Hidden Valley Road

I was frightened by my grandfather when I was young. He wasn't prone to outbursts or mean -- he was a very quiet man who bribed me to come near him with dollar bills. He was often in his chair in front of the TV, watching baseball or Mass. When he stood, he was tall but hunched. He moved slowly and his right hand had a tremor. His expression was often unreadable, somewhere between vacant and haunted. Later in life, more than 15 years after he passed away, I would learn that he had received shock treatments for a "psychotic condition." I once asked an aunt if he had schizophrenia and she almost slapped me. The pain, fear, and shame of what had happened to him was, and continues to be, too much for his children to bear.

This weekend I tore through Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, by Robert Kolker. In one of the early chapters, he describes the "Thorazine Shuffle", a long-term side effect of a power anti-psychotic drug. I had to stop reading and set down the book -- Grandpa immediately came to mind. I thought about how annoyed I could be with his 8 children for not talking with us about what had happened and our genetic legacy. By the time I finished reading, I understood better that asking them to talk about it was probably one of the most difficult things I could ask them to do.

My family is one of many out there similar to the Galvins. This book is an honest look at what severe mental illness can do to a family. Schizophrenic conditions do not affect just the individual experiencing the hallucinations -- the rifts and conflicts that arise are fractal, and since they're often genetic, pop up in subsequent generations. It's a lousy inheritance. Hidden Valley Road always keeps in mind that these things are happening to humans who are loved and who, in spite of the things their illness has caused them to do and say, are still part of a family who loves them and fights for their right to live in peace and health.

Little Spirits Everywhere

I avoided Mother's Day this year. Easy to do in a pandemic.

My grief is avoidance. I retreat from the world. I seek some of my old ways -- or they seek me. I find myself reading favorite passages from beloved books, the ones whose spines are cracked and failing. Music I loved as a teen hits in a particular way that I can't explain.

I am a mother to a living child and to two ethereal spirits. In this world their time was brief but their presence is far from fleeting.

The day before the WHO announced a pandemic I suspected I was pregnant. A week later a test confirmed it. I put my head down through the lockdown to get through it, out of sheer necessity. The first trimester is not kind to me.

This spirit passed sometime in the 6th or 7th week -- hard to say. An unscheduled ultrasound ("just to make sure things are going well") at 8 weeks found an empty sac and no heartbeat.

At 10 weeks a kind doctor did what my uterus was refusing to do, and removed the tissue the spirit was supposed to inhabit.

The loss is hitting me in subtle ways.

I drove past the hospital where I should have delivered and my heart dropped.

I looked out in our backyard to the swing set and remembered I had planned to replace the rings, which no kid uses, with a baby swing.

Brian and I read to Reed at bedtime and my heart fluttered, "How sweet this is, all four of us together," before I remembered that we are only three.

No baby. No baby. No baby.

Just spirits.

The essentials

I had it in my mind that I needed a griddle. I keep seeing English muffin recipes and thinking of tortillas, dosas, and other fried flatbreads and know that making these things will just annoy me if I keep using my big stainless steel frying pan. Oil sticks to it and is a bitch to clean off.

So I went to Target.

In any other month of my life, this is not a story. But the day was March 21, 2020. Pandemic!

My husband's jobs are both at reduced hours and I have concerns about my job lasting through the year if an economic depression sets in. (And it will, loves. We'll get through that, too.) Do you think that prevented me from sticking to my list? My list of ONE item.

I found the griddle. Cast iron, fits perfectly on my stove's burner. Also in my cart: wipes and overnight pull-ups and more underwear for the preschooler who refuses to potty train. Stickers to send to friends near and far. Fruit punch for me. (I love fruit punch.) Kit-kats, which I stashed away for a later treat. Lots and lots of fancy sparkling water. Foam paint brushes for the art projects I know we're about to get to. Deli ham, pickles, cheese. A bunch of other stuff I can't remember at the moment.  

Nothing I bought was necessary or essential to our survival, but they'll all help us cope or will ease us into what lies ahead.

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Counterpoint: maybe wait a few months? https://t.co/mZduMr022L

— Emily St. J. Mandel (@EmilyMandel) March 11, 2020

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I can't stop thinking about Station Eleven. Not just the plot, but the little details. When the world really starts to fall apart, one character keeps working on an article he knows no one will ever read. But it's important to him and it keeps his mind off what's happening outside his apartment. Another character realizes he'll never have another cappuccino again.

It probably wasn't my last Target run. But it was hard not to feel like it could be.