Bethany Bassett

3Sep

Foundations

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

The first time I visited Rome was at night. We stepped off the Metro, and there, pulling the dizzy swoop of headlights into its shadows, was the Colosseum. I wasn’t expecting it… at least not right there, looming on the corner of an intersection like a monumental affront to traffic. It stole my breath.

We chartered our own starry-eyed adventure—a right here, then a left, then a hop-skip-jump through this piazza. Jutting cobblestones and spindly alleyways were poems in the moonlight; you should know that Dean Martin’s “Evening in Roma” captures only a hint of the romance that lights the city after hours. It was the perfect Valentine’s getaway, oo la la and all.

So when we returned this last weekend, strollers and juice boxes and sunscreen in tow, I expected Rome’s beauty would fall a little flat. There’s only so much glamour to old rocks when you’re rummaging through sweaty backpacks for the baby formula… or so I thought. Turns out, I was delightfully wrong.

We started with the Old Appian Way, a road almost unbearably quaint and dotted with as many tombs as cypresses. Stone walls jutted out of the ground, just a whiff of the villas and mausoleums that used to reign over the road, and we peeked into a few crumbling structures to see steps leading down into the Catacombs. For an imagination junkie raised on stories of Sparatacus and martyred Christians, this place was a fairytale come true.

We picnicked in a half-hidden sacred field—shhh, don’t tell!—then walked from the pyramid toward Rome’s pulsing center. (Did you know Rome had a pyramid? I did not until it was suddenly there, shooting out of a million-way intersection.) One moment, we were on a roomy residential street; the next, we were racing strollers through the Circus Maximus (where charioteers once tried to kill Ben Hur*) with the imperial palace ruins filling the sky ahead.

From there on, each new wonder was overshadowed by the next. Constantine’s Arch, the Colosseum, the relatively modern monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, the shockingly ancient Roman Forum. It felt similar to entering the Louvre and seeing its incredible art life-size in front of me, except that each Roman structure was a hundred times the size of life, and then a hundred times more. It felt like trespassing on the celebrities of history.

The girls are still too young to understand the significance of this old world around them, but I like to think they absorbed a bit of the beauty. It would be impossible not to. And if nothing else, we fed off of each other’s excitement—mine and Dan’s at the thousand-year-old marble, Natalie’s and Sophie’s at the hours-old sunlight. We giggled and munched potato chips on a gnarled hilltop, and I found myself awestruck by us, the four of us, alive and adventuring together, laying our own foundation. And something told me that one day, not too many millennia from now, we will tip-toe back through the cobblestones and cypresses and sticky-fingers and strollers and whisper, “Wow.”

—

* I’m all for historical accuracy here.

31Aug

Lemon Drops

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 12 Comments

My somewhere over the rainbow is escaping me during these last stir-crazy days of summer.

Sophie is suddenly ten months old, which means first steps and wobbly-legged climbing. (Hooray! But also, heaven help us.) She goes on archeological missions through laundry piles and bookshelves and kitchen cabinets and the diaper basket, on her knees so both hands can dig, paperbacks and rash cream flying helter-skelter behind. Every mouthful of food glops immediately back out to be squished in fists, splatted on the floor, massaged into her babyfine red hair. She likes to play in the trash. She knows how to turn the stereo volume on max. She wonders what will happen if she unrolls an entire case of paper towels into that fresh puddle of lotion. I feel like a zookeeper, and a very poor one at that.

Meanwhile, Natalie’s in limbo somewhere between the exuberance of three-years-old and the self-sufficiency of four. School doesn’t start for another month here, so she wanders our tiny apartment looking for something new to occupy all this empty time. She’s good at relocating piles of toys, but not much else interests her these days; the August haze has sucked away her usual creativity. School will be so good for her with its structure and friendship and bright colorful learning, but damn. Another month?! Will we make it that long cooped up with our overworked fans and piles of toys? She has come to understand perfectly what “Give me a minute” means, and this swallows me in guilt, chomps through what little energy I have, belches up a mangled exoskeleton of my best mothering intentions.

