Sunday, March 23, 2014

Wallpaper

Me, age 38
 
Twice in the last week I’ve almost been hit by a car.
 
Granted, I am sitting in my tank-like SUV both times these near-accidents occur, so I don’t fear for my life. I do, however, find myself wondering how the other drivers have managed to not actually see me or my car, which, embarrassingly, is as imposing as an armored military vehicle.
 
“Am I invisible or something?” I mutter to myself, posing what I feel is a legitimate question that seems to pop up regularly, especially at home among my family members.
 
Just the other day, for example, after growing out my inch-long pixie cut for a whopping three years, I am finally able to scrape my hair into a ponytail. Although scraggly and unimpressive, this ponytail represents a major personal accomplishment, so I am ecstatic to show it off to my husband. After parading in a circle in front of him, elatedly demanding, “Do you notice anything different about me?” I am dismayed when he replies, “Um, no, I don’t. Is there something different about you?”   
 
“Yes, there is something different about me!” I shriek, shaking my ponytail in his face. “You haven’t seen me with a ponytail since 2001! How can you not notice?!”

My husband shrugs his shoulders, tells me my hair looks nice, and goes back to reading his newspaper. “Oh, my God,” I say, leaving the room. “It’s true. I really am invisible.”

Next, I find myself in the kitchen with my three children, who appear to not grasp that I exist in human form. I am forced to whistle in their faces like they’re dogs to get them to lift their gaze from the inane game they’re playing on the iPad. When I ask them what they would like for a snack, they apparently don’t comprehend the English language because no one responds. I start tapping my foot like a nervous tic as I grow more frustrated. “Do you want a pear? Graham crackers? Strawberry yogurt?” They stare at me blankly, so I embark on a brief experiment: “Do you want CHEETOS?” I ask. “Do you want CHOCOLATE CAKE? What about CRACK COCAINE?” I am aware that I sound like I’ve lost my senses, but it doesn’t matter because my kids have already turned their attention back to the iPad, happily snackless.
 
I cannot be the only mother who feels like she’s invisible, can I? After devouring a magnificent book of essays edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner called Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Mom Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families (which, incidentally, should be required reading for every mother, and it has nothing to do with the stay-at-home vs. career thing), I realize I’m in good company. In her essay “Being There,” Reshma Memon Yaqub describes her mother:
 
“She was never the domestic type… She never cozied up to the stove or the mop. She threw ugly looks at the dishes that insisted on piling up around the sink, mocking her with their ketchup stains. But still, she did her home thing and she did her mom thing, and she did it well. She simply, if somewhat reluctantly, accepted her fate… She was always there, always in the background, almost like wallpaper, which, to a kid, is just about the highest compliment you can give a mom.”

This perfect nutshell of a phrase – “She was always there, always in the background, almost like wallpaper” – resonates deeply with me. Maybe I am around my kids so much that I’ve literally blended in with the walls! Maybe, like Reshma says, it’s a compliment that I’m invisible to them!
 
In “Happy,” Anne Marie Feld talks about her mother in a similar way:
 
“In home movies, my sister and I, long-limbed and small-bodied, dance and do gymnastics in the foreground. My mother lurks in the background, head cut off, washing dishes or zooming diagonally through the frame on her way somewhere else.”

I decide that I’m a lurker, too, lingering in the background of my children’s lives. Like Anne Marie’s mom, I am mostly invisible to my kids – headless or limbless or hidden behind a gargantuan pile of laundry – but if you look close enough, I’m there. Part of the scenery of their childhoods.
 
***
 
Just when I’ve gotten comfortable with the idea of being akin to wallpaper, something extraordinary happens. I’m alone at Starbucks, drinking coffee and catching up on a work project. “Excuse me,” says an older gentleman sitting at the table next to me. “Don’t you usually come to Starbucks to read a book?”

“Why, yes, that’s what I usually do,” I respond. “But today I’ve got work to do, which is not nearly as fun.” He smiles at me. I try not to gape.
 
“For years, I’ve noticed you reading here. You always look so happy when you read.”

I’m having a difficult time processing his words. He’s noticed me? For years? I always look happy? My head is reeling. As I turn back to my laptop and coffee, I savor the sweet fact that perhaps I do not pass through the world as invisibly as I thought I did.
 
But the million-dollar question remains: Did he happen to notice my new ponytail?