Dear God:
      Do you know what she came for? Blue eyes. New, blue eyes, She said. Like she was buying shoes. "I'd like a pair of new blue eyes." Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
 
Pecola thought that if she had blue eyes she would become beautiful and her parents would stop fighting. She was just one of the many who believed that having blue eyes would make her and everything around her beautiful, only to end up with self-hatred and self-mutilation. Today the more sophisticated and affluent among us use plastic surgery to fix thick lips and wide noses. No longer do we have to suffer with Negroid crinkles, contours and curves. But oh, those tell-tale eyes.
      It would have been easy for me to share the same sentiments as Pecola. The ideal girl had always been shown in my nursery books as having blond hair and blue eyes. Furthermore, the advertisements shown on television, in magazines and at the movies had all displayed the same ideal beauty as my nursery books did. However, the difference between Pecola and me was we had different mothers.
      Most important, children learn behaviors from their parents, and most children identify with the parent of the same sex and internalize his or her behavioral pattern. Pecola's mother, Pauline, was consumed with the unhealthy ideals of the society and so she was unable to be a proper role model to her daughter. Instead, she forced her fears on her daughter. My mother, on the other hand, gave to me a strong foundation on which to build from. She respected and valued herself, and as a result, I was able to develop a strong sense of self. However, like Pauline my mother was also taken in by society's views. Society had stilled her voice and she tried to take away mine. Ironically, it was only after reading a passage from The Bluest Eye that I was able to comprehend the conflicts that my mother had endured.
    Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, "Do this." White children said, "Give me that." White men said "Come here." Black men said, "Lay down." The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other.
 &nbnsp;   This passage sent me to the core of my childhood and allowed me to view with a better understanding the conflicts that my mother endured, being a woman, mother and a wife. My mother always said that one of her greatest frustrations with me was my mouth. She would tell me to do something and I would ask her: Why? Because of this, I was whipped often. Her exact words while whipping me were, "I can't take it from that witch and her family at work and come home to your mouth as well." Just like Pauline my mother had worked in a home taking care of a white family here in America. I always wondered why she would whip me for asking questions, as she herself was someone who asked questions and spoke her mind quite often to her friends and family. What I did not know was that my mother never spoke her mind in front of her boss for fear of losing the paycheck that helped to provide for her family. What I also did not know was it was a precept of the times that women's voices should not be heard. I now understand that her home was her only podium, where she could express herself without fear of retribution. I am at the age to comprehend that life for my mother and many other black women was a perilous ordeal and still continues to be. Trying to stay afloat in a society that is determined to keep us women down can be life- stunting, physically and mentally. Consequently, my mother kept her sanity, it would seem, by making the only voice in our home hers. Although this was wrong, I think it was her way of getting the respect she was denied by her employer and society.
      I did not have to call my mother by her surname like Pecola. Neither did she ever make me think I was ugly or worthless. Nevertheless, she did stifle me by not allowing me to express myself freely. As a child, I wanted to be my mother's special girl. I was always looking for signs of love and approval in her eyes. In my fantasy she adored me, spoke to me gently, lovingly, and was my protector. But there was a world of difference between the relationship I craved and the one I actually had with my mother.
      Mama was a good woman. She was smart, stern and confident to a point. I don't remember ever wondering where she was, but while I had the benefits of her physical presence every day, emotionally she was miles away. Throughout the years I longed for a closer relationship with my mother and as I grew older I tried to fashion it. Even after I had moved away from home, when I visited I would hug and kiss her upon entering the door. My mother is deceased now and I am glad that I reached out to her while she was here, but even though I managed to build a bridge to my mother near the end of her life, a real distance separated us. I never succeeded in making that deeper emotional connection I yearned for. However, I have made a conscious decision to focus on the gifts my mother gave me. As an adult I feel grateful for many of those stern ways that caused me pain as a youngster, because those stern ways taught me the tools for survival. These days I am examining my mother's life, and the more I learn about my mother's childhood and the experiences that shaped her, the less I take her behavior personally. People can only be who they are, and we bring who we are, the good and the bad, to our relationships. There is much for us to forgive and thank our parents for. I know; I am a parent. I only hope my children will be as generous with me.
      Equally important is the conflict my mother endured as a wife. In The Bluest Eye Pauline sometimes wondered why she didn't leave her husband. In fact, she stated:

I started to leave him once but something came up. Once, after he tried to set the house on fire, I was all set in my mind to go. I can't even member now what held me. He sure ain't give me much of a life. But it wasn't all bad.

