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Chapter Eight
October 6, 2009 | Filed Under River | Leave a Coment
River was late. It’d been a long night of nursing baby Naomi. It turns out that teething is just as painful for mom as it is for child. Running on less than 3 hours of sleep she barely managed to get dressed. It wasn’t until she’d left that house that her mismatched flip flops, missing earring, and incorrectly buttoned up dress became apparent.
“Oh well, ” she thought, “This isn’t a fashion show. It’s activism.”
She slinked into the already-in-progress Green Helps meeting and took a folding chair in the back. 10-12 of her fellow activists were already seated and listening intently to their program director, Charles.
“And on to the next point in our agenda…” Charles glanced up at River, who at the moment happened to be wading through her overstuffed purse for a notepad and pen. A child’s sock fell out.
Charles’ raised a disapproving eyebrow. “River. Have we made any progress on the condo development project? If we don’t get a statement from the mayor’s office, filing the cease order to halt construction will be close to impossible.”
River looked up to see all eyes on her. “Absolutely. I actually scored the name and phone number of a direct associate of Mayor Ellis.”
She paused for a standing ovation.
Silence.
Charles tapped his pencil against his music stand/podium. “Would you care to share that information?”
She blinked, startled by the impatience in his voice.
Someone chuckled.
“Sure.” She dove hands first back into the diaper bag. In her AM haste she hadn’t had the chance to transfer essentials into a smaller, more woman-sans-children appropriate bag and found herself once again swimming amongst cloth diapers, changes of toddler pants, free-styling rice crackers…a few crumbs tumbled out onto the thin carpet.
“Maybe you’d like to address the group when you’re ready. We need to move on and I don’t want that bag exploding all over the room.”
River silently ended her hunt. A few of her group members gave her an extended look, as if they wanted to properly file her image away under “What a Mess” in their mental encyclopedia.
“I’ll bring the information with me when we meet with the press next week.”
Charles held up a hand to stop her. “Actually River, we took a vote before you got here and decided that camera time would be better suited for someone with more…,” he looked her up and down, “stage presence. We’re not going to bring attention to this project if the city thinks it’s being being run by the mom patrol.”
Her whole body flushed hot.
As the meeting continued River was lost in a swirl of fatigue, anger, and loneliness. She didn’ t hear anything else Charles or her colleagues said. It wasn’t the first time she felt punished for being a mother but every time it was a blow to what she wanted to believe about the position mothers hold in the world.
She looked around the room at all the people; their hair brushed, outfits put together and clean. They’d probably slept all night and had hot showers, too, she thought.
River’s thoughts turned to her little Naomi who was probably napping in her dad’s arms on the back porch swing facing their garden. She wondered what kind of dreams the scent of the fresh lavender would give her little one.
She could feel her motherhood pride being restored.
Charles’ voice cut through her private moment.
“And next week, River, perhaps you’ll leave the nursery at home, ” he gestured to her bag, “and come prepared to contribute a little more.”
Sweet River felt a tidal wave of strength rise in her.
A voice louder and sharper than one she’d ever used appeared in her throat.
“Leave it at home?”
The smirk on Charles’ face vanished.
“You want me to ‘leave it at home’? Excuse me? Is my calling as a mother offensive to you? You may have forgotten but you too were a child at one point in your life and probably had a mother who, like me, gave you everything you needed to grow up secure and nourished while serving her community at the same time. I don’t know about you but I’m doing all of this because I care about the world we’re leaving our children, not because I have extra time or energy after a night that involved spending more time awake than asleep in my bed. I’m very sorry if my being a steward for the future is making you uncomfortable but I cannot compartmentalize my life and no I will not ‘leave it at home.’
The room was frozen.
Charles cleared his throat but before he could speak. River gathered her bag and stood.
“It’s been nice working here but I feel as if I’ve outgrown an organization that can’t appreciate my primary role,” she turned to leave, “as a mother.”
And she was gone.
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