Lying. This is a biggie for me, being a child of divorce with abandonment issues. 

I can handle most any kid-related screw-up, but lying.  The phone didn't ring, allowing me to sleep until five a.m. when I woke with a start. I knew the second my eyes were open that he had not called.  I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and punched the missed calls log.  Nothing.  Lifted the receiver on the house phone.  No interrupted dial tone indicating a message.  He had not called when the concert was over or when he safely arrived at his friend's house.  Two checkpoints skipped and it was now five-fifteen and I was full of adrenaline.  I called his cell -- straight to voice mail.  I called his friend's cell. Same.  I called his again. Same. 

I got dressed.  

"Don't go over there. It's too early, you'll wake everyone up," my husband sleep talks from the bed. 

"Uh-huh,” I agree as I pull my hair into a ponytail and start to wash my face. 

I called his cell again after I got my shoes on and headed for the back door.  Voicemail again. 

I'm pissed and a little scared.  Mom mode.  Odds are he just screwed up.  Of course his friend's mom or someone would have called if there were an accident.  Or an arrest.  Or he'd OD'd.  And then there was the possibility that his friend's mom was too distraught over the death of her own son to tell me about mine.  Or they hadn't found the body yet after the car went off the bridge.  All this ping- ponging through my uncaffeinated brain as I wind up the narrow redwood-lined road to the house where I was going to yank my brat kid from a warm bed to kick his ass.

I didn't knock or ring the bell.  I let myself in through the garden gate, and down the steps passed the pool to the first door.  I knocked and listened to the birds and noted that the sun hadn't yet come over Blithedale Ridge. My cell rings.  My husband, urging me to go get coffee, calm down and wait an hour before I barge in and embarrass our son. 

“Good idea,” I say. “OK.”

I knocked again and a sleepy teenager answered.  My guy was across the pool in the main house and I asked the boy if he would tell him that his mom was here.  When he came to the door he looked worried, and asked what was wrong. 

"You didn't call." 

"Yeah I did."

"No, you didn't.  Get your things and meet me in the car."  I thanked the sleepy messenger and walked back up to the street and waited for him.

He didn't waste time, threw his things in the back and got in the passenger seat barefoot and bleary eyed. He insisted that he had called after the show, at eleven, until I showed him my call log on my phone and asked to see his.  Nothing since nine p.m.  Then he says he was too caught up in the moment, that his phone, keys and jacket were rolled in a ball under the seat where he couldn't reach them. 

Excuses. 

I am so relieved to have him in the car and that he is whole and alive -- and so fucking pissed at him that I tear up when I say,  "You lied.  That is the part that disappoints me the most.  Why would you feel that you need to lie to me? You had an opportunity to establish a foundation of trust here. It was so easy. All you had to do is call and check in. I want you to go out in the world and be with friends and see music and have fun.  I want you to show me that you can do this and make good choices and be safe and check in.  I have to ask myself, what would cause you to not check in?  You are always so good about this.  And then you lie. That's the worst part." 

Now, my six-foot, two-inch, one hundred eight-five pound boy is shaking and tearing up and apologizing.  "I screwed up.  I'm sorry, but I swear I didn't drink or do drugs." 

I nod, "Well, fine.  But you also swore that you called.  So there's that." 

I'll never know why he didn't call.  I do know he'll at least think about it next time, and hopefully he will get it right.  That morning I made him sit with me at the Depot café and have coffee and chat for over an hour while the sun came up.  He was clearly uncomfortable and really didn't look too good.  I enjoyed that.  His leash has been drastically shortened and did he ever make a nice Mother's Day breakfast for me the next morning, complete with coffee just how I like it.  He volunteered to unload the dishwasher and asked if he could help me plant tomatoes.  He and his brother took me to see “Star Trek.”  He accepted his younger brothers’ ribbing about how “mom kicked your ass.”

Sadly, I know I'll do it again.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: abandonment issues, call your mother, divorce, kiss his ass, lying, Mary Allison Tierney, voicemail

Stumble This Post

My middle child is all metal. He is a rock god. He’s twelve.

Last night was his second session at Cotillion and he learned the Fox Trot. He’s quick to point out that foxes don’t trot, in case you’re curious. Cotillion teaches formal dance steps and social etiquette that my kids can’t possibly learn at home.

