White Walls

Το "White Walls" είναι αυτοβιογραφικό βιβλίο της Judy Batalion, μιας Καναδοεβραίας αποφοίτου του Harvard, η οποία μας περιγράφει την πορεία της προς την ενηλικίωση έχοντας μια μάνα-θησαυριστή, έναν πατέρα γιατρό, που είναι μεν στοργικός, αλλά υπεκφεύγει και δεν θέλει να αντιμετωπίσει το πρόβλημα, και έναν μικρότερο αδελφό, που είναι σε έναν δικό του κόσμο για να βρίσκει ισορροπία. Όταν περνάει στο Πανεπιστήμιο και καταφέρνει επιτέλους να αποδράσει από αυτό το πνιγηρό περιβάλλον, διηγείται τα στάδια που πέρασε για να ισορροπήσει και να φιάξει ένα δικό της σπίτι, όπως θα ήθελε να ήταν το πατρικό της.

Ο πρόλογος ξεκινάει από το τέλος, και αναφέρεται στις κρίσεις της μητέρας της, εν μέσω των οποίων απειλεί πως θα αυτοκτονήσει και την συμφωνία (επιτέλους!) του πατέρα, να την πάνε σε κάποιον ειδικό γιατρό.

I bite my tongue until the pain feels good, salty. “I’ll be there soon,” I say. I don’t want to lose her. But blotting my damp lap with napkins, I also think: I am so fucking tired of being the mother.

Στη συνέχεια αναφέρεται στην εγκυμοσύνη της και πως την αντιμετώπισε ο σύντροφός της μόλις το έμαθε.

An extrovert par excellence, it was in moments of true happiness that he turned inward

How was I supposed to care for a mom and a child? Who’d care for me? I still felt like a kid who needed guidance and reassurance

Γενικά η δομή του βιβλίου ακολουθεί αυτήν του προλόγου. Ταλαντεύεται από το παρελθόν στο παρόν και τανάπαλιν, χωρίς να είναι κουραστικό ή ακαταλαβίστικο.

Σε όλη την παιδική και εφηβική της ηλικία κυριαρχούσε μέσα της το αίσθημα της ντροπής. Για το σπίτι της, την εβραϊκή της καταγωγή και όλα όσα την έκαναν να διαφέρει από τους άλλους. Την έπαιρνε η γιαγιά της από το σχολείο και πήγαιναν στο σπίτι της, ανατολικά...

Anyone who could see me was also in the east—we were all the same. Breathing easier, I stepped right into pace with my bubbie and simultaneously slipped into a different genre of fantasy, a historical one. Now, I was foraging through a Siberian work camp, or sneaking across bridges over the frozen Vistula

Το σπίτι γεμάτο από εφημερίδες, περιοδικά, κονσέρβες και ότι άλλο μπορεί να φανταστεί κανείς, στοιβαγμένα σε βουνά. Δεν συνειδητοποιούμε πολλές φορές ότι εθισμένος δεν είναι μόνο αυτός που κάνει χρήση ναρκωτικών ή αλκοόλ, αλλά και οποιοσδήποτε είναι ψυχικά εξαρτημένος με οτιδήποτε, σε βαθμό που καταστρέφει τον ίδιο αλλά και το περιβάλλον του

Next to the sofa stood a tower of newspapers and free magazines—“ your mother’s cocaine,” my dad called them.

Η μητέρα ήξερε ότι έχει πρόβλημα και ένιωθε άσχημα αλλά δεν ήθελε να την κριτικάρουν και γι' αυτό ήταν επιθετική, άδικα πολλές φορές. Μια φορά που γέλασαν με τον πατέρα της για κάτι άσχετο τους κατσάδιασε γιατί νόμιζε πως την κορόιδευαν επειδή δεν είχε ψωνίσει

“Why don’t you ask your precious father, your best friend, to take care of all the shopping?”
“It wasn’t about shopping,” I mumbled now under my breath. My pulse quickened, and I swiftly left the room. And my father does take care of it, I wanted to add. She was forcefully, frantically stacking plastic cups at the opposite end of the kitchen, behind the cluttered counter, as if making herself yet another shield to protect herself from me. “It’s getting late,” she shouted after me. “Get ready for bed.” “I have to finish my homework,” I mumbled. Of course it was late. I was brought home at only nine thirty. What, now you’re a disciplinarian? I wanted to yell.

Κάποτε αυτή η γυναίκα ήταν καλλιτέχνης και τώρα η ζωγραφική της να χάνεται μέσα σε σωρούς από χιλίαδες άχρηστα αντικείμενα, σκουπίδια...

...reminding myself that she’d been an artist, a published poet who’d trailed Leonard Cohen around Greece. I followed these incredible drawings, drawings that would never get seen if I didn’t see them, drawings of women’s faces, always in profile with dark eyes, high cheekbones and sharp features, draped in cowl necks, staring into the distance, alone and haunted.
Η μητέρα...

...an in-between presence. The center of everything, yet already becoming a shadow.

