Friday, February 03, 2006
The Milieu
When my grandfather died and my mother gave me all that grief about not attending the funeral, my mother-in-law gave me a bracelet with a single charm that read “One Day at a Time.” I didn’t have a good reason not to go to the funeral, except for the fact that my husband’s grandmother had died the very same day and we had a rented cabin for the weekend reserved months in advance, and, most of all, my father, whose father was the one who had died, gave me his blessing to make up my own mind. “There’s going to be a memorial service in May.” That cinched it. My husband and daughter went down to Cairo for his grandmother’s funeral and I went to the Ozarks with friends.
That bracelet, with its simple little motto, is still on my wrist. My grandfather, and my surviving grandmother, were at one time quite active in Al Anon, a branch of sorts of Alcoholics Anonymous. My dad’s older brother dried out periodically with AA, and I knew growing up what their motto was. My mother-in-law couldn’t have known all that ingrained memory, but still, this is the bracelet she gave me.
It makes me wonder about what Maria, my post-partum counselor, referred to as the “Milieu.” What she seemed to mean was something akin to Jung’s collective unconscious with its symbols and universal meanings. Only Maria’s version was colored by our experiences and reflected back out into our world, where it was subtly inserted into other people’s views of who we were and what we meant. I’m not even sure if my mother-in-law knows the basic vocabulary and aphorisms of twelve step groups. But she couldn’t have picked a more relevant motto to give me on the occasion of my grandfather’s death, and, well, my mother’s freak out.
When my daughter Sophia was born via c-section, face up and looking at the surgeon, every bouquet I received had a stargazer lily in it.
Supposedly, when you pray a certain St. Theresa the Little Flower novena, your prayer will be answered, and roses will be involved. I haven’t tried it, because I feel like I would be tempting something. But I wonder.
When my childhood friend was giving birth, without my knowing, I was wearing a necklace she’d given me for graduation.
Amusingly, I noted months afterwards, when I parted on bad terms with a casual friend once, never to speak to her again, we each had a book in our possession belonging to the other. She left my social crowd and eventually her husband and daughter. The book she loaned me was Circle of Friends. The one I had given her was One Hundred Years of Solitude.
It makes me wonder at the power of words, the subconscious way we take what’s around us and incorporate it into our beings. It makes me cautious about what names I give my pets (Blaze has caught on fire several times, for instance, and don’t get me started on Wiz). My children even more so. Sophia--I wonder if she will be wise. When I dropped my first name, Sarah, and moved my middle name, Bridgett, to the front position when I got married, was that a shift from princess to strength? When I look at my life now, I certainly think it was.
That bracelet was a talisman for me during my second pregnancy. Maeve was born in October 2004. All my bouquets had mums.
So I’m still taking it one day at a time. Easy does it.
That bracelet, with its simple little motto, is still on my wrist. My grandfather, and my surviving grandmother, were at one time quite active in Al Anon, a branch of sorts of Alcoholics Anonymous. My dad’s older brother dried out periodically with AA, and I knew growing up what their motto was. My mother-in-law couldn’t have known all that ingrained memory, but still, this is the bracelet she gave me.
It makes me wonder about what Maria, my post-partum counselor, referred to as the “Milieu.” What she seemed to mean was something akin to Jung’s collective unconscious with its symbols and universal meanings. Only Maria’s version was colored by our experiences and reflected back out into our world, where it was subtly inserted into other people’s views of who we were and what we meant. I’m not even sure if my mother-in-law knows the basic vocabulary and aphorisms of twelve step groups. But she couldn’t have picked a more relevant motto to give me on the occasion of my grandfather’s death, and, well, my mother’s freak out.
When my daughter Sophia was born via c-section, face up and looking at the surgeon, every bouquet I received had a stargazer lily in it.
Supposedly, when you pray a certain St. Theresa the Little Flower novena, your prayer will be answered, and roses will be involved. I haven’t tried it, because I feel like I would be tempting something. But I wonder.
When my childhood friend was giving birth, without my knowing, I was wearing a necklace she’d given me for graduation.
Amusingly, I noted months afterwards, when I parted on bad terms with a casual friend once, never to speak to her again, we each had a book in our possession belonging to the other. She left my social crowd and eventually her husband and daughter. The book she loaned me was Circle of Friends. The one I had given her was One Hundred Years of Solitude.
It makes me wonder at the power of words, the subconscious way we take what’s around us and incorporate it into our beings. It makes me cautious about what names I give my pets (Blaze has caught on fire several times, for instance, and don’t get me started on Wiz). My children even more so. Sophia--I wonder if she will be wise. When I dropped my first name, Sarah, and moved my middle name, Bridgett, to the front position when I got married, was that a shift from princess to strength? When I look at my life now, I certainly think it was.
That bracelet was a talisman for me during my second pregnancy. Maeve was born in October 2004. All my bouquets had mums.
So I’m still taking it one day at a time. Easy does it.
