We go to the Ice Palace

Today, a friend's son had a birthday party, and we went. Maia had been looking forward to it. When she made a birthday card for the boy, her first line was, "Thank you for enviting me to your party." (Her spelling.)

She had asked if I would go, and I said that I would because the party was going to be held at the Ice Palace, and I remembered how difficult it had been for her to get out on the ice when we were in Seattle over Christmas.

Maia loves the idea of things like parties, but the reality is a different story.

The children were a year older than she, and she didn't know them. But that just made what is already a difficult situation for her worse.

At the ice rink, Maia initially wouldn't budge from the non-rink side of the gate. I was out on the ice and would cruise her at the gate, trying to cajole her to go out with me.

"Remember, Seattle?" I said. "You had fun when you went out. Just one time," Maia.

But she wouldn't budge.

Finally, Kristina told me she was going to go get skate. Maia had told her that she would go with her.

"Mommy, not you," Maia said to me.

Maia finally got onto the ice while Kristina was shoeing up, but she wouldn't skate with me.

"No," she said, holding onto the rail at the side.

"Okay," I said. "Just pick up your feet, one at a time," I said to her, "like walking."

But she wouldn't go.

Many of the children who were new to skating (and many who weren't) were using these little trapezoidal sort of structures made of thin pipe that the ice rink had made available. You sort of stood in them and pushed them along--almost like the walkers that people who have had strokes use.

I got one for her, finally, but Maia wouldn't take it.

"Try," I said to her, but she wouldn't leave the outside railing.

I was at a loss as to what to do. Her unwillingness to try things gets me frustrated sometimes, as here, when I know that if she just tried once, she would enjoy herself and learn from the experience.

Finally, Kristina came onto the ice. Kristina can't skate. I don't skate very well either, but I was an avid roller skater decades ago, and can make my way around a little.

We came up on Maia's perch about a third of the way along the railing. Kristina put her hand out to Maia, and Maia started to take it, but then she gestured at me. I was on Kristina's other side, holding her hand, and Maia evidently didn't want me to be part of the group.

"Fine," I said and took off. I was angry now, as I often get eventually in situations like this.

When I came back around to them again, I said good-bye to them and told Kristina that I would wait outside. "This isn't fun for me," I said.

I took off the skates and went outside.

I knew that I was doing the wrong side. "I hope you thanked them," I heard a father say to his daughter. How was Maia to learn the etiquette of parties if I didn't practice it?

I reminded myself not to take things from her personally--though that's easy to say but hard to do--and went back inside. I saw that Kristina and Maia were about to debark the rink. The staff put birthday parties through the place on two hour schedules, and this seating had run out of time. We climbed upstairs together for the birthday cake part of the party. The upstairs area is where the birthday party groups are seated.

Maia cruised me upstairs. I could see that she wanted to test my mood.

"Are you happy?" she asked. The question is code for, "Are you angry at me?"

"Well, I'm not happy, Sweetie. I'm frustrated. I came here just to go skating with me, but you wouldn't go around with me even one time. Do you know why you do things like that?"

"No," she said.

"Well, you think about it, Sweetie. Think about why you wouldn't go." As it turned out later, she had a reason.

We drifted around the cake table, and she bobbed by me again.

"I would go now," she said.

I could see that she was about to cry, and she did cry a little.

"It's okay. We'll go another time. We're all getting ready to leave now."

I hugged her, she hugged me back, and she brushed the tears away.

I felt so bad for her then. To have to deal with all of her conflicted emotions about participation in things, and the deep and unknown connections that those things have to her experience in the orphanage, and then to be rebuffed by those who have taken her life into hers--well, it's a lot to ask of a six year old.

We took some photos in a little kiosk on the way out--a series of four photos, although I was only in 3 of them. They were good photos. They showed the relief that we were all feeling.

I went back to work later on.

I saw that she had tried to call me when I got to my desk, so I called back.

She explained that she hadn't wanted to go skating with me because, "People would see us," and that she had just wanted us to make our separate ways around the rink. "I'm really sorry you didn't understand why I didn't want to go," she said. "I didn't want you to feel bad," she said. "But I was honest," she said.

"Yes, you were honest, Sweetie. And that's a good thing."

"Yes," she said.

"And if you don't want to skate with me, that's okay."

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

"Me, too," I said.

Someone once described me as flawed. I think that's probably a good assessment. I worry about what these little dramas are doing to her.

At least we can talk about things now.

John, Sunday, February 22, 2009

We call Maia's Mother

This happened 6 nights ago.

Maia and I were sitting on the couch in front of the television.

She put a toy watch to my ear that she had gotten in her Happy Meal at McDonald's.

"Talk to my mother," she said.

I didn't think she was talking about Kristina. She never refers to Kristina as, "my Mother."

"Hello," I said, "how are you?" I glanced at Maia, who approved so far. "We're fine," I said. "We're watching television."

"Here," I said to Maia, "you talk to her."

Maia took the phone.

"Hello," she said.

"How was your day," I said. Maia wasn't facing me, and I didn't look at her.

"Fine," she said.

"Did you have fun at school," I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"That's good," I said. "What are you doing now?"

"I'm watching TV. And then I'm going to take a shower."

"That's good," I said. I wasn't sure where to take it.

"Bye-bye," she said.

"Bye-bye," I said.

And then we went upstairs.

