Sputterpub's Blog

Janet and Bill Martinson hail from somewhere near Casper, Wyoming. I suspect they got those scholarships to Harvard because there wasn’t much competition from their little state. Neither of them ever struck me as brilliant.

They’re not both Martinsons any more. Janet reverted to her maiden name after the divorce. Then Bill married Connie, who took his name. The usual confusion among their cohort. Their old cohort.

They’re not my age. They’re my parents’ generation. Bill and Janet were born around 1950. Their oldest son, Dave, was born in 1976 like me. He married my best friend Val.

I visited Val and Dave last month. I stayed with them, bunking on the futon in their little extra room, so we had energetic talks over morning coffee and tired giddy evenings chatting or watching videos. The night before I left, we were into the subject of life/work balance. Val and I sat at each end of the couch, cradling mugs of herbal tea. Dave was in his favorite posture, prone on the rug in front of the fireplace, surrounded by books. He told us that Janet had recently explained how she came to be a mostly-at-home mother instead of pursuing a career.

Val had heard the story from Janet at the same time, but she didn’t say a word. She let Dave tell it all. I could learn a few things about relationship maintenance from Val. My girlfriend hates the way I sometimes get excited and interrupt her.

Dave said Janet told them that she planned a career. She studied music theory and art history, and she was probably going to be a college professor. She didn’t meet Bill till they were both in Cambridge, which was kind of odd given that they came from the same low-density area. Bill was also in the music department, although he was always on the performing end. He intended to make a living as a musician.

(They were hippies. They met in 1969, fell in love and moved in together the following fall. They got married after graduation, in 1972. Their wedding was in Cambridge. No one came from Wyoming. The bride wore a peasant blouse and a friend-made long purple velvet skirt. From the few photos it looks like Bill had on a Nehru jacket, but he says he can’t remember what he wore.)

According to Janet, the young Martinsons headed to San Francisco in a VW bus. They settled in Oakland, where she could pursue a graduate degree. Bill started playing piano and any other keyboard instrument, in a succession of small bands and also in studios. He was a member of the union and rather proud of his card.

The pregnancy with Dave wasn’t planned. Janet said he was conceived after a raucous harvest party with a slew of friends. They were into natural birth control. She took her temperature every morning to ascertain when she was ovulating. As far as they could tell, Dave was conceived a full four days after the ovum emerged.

When they found out Janet was pregnant, they considered termination. Everyone did then. But they agreed that any gamete so tenaciously determined to exist deserved a shot. Janet proceeded to grow plump (she’s a short woman and she was a slip of a thing when young, but she put on weight with age and babies, and is now almost as wide as she is high).

Janet said the one source of disagreement in their early marriage was about her working. Bill didn’t mind if she got casual employment (bookstore or café), but he aimed to provide the family income. The subject didn’t come up that much when she was studying for her masters and working part-time, but they each knew the other’s position.

And she said the biggest surprise of her life was how much she adored motherhood. She fell deeply in love with Dave the moment she held him. She was amazed at how gratifying she found her new role. She was in a Lamaze class while pregnant and participated in what’s now called play groups after Dave arrived, so she knew many of the other mothers experienced ambivalence. She had friends who loved their babies but missed their jobs, who confessed to resenting the loss of privacy and time, but that didn’t happen to Janet. It was like she was born to nurture infants.

She took a break from studies. She stopped working to care for Dave full-time. And she made no effort to prevent subsequent pregnancies. Every two and a half years she gave birth to another child.

According to her, if she hadn’t grown the fibroid tumors that necessitated a hysterectomy in 1984, there’s no telling how many kids they would have had. As it is, Dave has three younger brothers. (All of them are fat. Janet never did learn how to turn off the nurture spigot.)

Bill didn’t make it big, professionally. Most don’t. As far as I know, he worked diligently and even traveled a lot, but the best he did was eke. Luckily Janet got involved in a nonprofit when Dave was six and ended up learning how to write grant applications. She took that skill home and was able to earn enough to pay the rent and buy food. She got the boys clothes second hand or made/repaired garments herself. Bill’s earnings allowed the family to buy the used car and to make the occasional family trip (always to Wyoming, to see extended family).

“So you’re telling me Bill got his way by keeping Janet barefoot and pregnant?” I asked, finishing my tea.

Val laughed. I love Val’s laugh. Dave didn’t seem to appreciate it though. He gave her one of his below-the-brows glares. “That’s not funny,” he growled. Maybe I don’t want to get relationship lessons from them. My girlfriend never growls at me. My old boyfriends didn’t either. Then again, I’ve always been attracted to small-framed people and I have no problem intimidating them. I’m a big girl myself, and I like me that way. I never had any problem with the fact that I take after my mountain man dad. Val is almost as tall as me at 5’9″, which may be why sex never happened between us (that and the fact that my BFF turned out to be irredeemably hetero).

