Love | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Love

3Oct

Starry-Eyed

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 7 Comments

Sometimes,
I forget that marriage is my own real-life romance,
the same filigreed fabric woven with
our luminous first kiss,
vows handwritten as love letters,
anniversary trips to Venice, NYC, and Rome…

Sometimes,
among the bills and dirty diapers,
our orbits colliding within the same four walls,
marriage lowers its starry eyes
and takes on the antiseptic green of
an institution.

But sometimes,
when he’s away,
memories sift like sunlight through the holes:
glasses of wine in cobblestone cafés,
the living puzzle of our hands,
the core temperature of our last kiss melting memories of our first…

And sometimes,
I have to turn off the chick flicks halfway through
because glamorous actors
and heart-nudging storylines
are only a Netflix imitation of
this.

12Sep

Soaring

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 7 Comments

“It’s that time of year,
Leave all our hopelessnesses aside,
If just for a little while;
Tears stop right here.”
~ Imogen Heap

My grandma passed away this morning in her sleep, just a few months shy of her 90th birthday. I nodded and mm hmmed matter-of-factly during the phone call like I had been expecting it, but in reality, I just didn’t know how else to react. I feel oddly disconnected here, as if grief politely stays on its own continent.

My memories of her flit in and out like animated Polaroids, grainy and mauve-tinted. We weren’t particularly close for many years—Granddad was the one with the root beer floats and sense of adventure while Grandma hovered nearby with a feather duster —but I knew she loved me. Beyond loving me, she approved of me in her gentle, pale pink way. My soul could flow free-form around her, a rare and deeply precious gift to my girlhood.

She gave me the best Christmas gift a ten-year-old girl could fathom: three colors of pastel eye shadow, a dark teal eyeliner, and the first glimmer of hope that my heart was worthy of a little glamor. She let me raid her closet and dress up as the socialite in my daydreams. She let me grow up at my own pace and didn’t question when I poured myself a coffee at age 15; she simply poured herself a matching mug and sat down with me to chat. She trusted me with family taboos and hurts, she asked me when she needed help, and she always cared. She cried the last time she hugged me goodbye.

Her soul was a bird, I think—fragile-boned and forever swooping between the vast weight of our atmosphere and heaven. As delicate as my grandma was, all vintage crystal and mist inside her skin, life couldn’t break her. Not that it didn’t try, but hardships were no match for that determined, devoted heart. In a childhood journal, I once wrote that I would be devastated if she died. Then, it was true. But now… I just want to cheer her on; gravity has lost its grip on my precious grandma, and she can finally soar.

31Aug

Colors Blend

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

“I hold everything that is—
sand, time, the tree of the rain,
everything is alive so that I can be alive:
without moving I can see it all…”
~ Pablo Neruda

I imagine myself creating collages from wisps of words and these late-summer colors that will flutter away too soon.

I imagine myself writing at the desk in my corner nook with the autumn-tinted curtains and the window overlooking the fig tree, maybe wearing glasses, certainly with a mug of something inspiring.

I imagine myself flowing with the energy that produces firm abdominals and freshly baked cinnamon rolls, open eyes before the first alarm and no snoozing.

I imagine myself hanging my personality on the line and letting the breeze smooth away the wrinkles.

I imagine myself dissolving the judgment I feel (or conjure) at church in a jar of full-strength understanding until the colors blend together and I realize nothing is going to explode.

I imagine myself floating away on a Nickel Creek song into the dragonfly blue with a cloud bank pillow and the sun playing grace notes on my eyelids.

I imagine myself drinking in the love around me with thirsty pores and watching the too-tired, upset-stomach, bad-mother days blossom into life more abundant.

27May

Mortification Monday, Chapter the Last

Posted by: Bethany in Mortification Mondays 3 Comments

You may (or may not) have noticed that I stopped my Mortification Monday series early on. Awfully early on. I mean, the soap opera goes on for three years, which is something like forty-five teenage lifetimes, and I originally intended to drag you through every mortifying detail. However… Well, first, let me tell you the microbot version of the story.

I fell for Igor Dreamboat (not his real name) when I was twelve. He was two delectable years older and the cutest specimen of eventual manhood ever to sprout dimples. And he was funny. And charming. And every time we ended up within speaking distance of each other, I was terrified that I would accidentally start making out with him… because, you know, that sort of thing happens all the time.

After two years of loyal infatuation on my part, he started to come around. Not that he ever said as much, but when he started holding my hand under the table, I took that to mean we were together. My teenaged heart did a somersault off the nearest balcony, and I ran home that evening to write in my journal, “I shall never be depressed again!” This is called literary irony, folks.