I was a non-Cotillion kid when I was in middle school, mostly because my mother was in her rejection of the establishment phase circa 1976. Of course, it was ALL the other kids talked about at school the next day – the horror of dancing together in fancy clothes. But they were grinning like idiots and I knew I was missing out.

My guy, who lives in his black Slayer T-shirt and baggy jeans with ringlets down to his shoulders, cleans up good for Cotillion. He had been planning his Cotillion attire for two years, since his older brother was forced to attend.

His attitude was much more cooperative, provided that I allowed him to wear a camouflage tux with a top hat. Sadly, we never found one. In a navy blazer and khakis -- he’s still all metal. A rock god. Metallica's James Hetfield in a suit is still James Hetfield.

Last night they learned the art of proper introduction. When changing dance partners, one introduces himself with a first and last name.

The instructor gave an example: “Rather than ‘I’m Joe,’ say instead, ‘I’m Joe Clarke.’”

Each time he changed dance partners and was paired with a girl from his school, my son introduced himself, “I’m Joe Clark.”

 The girls laughed.

There’s more to Cotillion than the Fox Trot. 

Labels: 1976, baggy jeans, Cotillion, Fox Trot, heavy metal music, James Hetfield, khakis, Mary Allison Tierney, Metallica, navy blazer, Slayer

Stumble This Post

There’s a cold dark place you go when you can’t find your child. I went there once. This isn’t the run of the mill can’t pick out your kid’s head bobbing in the pool, can’t sift through all the hooded toddlers at the park, just focused on a sale rack for a second and now you’re on your hands and knees at Nordstrom.

This is an all hands on deck, EVERYBODY is looking and minutes are ticking by and your toddler is GONE. This is when someone gently leads you to a room so you can scream while they hold you.

I stepped into the Toddler Room to pick up my two-year old son and in the scramble for lunch boxes and hanging up of jackets, I couldn’t see where he might be. The afternoon kids were settling in for lunch and the hip-height chaos was all around me.

A few seconds passed before I could move into the room and peek around the corner to the area where I usually found him painting. Not there. His teacher saw my questioning look and helped me search. She opened the door to the outside play area, asking several parents and teachers if they had seen him.

In seconds, the entire school was in lock-down mode with all able bodies calling his name and looking in the garden, upper school, kitchen, parking lot, office. This is when it became cold and dark, and I was led by the elbow into an office. I remember screaming for someone to call 911.

Parents and teachers had begun looking in the creek that runs behind the school and were fanning out into the neighborhood when a local resident came out of her house and asked if we were looking for the little boy she had in her arms. He had slipped out the gate in the back of the school and disappeared up a flight of stairs leading to the Homestead Valley Community Center.

Like Popeye’s Sweetpea, skirting disaster at every turn, he had gone past the pool, through a parking lot with a blind driveway, along Montford, a typical Mill Valley neighborhood street with no sidewalk or shoulder, across the road, and up this neighbor’s steep driveway. The fact that he wasn’t run down by an SUV was a miracle in itself.

Ten years have passed since that day, and the two preschool teachers have since retired and moved away. I send them both a Christmas card each year and get one in return. I know they went to their own cold dark place that day, too.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney, missing child, Nordstrom, SUV, teachers

Stumble This Post

My younger sister and I started flying alone after our parents divorced in nineteen-seventy four. At nine-years old, I soon became familiar with the Albuquerque airport. I would descend the rolling staircase onto the tarmac, holding my little sister’s hand as we walked toward the adobe terminal and looked for my father.

He would be inside wearing Ray-Bans, jeans pressed with a crease, a big turquoise belt buckle, and new running shoes. He would pick up my sister, who is seven years younger than I am, and hug me too hard. Soon enough, I would learn that he smelled like pot.

The summer he wasn’t waiting at the gate, arms crossed and Ray-Bans on, I didn’t panic. The gate emptied and we were the only ones left. I searched the faces as we went down the escalator and continued to scan the crowd gathered around the baggage claim. I found a pay phone, expertly dialed “0” before the number, gave the operator my name and it rang forever before she told me to try again later. I repeated this routine countless times for several hours.

I dragged our avocado green Samsonite into the ladies room, helped my sister use the potty and held her up to the sink to wash her hands.