This is the time of year when I decide enough with the hot weather already. Yes, I know it was basically yesterday when I was shivering in bed under piles of February blankets, begging summer to get here STAT, but we’re in need of some cool, swirly breezes. Invigoration. Just a touch of minty-fresh chill, and I think I’ll be able to see that chimney top again, one of those perfectly crooked pipes atop an enchanting blue Parisian roof, with my petty troubles melting away like lemon drops above.

26Aug

Bitter/Sweet

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

Not many people know that I left home at sixteen. It’s one of those facts I tend to keep stuffed in the back of my sock drawer unless it very specifically comes up, and that doesn’t happen often. I can’t help wanting to protect that girl who grew up without anyone to protect her.

That statement would probably confuse anyone who knew my family. We were protected from television, from popularity, from music, from current events, from trendiness, from junk food, from differing religious opinions, from school, from doctors, from other cultures, from puberty, from bad words, from the law. We lived in a double-plated steel bunker of protection. But my heart was left wide open—sometimes even pried apart—to deeper and vastly more sinister dangers than tank tops or measles shots.

I only had an inkling of my own identity, but that turned out to be enough. I snuck out of sermons and found ways to cope. I rose my own money each summer to escape to the Pacific Northwest, Central and South America, Africa. And less than a month after my sixteenth birthday, I left home. No one thought it was a good idea except for me, but I knew. I had to get away to give my heart a fighting chance.

In doing so, I made a surgical cut with iron resolve —no more church or high school friends or employers or family, no going back. And what I struggle with these days is what happened after I made the cut. My friends went on to attend college, marry, have babies, and attend afternoon barbecues together. I’ve contacted several of them lately, thanks to the miracle of Facebook, and they all wave awkwardly from the other side of the chasm wondering, Doesn’t she remember burning this bridge?

Relationships feel odder still with my family, which changed in enormous, unthinkably good ways after I left home. When I visit them—less than once a year since I’ve been married—I hardly recognize them. My siblings are happy and close-knit, every trace of their stress-related illnesses gone. After so many years of feeling guilty that I left them defenseless when I moved out, I am delighted to see them this way. But I am a stranger, by my own choice. They are with their family; I am with mine.

For the first time in my life, I feel pangs of homesickness for the people I walked away from. I chose a life of luggage tags and freedom instead of old friends and permanence, and this is absolutely what I needed. But as most choices in life go, this one has turned out equal parts bitter and sweet.

24Aug

On The Topic Of Cleavage LIVE!

Posted by: Bethany in Live-Blog 4 Comments

I was sludging through the dishes tonight when a game show, “Ciao Darwin: The Missing Link,” came on. And even though I so wanted to finish the dishes, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to live-blog a real Italian game show for you. It is an experience not to be missed. [Warning: If you are offended by cleavage, bothered by cleavage, insecure in your own cleavage, or adverse in any way to the topic of cleavage, you might want to stop here.]

So. By way of comparison, Italian game shows are very similar to nothing else on earth. Okay, maybe a violent sneeze draped in wet paint superimposed over a train wreck of french-fried cleavage.

Tonight’s theme was Micro vs. Macro. Contestants were chosen from a group of short/small people and a group with larger features—height, width, and in one man’s case, a Santa Clause handlebar beard stretching like whiskery wings past his shoulders. When I started watching, the Micro contestant was a mid-pubescent boy and his rival was a woman whose chestal region provided her Macro status.

Ready?

Fabulous!

—

10:16p – The contestants are led to a stage full of showgirls dancing in tie-dye bikinis, mini-skirts, bell-bottoms, and leather headbands. Half of the world’s total cleavage is present and being zoomed in upon by the cameras. Disco music is blazing, and the contestants must guess the decade being depicted.
Micro: “Uh…” (He may be unclear as to the term “decade,” being born in such a recent one.) “60s?”
The host, a boisterous middle-aged man already having a great time: “NO! MACRO!”
Macro: (Adjusting her cleavage) “90s?”
The host: “NO! MICRO!”
Micro: “Uh, 80s?”
The host: “NO!” He is thoroughly enjoying himself. “MACRO!”
Macro: (Giggling) “40s?”
The host: “NO! MICRO!”
Micro: “50s?”
The host: “NO!”