So Dave growled and the subject of conversation changed. But it stayed with me. After we said goodnight and I tucked myself into the comforter on the futon, I replayed some of it. I extended the story too. I knew that Bill and Janet split up when Dave was twelve. Bill met Connie. He stepped out and fell in love and left. Then he and Connie got married and spent the next five years trying to get pregnant (her idea but he was willing). Meanwhile, Bill’s mother died and he inherited the old family home in Wyo. They moved there, figuring it would be a better place to raise the child they didn’t manage to engender.

Connie had made a living as an event planner in California (she and Bill met at one of her events). She also owned some rental real estate in the valley, where she’d grown up. Her job didn’t move with her to Wyoming, but the rental income did. And she’s an energetic woman; she ended up turning the house into a B&B and making a decent living.

Bill kept playing piano. He managed to be supported by not one but two wives.

WTF? Why was Dave believing the tale his mother spun?

I sure didn’t believe it. I know Janet, and I’ve never seen career motivation qualities in her. The woman is so Gaia she could sit for a portrait. A short soft fertility symbol, wrapped in textile work and kitchen crafts. Maybe a counselor or a realtor or, yes, an event planner like Connie, but not a power girl.

And Bill? So much a hippie I want to spell it heepie. I understand that guys who were born before WWII had big ego-investment in being the family breadwinner. But the 60s and 70s got rid of that paradigm along with the mandate that boys have short hair. I don’t know any bearded tie-dye-loving musicians born in the 50s who would insist on the little woman staying home. And look at Bill’s transit. He never earned enough to buy a house. He let not one but two out of two wives support him.

I knew I was on a bit of a tirade then. My girlfriend would have been making me laugh at myself if she’d been with me. But I’ve got a thing about personal narrative. If it doesn’t make sense, I’ll bet there’s parts being suppressed. Dishonesty or delusion. There has to be more or other to the Martinson marriage story, for it to hang together. My girlfriend gets this about me. Val gets this about me, and she used to share it herself, but she’s stuck in love in a relationship with a growling man, and she may be working on her own rewrite.

My friend Meg had an awesome mom. Hildy was the only mother I knew of whom I approved. And I approved of her so much I wanted her for myself.

I would have shared her with her own kids. I liked Meg and her younger sister Lark, and everything I heard about their big brother, who was mostly away at college when I was spending time with the family. I was close to Meg the last year and a half of high school, tapering off to no contact after our first year at different Cal campuses.

So it was 1966 and 1967. I met Meg at school and we took to hanging out together some afternoons. That meant long walks, and those ended up at one of our homes and amid ice cream or our sophisticated snack: sliced mushrooms sandwiched between fat Wampum corn chips.

Both of us had hospitable homes. Each of us was the oldest daughter of a healthy lasting marriage. Our parents met and liked each other enough that we all got together sometimes to make meals. The fathers took up scuba diving along with our younger sibs. Cross-socializing occurred.

I liked them all, but my favorite was Hildy. She was eccentric. Creative. Cute.

And she gave us privacy. Meg and I were free to hang out in the kitchen, eating our cornchip/mushroom canapes as fast as we assembled them, talking about our gang of weirdos in math class, the literary magazine we thought we’d launch, how we’d spend our independent, free-wheeling future lives.

Now and then Hildy would wander in and smile at us. She was a petite woman, smaller-boned than both of her daughters, and she usually dressed in a gray sweatshirt and a short well-worn denim skirt. She had naturally curly naturally graying hair, cut short around her face. She was a potter. She had a wheel and her garage workshop contained a small kiln. I still have a few bowls she gave me.

In contrast, my mother tried to be stylish. She made no claim to creativity (“I can’t even draw a straight line!” (as if anyone could)). My mother wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the same outfit two days in a row, or white after Labor Day, or mixing dots and stripes. My mother had no passion, so she was always available, when we were around, to ask us questions, offer us snacks or advice, give us unreal warnings about carrying hats and gloves to the City, never smoking in public, not getting in trouble with boys. It was hard for Meg and me to be alone at my place. Which is why we usually went to hers.

I had a few chances to see Hildy interact with her husband. George was tall and handsome like my father, an architect with a passion for photography and car mechanics and, as it turned out, scuba and free diving. His interests meshed with my dad’s; the two men got along very well. I saw courtesy and strong family habits between Hildy and George, but I never saw physical affection or arguing. Then again, I don’t think Meg ever saw those activities between my parents. God knows I witnessed plenty of arguing. And I also saw evening affection. So there’s no telling about these things from outside the home, and sometimes there’s no telling from outside the master bedroom.

The friendship between the families faded away after Meg and I went to college. I remember visiting her once, midway through our freshman year, on the UCSD campus (I was at Cal Berkeley). Then half a century passed.

It didn’t occur to me till now, that the relationship between Meg’s family and my own may have been a concession from my mother to me. I’m realizing today that although the dads and kids got along great, Mom and Hildy were anything but fellow travelers. They had nothing in common. I’ve spent most of my adult life criticizing my mother for failing to meet my needs or see me. But now I’m wondering: were those scuba outings and meals together actually my mother’s way of trying to give my family time, an experience that then exasperated and frustrated me beyond words, some positive moments? I thought it was all fueled by Dad liking George and my brother and Lark diving but if that were so, why did those get-togethers end?