When he finally picked up, I could hear him smiling at the sound of my voice. Then I told him where we were. His voice was curt, insinuating he’d been told the wrong date. The tenuous grasp I had on my father was always in jeopardy. I never told anyone about this until I had my own kids. Only then did I panic.

He rapped his chunky turquoise rings on the Volkswagon’s steering wheel in time with the music and sipped on the cold beer he had wedged between his legs as we drove north. Five years later I would feel a chill of embarrassment during Drivers Ed class when I learned that this was actually illegal. It had never occurred to me that it was a crime.

Summer visits with my father meant backpacking. On the outside of my father’s pack hung a large clear thermos of Jose’ Cuervo silver tequila that I gulped by mistake. I thought I had swallowed the fuel for the propane stove.

My father laughed and told me that the next time we drank tequila together, it would be because I’d turned eighteen and he was free from child support payments. 

Labels: Albuquerque, Hip Father, Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

I fear that my kids will grow up to be the NPR listeners who don’t become members, even during Pledge Week with a free fleece sweater and a half pound of Peet’s for incentives.

It hit me that my son had seen every movie considered a new release. I know they’re file sharing everything – rest easy, Lars Ulrich, they paid for “Death Magnetic” – but he’d seen “Tropic Thunder” the day it premiered without the benefit of a ride to the theater and popcorn money. Most teens don’t open the newspaper's Datebook section, search the movie listings for where and when it’s playing, and ask a friend to go or co-ordinate a ride. 

Why bother when you have a laptop and Wi-Fi?

They don’t care about quality and they’ll see a crap movie twice. They just need to be able to say they’ve seen it, quote it, critique it -- and then move on.  They don’t want a hard copy gathering dust on a shelf -- it’s a clip, TV, a one hundred twenty minute YouTube.  Of course it’s free, right? 

It’s no longer a big deal to go see a movie.  They have lost their event status. 

When cable movie channels and VCRs became the norm we still planned around when a movie was on or if a movie was in stock. With DVDs, Netflix and TiVo, time was no longer an issue.  It was there when you wanted it and for a price you could watch it whenever.  Now with the ability to rip flicks on Torrent, instant gratification has found a new home. Advances in technology and convenience have taken their toll on the film industry’s bottom line and, sadly, our teen’s social lives.

At the now bulldozed Cine Capri Theater, I waited in line to see “Star Wars” in the baking Phoenix heat, leaning against white washed cinder block. Once inside, the marble floored lobby, it felt like a meat locker. It was an elegant theater with red velour seats that rocked. A heavy dark curtain would close and open. My feet didn’t touch the floor when I sat all the way back.  I saw “Tommy” in this theater, and pulled my knees up to cover my face during Tina Turner’s Acid Queen scene.  A movie was a social event that was a vital adolescent memory in the making. A film was a full experience unlike sitting in your room alone with a laptop and responding to text messages as they come in.

I guess entertainment is different for every generation.

At least movies are still around. The delivery of the form may change – but film has survived – for now.

By Mary Allison Tierney

 

 

 

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney, movies Wi-Fi, YouTube

Stumble This Post

Ten years ago I learned that one key to successful parenting was consistency. When my boys were three and five I found myself completely overwhelmed.  I took a Positive Discipline workshop with other consoling miserable parents, most of whom had teenagers and these parents were really not loving life. 

They told wonderful Afterschool Special-worthy horror stories, but then they would cry. At least my two whirling dervishes were in bed by eight, and I still outweighed them by fifty pounds if things got ugly.

Ten years ago all my fears were homegrown: holding onto the banister, keeping cleaning supplies out of reach, wearing sunscreen, standing up in the tub, jumping off the top bunk, wearing a helmet, asking before you pet a strange dog. 

The controlled substances were sugar and videos.

But now I have teenagers and I feel anything but consistent.  

I am three different mothers.  

I have three kids and each needs their own mom. I am a different mother in my thirteen-year old’s bedroom than I am when I cross the hall into my eight-year olds, and a third when I go downstairs to discuss Driver’s Ed with the fifteen-year old.

With adolescence comes the top-shelf fears: driving with idiots, indulging, enlisting, bailing on college, federal prosecution for illegal file-sharing or tattooing their band’s name on their forearm.

I haven’t even started dealing with the girlfriends yet. 