10:17p – Clearly, the contestants are screwed now, as all the possible decades in all the annals of history have already been guessed. The host seems prepared for this possibility and gives them hints until someone finally shouts “70s!!” To celebrate the triumph of reason, showgirls dance.

10:18p – On to the next task! The contestants race to get into a sack with a hippie (get it?) and then bob for apples. Macro’s cleavage keeps getting in the way, so she just cheats. Micro wins anyway.

10:19p – The camera zooms in on several prominent instances of cleavage.

10:20p – Now, the contestants must identify the band shown in a black-and-white clip playing “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Micro guesses “The Rolling Stones.” Macro is slightly closer: “The Beachies?”

10:21p – Once they have narrowed the band down to the Beatles, the contestants must list the band members. Oh boy.
Micro: (Voice cracking from excitement) “John Lennon!”
The crowd goes wild, but their enthusiasm is short-lived as both contestants have already given up on the rest.
The host, always helpful: “Paul…”
Macro: “Paul Cruise!”
The host, helpfully cracking up: “Or maybe you’ve heard of Ringo…”
Macro: “Ringo Rosto!”
The host: “Or what about George…”
Micro: “George… Clooney!”
The host, composing himself: “No, not Clooney, no. Here’s a hint: Harrison Ford.”
Macro: “OH! George Ford!”

10:22p – Cleavage!

10:23p – They begin to play a hippie hybrid of musical chairs and hot potato: when the music stops, they have to drink a beer that has been shaken with great vigor (and detailed camera angles) by the busty showgirls. Macro steals Micro’s beer, but he gets the point anyway.

10:26p – Micro, resplendent in a 4-foot-high afro wig, sings the worst rendeition of “Yesterday” that has ever been butchered by an adolescent male. Half of the audience sustains internal injuries from laughing.

10:27p – A group of cleavage and its owners prance to Macro’s version of “Yellow Submarine,” which greatly resembles the call of a horny sea lion.

10:29p – The camera zooms up under multiple mini-skirts as the showgirls dance Saturday Night Fever style; for the moment, cleavage is forgotten.

10:30p – That moment is past. Viva la cleavage!

10:31p – The contestants have to bounce across the stage on those giant rubber balls that people occasionally buy when suffering from delusions of fitness. Macro’s pops immediately under the weight of her cleavage.

10:32p – Cleavage!

10:33p – Cleavage!

10:33p and 20 seconds – Cleavage!

10:34p – Macro’s rubber ball pops. AGAIN. The host remarks, “I wouldn’t want to be the guy under you!”

10:35p – The contestants must guess the title of a certain song which goes like this: “Chi sarà? Chi sarà? Chi sarà? Chi sarà?” Micro correctly guesses: “Chi sarà?”

10:36p – The contestants are now racing on razor scooters while holding guitars. Macro’s cleavage seems to be steering.

10:37p – The host: “I’m getting really tired; I need someplace to lean.” That someplace is Macro’s cleavage. Yes, seriously.

10:38p – Commercial! A couple is making out with each other and with jumbo shrimp, which is incidentally also hanging out in the wife’s cleavage. Possibly groping. If you learn anything after a year here, it’s that Italian food commercials have a lot in common with porn.

10:40p – 12:29a – I start to zone out and only catch bits and pieces of the rest of the show, which involves:

An air band performing Earth, Wind & Fire songs
Showgirls dancing to Earth, Wind & Fire songs in glittery fringed miniskirts
The host showing off his pet snake (I do mean that literally)
Showgirls dancing in lingerie, some of which includes gold sequined nursing pads
Female contestants in their underwear escaping from tanks of hungry eels
A tall/short fashion show. Of underwear.
A man in the audience scoping out the thong action with binoculars
Showgirls dancing in a conga line around the room draped in feathers
A ménage à trois dance routing featuring—what else? cleavage
Contestants locked in giant tanks which fill with water when they answer questions wrong
A thongskirt
Me falling asleep because the show was supposed to end half an hour ago

21Aug

Conservative Hippyism

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

Dan turned on Audio Adrenaline this afternoon just especially to annoy me as I finished cooking lunch because he loves me so.

