Tofu-Hearted Mother

My favourite author, Joyce Carol Oates, whose work is so prolific that I can’t keep up with reading all she has written, says in the voice of Judd Mulvaney “…I believe in uttering the truth, even if it hurts. Particularly if it hurts.”

And so do I. But I don’t mean about other people – their truth is theirs alone to utter. I mean about myself. In truth-telling there is strength and in pain there is strength. And who is to challenge my truths? They are mine, after all. They don’t belong to others, therefore they are unique. “The truth as you see it…?” asks Jerry Seinfeld ironically of George Constanza. Yes. As I see it.

What, for me, constitutes that truth (does the word need quotation marks? Post-modernist theorists would say it does)? My truth is a muddle of literary quotations, philosophical musings, moments of original insight (I am hopeful but realistic on this point), images like a photo album swirling through space and time, colours that have warmth and coolness and vibration, sensations and emotions that seem to be felt less in the brain than in the centre of my body like a pulsating, thinking, memorising organ. Science theorises that it is not just our brain matter that holds memory, but also our heart, liver and kidneys and other soft tissue – what about our skin? Our skin sees everything.

My skin sees (feels?) my fervent attitude to my life: my children, my loved-ones, my beliefs. My skin witnessed my birth and will witness my death. It will still exist, only in some other way, as it enters the ovens and is scattered in nature. You may ask why I have these thoughts – or even how I can offer up such searing truths. So many of us do not want to think about our own mortality and would rather never come across a passage which shines light on such a subject. But I don’t mind.

But for me it negates denial. It helps me re-double my efforts to see everything as good and right in its imperfection. It reminds me. My shadowed truths remind me of the light.

* * *

This past three weeks has seen intense emotions contrasted with moments of sleepy, dreamy, lazy peace. My son was able, finally after a term at school fraught with problems to do with power-plays between boys, to relax and be himself and not have to apologise for that. To be able to sleep in as long as he liked and eat when he wished and hang out with his mates. He has wonderful mates. But he also has enemies.

His enemies lurk in school life mainly. He is harassed every day – called a faggot, homo, cunt –and threatened with violence whenever he retaliates or stops ignoring the taunts and tells them quietly to fuck off. Just as I would do. Then they hit him and get their friends to mob him. He carries a knife on the weekends just in case, although this is something I am extremely nervous about. He carries his phone wherever he goes in case he needs help. The kids from school hang out around the township where we live and so he must remain ever vigilant. I worry about him a whole lot less on the weekends and holidays, however, than I do when he attends school. This is an irony that I cannot get over. I have worked in high schools all of my career and the students’ safety is expected to be top priority. I also believed it was and that I assisted in making it that way. Now I see it from a whole new perspective. Now I am not objective educator – I am parent. And my son is sometimes safe – more often not.

Every day we arrive at school and he tells me he loves me. Like a talisman it hangs between us. But my support is tenuous at best as I must let him go to the care of others. Others who don’t know him inside like I do; who just see the often surly, sleepy-eyed boy who needs to begin shaving very soon; who hides behind his hair and his swagger and his silver fleshy piercing; who hides a tofu-heart softer than mine – like Japanese silken tofu that melts as you touch it, that is more liquid than solid.

But we keep going. Day after day. And hope every morning that this will be the day when he comes homes smiling and looks forward to tomorrow. Today will see the turning point. The watershed.When everyone will recognise him as I do and want to celebrate it. I am a mix of naivety and experience; trust and realism. Overall I choose to see the good in every thing and every one. But it means getting up every day and starting over. Some days are harder than others but I am not alone.

Judd also says in We Were the Mulvaneys, “…this document isn’t a confession…but a family album. The kind my mom never kept, absolute truth-telling. The kind no one’s mom keeps…an album of memory and conjecture and yearning.”

Well I keep just such an album. And it is very likely “the great and only work of [my] life.”