But if we are consistent, we three moms, it is that we morph like the beach. We receive the gifts and the wreckage from the ebb and flow of each child’s triumphs, insecurities, accomplishments, and frustrations. 

The tsunamis of adolescence can trash us.

We often look like a disheveled wreck even if we’re smiling. 

My mothering will never be mistaken for a balmy beach in paradise, and like that beach, I look better in the soft indirect light of a sunset.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney, teenagers

Stumble This Post

My sister, Dr. Kirsten the biologist, has recently published an article in a conservation journal focusing on the impact of the 1935 damming of the Colorado River on a now endangered marine fish, the Totoaba. 

The change in their habitat has slowed their growth, delaying maturation and thus spawning. The impact was documented by comparing prehistoric otoliths (ear bones) found in aboriginal shell middens, with modern, post-dam otoliths. 

It’s a teensy bit technical, but the bottom line is because of our ever increasing urban need for water, the earth’s natural balance is thrown off and over time the resulting change in habitat can no longer support many species. 

Two of my kids had field trips this week so it took me three days to read the seven-page article, but immediately I drew a parenting corollary.  

The impact of urban sprawl, big box store malls sprouting like toxic mushrooms in open pastures, huge home theater sized SUVs, soulless stucco McMansions and drive-through Starbucks, has eliminated our youth habitat.

Because of the dwindling number of places where our kids can safely hang out unsupervised and be kids, there is a delay in human maturation. (Not that I'm encouraging river spawning.)

In current youth habitats there's too much traffic, too many electronic diversions, too much stress to achieve, accomplish and be a resume kid.  The juveniles stay juveniles much longer (boomerang kids?).   I'll need to do some earbone core samples to support my theory, but I think I'm on to something.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: green, Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

Our boys hosted a garage concert on the last day of school. Three bands were slated to play and kids had been invited representing several Bay Area high schools.  I don’t recall ever fully signing on for this, and was silently panicking at the thought of seven hundred moshing metal heads.

I demanded a guest list and again went over the house rules of no booze -- no drugs -- no disrespectful behavior. Only one mom phoned to make sure parents would be home and I confessed that this was uncharted water for us, too. 

As the bands warmed up, our driveway resembled the scene in Bambi when the forest is on fire and all the bunnies and skunks are evacuating in a wild panic.  All wildlife in a two-mile radius had scampered or flown away.  The sheriff that arrived moments later helpfully suggested closing the garage door. He gave me his card in case I ran into any trouble. I gave him my name and number for my pissed neighbors to call so he didn’t have to drive back. 

The first two bands were light punk, if such a thing could exist.  They were loud for sure but I could still watch “Colbert Report” without a problem.  Then the hosting headliner band came on with corpse paint and a plastic skull goblet with homemade corn syrup blood for the full effect. 

As their mother I can honestly say it was horrible.  

Like a fissure had opened at the end of our driveway and drums as loud as a Hell’s Angels memorial ride and vocals like gargled nails.  My garden wilted.  Paint peeled from the walls. The mosh pit was at full tilt when the garage door opened just a few inches and a kid literally rolled out and the door shut behind him.  I was refilling a bowl with chips and asked him if he was OK. He was holding a broom. He said, “I’m fine.”

I went back inside and waited for the phone to ring. 

The first call was from a man who asked if they could please take it inside.  I told him it was in the garage. He asked if they could close the door.  I told him that sadly the door was closed. When I told him the sheriff had already come by he then claimed to be from the Sheriff’s dispatch office.  I thought it was curious that he had a British accent but told him I’d have the band turn down the amps.  He lightened up and admitted to having been in a band and I told him it was their first real gig with girls. 

Those poor girls.

The next neighbor was civil and politely asked if we could please never do it again.  She asked if it were perhaps Satanic Jazz. No, not Satanic, but in that Black Metal tradition of Norse mythology, the earth based pre-Christian… never mind. I’ll be pulling the plug soon.  She told me I was a good mother for letting them flex their creative wings and hopefully for all our sakes it was a phase they’d quickly outgrow.  

I gave the band a five-minute warning.

In the end only twenty or so kids showed and the bands were disappointed at that, but clearly they’d earned their stripes by the sheriff coming and pissing off the neighbors.  We earned major kudos from the other parent roadies who had opted to go out to dinner during the concert and were now loading amps and guitars into their sensible hybrids. 

