Watch Your Head

One of the things no one mentions when you have kids is how many times you’ll say the words “watch your head!” - or how one day when your child is about ten, you’ll want to beat the pants off have words with a kid named Emmett who doesn’t invite your child to a party - but hands out invitations right in front of him to make sure he knows he’s not invited. Or how it will break something inside of you when your son tells you about it casually with a shrug, but you can see a flash of pain behind his eyes, and the tiniest quiver of his lip. I’m still pissed at Emmett (not his stupid name). My kid is long since over it.

There was a mailbox on our block that was placed on the outside of someone’s fence, which is probably a code violation, but I’m not the kind of a-hole who reports her neighbors for things like that. The issue with the mailbox is that it was exactly at the height of my kids’ heads when they were let’s say 2 through 4 years old, meaning it could have taken out either or both of them if they happened to be running or skipping or talking or laughing or roller skating past said mailbox - which of course they did a million times because it’s up the block. I felt, rightly, it was my responsibility to teach them to look out for danger in the world, or things that you might not see until you found yourself flat on your back looking up at the sky, dazed.

Photo by Benjamin Zhao on Unsplash

I think my mother subscribed to the school of “knock yourself out once, that’ll teach you,” but I never had the stomach for that. Or maybe I did at some point, but had it knocked out of me, haha. Anyway, new people bought that house a few years ago and now the mailbox is a slot, but it doesn’t matter anymore because my kids are taller than I am. Well, my son is, and my daughter is going to be any second I think. She’ll be sixteen by the time I write to you again. Sometimes I still say “watch your head!” when we walk by the house for old times’ sake, and my kids laugh to humor me, or because they know I’m nostalgic and take pity.

When we were in Mexico and my son got salmonella, one of the things I did not share with you is what happened when we got to the ER. I thought they’d take a look at him, hear that he’d been on Cipro for a few days, and hook him up to intravenous fluids and maybe a broad-spectrum antibiotic. I’ve been at this rodeo a while, so I know a few things. He still had a fever, and some other symptoms I won't share for his sake and yours, but he was miserable.

Instead, they did an ultrasound, and the doctor started saying things I did not expect her to say. Things such as, “I don’t like what I’m seeing,” and, “This is not normal,” and, “I’ve never seen this in someone his age before,” and, “obstruction.” He asked her if it was a boy or a girl because he is my kid, after all, and she said “twins” and though I chuckled on the outside, I was not laughing on the inside. He asked her what the worst-case scenario was and she said, “The worst-case scenario is you need surgery, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

So I was doing those mom calculations in my head, which sounded something like: he’s going to be fine, he’s not going to need surgery, if by some insane turn of events he does need surgery, he’s still going to be okay, he’s eighteen, he’s healthy, it’s going to be fine. Maybe those are not calculations, maybe they are my version of prayers, but they come out like assertions inside my head. Reassurances. Otherwise I spin. Anyway, you already know he’s okay. It was salmonella, two different strains. The antibiotics did the trick, the fluids got him rehydrated, he did not have twins.

Last Friday night I went to get my almost-sixteen-year-old (remember when you would add the months to your age? I’m eleven-and-four-months? Bwahahaha. Not anymore. I’ll be fifty-four until I’m fifty-five in February.) Anyway, I went to pick her up from a party and we were talking on the way home like we do. We’re close, we talk about everything and we were laughing and having a good time and immersed in conversation, when I pulled into the driveway.

Feels like yesterday. Happy Sweet 16.

Here’s a thing maybe I should share. Most women you know are always “on alert” wherever we go, in some part of our brains - unless we’re home and we know we’re safe. If we’re at a restaurant with girlfriends and there are a bunch of us, we’ll probably relax unless some guy sends drinks or walks over to the table, or does a version of a thing men do sometimes - like the owner of this restaurant I was eating at not long ago, who went from table to table as a “perk” for the guests, but stood next to my chair and started tickling my (exposed) back with his fingertips. Pushing the envelope so to speak. Then we might tense up, feel less safe, assess the risk.

Point is, we are always paying attention, making sure someone is watching our drink if we go to the bathroom, we aren’t walking home alone late at night or letting our friends walk home alone - and we certainly aren’t letting our daughters walk home alone.

I had to tell my daughter to be sure to never leave her drink unattended when she was fourteen, not because I wanted her to drink at that age, or because I thought she was drinking, but just in case - and also, people can slip things in your juice. A man harassed my daughter on the street that year, and I have to tell you the rage I felt - and still feel thinking about it - was incandescent. I dealt with so much incomprehensible bullshit from men as a girl - men exposing themselves on public buses and at the park, a guy who grabbed me in a stairwell when I was thirteen, men rubbing their hard-ons against my leg on crowded subways - and that is not the worst of it. The thought of any man even looking at my child sideways? It fills me with a fury that is hard to bear.

