The girls came peeling down the hallway. It was the time of night that could have been morning. The house was moving and shaking. I comforted my two-year old and four-year old daughters, and protected my belly. Zazu was in there.

Baby 3

Things had shifted, but it wasn’t the earthquake that weakened our foundation, my marriage had deflated long before that thunderous moment. Could I be like Mary. Was immaculate conception actually possible. The four at home pregnancy tests I bought and took confirmed I was going to have another baby.

Going Home

The hospital was in still in disarray when I gave birth a couple of weeks later. Beds in the hallways. I asked my mother to close the blinds so that the painters perched on the scaffolding wouldn’t witness the birth of my third child. Hours later we went home. Zazu, my husband and me.

Zazu and I were cloistered in my bedroom for more than a week once I brought her home. My older girls were tenderly cared for by my mother and my beloved nanny. I sat quietly, almost motionless in a black leather reclining rocker, hour after hour, day after day. Zazu on my lap.

Ordinary Home

Our house was ordinary in that way a house with young children and a dog is. Noisy, busy. I didn’t want my baby to crash to earth. I wanted to give her a smooth transition, a peaceful introduction to her sisters, my husband, our life.

After many many days we emerged. We were intimate. I was her mother. She was my baby. I erased my schedule to give her my undivided attention. We were ready to re-join the fold.

I’ll Hold You

She found her place in the family. This baby was keenly observant and kinetic. Zazu would not be restrained. She would jump, and leap, and catapult herself from bookshelf to countertop in the blink of an eye. Her smile was illuminating. Her hearty giggle was unusual for such a young baby. But Zazu knew something we didn’t know. And I couldn’t put my finger on it. But I knew she saw herself. She knew (even as a baby) that she had conviction, and intention.

Zazu moved around our enormous house like a Saturday morning cartoon character whose movements are indicated by sharply drawn speed lines. The tranquil atmosphere I created for my baby in my bedroom when I brought her home was not her cup of tea. She is “Patty, I am “Cathy.” In spite of the difference in our velocity I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to be her good enough mother.

You and Me Baby

Zazu was one when her father and I divorced. My daughter almost never used words. She did not speak. Doctors said she was normal. Zazu made a decision to keep her thoughts to herself. She would speak when she was ready.

Still with You

I lost custody of my children. I would not be the one to teach her how to become a woman.  Zazu was eight. I could not be there to tell her that to avoid getting wrinkles she must not  pull her eyelid when applying eyeliner.

Eye Love Her

She may have left her house with labels on the bottom of her new shoe soles, because I wasn’t there to tell her to take them off. I was not there to let her know that it’s okay to pair inexpensive pieces with well made garments, but that it’s an axiom that shoes and purses  must be of the highest quality you can afford. I wouldn’t be the one to tell her to start using moisturizer and sunscreen at about twelve. And I didn’t teach her how to use a tampon.

I was not there to tell her to listen when people tell you who they are. I was not there to tell her not to listen when they manipulate that truth. I was not there to listen to her. I was not there.

Gone

My child was gone, learning how to be a woman from other women.

Broken Hearted

At Home

Women I did not choose. Women I did not know. Women that weren’t me. But she didn’t forget me. I made an impression on my child before she was gone.

I’m Still Here

Don’t Forget Me

Getting Ready

Love, Love, Love

She is seventeen and getting ready to leave for college in the fall. What follows is Zazu’s admissions essay for Oberlin college.

Zazu on the Path

I come from a long line of people who wanted different mothers.  Upon entering my first dance class, I was brutally confronted with what the rest of my life would entail. While the other girls’ mothers were dressed in pinstriped business suits, my mother resembled something more similar to a Vogue magazine, circus edition. At the time, her outlandishness struck me as pure embarrassment. I had hoped for a mother who made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread and listened to The Beatles in her Volvo. Instead, mine packed tofu eggless-egg salad on whole wheat and blasted Bjork out of her Ford. However, as I grew, I began to appreciate my mother’s eccentricity.

At age seven she read me “The Big Orange Splot” by Daniel Pinkwater, the story of an ordinary man, challenged to be not be ordinary. Mr. Plumbean accidentally spills orange paint on the outside of  his average looking house, but instead of covering the splot, as requested by his neighbors, he transforms his home into a multicolored, majestic jungle, not unlike my mother did with her wacky outfits. Much like Mr. Plumbean, who proclaims, “[his] house is where [he] likes to be and it looks like all [his] dreams,” Oberlin is the house I hope to inhabit.

Oberlin Inspiration

Idiosyncrasy, combined with determination, effort and planning laid the foundation for my scholastic life. My desire for learning was guided by the Mr. Pinkwater’s message to stay true to your own convictions. Rather than covering my mistakes, I have learned to redefine accidents. Oberlin’s fertile and challenging environment will enable me to unpack new and unfamiliar interests in a focused atmosphere of exploration. My family environment fostered creativity, and the diversity I crave. This school offers classes that encourage students to use art as a portal to delve into culture much like in my home, where intellectual and artistic freedom has encouraged similar acceptance. Oberlin parallels my iconoclastic mother. While I would not have wanted it any other way, I could not choose my biological mother. I now have the opportunity to choose my college.

Zazu has found her voice. We have found each other again. I love her, and she loves me. We are proud of each other.

I love Zazu

We won’t find out if she got in to Oberlin until March. But my youngest daughter found acceptance long ago.

Of Zazu by Zazu

A Silent Friend

Zazu Likes Pigs

Stand Together

A Natural Beauty

Just The Way She Is

Daniel Pinkwater – http://www.pinkwater.com/

Oberlin college – http://new.oberlin.edu/

Parental Alienation – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_alienation

Selective Mutism – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_mutism

HeartCamp– I will be speaking about my family’s experience with Parental Alienation – February 4, 2012 http://heartcamp.org/. TICKET SALES CLOSE February 1ST.

Art, photos – Slaughter