While my older son was dutifully washing the corn syrup blood off the garage floor I heard a rustle in the tree and a mourning dove coo.  One of our cats squeezed back under the fence and reclaimed her perch in the garage. 

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

My sister, Dr. Kirsten the biologist, has recently published an article in a conservation journal focusing on the impact of the 1935 damming of the Colorado River on a now endangered marine fish, the Totoaba.

The change in their habitat has slowed their growth, delaying maturation and thus spawning. The impact was documented by comparing prehistoric otoliths (ear bones) found in aboriginal shell middens, with modern, post-dam otoliths.

It’s a teensy bit technical, but the bottom line is because of our ever increasing urban need for water, the earth’s natural balance is thrown off and over time the resulting change in habitat can no longer support many species.

Two of my kids had field trips this week so it took me three days to read the seven-page article, but immediately I drew a parenting corollary.

The impact of urban sprawl, big box store malls sprouting like toxic mushrooms in open pastures, huge home theater sized SUVs, soulless stucco McMansions and drive-thru Starbucks, has eliminated our youth habitat.

Because of the dwindling number of places where our kids can safely hang out unsupervised and be kids, there is a delay in human maturation. (Not that I'm encouraging river spawning.)

There's too much traffic, too many electronic diversions, too much stress to achieve, accomplish and be a resume kid. The juveniles stay juveniles longer (boomerang kids?). I'll need to do some earbone core samples to support my theory, but I think I'm on to something.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

I watched a beautiful sunset jiggle and dip through the redwood trees that lined a winding two-lane road out the small back windows of an ambulance.

I was strapped down and every few miles the driver would pull over and he and my attending EMT would switch roles, take my vitals. Finally, I asked, “Is there some regulation that you have to switch drivers after so many miles?”

The older of the two, the one who looked like he was maybe 23, seemed embarrassed. “No, it’s just, we both get car sick.” This cracked me up.

I focused on the sunset. I wasn’t dying. I wasn’t in pain. I was uncomfortable and sad. My husband was following the ambulance with our two young boys. We had planned this camping trip on the last day of school and they were so excited. My achy back I attributed to the packing and the drive. I had taken the boys for a walk while my husband set up the tent and started a fire for dinner. I lay down in the tent for a while and when our four- year old came in for a shoe tie, I sat up and pop!

A warm water balloon leaked into my lap and I just knew. I felt responsible for holding this crew together while I told my husband that we were not having this baby and telling our boys that they were not going to sleep in tents outdoors with s’mores, but that we were now going to pack the truck after forty-five minutes of camping and drive for a few hours.

We drove to the ranger kiosk and my husband said to the female ranger, “We need a doctor. M y wife’s not feeling well.” Just as she was asking what was wrong, I pushed my husband back and leaned forward meeting her eyes.

“I’m having a miscarriage.”

She told us to pull over. The ranger had two teenage sons who took my boys for some marshmallow and fire fun as the local EMTs arrived.

The Salt Point EMT crew included a young outdoorsy woman in her mid thirties and her partner, who was scrappy with a white beard and a clone of the Burt’s Bees dude in that little postage-size ad in the “New Yorker.” He is very gentle and kind and as he took my pulse, told me about his wife’s miscarriage years ago and how it was sad but that they went on to have several children. There had been some talk about Medevacing me out, but I nixed the helicopter idea. As Burt and the young EMTs loaded me into the ambulance, I worried that I might be too heavy.

After two and a half hours of a winding road in an ambulance, I welcomed the cool night air as I was unloaded. When I saw the entrance to the Emergency Room of Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, I was immediately panicked about what we would do with our boys. My husband found me just as I was being wheeled inside. He had already called our friend, Saskia, and she was on her way from Mill Valley to rouse our sleeping boys and take them home. They would wake up in their own beds and tomorrow this would all be over.

Inside the ER, I was transferred from the downy comfort of an ambulance gurney to a steel table with a disposable paper mattress and met the least charming nurse in North America.

The queasy ambulance boys said goodbye and wished me well. It was almost midnight on a Friday and the room was chaos. A curtain was drawn around my table. To my right I heard the wheezing of an old man and his wife crying. He was dying. Through the gaps in the curtain I could see a young woman across from me who was writhing, screaming, gagging, and had my vote for the best string of expletives growled in a single breath. She was having a really bad night.