Remember this?

I used to like them because even though they were Christian (a requisite for my mid-‘90s music collection), the long-haired bass guitarist used to paint his nails. SUCH A REBEL. Anyway, I hadn’t listened to them in 150 years or so, and some of their lyrics startled me today:
“You can take God out of my school
You can make me listen to you
You can take God out of the pledge
But you can’t take God out of my head.”

I was still brainwashed a good conservative Baptist girl when the issue of prayer in public schools stirred up tremendous controversy in the church. I earnestly believed what I was told: that you would be arrested for having a Bible in your backpack or praying at your desk. Of course that was simple misinformation, spread in hysteria by panicked churchgoers. (If any of you are interested in the actual details of Supreme Court rulings, here ya go.) It never has been and probably never will be illegal to pray in schools; it just isn’t legal to force everyone else to participate. (I am so tempted to go ask the hysterical doomsayers of my childhood how they would have reacted if it had been Muslim prayer or Native American rituals or Wiccan chants being banned… but I guess that is just the heathen in me.)

The subject launched Dan and I into one of those long coffee-fueled conversations that remind us how glad we are to be on the same page. (He calls us “conservative hippies,” a fabulous description for two people feeling out the balance between standards and open mindedness.) We’re coming into that delicate stage of parenting where our preschooler absorbs every word she hears and works it into her own context of the world, and I desperately want to protect her from all the damaging teachings I grew up with. For Dan, who grew up in a different (and more, uh, functional) culture, the challenge is in noticing all the subtle hints of religious dogma that pop up.

For instance, I was reading a new picture book to Natalie today—a gift from relatives who no doubt found the story wholesome. However, I almost threw it away when we got to the page when the spoiled little mice realize how ungrateful they’ve been and start to cry. “I’m so dreadfully ashamed of myself,” sobs the girl mouse, who had refused to eat her parsnips on page 6. Wham. One little sentence packing a life-long punch of obligatory guilt. I know it all too well. (I decided not to make a big deal out of it at the time and finished the story—Natalie has a few years yet before she needs to learn about the religious-cultural doctrine of shame—but that book is never going back on her shelf.)

Dan reminded how much of this idea of making oneself miserable to be moral comes from ancient Jewish culture, and later, Roman Catholicism. (It’s not, by the way, from the Bible. In fact, Paul wrote a lengthy letter directly to the Romans explaining that forgiveness was God’s job, not theirs, and was free, free, free, free, and did he mention free?) It’s incredible to me that shame, a monumentally damaging emotion, is held up as a hallmark of holiness in so many circles.

I’m still unsure how to cultivate the spiritual side of my daughters in a way that will be relevant to them now. I can guarantee I will never be hammering the concept of obedience into their heads as the path to preschool Godliness. (We do teach them to obey us, by the way, just not in the vein of “morality is the point of life, now clean your room.”) Neither will shame or deeply burrowing regret ever be sensations we teach them. We’ll let them read the Bible in time, once they are able to process context and applicability, but there will be no gruesome history lessons for now. (Do you know how many Noah’s Ark-themed gifts I’ve had to throw away? I would like to punch whoever keeps insisting that the story of worldwide homicide and destruction is good for kids just because some animals were involved. And Jesus’s horrific torture, murder, and abandonment by God? They deeply traumatized me as a young child, and I am not willing to put my girls through that at such sensitive ages, no matter how foundational the story is to our faith.)

That only leaves the question of what do we teach them now? I still find myself a bit undone spiritually, decades of righteous BS unraveling while my true un-churchy beliefs begin to form. I feel bad that the girls are not benefitting from a mother who has her own convictions figured out like the mothers of my past all did (or pretended to), but perhaps my honesty in the matter will be enough. Maybe my lack of pretensions can accomplish what severe doctrine failed to do for me: inspire their spirituality to grow and breathe and seek out the truth with confidence.

