The Great Divide

I write this blog in the most decadent of summer hazes. On this day, birthday of our great nation, I am spending the day with my family on the lake. We move between the house and dock, eating watermelon and avocado by the handful and staying in the water until our fingertips prune and our skin burns. The adults sneak off to the guest house at night to smoke pot while the kids play boardgames and pretend not to notice. I am the only one without the designated role to play. I am daughter, niece, granddaughter, yes, but I am not child or parent. I can hole up in my mother's office, reading my book or napping and it will be hours before anyone notices I am gone. I mention this not with self-pity or sadness but with fascination. I am not responsible for anyone nor is anyone responsible for me. There is something incredibly liberating about that idea but also something slightly terrifying.

When I visited here two weeks ago I came with the mission of telling my mother that I've been working at the Lusty Lady. It took me nearly the whole trip to work up the courage to say it yet her reaction was exactly what I had expected. "It's your life" she said, "You need to do what you need to do." I hate this. My parents are notorious for their neutral reactions, their dispassionate approval of whatever I choose to do. Most children, I realize, would thank their lucky stars that their mother didn't write them out of the family will or question what she did wrong as a parent but not me. Even when I confess that with my college degree I have decided to work as a stripper, I still cannot illicit more than moderate approval from her. When I was younger I was convinced that these reactions were either some neo-hippy parenting technique or a genuine disinterest in me. Now I know neither of those is the case. I think more than a well-considered method of child-rearing or failing to give a shit, my parents have just surrendered to the fact that they will never quite understand me. Like my decision to live in the UK, like my compulsive wanderlust, like my preference for intellectual rather than physical labor, the two of them probably figured long ago that the differences between us are too much for them to pass judgement on or to try to change and they have merely decided that to do so would be pointless. Whether this is just another misreading of their actions or not, I don't know. But I am content with this for now.

Last night my mother and I brought our Scrabble game out on the porch to watch the sun set on the water. The pink sky silhouetted the pines and we could hear squeels of laughter from the neighbor's dock. "I'm training to be in Private Pleasures this week. You know, the one-on-one booth," I told her. She just looked at her tiles. "I'll make a lot more money," I said, hoping that this might make it sound better. "I don't want to think of men jerking off to you. How would you feel if it was your daughter?" She says this without scorn or even annoyance. "I don't know, I'm not a P-A-R-E-N-T," I say, and lay down the tiles. Double word score. 16 points. She laughs. "Besides, men are going to jerk off thinking about me anyway. At least this way, I'm getting paid for it, right?" I think in some odd way this is logical to her, maybe it even consoles her, because her face changes a little and she says," You're right." It may not be much but I'll take it.