Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Honestly

Posted July 29, 2008
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Birdy

Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.

Little Miss I'd-better-grow-up-to-be-a-gangster-rapper is musing aloud in the car about all the things she'll have one day - in the car. " I'm going to have a swimming pool in my car! And a swing set! That will surely make the time pass away." There's a brief silence during which I consider Birdy's recent adoption of "pass away" - a morbidly eloquent little malapropism that always makes me picture a clock keeling over dead in its sleep. I also consider the image of a gold-and-diamond-draped Birdy sipping a Snickers-tini while she hangs from her limo's monkey bars. "That sounds like fun," I say. "But do you think I will?" she asks. "Do you think I really will have a swing set in my car when I grow up?" And I say, "Really really? I guess not." And I hear her sigh.

I worry that I'm too honest. Not in the way they ask you to discuss your weaknesses during a job interview and you say your penmanship is so good that it almost makes your handwriting too easy to read! I mean it in the bad, dream-killing way. Years and years ago I once wrote a column about Ben announcing idly in the car, "Hey, I just saw a pair of polar bears swimming in the river!" I explained to him that he was likely seeing a combination of ice and snow, but when I recounted this response in my column, a reader wrote in to say, "Nice job pissing on your son's imagination." (Those were not her exact words.) I thought about this for a long time; I think about it still. What would you have said? "That's right, sweetie! There they are! I sure hope it's cold enough for them, here in Cummington, Massachusetts. Oh, and there's another giraffe!" And yet - I know what that reader meant. I do.

And so, today, when Birdy brought in her drawing of a Care Bear and asked me if I liked it, I said, "I love it!" Which was the absolute truth. What was not to love, with its crooked and whiskery little face, its crooked and happy little smile? "But does it look like a bear?" I looked at the drawing, at its ears, in particular, which soared from the bear's head like skyscrapers until they were almost off the page. "Kind of like a bear crossed with a rabbit," I said cheerfully, like the friendly wrecking ball I can be. Birdy's open face closed shop, her smile flattened into a grim line, and she said, "I wanted it to look only like a bear," before sagging out of the room.

I looked at Ben, who was eating his breakfast next to me, and he shrugged. "It's important to be honest," he offered, like a tender kiss on the head of a small child, and I said, "Thanks honey." I think Ben's more like me. A while back when he was contentedly describing how ungifted he was at sports, I said, "Oh please, honey. You come by it honestly. I think I was picked last for every team until I turned thirty" - and he beamed. But a friend was vaguely horrified that I hadn't worked harder to persuade him that he's actually good at sports. As is often the case: I don't know what to think.

I could catalogue the shortcomings of even my nearest and dearest as effortlessly as I might pluck petals from a daisy, and it's either a loving kind of ruthlessness or a ruthless kind of love, I'm not sure which. But I kind of love to be teased and criticized - it makes me feel seen. Known. Or maybe it just makes me feel like I have someone's attention, even for a second. Like the time Ben came in and I exclaimed over my full belly, which I had stuck out for him. "Meet your lunch sister," I said, " her name is Trader Joe's Chili Cheese Tamale," and he said, "Wow! You totally look pregnant for real! I can't believe that's just your actual fat stomach!" And I couldn't have been happier. Our dog was the same way. She would take being scratched on the head with your toenails over no scratching at all. Although that might be a bad example, since she had a special fondness for toes.

But in the car, Birdy's back to her episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Childish. "What about a roller coaster?" she asks. "A small one like the Dragon Wagon? Do you think I might be able to have that in a car one day when I'm a grown-up?" And I don't know if she's totally serious or not, but I say, "Who knows? Stranger things have happened."

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Honestly

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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