Chapter 11 Sense of Self
San Francisco, 1996
Karen Emerson felt as lost these days as she ever had. She was still young: 33 was young. But not so much, because her primary role was being a mom now. Bethany had recently turned three; she was the young one. As for Karen, years of vigilant nights had left her muddled, always behind on sleep, alert to any odd noises, regularly waking up suddenly and unsure of when and where she was.
And fully awake, where was she, who was she then? Just someone’s mom? She was still in San Francisco, but no longer in the vibrant areas where she had begun. She and Bill had decided, sensibly and it turned out luckily, to buy a house during the downturn a few years back. Coincidentally when they got married, 1991, why not go all in? So they had made that investment and moved from the Haight out to the avenues. Then when Bethany was born, Karen had quit her job. And the title and salary and all the little things that helped define her disappeared as well.
Even her name was regularly in question. She had kept her name, which seemed the normal, professionally reasonable thing to do, she and Bill had both agreed. But Bethany had his name, which caused ridiculous confusion to all kinds of people you’d think would be prepared for this sort of thing. A fair portion of both their families just ignored the choice and addressed Karen as Mrs. Roscoe. Still that gave her a start, since Mrs. Roscoe was and always would be Bill’s wonderful mother.
Maybe the worst thing, Karen now thought, was the degree to which she lazily accepted her everyday lack of direction, place, and focus. This morning, nothing but another ordinary day. Bethie awake at dawn, quietly cooing while Karen tended to her and allowed Bill the extra sleep. Then the three of them trying to manage a quick breakfast like a normal family, except Bethany disliked sitting still and Bill started thinking about work, jotting himself notes or dashing off to put something into his case.
He had cut his hours back in the early days too, willing and serious about making sure he had a role in raising their daughter. Without it being a big deal, he just naturally came to the table – there was more work, of course they would both do more around the house, of course she shouldn’t be the only one in charge of Bethany. (Karen had been so proud, back when she was pregnant, explaining this to her mom. Who had certainly not gotten that sort of amiable cooperation from Dad.)
Now though, Bethany was morphing quickly from toddler to firm minded little girl. Developing her own opinions more than ever, settling into an easier sleep and eating schedule, able to occupy herself for increasingly longer periods. Bill’s extra effort was less needed, and certainly into the future Karen would be able to regain a better sense of herself. Wouldn’t she? As her own person, not just mom of this energetic and precious little girl.
Bethany would be ready for pre-school soon, maybe more ready than Karen, she sometimes thought. The idea of long hours with neither her baby or her job seemed unimaginable. How did her mom do it for those years and not go nuts, she wondered. She recalled, wincing, how she and her brothers had laughed at Mom going out and getting a job. At the very idea of her having something else to do beyond tend to the family.
Mom had done it anyway – kept a smile on her face and put herself out there. Took one then another secretarial job, and appeared pleased with each of them, although surely she would have been capable of more intellectual work. This was the 1970s, that was all a middle aged woman might expect, of course. Karen had mocked the pop phrases of the era too, the idea of Mom having an inner child, “finding herself.”
But now, didn’t Karen comprehend all this and more? The words may have changed, but, oh, the concepts were right here right now. And Mom, to her eternal credit, never uttered a peep that sounded like I told you so. She must have had down days, she must have felt isolated or like her mind was going to rot – but she brought none of that to the dinner table.
She had gotten herself out, stayed current through the newspaper and the library, forged lasting friendships with her women’s group and other back to work moms she befriended along the way. In all kinds of ways giving outward, Karen realized, Mom had also forged a better role for herself. She thought of how Mom would quiz her and her brothers’ friends, or go welcome new neighbors, really drawing them out with her genuine interest. And what a network she had built. Even after Dad died, after she retired, she had people to see and places to go. She did community work, volunteered with the church, just had lots going on. She did not, Karen was pretty sure, ever mope around alone, asking herself who she was or where she should be going or why she should bother.
I should call her, Karen thought, glancing into the kitchen to check the time. Somehow it was almost noon already. Better wait until after lunch, after Bethie’s nap. Use to be, the girl would be lulled to sleep by the sound of Karen’s voice on the phone. Now she was more likely to come barreling out of her room demanding to be put on the phone to say hello to anybody on the other end of the line.
