Triumphant Return to my Hometown

As the sixth of eight children, all daughters, I spent much of my childhood in the background of photos, waiting patiently for my mother to roll through various other names before landing on the correct one as she proceeded to scold me for some misdemeanor about the house, at times wearing clothes that had been picked out for and worn by others in the family previously, often walking home from some party or event because my parents had forgotten which child was where and what time each would be done, and striving for excellence to emerge as self sufficient and make my own mark.  I was the paradox of being both athletically gifted and overweight, both graceful and at just the wrong moment incredibly clumsy.  I was one of those kids who almost always emitted a sound when raising my hand in class to answer a question, and all too often that sound was accompanied by the 'about the jump out of my desk with enthusiasm' dance. 

On family car trips I was often one of two or three siblings in the 'way back' of the station wagon, looking at where we'd already been as opposed to where we were going, and most likely also ingesting a good bit of car exhaust from the lowered back window that added to my throaty, asthmatic vocal tones that veered always between Kathleen Turner in "Body Heat" pre-asthma attack (or the classic Lauren Bacall in my own head) and a wispy Brenda Vaccaro circa those tampon ads of the 1970s. As an adult I guess that made me both Chandler's dad and Joey's mom from "Friends", but I lacked the tall, sleek elegance of Lauren Bacall making Humphrey Bogart come hither with a single downward glance.

Still, I did well in school and was often the person a lot of my less studious friends wanted to sit next to during an exam, and by college some of my friends were urging me not to just type their papers for them, but to throw a little of that famous "FYI" wisdom I couldn't help spouting - into the narrative if possible.  Now, don't get me wrong, I was not a complete dork.   In fact I fear I was a very incomplete dork.  I had a great time growing up, leaped toward adventure and fun, and when I didn't get tangled up in my own shoestrings, could lead others into abandon as well.  Of course, always at the back of my mind was my mother's direction to do my best always, follow the rules, marry well and get a solid government job with benefits.  That was the ideal frame, wrapped around a tidy suburban home in proximity to one's church, for her picture of happiness.  Being the most like my father in our family, down to his voice, his face, his large feet, his sense of humor and his love of music - it was natural I would struggle most of my life to please my mother and to get to a place where she was comfortable with who I am and what I wanted in life.

After college I made my way back to San Francisco and away from my childhood hometown.  I loved the energy of the city, the people massed together in transit, scurrying across the street quickly against the light to get to work on time - and just the broad, intricate fabric of that lifestyle.  I did initially follow instructions and got a good government job with a regulatory agency.  I worked my way up, made marvelous friends to add to the ones I already had, and eventually fell in love and married.  On paper all good with mom's comfort level and plans for me.  And we did eventually buy a house in the suburbs, but a tiny, older house.  We had children.  A dog.  And then we divorced.  Oh, and to my mother's great discomfort my husband was not a Catholic (the entire reason she made so many of us attend a former all men's Catholic college), but he was an immigrant, like her own parents.  He was also a self made person who'd come here for college and then had to stay completely on his own when the government in his home country fell and the financial support he'd been getting went away.  He was funny and light-hearted most of the time, and very attractive.  He made me laugh and I remember thinking how much like my father he was after I got to know him.  My dad hadn't been a Catholic either until shortly before his death.  My dad adapted to the new culture of his family, more or less, while my mother clung to the traditional, the comfortable - in part because she had suffered profound loss very early in her life that made her hesitate to step outside the cocoon of family, stability.  Over time I realized my husband was actually a lot more like my mother.

But, I digress.  We are who we are and we were who we were, and at some point I realized it was going to be better for my children if we moved back to Sacramento where the cost of living was less and where there was a little bit of distance from their dad to give him some space for a while.  I also wanted to be closer to my mom who was already showing signs of early onset Alzheimer's.  We didn't now what it was back then, but we knew she was struggling, and I wanted to be nearer to her.  So we moved back to my hometown as I was able to split my job between duties in San Francisco in regulatory proceedings and in Sacramento as my agency's legislative advocate.  I hadn't really thought about where in town to settle, although I thought maybe someplace between my mother's house and downtown, to make at least my local commute less on days I didn't have to be in SF.

My mother was having none of that.  And she was not about to let me put my children back into public school as I had done in the bay area.  Nope, on our second day in town to do advance work before moving she drove me to the Catholic school I had attended and marched into the office with me to insist that my oldest, who was midway through the second grade, would be enrolled there.  The principal informed us that the second grade was full, very full.  My tiny Sicilian mother folded her arms and gave the principal the look I always feared most - the look that said she knew I was lying, or I was weak or I was too feeble minded to understand the repercussions of the choice I was about to make.  My mother put seven of her daughters through this school and to date not a single grandchild had gone there (although some had gone to Catholic School, just in other towns or other parts of this town).  That was going to end today.  My mom levelled her eyes at the principal.  The principal blinked.   A desk was ordered to be sent down to the second grade room and my oldest daughter would be starting school on Monday.