"...I observe that the expectation of evil is more bitter than the suffering..."(p.181).

      Only after several readings of different portions of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and several attempts at drafting a different type of paper, did I finally decide upon using this particular quotation. For me the best kind of writing is the one that does itself, and this quote is the basis for that kind of writing. All I have to do is hold the pen.
      My first recollection of being "locked into" fear (aside from the boogey man, ghosts and witches) was the first time I had to be absent from school for several days. I believe I was ill with a sore throat and fever. At the age of five or six, an hour often feels like a day, and a day like a week, so to be out of school for four days seemed quite a LONG time. Anyway, I remember my mother finally telling me I could go back to school the next morning. While part of me was happy and excited at the thought of seeing my friends and my teacher, the other part of me was terrified. What if when I got to my classroom no one talked to me? (because I hadn't been there). What if my teacher was mad at me? (because I hadn't been there). What if they all made fun of me? (because I hadn't been there). What if I didn't know any answers? (because I hadn't been there). I would die: I just knew I would. Well, after several hours of this kind of thinking along with the escalating of fear and anxiety that accompanied it, I really didn't have to worry about school the next day; I was making myself too sick to go back! The next morning after refusing to eat breakfast (which my mother said I was too excited to eat), I got dressed in my favorite outfit (red corduroy pants, checkered shirt- -with solid red scarf, red socks and white sneakers), and sat on the couch-waiting for my older sister, Susan, to finish getting ready to take me to school. The old fear-thoughts started again, and this time I had neither the comforts of my bedcovers nor of a day's respite. With that realization I threw up, all over myself and my chance to return to school. On the third morning that pattern failed. I really did recover, and my re-entry into first grade was in reality very pleasant. My friends crowded around me; my teacher greeted me warmly; and the most negative thing that occurred was that I forgot my milk and cookie money which I was told I could bring in the next day. This memory agrees intellectually and somatically with Crusoe's above-quoted observation.
      The application of this quotation is not limited in my experience to my early youth. I have been "locked into" fear and acted in direct opposition to it many a time and more often than not been surprised and rewarded by the results. My marital separation and subsequent divorce was such an experience. At the time of my separation, my son, Terence, was five years old (one of the first full-day kindergartners) and my daughter, Maryellen, was two and a half (a terrible toddler). While there had been arguments and cold-war silences and an ever- growing accumulation of heart hurts, major disappointments, and financial failures, there was also a desperate desire to keep the marriage together.
      We sought help through our minister and a marriage counselor. After several months of couple therapy, I realized that the only recourse was an end to the marriage. I was terrified. Wanting my freedom was one thing. Breaking up a home and taking the responsibility for raising two children alone was another. All the horror stories I had heard about `single parent' households flooded my head. Terence became a tragic juvenile statistic and Maryellen an unwed mother at best. These were two of my more positive visions of the future. How would I support them? Would we lose the house? I thought we would drown in my inadequacy. Only through listening to my own voice, sharing with friends and family and accepting their help and guidance was I able to act on what I knew to be the best for me, my children and even for my ex-husband. The night he came and packed his clothes to move into his parent's home came and went. I remember sitting on my couch after he had left with his father, saying to myself, "so this is it. Two children and seven years later, this is it." That was the deepest moment of sorrow I had and almost the last. I can suggest the significance of my loss of Billy by saying that the only time I noticed he was gone was when I set one less place at the supper table. In fact, life without Billy was delightfully unrestrained. We all ate together (no more arguments across the table); I had no more five-thirty deadlines; the bills were paid (unlike before); and there was much more laughter in our house. I joined Terence in attending school. I began taking college courses at Kingsborough with Maryellen attending the daycare center there. And even surviving turned out to flow more easily than I had feared. I was able to keep the house (through financial help from friends). The kids saw their father on weekends (much like before), and I was able to fill my time with my own pleasures. My decision to end my marriage opened the door for the life I enjoy today.
      Fear, or the expectation of failure or defeat does not guarantee its own fruition; non-action, tunnel vision, loss of choices or options do. The worst kind of decision is one made by indecision. Where there is faith, choice or hope, there is an alternative.