John, Tuesday, February 17, 2009

My Mother tells me stories about Cucumber, New Hall, War, Welch, and Baltimore

"I hated it, then," she said.

We had been talking about Maia and school. About two weeks, Maia had gotten into trouble for pinching a child in her after school session. I had picked her up, and the woman who runs it had complained that Maia had pinched a child and made him cry. Maia wouldn't tell me why, but she explained something about it to Kristina that night. The boy had told her that he was having a party and that he wouldn't invite her. And she said, she didn't want to hear him talking mean anymore, so she just pinched him until he started to cry. "I couldn't stand to hear him," she said.

A few days later, she had gotten into trouble again. This time, she was said to have hit a girl in the stomach. I was told that if there was a repetition of that, she might be asked to leave. But I learned later that the person who gave me this report, as though she had seen it--the same woman again--in fact had not seen what had happened. So I didn't know what to make of it. It seemed to me that she might have been scapegoating Maia.

My mother had also suggested that as a possibility, and then had gone off into her own reminiscences.

"She was mean," she said, of her third and fourth grade teacher. "First grade was great. I was at Cucumber, then, and that teacher used to take me home with her." She told me again about the green jello episode--how she had been given the green jello for desert, had eaten it desipte the fact that she didn't like it "for nothin'" because that was what her mother had taught her to do to show respect to hosts, and how her teacher had given her a second helping since it was obvious that she liked it so much. "Now I really couldn't say anything," she had said, "so I just ate it."

But all of that was prologue to school at New Hall.

"Second grade was okay because I had June to walk out of that holler with me. We had to walk because we lived too close to the school for the bus. The next year, though, June went to Berwyn, and I had Miss Handy. Helen Handy was her name, and she was just mean. Had her for third and fourth grades. Everybody hated her, especially the ones who didn't have nothing like us, because she looked down on us and would make fun of us."

"I told you about Laura Hicks, didn't I?" she asked.

"Laura was big. I was only 9 or 10 but Laura was about 12 because she had been held back. She was the poorest in the class. And Miss Handy was always picking on her. And one day Laura had just had enough, and she just hauled off and socked her. I had never seen anything like that. Ripped her blouse, too. They came in and got her. Took her out of the room. And Miss Handy went and put a coat on."

"After that, we moved to William Poka, and school was better. I went to school in War with June, and Bernard and Opal were at Big Creek. June wouldn't go, though. She quit in 9th grade. She just wouldn't go. Had her boyfriend by then, and got married the next year. She was 15 and I was 10."

"Who was living at home then?"

"Well, by the time we got to Welch, June had gotten married, and Opal went to nursing school. So it was me, Harold, and Bernard. And then Bernard joined the Army Air Corps when the War started, so it was just me and Harold."

"After the war started, June and Dotch moved to Baltimore to work in the shipyards. And Opal had moved to North Carolina with JC. I couldn't wait to get out of there, too."

"That's when you went to Baltimore?"

"Yes. But I went to North Carolina first. Opal wanted me to come visit, and so I did. She was really unhappy. JC was trying to stay out of the draft. In those days, your draft number depended on if you were married and how many children you had. And so kept on having them. They finally did draft him, but then he told them that Sara was on the way, and so they let him out.

"How did you all stay in touch with each other? Telephone?"

"No, not telephone. We wrote letters."

"Why did you go to Baltimore?"

"Edna had written to Momma, asking her to let me live there with her. And so after I graduated, I went there. Lived there with her, and Curt and Vera, Curt's adopted daughter, in their house. Until Curt started making passes at me."

Edna was Curt's second wife. He ran a store and had a restaurant, and fancied himself a ladies man. Mother wondered about his relationship with Vera. Edna did not like Vera at all, and Mother thought that that was why Edna had invited her to go live there--to heep an eye on Curt and Vera.

Mother had worked at the store, initially, but Curt had started to put his hand on her knee and do other things that bothered her. So she took a job at Revere Copper and Brass.

"And that's where I met John," she said. "He asked me to go out to dinner with him, but I didn't have a coat. So Edna said she'd let me use hers. But she weighed 175 and I was only 115, so it was too big for me. I just put it over my shoulders. John didn't say anything about it, and I thought that that was really considerate."

"But things got bad with Curt and Edna, then. Curt was always jealous of anybody I went out with. I went out with one boy--he was from home, I think. When he shipped out, there was a church service, and we all went by bus to it. The men were inside and they all had their helmets and their rifles on the floor next to them. And the next morning, they shipped out. I'll never forget that service."

"Anyway, Curt was jealous of that boy. Edna didn't want to hear anything about it."

Things came to a head one night in Mother's room.

"She hit me. Just about knocked me out. I didn't see it coming, and it took me by surprise. I told John about it, and he asked his landlady if I could take his room. The next day, I moved out. The war was over by then, and so I went back to War. June and Dotch had moved back to War because Dotch had a house there. All three of those brothers did. And Mother and Daddy had moved there from Welch. Dotches' mother, Old Mother Ross, had rented Albert's old house up on Excelsior Hill to them."

"John told me he'd take me to the bus. I said okay, but then he showed up with his bags. I said, What do you think you're doing?, and he said, I'm coming with you. No, you're not, I said, but he did anyhow. Then when we got to War, I introduced him to Mother, and he got a room someplace. Then he got a job teaching school. And two years later, we got married."

She was tired then.

"I'll tell you somemore another time," she said.

John, Saturday, February 14, 2009.