and would remain there until the next sermon he gave, or the next class he taught.

Only one other circumstance would cause the stony exterior to fall away to reveal the gentle river of memories and deep emotions that, in truth, have always floated fairly close to the surface. Within the close circle of his own immediate family, my father would often talk about his difficult childhood. Unlike my mother, who buries the unhappy memories of her past in some secret, inaccessible vault to which only she has the key, my father seems compelled to share his personal history through the stories he repeats over and over in an almost ritualistic way. Though I’ve heard them countless times, I never get tired of listening. When my father tells us about his childhood, and about the deaths of his father and siblings in his quiet, measured tones, it feels as if we are partaking in a sacred rite of remembrance to honor family members we would never know.

Dad’s mother and four brothers who survived to adulthood

My father’s family lived in the country. They lived through the Japanese occupation, World War II, and the Korean War. Life was a struggle. Disease was rampant. When he was eleven years old, his entire family was struck down by typhoid fever for two weeks.  Only his mother did not get sick, because she had already survived her own bout of typhoid fever as a child. By the end of those terrible two weeks, my father’s father was dead. He left behind a widow with ten young children and a farm to run. This disastrous change in the family’s fortunes unleashed a whole chain of calamities.

To save grain, the family would skip lunch and only eat twice a day. My father watched three sisters and two brothers, between infancy and second grade, succumb to malnutrition and disease. Of all the siblings he lost, the one he talks about most is a beloved younger brother, who died at the age of four.

Whenever he speaks of this brother, he prefaces everything by saying that he was a genius. He always mentions his enormous head.

“Other than his big head, how could you tell he was a genius, Dad?” I asked, when he spoke of him most recently.

“I would carry him on my back and teach him Bible verses. I would recite a long passage such as Psalm 23rd just once, and he’d be able to repeat it back verbatim.”

He continued, “We had gotten used to the sound of WWII B-29 bombers. But when the communists overtook our village, American sabre jets flew over for the first time. We had never heard them before, and the noise…it was like a terrifying thundering metallic sound raining down from heaven.”

My father’s little brother was already weak and ill, but he thinks it was the noise of the sabre jets that literally scared him to death. When they would pass over, he would tremble with fear. Every time he would start to recover from the shock, another jet would fly over and he would get sick again.

There wasn’t enough to eat, and no one could risk going outside to forage for food for fear of falling bombs. “He would have survived if we had paid more attention,” my dad concludes. After a long pause, he says, “I really wished I could have caught bullfrogs to feed him.”

In the past my mother would try to comfort him when he finally arrived at this sad conclusion. She would say, “You were just a child. There was nothing you could do. It was too dangerous to go outside.” Nowadays, we all remain silent.

This last time, there was a coda to the story. My father told me that he was flying into LA for a conference when they announced over the intercom that the U.S. had just invaded Iraq.

“I was shocked when people started cheering. These people had never lived through a war. I immediately thought of the women and children, who would be terrified. When we landed and were arriving at the airport, everyone looked excited and happy…”

He shook his head in dismay and grew silent.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought to myself that if they had ever lived through bombings, they would never be cheering for such a thing.”

Though he only lived four short years on this earth, my father’s little brother lives on through the words of his loving brother, and the burnished memories he has passed on to his own children.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Related post: Little brown haired girl

 

My Grandchild

As you may know, I recently became a grandmother. It was quite a shock when the adult friend my son was with at the beach for a week announced that he had become a teenage parent. He texted me this photo of my son holding my new grandchildren.

My grandkids

If you’ve been following along, you may also know that tragedy struck soon thereafter. My grandchildren turned on each other in a savage and gruesome display of sibling rivalry of Biblical proportions. We buried the mangled, suppurating bodies of Cain and Abel, and now it’s just my own namesake Adrienne who’s left.

Despite my initial misgivings, I have to admit, I’ve grown quite fond of the little murderess.

I find myself checking on her all the time.

“She looks hungry to me. Don’t you think you ought to give her a little snack?” I nudge my son.

Today during my lunch break, I did some clothes shopping for her…”Hmmm,” I thought to myself, “These shells are super cute, but will they feel too scratchy?”

The more I get to know my new grandchild, the more I’m convinced that we have far more than our name in common. In fact, I will go so far as to say that we are kindred spirits.

We are both a couple of night owls. We like to prowl around when everyone else in the house is fast asleep. Sometimes we like to have a midnight chat over a cup of tea…We discuss how the stock market’s doing, compare notes on the novels we’ve been reading, gossip about our mutual friends and acquaintances…

We are both indecisive, especially when it comes to clothing. She is constantly changing her outfits:

Sometimes she can be a little insecure:

She’s generally peaceable, but if you mess with her, she can get, well, pretty crabby. She doesn’t really like to be touched, for example:

She’ll tolerate only so much, and then she just might nip you.

And as her siblings (may they rest in peace) discovered too late for their own good, it’s unwise to really cross her:

I think she got my looks, too.

Weekend Snapshots 11

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Arlington with my extended family. The kids were delighted to see their New Jersey cousins.

Friday

At Korshi Restaurant: “Party of 14?! You made a reservation? No reservation?! 14?

Yep. Party of 14.

Hours of fun (?) at Brookstone in Pentagon City Mall

“Owww! Is this supposed to feel good?!”
“Oooooo!”

Still having fun…

“GAAAAAAAAAH!”

We took the shuttle from Pentagon City Mall to Long Bridge Park to watch the DC fireworks from across the river:

“Where’s the jowl-remover filter?”

Saturday

Honorary Triplet
“You and your pictures, pictures, pictures!”

Yechon for dinner and Breeze Cafe for dessert (and the penalty shoot-out for the Holland vs. Costa Rica game):

“Let me take a selfie!”
#Selfie

My husband’s greatest triumph to date…separating four of my sister’s necklaces that had twisted themselves into a Gordion Knot.

Sunday

I think my favorite memory of this weekend will be sitting in my parents’ living room with my fourteen year old son, as he played them the electronic dance music he’s been producing. You have to understand, the only secular music I can ever remember being played in our household when I was a child was an old John Denver LP. Whenever my siblings and I ventured to play music of our own choosing, a pained expression would pass across my parents’ faces. Within minutes they’d ask us in no uncertain terms to turn it off. On Sunday afternoon, my elderly parents listened to the thumping, throbbing Electro house, progressive house, Melbourne Bounce, and Happy hardcore tracks my son played for them with thoughtful expressions on their faces. Every now and then, they would bob their heads appreciatively and say, “I like that part.” “You did that yourself?” “Very good, very good.” As my sister put it, “Now that’s true love.”

Want to listen?

https://soundcloud.com/ifyouknowwatimean/starlight-cruiser-original-mix?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook

Home again, home again, jiggity jig:

Our dogs were delirious with joy to be reunited with us.