19Aug

Gargoyle Daydreams

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

I remember her sobbing under blood-soaked sheets, moaning and gasping and stifling screams. She would not go to a hospital. Not to save herself, not even to save her unborn baby. Only when she had lost too much blood to protest was an ambulance called. It snuck down the street in the middle of the night, lights muted and siren off, to carry her to whatever help she would accept. The next morning, her living children woke to babysitters who told them “Your mom is away seeing a friend, now who wants pancakes?” Of course, who would tell young children that their own mother had been willing to abandon them to a darkly looming life and a pile of bloody sheets, all for a misplaced fear of doctors?

***

I find myself immersed in gargoyle daydreams so often these days that the filmy wisps of imagination are becoming stone. I’ve always been good at picturing catastrophe, but these dreams are darker than anything I’ve experienced before.

In every single one, Sophie dies.

I spoon applesauce into her grinning, teething, lovely mess of a mouth and try to talk my heart out of breaking. It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real. I snuggle her against my chest the way we slept in my hospital bed, all cozy curlicues and softness, and nuzzle her perfect dollop of a nose, all the while trying not to panic. This isn’t a goodbye.

I didn’t figure the reason out until tonight, while I browsed sites like Glow in the Woods, other women’s haunting and exquisitely beautiful stories of their lostbabies. One mama in particular wrote about the day her thirteen-month-old died, how she had known he was sick even when everyone else blew off her worries, and I suddenly understood.

It was exactly like that, seven weeks ago. We were at church when it dawned on me that Sophie was not okay. “Of course she is!” argued the other women, the relatives, all the grandmotherly types. “She’s just teething. See, her forehead’s not even warm!” And even though I sensed deep down that something was wrong, I let myself be cowed by the other womens’ years of experience.

After lunch, I couldn’t ignore the heart-tug, so I did all I knew—Tylenol, Pedialyte, kisses. I rocked her back and forth while her temperature climbed from 103º to 104º to 105º (“The thermometer must be broken,” offered a helpful relative) and consciously decided against taking her to a doctor. No American health insurance, and we’d be back in Italy soon anyway. So we went shoe shopping instead, Sophie limp and expressionless in her carseat.

She had the seizure in the parking lot of Famous Footwear while I was inside merrily trying on high heels. I ran straight out and was nearly bowled over by her lumpy lavender skin, her rolled-back eyes, her forced breaths. I couldn’t look at her again, not once on the eternal ride to the hospital. I just held her head and willed us both to keep breathing.

When we first arrived at the ER, the medical staff seemed duly alarmed. They slapped a “Red Alert” bracelet on her tiny ankle, and a team of nurses bustled with needles and machines and pint-sized magic potions. “Just hold her hand, Mom. Just keep talking to her.” It wasn’t until hours later, when the adrenaline had worn off and sheer willpower was holding me upright, that the on-call doctor coolly mentioned, “Oh yeah, this is no big deal; happens all the time. She looks perfectly fine to me.”

At that moment, I felt as stupid as I had that morning in church when the grandmothers pooh-poohed my instincts. It’s no big deal… What kind of idiot must I have been on the trip to the hospital, imploding from the silent pressure of holding back sobs? I felt very distinctly that I had been robbed of my experience and, more importantly, the right to intuitively care for my baby. But the doctors knew best. I stuffed the whole episode into some scraggly Room of Requirement in my memory and locked the door.

Tonight, it finally dawned on me that it was a big deal. Oh, was it ever a big deal. Because when I look at bereaved mamas’ photos, I see my own little girl. When I read their heartbreaking stories, I read mine. My story has a different ending to be sure, and I could never presume to understand the pain these other women are going through, but it didn’t have to end differently. If I had just… or she had just… or we hadn’t been able to… The truth is that a happy ending doesn’t erase guilt. It doesn’t settle this urgency to turn back time and do things differently as some kind of cosmic insurance against my dreams.

It was a big deal, and maybe it’s time I faced that.

***

I tend to flaunt my faith in doctors around people who are afraid or skeptical of them. It makes me feel wise, I suppose, and independent and so very mainstream. But there is more to healing than textbook medical knowledge, nodes of intuition and loving concern that matter. I know that, now.