I later learned from a nicer nurse that she was ODing on ecstasy.

Somewhere there was a burst of yelling in Spanish and two Hispanic men were being tackled and pulled off each other. They had been brought in with knife wounds and were still going at it with their fists. Their loss of blood and the alcohol content of what remained were throwing off their aim and they were losing steam.

So was I.

My drama was not even a blip on the radar in this circus. I was happy to be low priority. All around me was death and agony. I kept my jiggly sunset in my mind as the nurse came by to bully me and I cried as the final bits of our former baby made its exit. I was sad and tired and lucky to only have those complaints. I kept bleeding though and that got their attention. Bully nurse took one more swipe at me when she asked my blood type and I couldn’t remember.

Hers was no match for Ms. Ecstasy’s mouth. I was eased into a wheelchair and taken upstairs to a dark and very quiet sonogram room. I bled on everything and nobody seemed to notice. I kept apologizing. The sonogram revealed a quarter-sized bit of placenta attached to the very top of my empty uterus and that was what was causing the blood loss.

I was prepped for a D & C. It was two a.m. and I was wrung-out and had to be helped to take out my earrings and remove my watch and wedding band. Then I remembered the navel ring. We couldn’t get it open and the anesthesiologist and surgeon found that amusing so they let it slide. I asked the surgeon if I could have a pair of scrubs to wear home, since my clothes were trashed, and then I told the anesthesiologist I didn’t want to remember anything. They both smiled and assured me not to worry. I woke up coughing and a nurse reading a magazine next to my bed gave me ginger ale and wheeled me to a recovery room where I tried to sleep, but heard babies crying, and realized I was in the maternity ward.

We have a third child now, and the five of us drive through Salt Point every year when we vacation at Sea Ranch and I get a shade less sad each time. I don’t tear up immediately, like the first few times we drove through. I just get quiet. I don’t feel like we lost an actual baby, or a person, but rather a hope was lost or a promise was broken.

Less a death than a wish that didn’t come true.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

My oldest has the week off. None of his high school vacations mesh with his sibling’s elementary school, and most of his friends are out of town.

Before he went up to the snow with his dad and brother all he wanted was to sit with me and watch season three of “Lost.” I am suddenly his only pal.

This is a huge shift, and I’ll take it, though I did have scads of other things I wanted to do. I had started painting his brother’s room and needed to finish so he could move back in. There were books stacked on the dining room table I wanted to sort through and take to the used bookstore. I needed to buy mulch.

Now my boys are up in the snow and my youngest is welded to my side. She had an episode of acid reflux. The burning feeling sent her into a panic and I pick her up early from school. The tears and fear have increased the raw feeling in her throat so now we are doing deep breathing and she is in bed with me drawing and writing in her journal.

She makes a list: relax, breathe, drink water, and eat saltines… Her drawing shows a knife going into her stomach and fire in her throat. She can’t swallow pills and it sends her into another panic when I try to put one in her applesauce and it doesn’t work. It was the beginning of our girls’ only weekend and she was not up for much more than snuggling in my bed.

The phone rings and it’s my middle son. I’m happy to hear from him but I’m not so delusional to think that with endless pizza and violent videos he should think to call me to chat.

“Hi Mom! I broke my arm.” He’s thirteen and vague on details: ducked a snowball while snowboarding, X-ray, splint, Tylenol, out for the season. “Guess I’ll get my French homework done. Here’s Dad.”

Dad is even more vague. “He’s fine. Don’t worry.” I know I won’t get details until I can physically corner one of them.

I’m fanned out like a bad hand of gin rummy.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

My first bra was a hand-me-down. I have three older female cousins and I’ll never know with whom this one originated, but I did know that it didn’t fit.

My aunt told me that it was mandatory for a girl my age to wear a bra and I was under her care for the summer, so my time had come.

The bra was white cotton, with lumpy cups from too many washings and it itched. It felt like cardboard under my T-shirt and the straps pulled on my sunburn.

Riding a bicycle barefoot on the country roads in Texas in the summer had been a liberating feeling. But with this new-to-me recycled bra I felt constricted.

I couldn’t lift my arms without it riding up and then I had to stop the bike and tug it down. I was always pulling and adjusting and now I was completely self-conscious. Did it show through my shirt? The easy freedom of summer had hit a lumpy cotton wall.