Plus, Karen felt a little awkward sometimes, now that Mom was remarried. She was happy to hear from her, of course, but Karen got it that Mom had other things going on. Jerry, her stepfather (who Karen still thought of as Mr. Carlisle in her head, despite herself), liked to go out and do things much more than Dad ever had, and Mom was eager to join him. The pair of them now liked to take trips together – Mom finally, in her late 50s, getting a chance to explore the sorts of places she had only read about.
They had visited out here a couple times, and Mom and Jerry both had seemed to relish the Bay Area in a way that surprised Karen. Mom, who once seemed most satisfied just sitting at her own kitchen table, had newly developed opinions about politics and technology and the environment, to name a few. And she had a great time exploring San Francisco with Jerry. Of course each had kids living here, that was part of it.
Jackie Carlisle had married a friend of Karen’s and now was living in the midst of things as if she had always been a California girl. Well, she was always the urbane one, even back in Blossom Valley. Karen remembered how exotic she seemed back when they met, so tall and sophisticated. Funny she would end up here, rather than New York, where she had gone after college. But good thing they had been friends already, since their parents now locked them together.
They didn’t see each other very often, considering they lived just across town. And yet, it was more than just distance. Jackie had a full time job, and she and Tony presumably had a more active social life than did Karen and Bill, the parents of a small child. They had a gorgeous condo in Nob Hill, where parking was horrible (and again, kid equals need the car to cart along all her stuff these days).
When they were all out here, the last time Mom and Jerry visited, Karen had been stressed with Bethany’s tantrums, apologetic about the state of the house. It was fine day to day, just a little run down. Just meeting their regular expenses was the most they could do – no renovations of the 1960s style kitchen or fixing the regularly leaking windows on the west side of the house.
Everyone had shrugged it off, pitched in to get a big meal on the table for the whole blended family. Aside, Jackie had whispered to her how much she adored Bethany, hinting she hoped to have one or two of her own any day now. (Between leaning close, adoringly, to Tony, the two of them still very much the newlyweds after almost a year of marriage.) Thus far, however, nothing more on that score, and Jackie was looking more sleek and stylish every time they saw each other.
The only other child who had made an appearance, oddly enough, was Jackie’s brother JJ. Or maybe it wasn’t so odd that he would come trailing after his generous and worldly big sister. JJ had dropped out of college, to the distress of the rest of the Carlisles. Karen could hardly feign surprise at this – the kid had gotten into one or another sort of trouble his whole life. He was bright enough, but such a brat on a regular basis – maybe the surprise was that he had gotten through as many semesters as he did.
But now, here he was, a you
ng man living on his own, thriving even. Though he was tall and had filled out, Karen still saw the little boy in him. But anyone meeting JJ now would probably have a hard time imagining him little and innocent. He still dressed the part, favoring the distressed jeans and ironically hip t-shirts of the new tribe of tech workers who descended daily into the area. But he acted like he owned the place, like the city was his own playground, like everything old was just going to fall, to be replaced by new stuff that catered to the high tech world.
Maybe in some ways he was still the JJ of old, seeming a step or two removed from any conversation, warily watching the people around him, scheming in his head. Mostly, though, Karen now saw him as one of this ever growing horde of super entitled young people. The tech firms all were hiring. Everybody was leaping on board, every existing place needed a website, and a thousand new entities were springing up, all of them ending in dot.com, to chow down at the gravy train of financing being thrown their way.
So naturally, there were positions to fill. Somebody like JJ, a bright, geeky boy who liked to take things apart, would have his pick of jobs. And coming right out of college, he didn’t really have a perspective that landing a well paid job even with no experience wasn’t what anyone else considered normal. But that didn’t change the fact that the high paying jobs were there, and dot com workers were streaming here to take them.
Monthly, their numbers increased. Rents were skyrocketing, especially in the once working class and now hipster neighborhoods where poorer residents were getting elbowed out. Really, it was ridiculous – the last time Karen and Bill had gone out, just the two of them for a nice dinner, the trendy new restaurant had been over crowded and over priced. They had parked blocks away, waited a good half hour despite their reservation, and paid more for the two of them than Karen’s normal grocery bill.