Anyway, we pull into our driveway. We’re laughing and talking. We’re home, we’re safe, or we should be. We live in Santa Monica in a residential neighborhood six blocks from the beach. I’ve lived in this house for twenty years. I know all my neighbors. So I was relaxed. Grabbed my bag, closed the drivers’ side door, walked toward the trunk-end of my car - and became aware of a man walking up the block in my direction. He was about four feet away from me. Blonde, tan, taller than me, dressed in dark clothing. He looked like a “normal” guy except for his eyes. He looked at me like I was prey, and he said “hi.” It was off. He was off. By off I mean, not right. Believe me when I tell you I am an expert on this one thing.

In my brain a million things happened at once. I knew I had to say hi. If you don’t say hi, you can antagonize a guy like this. His “hi” is a test. He wants to see if you’re a people-pleasing, give-Uncle-Henry-a-hug, polite, Gen X gal who is going to smile and say hello, try to “act normal” and convince yourself you’re crazy and he’s probably fine - just a guy out for an evening stroll. You’re easy prey if so, probably fun to toy with. If you don’t say hi at all, you’re a bitch. So I said hi the way you would say “fuck off” and I looked right at him, but at the same time I heard the passenger-side door open and my entire brain was thinking fuckfuckfuck because here comes my daughter.

Sure enough I saw his weird, soulless eyes widen, and by now he’d walked by me, but he stopped just to my right. Just far enough to my right that in order to turn toward my house and walk to the front door, I’d have to turn my back on him - which would be a mistake, of course. My daughter and I had locked eyes for a second, and she didn’t need any kind of signal from me. The guy was not right. She turned and high-tailed it for the gate, and there was nothing for me to do but follow, but I heard him right behind me, right behind us.

I kept my eyes on my daughter and the front door. I knew my son had gotten home not long before, and I silently prayed he’d left the door unlocked - otherwise we’d be pounding on it. I’d already reached into my bag and had my keys between my fingers, so if it came to that, I was going to turn around swinging. I was rehearsing it in my head, and reminding myself for the millionth time to get some pepper spray for my keychain, like I got for my daughter a year ago.

Thankfully the door was not locked. My daughter opened the screen door, then the front door and flew in, and I flew in behind her, and slammed and locked the door behind us - but not before I saw a flash of the guy's face bounding up our path toward the porch, eyes wild. My heart was pounding. My daughter’s heart was pounding. The thing is, I was so angry. I don’t know what he was doing. Maybe he was just getting off on scaring us, or maybe he was really trying to chase us into the house. I’ll never know. What I do know is predators are emboldened right now, and that’s what happens when you put a predator in the Oval Office.

I was upset my guard was down. That I didn’t scream bloody murder. That this man scared me and my daughter in our driveway, on our path, right up to our front door - because I had the audacity to relax for a minute. To imagine we were safe. I should be able to keep my daughter safe, goddammit. Even more, though - I shouldn’t have to keep her safe from fucked up men.

I know we can’t keep our kids safe from everything. I understand that. My cousin lost his little boy to a brain tumor when he was six years old. I hope you are never, ever at a funeral with a tiny coffin. I cry when I think of it. Not just the tiny coffin, but the enormity of the loss. My cousin’s hand flying up to cover his mouth when our eyes met. It does me in. I cry, instantly, when I think of all the families in Texas who just sent their little girls to camp. That’s all they did, it’s the most normal thing in the world.

When you know what it is to have an eight-year-old, you know what it is to think of your eight-year-old in those circumstances, and it destroys you. All the kids, the counselors, the kids who made it, the people who risked their lives to rescue people. My heart. I don’t know what to do with all the pain, which is maybe why I cannot understand people who want to cause pain.

I don’t understand people who genuinely only care that they are safe, but really don’t care if anyone else is. Not really, not in a way that matters or goes beyond lip service. I think it must be awful to have blinders on that way, to shrug your shoulders and congratulate yourself for your good choices, when it’s really just luck. I posted something on one of my socials about Medicaid cuts last week, and about ongoing ICE raids here in Los Angeles which are absolutely brutal and cruel by any thinking, feeling, breathing person’s standards - and this guy I used to know - I watched him grow up, actually - he said, well, at least this administration isn’t full of Socialists. He said the Democratic Party had lost him.

I said it isn’t about parties anymore - wrong is wrong. The people in the White House are not Republicans, they’re Christo-fascists and white nationalists and tech billionaires who’ve overtaken the Republican Party. They don’t care about America or democracy or us. They don’t care about anything except their own agenda, power, money, cruelty and control. It’s painful because it’s intentional. The people who voted for this and still support it must think they get some measure of protection from being on the “inside” but they are mistaken. There’s no honor or loyalty amongst thieves. They will not be there when times get tough.

Also - the weather doesn’t care who you voted for. The flash flood won’t stop and ask, and neither will the wildfire. Danger can find you anywhere, even in your driveway. It can grow inside your child, and if you’re lucky, a doctor will find it and stop it - assuming you can afford health insurance and hospital visits. There will be disaster relief funds or there won’t. There will be money to help rebuild, people to show up with a warm meal, someone to make sure you have a place to sleep…or you’ll be on your own. It isn’t “socialism” to invest in the planet, it’s caring about future generations and recognizing we’re part of something so much greater than our tiny little selves.

Having said that, each tiny little self is pretty extraordinary. You should definitely watch your head.

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