Once I was back home, my bra went missing after a birthday sleepover. The birthday girl was a pain in the ass and had taken it out of my overnight bag. She told me she was going to hang it on the door of our classroom at school on Monday morning. I got there early to stake out the entrance. She didn’t make good on the threat, and she never returned my bra.

I did research and found a Danskin bra that I wanted. Sold in dance stores, this was the precursor to today’s sports bra. No hooks. No lumpy cups, and it fit. I could move!

Except for a brief flirtation with Victoria’s Secret in the 1980s, I have stayed loyal to the same style since I was eleven.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

My middle child is all metal.

He is a rock god!

He’s 12.

Last night was his second session at Cotillion and he learned the Fox Trot. He’s quick to point out that foxes don’t trot, in case you’re curious. Cotillion teaches formal dance steps and social etiquette that my kids can’t possibly learn at home.

I was a non-Cotillion kid when I was in middle school, mostly because my mother was in her rejection of the establishment phase circa 1976. Of course, it was ALL the other kids talked about at school the next day – the horror of dancing together in fancy clothes. But they were grinning like idiots and I knew I was missing out.

My guy, who lives in his black Slayer T-shirt and baggy jeans with ringlets down to his shoulders, cleans up good for Cotillion. He had been planning his Cotillion attire for two years, since his older brother was forced to attend.

His attitude was much more cooperative, provided that I allowed him to wear a camouflage tux with a top hat. Sadly, we never found one. In a navy blazer and khakis -- he’s still all metal.

A rock god.

James Hetfield in a suit is still James Hetfield. Last night they learned the art of proper introduction. When changing dance partners, one introduces himself with a first and last name. The instructor gave an example: “Rather than ‘I’m Joe,’ say instead, ‘I’m Joe Clarke.’” Each time he changed dance partners and was paired with a girl from his school, my son introduced himself, “I’m Joe Clark.”

Bingo! The girls laughed. There’s more to Cotillion than the Fox Trot.

Cotillion rocks!

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

How can this be possible?

How can I be reading the local paper and stumble across an obituary of someone I know?

I am stunned.

A vibrant, hip mom of two young children is suddenly gone. I had fun conversations with her about parenting and kids and politics and fashion while I shopped in her Mill Valley boutique.

I hadn’t been in her store for a while and I wasn’t a close friend. I didn’t know she was sick. We said hello to each other when we crossed paths on the street or in the market or at a coffee shop. The write-up said it was cancer.

This infuriates me.

I know too many Marin moms who have been victims of this disease. They all led healthy lifestyles. I try to be aware and thoughtful when I choose our family’s foods and food containers and lotions and potions. I take care of my body and try to scrub out all carcinogens from our home and environment. And, yet, still this bright, important mom, wife and sister are gone and it makes me feel like it’s all completely pointless.

I also feel that my time vacuuming the living room and unloading the dishwasher this morning was an absurd waste of precious time.

I should have been hiking or painting or writing an overdue letter to a friend. If I knew I would be gone in a few years, I sure as hell wouldn’t care about the dog hair on the couch or folding the towels. I’d be at the beach or on one of Mount Tam’s many trails.

More likely I’d be on the couch eating an entire vat of garlic mashed potatoes right out of the pan and watching a Viggo Mortensen movie.

My holiday cards might be late this year, and my house will surly be a wreck, because I’m going to get the leash and put on my trail shoes.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

Fourth of July at the Sushi Ran bar, I watched two metrosexual executive producer types compare their gear.

The more heavily accessorized of the two was experiencing major phone envy. Wearing a pork pie hat over a white do rag, Bono shades and a meticulously trimmed goatee wasn’t enough. His buddy was flashing an iPhone, and the Treo in his hand was so 48 hours ago.

I’m gonna get one. I have to get one.

He poured more sake into his tiny cup and looked very sad.

At the Marin farmer’s market, I witnessed another green moment. A vendor was describing his encounter with his sister’s iPhone. For hours they played with it. A customer interrupted scooping organic arugula into a bag long enough to detach his phone case from his belt. He flipped open the cover and the vendor moaned. Oh, that’s it. It’s good you got a case for it. . . It’s so cool . . .

My son’s friend got one.