He may have actually cared for me, but while my love ran fathoms deep, his was a sidewalk puddle good for splashing in from time to time. Knowing nothing of relationships and being vaguely banned from discussing the topic at home, I was the perfect girlfriend for his style. I assumed it was normal dating behavior to show physical affection in private and ignore each other in public. I shouldered the guilt each time he broke up with me for another girl and welcomed him back with open arms a few weeks later. I forgave again and again, fluttering toward each crumb of attention he tossed my way.

It was an agonizing year. During one of our on-again months, I spilled the news to some of my girlfriends at a slumber party, and their chirping congratulations were almost too happy to bear… until the next week at school when none of them would talk to me. “You didn’t have to make up lies to be our friend,” hissed one of the girls before turning her back. I recognized the signature cut of betrayal even before Igor pulled me aside and told me I wasn’t allowed to talk about us. He said he had had to deny our relationship to all our friends and teachers, and he broke up with me for the tenth time.

For the rest of that school year, I received bad grades. My favorite teacher was pointedly cold toward me. My former friends whispered accusations behind my back. My home life was in shambles as well, and I cried myself to sleep more times than I can count. Yet I was so hungry for love and so devoted to the boy with the flashing smile and fine-tuned sense of humor that I waited out the lonely weeks until he was willing to touch me again. Only during those hidden moments with our bodies pressed close did the ache in my chest subside.

The following summer, I traveled to Mexico where I turned fifteen and heard the first piece of relationship advice that had ever made sense to me: Romance is a mystery, and love is companionship. Novel, right? After a few days of thinking, I journaled, “I’m tired of being dumped. I want a guy who’ll carefully pick me up and never put me down.” Then I screwed my courage to the sticking place, told Igor we were through, reminded him we were through, reiterated no, really, we’re through, and got over the first love of my life.

I dream about him some nights, always sweet, aerial dreams. In them, I am confidently beautiful. He is laughing and holding my hand proudly in front of our friends, who cheer us on. It is all very last scene of “Titanic.” Though it’s probably not kosher to be dreaming of other men while I’m happily married, I love that my mind has worked out a happy ending for the aching 14-year-old somewhere still inside me. She needed one. She has experienced plenty of mortification for a teenaged sliver of psyche, and I think she has finally earned her peace. Even if her dramatic journal entries WERE comedy gold.

R.I.P.

Mortification Mondays

2008-2009

7Apr

Second Opinion

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

A Middle-Eastern man walks around our building playing the one song he knows on his accordion. It sounds like a sea lion in distress, and Sophie wakes up from her nap in terror. The man stands under our window shouting “Signora! Signora!” and squawking away on his instrument for a solid five minutes while I try to comfort my sobbing baby. I know he expects me to toss down some coins, but I’m more inclined to toss the refrigerator at him. I think of pretending not to see him and dumping a bucket of water out the window. I think of yelling at him to go away, to stop tormenting us with his horrible playing. I think of throwing a euro coin at his head so hard it sticks… but he cornered me into giving him a euro once before, and I’m still seething at his undeserved gain.

I have a long-standing animosity toward illegal immigrants. Maybe not all illegal immigrants, but the ones who want something from me… the tall African men selling knock-off watches by the station, the short Indian men shoving roses toward us on dates downtown, the Albanian beggers canvassing the trains, the kerchiefed women knocking on our car window. I tell them “No, no,” avoiding eye contact and adding up their annoyance as criminal charges in my mind.

I’ve had ample opportunities to judge my reaction to foreigners since moving to Italy, where countless refugees take advantage of the long and unprotected coastline. It is my understanding that European laws require incomers to stay in the country of entry unless they are specifically accepted by other countries, so Italy’s larger cities are full of clandestini—unwanted immigrants with little hope of finding legitimate work.

An acquaintance of ours routinely yells at beggars to go get a real job, and I get why he’s angry. But my husband’s approach is the one that stops me in my tracks. He waves hello and smiles at the Pakistani windshield washer who works the traffic light by our house. Dan lets him squeegee the front of our car for a euro or two and asks him how his day is going, and the man’s face floods with light. His job has to suck—standing in an intersection all day asking belligerent motorists if he can wash their windshields—but he always answers cheerfully with many thanks and good wishes. He also takes care that his window-washing crew never hassles us like they do the other vehicles.

I did a mental backflip when I realized how different my husband’s actions were from my own… how, for him, the inherent importance of people applies even to those whose source of income is annoying us. I’m embarrassed to admit that this is hard for me to remember. Prejudice against other races and lifestyles is something I learned early enough in life to become instinctual, and when I see a peddler, my mind instantly buzzes with superiority. I hate that compassion is never my first instinct, but at least it’s started piping in as a second opinion.