Her piles pushed me away, pushed the rest of us into small spaces together, resulting in bonds that then made her angry.

Ο πατέρας

If Mom embodied home, then Dad was the streets. An escape route. A chance at normalcy.

what I needed, was for him to say something. For him to acknowledge that her yelling was inappropriate, or stressful, or just, her yelling. To say: things are not right. To say, I’m sorry for how it is.

Το σπίτι

still unpacked boxes from our 1983 move

Εκτός από δικά της πράγματα, έπαιρνε και στους άλλους συνεχώς, όπως κάτι παλιομοδίτικα πορσελάνινα γουρουνάκια που αγόρασε στην Judy γιατί πίστευε πως τα κάνει συλλογή, στηριζόμενη στο γεγονός πως είχε στο δωμάτιο της ένα...

...the feeling of drowning, that I’d never be able to get what I wanted because what my mother wanted was already there and I had to use that up first. The feeling that I could never want anything.
Instead of throwing them away or into her room, I integrated them into my candle collection, standing them at the back like the royal family on a chessboard, wishing they hadn’t messed up my system, trying to make some room in which I could grow.

Κάποτε την κάλεσαν σε πάρτυ, κάτι που δε συνέβαινε συχνά και που την άγχωσε πολύ...

I had to succeed at parties, at people, at life outside Kildare. I had to keep myself afloat.

Για να ετοιμαστεί πήγε στο σπίτι της φίλης της, όπου η μαμά προσφέρθηκε να της φτιάξει τα μαλλιά αγνοώντας τις ψείρες της...

Then she put away her hair dryer as I dressed my feet, noting how soft and thick her rug was. I imagined what it might be like to run in here in the middle of the night. No tripping over boxes. Possible.

Στο πάρτυ ένα αγόρι της ζήτησε να τα φτιάξουν, όχι αυτός που ήθελε, αλλά κάποιος επιτέλους. Δέχτηκε! Την άλλη μέρα όμως, αρνήθηκε να του μιλήσει στο τηλέφωνο και εκείνος εγκατέλειψε την προσπάθεια...

I was rejected, dumped, ditched. And elated. No more pressure. No more having to worry how I would ever bring him home.

Broken door

I hopped to her room. “Mom!” But as I opened her broken blue folding door, the one that was missing several hinges so it actually lunged toward me when I moved it... I wanted to hang out with her in the evenings and watch Thirtysomething, pretending I understood it and laughing along with her chuckles, but there was no room. A broken door wasn’t the same as an open door.

Μητέρα στη θέση της μητέρας

You’re not his mother, she accused me when I tried to care for him. She was right. Even then, I knew my efforts were as much an attempt for me to take control of my world as they were to help him. I felt guilty for being bossy, selfish, needy, but also angry. Do you think I want to be his mother?

Γραπτή Επικοινωνία

Written communication was easier, safer than telling her in person, which risked unleashing her moods, no matter how softly I tried to put it.

Αμέλεια

on the first day of second grade, a woman knocked on my classroom door and asked me to grab my bag and come with her. I’d turned red. Had Zaidy died? I shook as I gathered my items and stepped out in front of twenty-five staring students, only to be taken to the library where Eli was reading a book. Apparently, my parents had been late in paying tuition—again—and we were not allowed to stay in our classrooms. From then on, I spent each August anxiously leaving notes, pleading with Mom and Dad to pay for the upcoming year, which would never happen until the last minute.

Αργοπορία

Στο bat mitzvah της Judy, μια πολύ σημαντική εκδήλωση για τους Εβραίους, κάτι σαν τη βάφτιση για τους χριστιανούς...

“Mom.” No answer. “Mom?” What are you thinking? Why are you doing this to me? Where are you?
Dad laughed. He never laughed at Mom’s lateness. But he also never left without her.
... Όταν τελικά έφτασαν όλα πήγαν ανέλπιστα καλά

“Thank you,” I said to the audience, my speech complete. I glanced up at the applauding crowd, but unlike a movie scene, I did not lock eyes with a widely smiling, wildly nodding, crying-tears-of-joy parent. Into the anonymous blur, however, I held my gaze firm. For a moment, I sensed—albeit hazily—a future, the possibility of being alone in the world, and surviving.

Όταν έρθει η ώρα να μεγαλώσεις τα δικά σου παιδιά, θα τα κάνεις όλα σωστά;

There were no right answers, no scientific codes for raising kids. The “results” of parenting would appear decades later, and even then, it wouldn’t be clear whether showing a child too much Sesame Street is what led to their tendency to date self-effacing commitment-phobes. Would I ever be strong enough to just go with my gut?
You cannot run away from being a parent. Ever.