And it wasn’t just the money, Karen thought. It was the attitude. All those people, driving giant SUVs, laying down wads of cash to get the fanciest booze in the place. Ignoring basic tenets of a civilized society – running red lights, parking right on the sidewalk, because they had so much money that tickets didn’t matter. The jokes about tear downs, where someone would buy a perfectly good house just for the lot and tear it down and rebuild a mansion to their own particular specifications.
At least on her turf, JJ had toned it down. She had observed him interacting with Bethany, who quickly honed in on him the way she did with bigger kids or friendly dogs. Better hope that all the girl saw in him was a fun uncle. Not the mindless consumerism and shallow values that were driving regular people like teachers and non-techie designers out of town. Although she should talk. In enough ways she had already driven herself out, made a little cocoon out here for herself and her daughter.
Karen rose and made her languid way into the kitchen. Auto pilot pulling together a light lunch for the pair of them. Sure as clock work, Bethany tumbled into the room at the sounds.
“Soup, Mommy? Soup? Soup?”
“Yes,” Karen murmured. “Chicken noodle.”
“Crackers? Crackers?” Bethany’s cheerful voice lilted upward, little fingers dancing at her legs.
And so on – she would parse out the whole meal, leaving no element unstated. Karen barely paid attention, focused on the food. But for a moment she did pause and take it all in.
Her daughter had a round cherub’s face, framed with delicate wisps of golden hair. She favored bright colors and liked to spin around or race with her arms extended like wings. At three years old, she was fascinated by birds. She had learned on her own how to drag out her high chair, which she did at meal times, face stern with the effort. Now she lifted her arms so that Karen could help her into her chair, and then sat patiently waiting. Babbling something about birds in the yard.
Karen turned back to her stove to remove the pan. The room smelled savory, nice, the way a kitchen should smell. Her daughter’s voice and the birdsong from the yard for background music, she set down the plates and bowls. Maybe the window leaked, but it was a bright warm room on a nice day. The walls were a pale yellow that set off the light wood of the table and block counter. The fixtures old but utilitarian, metallic. She and Bill had done what design they could around them, and it came off well. At least until she started comparing to brand new mini-mansion kitchen, Karen thought.
She shut that inner voice right off, and tuned back in to her daughter’s precious chirping words. Aware, again, of how fleeting these days together actually were. Knowing she should cherish them. That’s what Mom did, Karen thought. That’s what gave her that inner light and it must have been what carried her across the hardest times, raising three kids so much by herself.
She let Bethany help clean up, then sent her to her room to at least lie down. She claimed not to fall asleep, and Karen – schooled at picking her battles – never mentioned that she did almost every day. For less and less time though.
Once she was up and stirring, Karen did call her mom. She let Bethany say a few words before taking the phone back, drinking in the joyful sound of Mom’s laughter as they compared notes about the girl.
“Is everything all right, Karen?” Mom finally asked. “You sound a bit tired.”
“I’m okay, nothing’s wrong. Just wanted to say hi. Have an adult conversation, you know.”
“Oh yes, I remember.” She paused. “Still, there’s something so delightful about a child’s perspective. To this day, I enjoy it. And she’ll only get brighter and more interesting for years to come.”
“I know. Until she shuts up all together.”
Mom laughed. Karen too. It was a joy and a triumph that they together could speak so lightly about her teen years. Mom talked about projects she and Jerry were undertaking for their house, and Karen about things she hoped she and Bill could take on eventually.
Mom described work in her garden, and a local political race she was canvassing for. “Door to door at my age! At least people aren’t rude, for the most part. They probably open their doors worried lest I collapse on the front walk.”
“Jeez, Mom, you’re still middle aged, you’re hardly old.” She was in great shape, in fact, Karen had noticed the last couple times they had seen each other up close.
“Now what about you? I’ve been doing all the talking.”
“What about me? I know who my local supervisor is, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, honey.” Mom’s voice dipped the tiniest bit, the don’t-pretend-to-be-dense bit. “What’s really new? What are you interested in these days?”