Instinct: That accordion player is terrorizing my child. He must die.

Second opinion: He probably can’t find any other work and is counting on his musical talent (however dubious) to support his family. Just think what awful circumstances he must have come from if playing an accordion for tips is a better living than what he could find in his own country! And you can at least be glad that he’s not playing a tuba. Put down the refrigerator.

Third opinion: My husband deserves a hug.

6Apr

Genesis

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

Hello to all of you up there in the land of the living. Hello to you in the land of make up and home-cooked meals, to you who leave your front door on a daily basis, to you who get up the first time your alarm rings. You’re within my sightline now, and that’s good.

Civilization has been clouded from view lately, or rather, limited to a dim series of doctors’ offices. The four of us have been trading sickness like collector’s cards for weeks now, and our schedules ordered by nebulizer sessions and naps. Sophie and I are the lone holdouts at this point—she fussing inordinately and rubbing yellow goop from her eyes, I holding my cough-wracked sides together and sleeping while my husband cooks dinner. However, I left the house twice yesterday and realized I haven’t forgotten quite as much Italian as I thought. I can still say “buon giorno” to friends, and that’s good.

My list of failures is extravagant at this point. I have consistently been two days behind on house cleaning, and I’ve only managed to make one grocery trip in the last month. I’ve abandoned my friends and my inbox and my fingernails. The balcony planters are still sprouting last year’s twigs. Editing work is piled up around my ears, and the many blank pages in my writing folder feel like the worst failure of all. There is one and only one thing I’ve done well in the last week: loving my little family. I’m hopelessly smitten with them, my daughters with their sunny imaginations and deep blue eyes, my husband with his warm smile and oh-so-scrumptious hugs. Tender moments are alive and well in our family, and that’s good.

And spring is here.

Our wardrobes are switched out, the windows are open, pink and yellow flutter in our periphery. The world is a hundred shades brighter, and… well, that’s good.

15Jan

Headless Is Hot Right Now

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

For the past week, I’ve been mulling over Rebecca Woolf’s post about whether marriage or motherhood is harder than the other. At first, it felt like a terrible question to consider at all… Is chocolate or raspberry gelato more likely to make me throw up? Do I hate the guts of fresh spring mornings or crisp fall evenings more? Would I take greater satisfaction from strangling my husband or strangling my babies? But perhaps it is a legitimate question after all. Relationships are not always easy, especially among people who live in the same house, and especially when life throws itself in the blender (as it is so wont to do around here).

The answer was simple at first, and I’ll give you a few hints:
1)      Surgical removal
2)      Breast pumps
3)      Explosive diapers
4)      Projectile vomiting
5)      Screaming fits
6)      Teething
7)      If it is liquid, it must be spilled
8)      Preferably on the rug
9)      Or even better, on the sofa
10) Did I mention the explosive diapers?
Motherhood is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. We parents sacrifice a lot of freedoms for our children, including going out at night and shutting the bathroom door. Little ones have too many emotional and physical needs to count, and my idea of an exhausting day is hanging out at home with my girls. My precious, beautiful girls who have oh so much in common with tornadoes.

But then I thought about conflict. Let’s say (hypothetically of course) that I yelled at my three-year-old for grabbing toys out of her little sister’s hand for the 7,415^th time yesterday. One big hug and a “Mommy’s sorry,” and our relationship was back to its typical giggly state. However, let’s say (also hypothetically) that when Dan came home for lunch last week, I said “hi” and then snapped his head off and swallowed it whole. And while we may both know I was reacting to unrelated stresses, our relationship requires more than “sorry” to get back on track. We need shovels and flashlights and hardhats and paper for sketching a map as we dig. Then, once we finally unearth whatever tricky, deep-rooted problem that made me eat my husband’s head in the first place, we start the science experiments to find a solution. And then, once we’ve taken care of the problem, we still have a head to replace and a tunnel to crawl out of and some revisions to our daily routine to institute so that it doesn’t happen again… and I now need a nap.

The point is that both motherhood and spousehood are draining. Complicated. Scary. Hard. And far, far lovelier than I deserve. I feel wildly fortunate to live with three ~~relational guinea pigs~~ people who let me hang around despite my mistakes… and laugh at my jokes… and let me tickle them silly… and cuddle close… and say crazy things like they love me. As much work as these relationships can sometimes take to maintain, they are more precious to me than all the freedoms in the world. Yes, even more than shutting the bathroom door.

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