17Aug

2008 Summer Olympics LIVE!

Posted by: Bethany in Live-Blog 9 Comments

The 2008 Summer Olympics are continuing to hurtle ahead at full speed, but only the infuriating sports are on Italian TV today—indoor cycling, fencing, the news. In an attempt to alleviate my own frustration AND shock you with my lack of sports expertise, I bring you my very first Olympic Live-Blog. You’re welcome.

***

12:25p – The Russian Federation and Italy are duking it out on the fencing stage, and I am feeling ready to stab someone myself. Their costumes look like they haven’t been washed since Medieval times, and their helmets keep buzzing with neon lights like a cheap honky-tonk. I know absolutely nothing about fencing except that the word “foil” is used occasionally and the points are determined by a space chimp suffering from ADHD, so maybe this will be a good learning experience for me. Positivity!

12:26p – What I’ve learned: Fencing is basically a violent form of “Hokey-Pokey”: You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and STAB STAB STAB.

12:26p and 10 seconds – The players (fighters? rabid astronauts?) fly away from each other as if magnetically charged. Each of them seems to think he has won.

12:26p and 15 seconds – The match stops again on account of them both thinking they’ve scored.

12:26p and 21 seconds – Oy, this is getting old.

12:28p – I should really change my name to the Bethian Federation.

12:34p – Italy is upset. Seems that the new technological improvement of slow-motion replays is “subjective” and “unfair” and “tainting the beautiful art of fencing.” I suspect this is because it allowed the referee to see Italy losing. In slow-motion.

12:36p – The players are having their wires adjusted. I have a hard time seeing the problem with steroid use or transvestites when there are bionic athletes running around in dirty space suits stabbing each other.

12:39p – Something exciting has happened! Looks like the Italian contestant tried to tackle the Russian one but immediately jumped away with his hands up à la EVERY SOCCER PLAYER IN THE COUNTRY as if to declare his innocence. Unfortunately for him, the ref has slow-motion replay at his disposal and is not fooled. Side note: Fencing should be a full-contact sport; it would be vastly more interesting.

12:43p – One of the players is hitting himself in the head. In slow motion.

12:44p – This match seems to have degenerated into ballet. There are immoderate amounts of leaping, and I think the Italian has actually performed a pirouette. (Next up: Swan Lake, with machetes!)

12:47p – The stadium has just exploded. Italy has won the ~~gold~~ bronze in a final score turnaround of 45 to 44. The Italian player is alternately being tackled by ecstatic coaches and made out with by an ecstatic girlfriend. Better yet, as a result of all this excitement, the television commentator has finally raised his tone from comatose to audible!! I, personally, am just happy that the fencing is finally over. I’m ready to see glittery costumes and backwards somersaults and ponder the mystery that is rosin.

12:56p – The morning-sickness commercial is playing. It is for a ritzy brand of olive oil, which a pregnant woman is slathering onto her belly, then slopping up with a spongey bit of mozzarella. Excuse me while I go throw up forever.

1:00p – Oh happy day! Dan has just discovered an online channel that shows actual gymnastics—the first I’ve seen yet these Olympics. (Nastia who?) The Swiss contestant’s leotard is an enormous butterfly, and I think that fact alone has solidified gymnastics as a career choice for Natalie.

1:03p – The gymnast is running and glittering in her butterfly glory and jumping, and all is right with the world again—

1:03p and 5 seconds – Fencing. They switched back to fencing. IN THE MIDDLE OF HER JUMP. I can’t take any more of this.

***

I caught snatches of Olympic coverage over the following hour, like the newswoman staring blankly into the camera for several minutes and Dan choking as the 100 meter hurdles winner was referred to as “one quarter redskin!” (The next winner was “black like ebony, very, very black!” Oh political correctness, wherefore art thou?) It’s a little disappointing to watch the Olympics in a country that doesn’t worship Michael Phelps or provide coverage during prime time or EVER SHOW GYMNASTICS or feature those endearing vignettes about athletes’ difficult childhoods (“Her dreams of fencing began to crumble when she was diagnosed with chronic good sense, but she refused to let that stop her…”). But you know? I’d take this over Bob Costas any day.

The End

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