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Forward Trajectories
Mar. 25th, 2014 09:27 amSo, I sent most of yesterday chauffeuring l'il Jeremy to the UPS store, taking him out to lunch, and hanging out at Linda's house where he's been renting a room for the past seven months.
His mother called him twice during that time. It's apparent that she's very, very worried.
"She needs to back off," Jeremy said.
"She's worried about you," I said.
"I'm 25 years old!" he said.
"Right," I said. "But you are moving back into her house, no? With – so far as she can see – no future prospects."
I don't exactly feel maternal toward Jeremy despite the fact that I have a son who's only two years older than he is. I think I might have been inclined that way at the very beginning, but had to strip away that particular emotional veneer in order to work successfully with him as a colleague.
It's odd how that errant maternal impulse strikes. I realized the other day, for example, that I felt maternal toward Nadia, the friend from whom I bought the car. She's 40, lives with two friends who are roughly my age who are my contemporaries in every sense of the word. She's recovering from a severe illness whose horrifying details I won't go into, but I realized last time I saw her that I felt solicitous toward her in exactly the same way I feel solicitous toward my own two boys. Well. Men as they are now.
###
Motherhood is a really strange relationship to have with someone. Maybe it isn't strange for other people. It was for me, though, because I was brought up by a pack of wolves baying amidst the moonless ruins of the House of Usher.
I didn't have what you might call role models. When my kids were young, I started watching The Cosby Show so I could act on its revealed wisdoms.
As someone's mother, you loom so large on their psychic stage. They see you as this superhuman entity. But, of course, you are only you. A bit weird to watch kids go through the various developmental stages of growth and individuation and know you have such enormous power over them.
I left my own mother's home just as soon as I could at age 15. I ran away. Lived on the streets for three weeks until the Biermans, parents of a school pal, took me in. They arranged for me to get my GED and sat on top of me until I took the various qualifying tests for college admission. Whaddiya know – I did brilliantly on them. Scoring well on standardized tests has always been kinda my thing. In those days, education had yet to be commodified, and thus brilliant SAT and ACT scores were all I needed to get into U.C. Berkeley and Reed. I would have preferred to go to Reed – it was 600 miles farther away from my mother – but they didn't give me a scholarship. In those days, UCB's tuition was very cheap and I earned that flying back to NYC every year or so and doing fashion modeling stints.
###
Max has finally begun his law school applications and I've been helping his with his Statement of Purpose. This is essentially a narrative engineered to show that Max's studying the law is an inevitable choice, not just for him but also for the fortunate law school that admits him. Of all the branching storylines that comprise history, Max's admission to law school is the most important!!!
It's been an interesting process, and actually, in Max's case, there does appear to be a trajectory if you pull back far enough to see it.
This does not appear to be the case in l'il Jeremy's life. I don't blame his mother for worrying about him.
"So, what will you do when you get back to St. Louis?" I ask him.
"I dunno. See people, I guess. Most of my friends are in Springfield."
"So you'll chill for a week. Two weeks. Then what will you do?"
"I don't know," he says, sighing. "Maybe go back to where I was working before so I can put some money in my pocket --"
I frown. "As a clerk in that sporting goods store?"
"Hey. I got some great bargains there."
I'm not sure Jeremy realizes that he's going to have to start paying back those $40,000 worth of student loans almost immediately; that without a forward trajectory, he is – in fact – an indentured servant for the next 25 years of his life.
Damn! This is a tough time to be young.
His mother called him twice during that time. It's apparent that she's very, very worried.
"She needs to back off," Jeremy said.
"She's worried about you," I said.
"I'm 25 years old!" he said.
"Right," I said. "But you are moving back into her house, no? With – so far as she can see – no future prospects."
I don't exactly feel maternal toward Jeremy despite the fact that I have a son who's only two years older than he is. I think I might have been inclined that way at the very beginning, but had to strip away that particular emotional veneer in order to work successfully with him as a colleague.
It's odd how that errant maternal impulse strikes. I realized the other day, for example, that I felt maternal toward Nadia, the friend from whom I bought the car. She's 40, lives with two friends who are roughly my age who are my contemporaries in every sense of the word. She's recovering from a severe illness whose horrifying details I won't go into, but I realized last time I saw her that I felt solicitous toward her in exactly the same way I feel solicitous toward my own two boys. Well. Men as they are now.
Motherhood is a really strange relationship to have with someone. Maybe it isn't strange for other people. It was for me, though, because I was brought up by a pack of wolves baying amidst the moonless ruins of the House of Usher.
I didn't have what you might call role models. When my kids were young, I started watching The Cosby Show so I could act on its revealed wisdoms.
As someone's mother, you loom so large on their psychic stage. They see you as this superhuman entity. But, of course, you are only you. A bit weird to watch kids go through the various developmental stages of growth and individuation and know you have such enormous power over them.
I left my own mother's home just as soon as I could at age 15. I ran away. Lived on the streets for three weeks until the Biermans, parents of a school pal, took me in. They arranged for me to get my GED and sat on top of me until I took the various qualifying tests for college admission. Whaddiya know – I did brilliantly on them. Scoring well on standardized tests has always been kinda my thing. In those days, education had yet to be commodified, and thus brilliant SAT and ACT scores were all I needed to get into U.C. Berkeley and Reed. I would have preferred to go to Reed – it was 600 miles farther away from my mother – but they didn't give me a scholarship. In those days, UCB's tuition was very cheap and I earned that flying back to NYC every year or so and doing fashion modeling stints.
Max has finally begun his law school applications and I've been helping his with his Statement of Purpose. This is essentially a narrative engineered to show that Max's studying the law is an inevitable choice, not just for him but also for the fortunate law school that admits him. Of all the branching storylines that comprise history, Max's admission to law school is the most important!!!
It's been an interesting process, and actually, in Max's case, there does appear to be a trajectory if you pull back far enough to see it.
This does not appear to be the case in l'il Jeremy's life. I don't blame his mother for worrying about him.
"So, what will you do when you get back to St. Louis?" I ask him.
"I dunno. See people, I guess. Most of my friends are in Springfield."
"So you'll chill for a week. Two weeks. Then what will you do?"
"I don't know," he says, sighing. "Maybe go back to where I was working before so I can put some money in my pocket --"
I frown. "As a clerk in that sporting goods store?"
"Hey. I got some great bargains there."
I'm not sure Jeremy realizes that he's going to have to start paying back those $40,000 worth of student loans almost immediately; that without a forward trajectory, he is – in fact – an indentured servant for the next 25 years of his life.
Damn! This is a tough time to be young.