Here's where we get to the triumphant part.  Not only were we temporarily housed at my mother's house while I searched for a place - all of the children and me living in the room upstairs I had last occupied before going off to college - but now my children would be going to my old school and we would be attending church there.  Our pastor was still Father Doheny, who had been the parish priest when I graduated the 8th grade, and who had baptized my father.  I looked around the school yard that day as we gave my daughter Lucy the tour, and boy, not much had changed.  Well, I had, of course.  I was a divorced single parent of three children, the last of whom had been born AFTER the divorce.  I expected my children were the only Nigerian-American children at this tidy little school too - as I was seeing mostly white faces everywhere we went.  Not much progress in that regard either.  And there were a lot of second generation students at the school, children of people I had gone to school with, and a lot of the faces at mass that Sunday were also very familiar - the parents of the children I'd grown up with in the parish.

It was a strange type of time warp.  I was used to going over to our friend Daljit's house for huge Indian dinners lovingly prepared by his wife Manjit.  The consumer case I was working on at this time in San Francisco was being second chaired by a close colleague and friend who was a cross-dressing lesbian.  I missed the symphony of Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa voices at the Naija wives group I belonged to in Oakland.  And here I was now signing up for the Family Group after mass, taking the kids down for donuts and hot cocoa in the same small hall where I used to fidget in line waiting for a donut from the Knights of Columbus.

Remarkably, the family group opened wide for us and within a month or two I was actually heading it up and writing its newsletter.  It was a saving grace at a time when I felt like we did stick out a bit as the only black family in the school that first year (followed gratefully by a second, mixed family the next year).  Oh, and that bit about my former husband not being Catholic.  He's Muslim.  That went over well too.  Ah, triumphant return I had dreamed of peripherally as a teen when I knew I would be going away to college, maybe not coming back.  I was not going to be awkward, dorky - was not going to be the girl whose mother always showed up early to pick her up from parties or who dropped by the high school to check up on me.  I was going to be hip, cool, successful when I came back.  And probably taller and thinner.

The apex of that triumph occurred one day in mass about six months after we'd returned.  Because my youngest was a toddler who fidgeted we often sat in the crying room behind glass during mass.  I detested it.  I felt my children should just sit still and participate as I had done when I was a child.  My daughters were very attentive and well behaved in mass, but my son was little.  He was the weak link.  We got stares sometimes from other parents in the crying room if I let him wriggle away and go sit in a corner quietly playing with one of his little cars.  He was not loud like a lot of the other toddlers and even older children, but it was clear he wasn't focused on mass.  So, one day I decided we were just going to sit in the regular part of the church.  It was time.  He had just turned two and I was sure he could manage it.  We sat about five rows back from the altar in the pews that were housed off to its left at the front of the church.  We did get some looks in this new environ, the thirty something blond mom and the three little black children, one of whom fairly immediately began to chew on my keys.  I took him up in my arms for a while and when he would begin to talk or sing song I would hush him and say "Shhh, listen to Father" - pointing to the priest up on the altar.  Sometimes I would set him down on the bench because he was heavy, but if he started to fidget or talk I would turn to him and say it again, "Shhh, listen to Father!"  I realized as mass meandered on that morning that the triumph I had sought was to blend in, to not obtain any special notice.  I think that was what I probably strived toward as a child - just to be one of the pack, not get any negative attention, and when praise was being handed out all around to enjoy that brief moment.

Yep, as I looked over and saw a couple of familiar three generation families gathered together - the kids I grew up with looking more and more like the now grandparents had looked in my memory - and then the grandchildren dressed conservatively, smiling brightly, holding a parent's hand and looking much as I remembered their parents looking as children - I realized that was probably it.  And we were half way there as we'd cleared the crying room for what I hoped was a definitive move into the main church for mass.  We were ready.  I was a proud head of our family even if there was just one of me.  I looked over at the huddled, noisy masses in the crying room - the distress on some of the other parents' faces, and I knew I had crossed more than a literal threshold to come down here.  As the tine approached for the handshake of peace I smiled brightly, turned to my left and right, to the people behind us and in front of us  - and their handshakes were as warm and genuine as my own.  We fit in, we did not stand out awkwardly.  I was certain of it.  And then the church grew quiet as the priest prepared for communion... and my son began to fidget again.  He hummed to himself a moment and struck up a nonsensical conversation with his little Hot Wheels car cradled in his chubby hand.  "Shhh," I whispered as I took him up in my arms again, putting my mouth right next to his ear so no one else would hear ' "Listen to Father!"  People were beginning to kneel back down around us and I was still standing, setting his car down inside my purse as I held my son steady.  He looked up at Father Doheny on the altar and then this barely two year old child who had hardly put more than two words together his whole life and who had a tiny voice, spoke out loudly, pointing up at the priest, "THAT'S MY FATHER?"

My face was immediately crimson as I rushed to get us down low in the pew, but heads had turned, chuckles were emitted, and one older woman gave my son a stern scowl as I lowered him all the way to the ground.   Ah, yes, this was that moment of triumphant return, of splendorous homogeneity, where our clearly well born and well heeled selves emerged into my hometown to be lauded and feted alongside all of the other similarly happy, successful and pious families.  After a moment I laughed too, and I picked my son back up off the floor and gave him a big hug.  Father Doheny, who had taken us under his wing upon my return due to his close relationship with my late father, the former heathen, got a great laugh about it later when I explained to him what that moment of commotion had been about in mass earlier.  Maybe fitting in's not my thing.