I’m thinking about this now because I just encountered Meg. I went to a reading in the neighborhood bookstore. It’s something I never do, but the author recently published a cookbook on vegan dishes with a low-carb spin. I’m a somewhat vegetarian. I eat fish and seafood, I nibble on bacon, but I never really liked meat, don’t have it in the house, don’t order it in restaurants. I’m getting older, and my fingertips tingle regularly. I’m starting to understand the neurological benefit to reducing carbohydrates in my diet. So I was interested in the book.

In the discussion session afterward, a portly gray-haired woman raised her hand. “When I was in high school,” she said, “my best friend and I used to make sandwiches out of two corn chips and a slice of raw mushroom.” She had my attention then. “I’m wondering if there’s a low-carb way to duplicate that treat.”

Was it? I peered around the woman to my left, across the little semi-circle of occupied folding chairs. “Meg?” I voiced.

The questioner whipped her head toward me. She narrowed her eyes and then opened them as she smiled. “Mel?”

We had to wait for the session to end. The author advised us to be wary of modern hybrid corn. I thought there’d be some GMO warning, but she just wanted us to know that agriculturalists have increased the fructose content in corn crops. (Our tongues already know this…corn and tomatoes are sweeter and nuts are bigger than they used to be. We all have to update our nutrition reference books). She told us to look for organic corn meal and to fry our chips in olive oil. She added that if the subject weren’t vegetarian/vegan preparation, she’d tell us to use lard or suet. I tucked that into the vault.

Meg and I headed for one another after the session broke up. We did the expected: hugged, backed away and peered into each other’s face, asserted that neither looked our age. We took our conversation next door to the little café. She ordered tea, just like when we were teenagers. My mother always gave me tea when I was ill; now I start to think I’m sick if I drink the stuff. It was too late in the day for coffee and the place didn’t serve wine, so I went with bubbly water.

All this time Meg’s been living about three miles away. She married a Jewish psychologist and raised a son who is now 33. I told her about my two short marriages to WASPs, my almost 40 year old daughter and 34 year old son. Meg had a career in landscape architecture and is now retired, tending her garden and hoping for a grandchild. I’d landed in financial services consulting, set out my own shingle and made a living, while continuing to write in my spare time.

Her parents are dead. I lost my dad a decade ago, but Mom is still going strong at 91.

“I used to want your mom for my own,” I confessed to her as we finished our drinks. “She was so gentle and understanding. And I always thought I’d thrive creatively if I had an artist mom. It wasn’t till my daughter told me she wished her father’s friend Julie was her mother, that I started seeing the subject from another perspective. I have to admit: I felt it. I thought I was a better mother than my mom had been.”

“How old was your daughter then?”

“Oh, about 8. It was shortly after I divorced her dad. He was desperate to find a new wife. Julie was a work friend of his who never consented to be his girlfriend, but I guess she wowed my kid.”

“I think there’s a little difference between wanting another mother when you’re 8 and when you’re 18.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Anyway,” Meg said through a grin, “that was around the time I thought it would be nice if my mom were more like yours.”

“Get out! I never had a clue!”

“I wasn’t as disclosive as you. And you never told me about your Hildy-love.”

“True. You wanted my mom’s qualities?”

“Oh yeah. Your mother didn’t ever compete with you, artistically. Between Mom’s pottery and Dad’s photography there wasn’t much room for creative expression in our house. And I was so jealous of the way your mother shopped for you and made appointments. I had to take on those jobs for myself when I was about 12. But mostly I loved the emotions in your family.”

“You mean the way we yelled?” One of the things I’d liked about the Mueller household was the absence of any shouting.

“It was awesome the way you guys were so Jewish, passionate, Mediterranean, whatever you want to call it. You’d flare up and then calm down. You all laughed so often.”

“I never realized…”

“That my German family was cold? Gaad: my parents didn’t disagree often, but when they did it got positively frigid around there. They’d stop speaking. I’m sure it’s why I married a Jewish guy. Total opposite.”

“And you’re still married. Apparently you did better at choosing than I did.”

“Oh come on! We’re both too old to believe that. The secret to an enduring marriage is the commitment, on both sides, to have it endure.”

“That’s kind of you.”

We talked for another half hour. I learned that her little sister Lark had never married or had kids. I told her about my brother’s loveless but enduring and companionable marriage and the two unmotivated sons it had produced. We agreed to keep in touch. We meant it; we’ve arranged to get together next week and try making corn chips.

The whole episode has made me view my mother differently. I still don’t think she’s a woman I would choose as a friend. I still assert that she was too impulsive and impatient to meet my child needs; she dressed and fed me and took me to the doctor (too often), but she gave short shrift to my insecurities and paid no attention to my insomnia or my complaints about her regular invasions of my privacy. But I’m starting to get it that she really loved me. Sure I was her only daughter and her oldest; she was stuck with me. But she really loved me. She still does. She may have done her best. If she didn’t, it wasn’t like she had counseling or sibling resources to help her.

I’m her baby. She’s a good woman, she loves me, and she’s still in my court. These are lessons it’s only taken this baby 800 months of life, to learn.