I saw in my mother’s eyes the hurt of rejection that I now understood too, a primal insecurity, a horrid sense of failure. I saw the disappointment of her life: how she’d wanted nothing more than to be a mother but could never play the role as she dreamed
She was so vulnerable, her emotions like a toddler’s

Εξομολογήσεις

In this second, she really meant it; she really wanted to work it out between us. My heart pulled toward her slanted physique, but then it halted. I’d been hearing a lot of this “annoying girlfriend” act lately. Every time I responded, I got sucked into Mom’s maelstrom, into the mess. We would analyze our every interaction and then I would cry and apologize and we would say how much we loved each other, but nothing ever changed. I was so sick of that. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to pretend, to fold into her. I didn’t want to not-explain the obvious, to avoid saying that it was all so unfair

If there was one thing I’d learnt from my upbringing, it was patience with emotional breakdowns. I understood what it was like to live with someone who existed in an exaggerated version of the present, id-driven, frustrated

Ενηλικίωση/σπουδές στο Harvard/άγνωστη μεταξύ αγνώστων

My family had literally disappeared, as if they’d been delusions, apparitions in my younger mind. No one would see them. No one would know about the Tetris-puzzle of cobwebbed credenzas, the secrets stuffed between tins of baked beans. I could make up any backstory I wanted—any revisionist, minimalist, conventional history. I was a champion at hiding. I realized: I could conceal my whole life.

Όταν πέθανε η γιαγιά της, στην οποία η μητέρα αφιέρωνε πολύ χρόνο

What would Mom do now with all her time? Who would she take care of? Me? I questioned, but then chastised myself for my selfishness at such a horrible time

Μεταπτυχιακό στο Λονδίνο

I was most at peace when my constant feeling of being foreign was actually true

“Negative politeness” was the British way: assuming people were most comfortable not being seen, it was most polite to leave people alone (versus American positive politeness, which was founded on enthusiastic inclusion and, well, being nice)

“Right,” I said, but just then I knew: I would never get it right. I had no class. I too was an outsider, deeply unfashionable. England had been my cherished escape, and I’d learnt a lot here, but, Lord (and Lady), I was so not English

Judy & Nigel ❤️

We fell into each other instantly, sensing our mutual shyness and odd pasts, but never discussing them.
At first, I glowed in his attention, happy for help with the things I’d always had to do alone. But slowly, his dedication began to confuse me.
“Thanks,” I kept saying but I’d felt edgy. I’d spent my whole life doing my own homework. I didn’t need help with that.
He was the best. My first true love. And all I could think was that, if I just moved the steering wheel a tiny bit to the right, the passenger side would gently ram into the mountain and I’d kill him.
“Careful here,” he said. You be careful, I wanted to say.
Nigel grinned. I felt sick. He’d recently been diagnosed with depression, and I made him happy, he claimed. But was it actually me that he desired, or just any filling for his holes? He wanted me too much, and wanted too much from me—to save him, to give him joy, purpose. Like Mom. I was beginning to worry that everyone I let in was crazy.

Judy & Andy 💕

It hit me: I didn’t want to marry Andy. I didn’t even want to date him. I wanted to be him.
If I was funnier, he’d like me more; if he loved me more, I’d be funnier. I was such a good joker, I’d been kidding myself.

Ph.D. Achievement

My limbs tingled. I was shocked by Mom’s actions, but even more so by Dad’s. I’d just turned thirty years old, and this was the first time he had defended me. “Stop it.” His voice boomed into my brain. He had acknowledged the dysfunction. He had acknowledged me. I was not hidden and transparent, but real, tangible. When he saw me, I saw myself. I saw the situation

Η λύση στο πρόβλημα της μητέρας;

My whole life I’d assumed this was the solution. The system. Medical help. The hospital. The court. I’d assumed that at some point, someone would step in and take care of it, take care of us. But there was no grand caretaker.
Maybe I just had to let her be, in her house, with her files, just as she wanted. Maybe that was the best way to love her. I do not know how to love her, I realized, wondering if it was this confusion that had guided my whole life.

Όταν η Judy έγινε μαμά...

My tiny little girl was a person who would teach me a thing or two. Motherhood, I understood, was something we’d figure out together.
I was exhausted, but swimming, floating even, and not drowning in her being

Τα παιδιά σε μαθαίνουν να υποτάσσεσαι στο χάος και να παραδίνεσαι στην αγάπη...

But, no matter how much I tidied, I could not control the disorder of motherhood
Which was OK. A bit of clutter was a small price to pay for closeness
I finally had a place to which to run from the harshness of the world and from which I could launch into its wonderful possibilities

There it was, the word I’d never felt comfortable with. “Unfair” meant random, it meant it wasn’t my fault, or anyone’s fault, no excuses, no blame; it meant it was out of my control

Food for thought

Sometimes we do not mature into dealing with situations, but situations force us to expand into them

We usually think that events determine our emotions—that good things lead to happiness and bad ones to despair—but it can be the opposite. Sometimes our feelings come first, and determine how we react to events.

Σχόλια

Δημοφιλείς αναρτήσεις από αυτό το ιστολόγιο

M Train

Λεβιάθαν ή το μυθικό τέρας που εμφανίζεται τόσο σε θρησκευτικά κείμενα όσο στην τέχνη και στην πολιτική θεωρία

Πρώτο ποστ για το 2020, αυτή τη θεσπέσια χρονιά #not!