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Somewhere in my mother’s attic is a dusty blue metal canister containing an aging reel of 8mm film. Our family watched it many times on an old projector, the moving images silent other than the rapid clicking of the ancient machine’s motor. One vacation scene is strangely meaningful to me now that I’ve raised children of my own.
Bathed in the milky pastels of aging film, the shot opens on a sunny beach in North Carolina. The camera pans along the shoreline, stopping on my brother splashing fearlessly in the ocean waves. His flaxen crew-cut head turns — someone has instructed him to wave. His thin arm flails only for a moment, before his attention is drawn back to the bubbling surf.
Suddenly, my father’s face is close in the frame, young and devoid of life’s eventual complications. My mother is the 20-something camerawoman, capturing glimpses of her little family’s day at the beach. The lens pans to my 3-year-old self, clutching my father’s leg, wearing sandy blonde pigtails and a purple calico bathing suit.
I hold my father’s hand and smile with tiny white teeth like perfect rows of shoe-peg corn. My dimpled finger points toward the water and I mouth to the camera, “It won’t hurt you, Mommy!” My father leads me by the hand toward the waves. As I am tugged along, I look back over my shoulder to echo, “It won’t hurt you, Mommy!”
I squeal and jump over foamy ripples, tightly gripping my father’s hand. But suddenly, a wave takes us by surprise and I am knocked into the roiling water. My father reacts quickly, plucking me, drenched and rigid, out of the surf, my tiny hands clawing for support. Smiling, he carries me quickly toward my mother. Just before she drops the camera to hold me, the frame captures my panicked face reaching for the safety of my mother’s arms.
The film goes on to depict other moments, but the beach scene was always a family favorite years later. As we watched together, we’d all add the missing line to the silent film at the appropriate time: “It won’t hurt you, Mommy!” And then we’d laugh at the irony of the wave knocking me down.
When my own kids were young, I felt overwhelmed as a military wife and mom in a world swirling with seemingly endless demands and details. I sometimes felt I might be swept away.
Why did I get so stressed about chore charts, bills, marble jars, carpools, parent-teacher conferences and the minutia of daily life?
“What is wrong with me?” I wondered countless times.
Now I know: I was simply afraid.
Afraid of not living up to expectations. Afraid of not being smart enough, cool enough. Afraid of letting people down. Afraid of being revealed as a fraud. Afraid of not being loved. Afraid of failure.
Fear was the underlying emotion behind every moment in which I found myself overwhelmed as a child, adolescent, young adult, military wife and mother. My over-connected, over-informed, over-competitive modern life threatened to hold me under, and made me feel like I was drowning, unable to catch my breath.
I could no longer reach for the safety of my mother’s arms. I had to find my own lifeline. I had to make my way through the confusing chaos of daily life, taking hold of the things that would lead me to solid ground.
Writing helped me to focus on what was truly important, so I could laugh at myself and the meaningless minutia I tried so desperately to manage. Submitting 700 words every week for my column also gave me the mental clarity to carry on through the various stages of family life.
And more stages are to come. Still a wife and mother, I’m negotiating the unfamiliar spaces of our now-empty nest. I look out at what lies ahead, and I sense the familiar mix of excitement and fear I felt at age 3 on the beach, standing before the great, big ocean. But now, I take in the chaos and the joy around me and remind myself with confidence, “It won’t hurt you, Mommy.”
Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com
