The Handless Mother
My son wants to build a tree house. It has to be way up high in a tree. Not an ordinary tree house, but one with cable t.v. and a telephone outlet for an internet connection. He asks me how to build one. I don't know how to build a tree house.
My son wants to build a flying machine. One, he says, that allows him to steer his way through the sky and come down only when he wants to come down. He draws up designs and tinkers with bicycle wheels, wings of cardboard. Odd incongruous objects spread around the floor in his room. Eyes bright, he asks me to help him build one. I sit and tinker with him for a short time but ultimately and flatly I accept - I don't know how to build a flying machine.
In my futile ordinariness, I suggest a wood-working class, or a class on physics. My voice stuck tired and small in the back of my throat.
My son wants to buy a monkey and keep it for a pet. He says that he will clean up the feces and urine and pick the bugs from his scalp. He says that we can empty out one of our limited closets and put wire in front of it and the monkey can live in the closet. He says he's done some research on having a monkey for a pet. He says we will need to buy him plenty of toys because they get bored very easily. They need to climb large structures. He promises he will wash and bathe his monkey regularly. He says he even found out how to make monkey wipees. I don't want to have a monkey in our house.
My son says he feels lonely. With tears brimming up but never over, he admits that sometimes he talks to imaginary friends. The handle of my coffee mug feels heavy and thin in my fingers and my gut aches. He doesn't want a sibling, he says, he likes being an only child. Though he wouldn't mind if we adopted another boy that is as tall as he is and is his age - and not one day older - because he's tired of being "the youngest" in his class. I don't think I want to adopt another boy but I consider.
My daily motions suddenly lack connection. I am certain there are more important things out there for me to do. I just can't figure out what they are. I think about building tree houses, flying machines, taking care of monkeys and imaginary friends. I am hopelessly impotent on all levels. What a useless mother I am, I think. Why can't I just drop every single little matter of consequence and plop down on the floor and pull a damn rabbit out of a hat or catch a star from the sky. Why can't I draw up a blueprint, change my career, study aerodynamics - for this boy. This lonely boy. Instead I change the laundry and pray.
So back at work in front of my computer I diddle ascii in virtual space, and tell myself again that this paycheck is important. An acute sense of nihilistic waste of time lumbers down my veins.
My son steps outside in the heat. He finds scraps of wood and cuts them to a size he has considered with a knife-size saw - quite a laborious effort on his part. He comes in every 15 minutes or so to cool off and give an up to date report. Puffed up and filled, he pops a cold can of grape soda. I see beads of sweat dropping off his round smooth ice cream cheeks. He is so happy to be sweating, I believe. I believe the feel of a tool in his hand fills his chest with industrious contentment. His hands saw and saw the thick long impenetrable wood, but with persistence the wood relents and gives. On and on he saws and saws every now and then measuring out another piece. I see him out the window - squatting, sawing, wiping the sweat from his brow. It is hot, West Nile Virus hot. I worry for a moment about mosquitoes that carry blood from Africa. I worry his pieces of wood will be the wrong size. I worry that his tree house will always be too big for him to build. Most of all, I worry that one day he will give up trying - or for the day he'll scoff at the dream of wanting to fly.
Then as a divine whisper - a little grace of relief - a soft wind dips down into the green grove of our back yard. Our banana leaves sway and dip and the tops of the pines chatter. Behind the insulated glass, I watch my son lift his wide-open face to the breeze. Pausing for a moment, eyes closed and his face to the sky. Now this is how to enjoy a breeze, I think. It is a breeze well worked for, I picture my son thinking.
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When my son was two years old, the moon hung full and low like a bowl of cream. He climbed on top of a small table, his starfish hand stretched wide and opened to the night. On tiptoes, he told me he was going to hold the moon. Then his tenderest Santa Claus-believing eyes search and finally land fully and directly on mine, his eyes drop to me with all the weight of a new born lamb - and right then - catching his gaze with every ounce of strength I can muster - everything I have ever carried in my whole life fell out of my chest to the center of the earth. How do I tell him that he cannot touch the moon?
I can't build a tree house. I can't design a flying machine. I can't like a mid-wife, pull the moon out of the black sky - for my son.
What, oh what, in this hopeless heart can I possibly do for this dew-drop-red-lipped-blossoming-face-milk-white-ice-cream-cheeked-cherry-nosed-Gulf of Mexico-deep-eyed-plucked-from-a-wet-stem-out of-the-smoking-earth-heavy-as-a-liquid-sack-of-pure-essential-oil-from-God-herself-boy?
How, oh how, will this all unfold without an ounce of his blue rose blood dropped and uncontained on this violently hungry plastic playground of cubbies and compartments - a no-saying, soul-sucking, tree-chopping, sky-soiling, neon-pushing, dream-killing, Wall Street-thumping, Mother Earth-raping, sarcasm-loving man-made myth driven to anesthetize our O! so Holy Selves!
Mimi Gauthier LeBien
2000
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Submission Name: Handless Mother