Many parents struggle with the question of when or if to get their kids a cell phone. We resisted until I found myself hypocritically calling my son’s friends' phones to let him know I was on my way to pick him up from lacrosse. It is without question the best way to keep contact with your 14-year old. That or lock him in the basement. After we ironed out the $400 in text message charges, it has become a minor expense. But a $600 phone for a kid?

As parents in Marin we are often confronted with these moments of bewilderment. Tweens are riding $2,000 dollar mountain bikes. Your kid’s friend always has 20 bucks for snacks. Third graders have better laptops than yours, and now 14-year olds with an iPhone.

I miss Marin’s feigned bohemia.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

I don’t run the Dipsea. I do the Dipsea. I am not a fast runner, but I cross the finish line. I run parts, hike parts and wish I could lie down in parts. I hope for lots of fog. Like childbirth, the Dipsea trail is beautiful and tough and worth the effort. The labor starts with six hundred and seventy-six stairs and then its uphill to Panoramic. Not so easy to break into a trot at the top of those stairs. The word Clydesdale comes to mind. Some minutes later I pass the one-mile tree and slog up the street to Panoramic thinking there’s only a little over six miles to go. It's like being in labor for hours and learning you’ve only dilated 1 centimeter.

After crossing Panoramic, it’s downhill on jelly legs, navigating stairs to the street that winds down to the suicide plunge into Muir Woods and across the creek. This is considered a rest.

Dynamite is a gorgeous grueling uphill climb out of Muir Woods, lush and fairytale like with ferns, redwoods, moss, and birdsong. This I hike with measured breathing. When people running this section jostle me, I wonder what species they might be.

Then it's up and over the lip of Muir Woods and onto a fire road and trail that intertwine on Hogsback. An oak tree dripping with moss growing out of a split boulder marks the halfway point and the transition to the rainforest. It’s beautiful, but never fails to annoy me.

We go over roots and rocks in the redwood rainforest until the fire road again leads to the base of Cardiac, the last major uphill climb. I push the very last bit when I can see the sky. The trail emerges on a grassy face of Mount Tam with views of the Pacific.

Descending through dry grass and wildflowers, over a fence, down a rut in high weeds and steep mismatched steps, across a bridge and up gravelly Insult. I rarely make it to the top of Insult in time to take the shortcut on the road. I run the moors. Both lead to a very brief bit of tree cover before reaching Highway 1 and the quarter mile on blacktop to the finish line on very wobbly legs.

The finish. The beach. Done.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Note: Mary Allison will run, or rather do, the Dipsea Race this Sunday.

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post

Two years ago I had the privilege of participating in my nephew’s birth. When I arrived I waited behind the curtain until my sister’s contraction peaked and then went in to say hello.

“You’re a liar and I hate you,” she said weakly.

While it was probably best that she didn’t witness my first two deliveries, watching me sneeze out my third probably wasn’t the best preparation for this day. By then, I had wised up, got the epidural and it was a significantly more graceful process. I napped. I read. I glanced over at the monitor when I felt my e-fucking-normous stomach tighten.

“Whoo – that was a doozy!” Back then my sister rubbed my feet and fought with my husband for the cozier recliner.

I tried to explain the difference now, but she wasn’t buying it. I gently suggested that she get the drugs. There’s no shame in getting relief; no extra credit for suffering needlessly.

Of course, it was useless.

In this Seattle birth center, we had a doula; a Tai Chi master/labyrinth facilitator; impending grandma; two expecting parent biologists; and me.

There would be no drugs today.

I’d never been present for the birth of a baby, outside of my own three. I’ve been the big, sweaty, groaning mess who couldn’t remember how to breathe. Playing a supporting role was a relief. Holding my sister’s hand, lifting her knee, offering words of support and encouragement came easily.

I knew my brother-in-law wanted to be down at the business end where I was, to watch his son’s head crown, but my sister had him in a headlock as her contractions heated up. She wasn’t letting me relinquish my post either, with her knee and hand.

When Oliver Salish emerged, and feeling returned to my hand, his new grandma and I shared the most biologically bizarre sensation: the unmistakable tingle and ache of letdown. We were both very physically and emotionally immersed in his birth, so this must have been nature’s way of making sure the wee one eats.

Nice to know you can be useful.

By Mary Allison Tierney

Labels: Mary Allison Tierney

Stumble This Post