Karen said nothing, and the silence spun out, suddenly longer than the distance between them. Mom usually asked something like this, it wasn’t a trick question. But she was hard pressed even to make something up. “I don’t know,” she whispered finally. She checked to make sure Bethany wasn’t right there listening. “I feel kind of, um, directionless. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
Karen sighed. “I try. I read the paper but then I get interrupted and it’s like I just don’t care. Or I listen to Bill talk about his work and I remember how much I liked being in the center of things, taking on new clients and working with them on the designs. But now I can’t even imagine it. It makes me so tired, even thinking about my old job, going to all those meetings, all that stuff to keep up.”
“Well that’s fine, but there are things other than work. What about your friends? What about all these new world wide web places I keep hearing about?”
“The only friends I hang out with now are the ones from the baby group. We mostly talk about the kids, or take them someplace for an outing,” Karen said. Wishing it weren’t true, but at a loss how to change the fact. “Or guys from Bill’s work, if they have a party or something. I mean, none of this is really my thing. I don’t think I have a thing, you know, not the way you always do.”
“Well, I haven’t always. But, Karen, now that I a
m older, now that Jerry and I do have so many things lined up, I could kick myself for the time I wasted. How I took for granted my good health, my free time…”
“It’s not really free time, Mom, not with a three year old.”
“Oh, of course, I didn’t mean you now. I meant myself over time. Looking back over decades, not months.”
Karen nodded, never mind Mom was on the other side of the country. “I know I won’t always feel like this. And I suppose I will get another job. When Bethie’s in school if not before then. It’s just – the work I used to do doesn’t mean much right now.”
“Well, JJ tells us that jobs are pretty to easy to come by in your neck of the woods. They must be if people keep making him such lucrative offers.” She lowered her voice. “No offense to any of them, but I don’t know that I’d hire the boy for anything terribly important.”
Karen laughed, agreeing. “He’s right, though. High tech places are taking everybody they can get, and young guys who know something about computers can pretty much name their own price.”
“Well, there you have it. You know quite a lot about computers, don’t you? You’ve been using them for years.”
“I have, but not like that. Not like programming them or setting up networks. Everybody is sharing information over the internet now. Pretty soon we won’t be mailing letters at all.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that be a boon to a graphic designer? Wouldn’t that sort of thing make it easier for you to pass ideas back and forth without having to go trundling off to all those meetings?”
“I guess, yeah.” Karen’s attention, which had been wandering, snapped back. “Actually, there are some new programs that are kind of bringing design elements to the masses. Bill complains about it, actually, that bigger firms are afraid of getting pushed out.”
“Well, I’m not encouraging you to go out and steal your husband’s clients,” Mom laughed. “But I do wish you’d get off your duff if the alternative is feeling aimless and tired. You don’t have to be completely enthralled to develop some new skills, right? But I honestly think it’s better for one’s children if the mom has some outside interests. Plus, a second salary wouldn’t hurt, would it.”
“Yeah, no kidding. And if I was mostly at home, no child care costs.” Karen caught her breath, aware of a surge of excitement she had not felt for awhile. Something maybe she had missed.
They wrapped up the conversation, but Karen’s head kept it moving. Mom was right – again. All those papers and journals she read, and that finger still was on the pulse, she had to admit. Desktop publishing programs were getting user friendly. Anyone with a decent computer could prepare their own stuff for publication – newsletters, journals, not to mention those ubiquitous websites. But not everyone had an eye for what worked on a page or how to pull together a theme across disjointed material an organization might produce.
Karen did know that stuff. Her eye was good, making things match and fit and look smooth doing it was second nature to her. One of her friends – the only one from the mom group that she also had known before, from work – was in the same boat. She had a little boy at home but needed to make money, They had been bemoaning rising costs at the last get together, how much more it took for the kids, how all those costs would keep spiraling up.
Imagine the two of them going into business together. It wouldn’t take much investment, a couple good computers and printers, software, a reliable home line for the internet. Between them they knew any number of potential clients. And frankly Bill should have some leads, those very people who were no longer willing to pay the big firm prices.
Karen stepped firmly into the nook of the living room and booted up the bulky old computer. At the very least she could draft a simple plan. Take some small first steps. She had no illusions about quote having it all as a working mom; she had seen enough of her friends frustrated by all the demands of that life. But something would have to give pretty soon, she knew that already. Maybe some sort of balance was possible.