The Latest from The Momoirs ...

Seven Notes to Self
By Maureen Holohan
From The MoMoirs at mohostudio.com

In the past few months, my younger brother has called me Weird.  My dad called me “What Now?”  But my sister hasn't called me anything.  She just emails me when she needs something in the apartment fixed or sees evidence of food in my garbage can in my room or if she’s not sure if it was me or her boyfriend who left dishes in the sink.  She usually starts her housing emails with “not wanting to point any fingers, though tempting” and ends them with “your landlord.”

Though we are arguing far less than we have in years, a few old friends have said that given all our family has been through, it might be helpful if "you talk to someone." I tried telling my former college coaches that I can't do psychotherapy. It's just something I highly doubt I'll be able to fully embrace because 1) I'm repressive Irish and 2) I lack the proper funding and 3) if I had the funding, I'd rather spend it on this sports chiropractor who, with great force and pressure, realigns my beat-up body.

Yet, for fun, while on the subway, I imagined what types of flags and descriptions would be raised if I were to sit on the couch. I took some notes in my notebook regarding anecdotes, observations, possible classifications and notes to self.

#1 Is there such a thing as Rolling Child Syndrome?

As an infant, I rolled to get where I wanted to go.  My father told me I did this, but I did not believe him until I saw our old Super 8 film, which I cut into a KIDS video one Christmas.  There I am rolling toward something, though nothing is on the screen.  I’m rolling and screaming, irked because no one will help me and it’s pissing me off.  There I am kicking, wiggling, falling short on one roll, taking a bad angle on the next, which reminds me of Hemingway’s passage about the dried and frozen carcass of the leopard near the western summit of Kilimanjaro. 

I edited out most of my rolling and screaming for the sake of moving the story forward.  Later in the film, my dad shot footage of me learning how to ride my bike.  I crashed at least 15 times, and had to edit out most of them out, too.  Meanwhile my agile and cute brother kept breezing past me, showcasing his wheelie, while I kept tilting, veering, stumbling, getting up and falling down. 

Note to self:  Will I ever be cured?

#2  Freckles and Mullet Possibly Damaged Self-Esteem

I had wavy red hair up until eighth grade, when I hit puberty and my hair grew into an award-winning mullet.  A frizzy reddish-brown mullet. My friend Nicki, for fun, used to call me Rocky Dennis from the Elephant Man. I was also missing teeth and had braces put on in ninth grade by a dentist who was a drunk.  During one AAU game, my coach, another dentist, no drinking habit, saw me take a hit during the game.  He subbed me out, got a pair of pliers from the custodian, pulled out my fake tooth, and subbed me back into the game.  My parents used to complain to their friends that I was a terse teen with no personality and a lack of social skills. One day, after having to listen to them read me the riot act one more time, raging with hormones, and having no sex, I said, "Mom, Dad, I have freckles and frizzy mullet.  I’m wearing braces and there are two gaping holes in my mouth where teeth should be, but they're not because our drunk dentist forgot to put them in." They told me to wash my hands and set the table for dinner.

The good news is that the mullet is gone, but the natural frizz and overall lack of control is still the look for me. More good new--the teeth are in, though six of them recently went missing after an elbow to the face, and I wrote a story about it. Yes, anything for material, to build character, to get me to loosen up, and relax! Even if it means taking a hit to the chops, having to spend almost $25,000 and over 35 visits to the dentists' offices. But they the teeth are back, I'm over it, which reminds me:  I need to smile more.

Note to self: Maybe my parents were right.

#3 No Fear of Other Races

My freshman year in college, I read about Dantrell Davis, a seven-year-old boy from Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects who was killed by sniper fire while holding his mother’s hand on their walk to school.  I did what my parents would do, and volunteered in the area.  I ended up teaching writing skills to a group of teenage boys.  One day they said I’d probably be too scared to go out and play ball in the projects.  I got the ball out of my trunk, put on my shoes and hit the blacktop.  If you want to stop a police car, put a pasty, red-headed female on the court, pass her the ball and watch her do her thing in the middle of a pickup game in the projects.

There was a moment after playing one night when I can vividly recall being in my car, trying to get out of my parking spot, feeling night fall down on me.  A manchild stopped in front of my Honda, square in a middle of it.  He stared at me, I looked back, and for a second, I breathed a quick, shallow breath.  Then he raised his hands up, feigned a jumpshot, smiled at me and kept walking along. 

In all my years playing ball and covering stories in mostly African-American communities, NEVER have I had any problems. 

Note to self:  I need to write a story about this.  There are too many bad, negative black vs. white, white vs. black stories in the paper recently.  The question is not whether or not I can write it, the question is whether or not anyone will publish it these days.

#4  Not to be Trusted Around Large Bodies of Water

I have a fear of sharks but will swim long distances across deep, freshwater lakes if someone in my old neighborhood says, “You can’t do it.” 

Recently, I looked across the wide, deep lake that I swam across during the middle of the day on the 4th of July weekend a few years back.  My dad kept his eyes on me while our neighbor, Mr. Ahern, drove the boat through the heavy traffic. It wasn't the distance as much as looking down into the blackness that kept my heart racing and my body moving. Unable to get Chopin's Awakening out of my head, I started closing my eyes between my strokes, to avoid the abyss.

I remember coming up for air when I reached the finish, and seeing my mother standing over me, ready to beat me with her spatula.

Note to self: I deserved a good beating.

#5  Enjoys Painful Games

I was in such severe pain with foot injuries that I did crazy things like sleep with potato skins on my feet.  I woke up with moldy, grayish black feet that still lit on fire the second I hit the floor. Despite the chronic and severe pain, I played full-court one-on-one for long periods of time, against future pro male athletes, custodians and even a car salesman who said he could beat me in ones.  I tried to negotiate a lower price on my lease if I beat him.  He was so winded that I turned around after one fast break and he was gone.  He left Welsh-Ryan Arena without offering me any price break. 

All along, I was hoping that my arches would rip, detach and heal properly.  They did not rip until a surgeon took out a knife.

Note to self:  Here’s where somebody should have ordered a 730 on me.  Legal jargon for a psych evaluation.


#6  Changes Perspective and Now Sees Wide-Open Lay-Ups

I hate it when people overuse sports analogies when they think I don’t get something. 

Though I did fall back on a decent one when I met a confident entertainer who chose me for his mark of the night.  For a minute, I thought I’ll be a good girl, and he’ll call me tomorrow and we’ll do lunch and he’ll get to understand me emotionally, creatively, and intellectually before he goes back to the west coast.  Then I turned to one of my friends and said, “Now that right there is a wide-open layup.”

Note to Self:  Keep hoping that my father and brothers continue their habit of not reading anything I write.

#7  Holds Mother Close to Her Chest

I have yet to write in depth about my seven-year experience taking care of my mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 54.  She passed away on July 3, 2007, two weeks before we shot Money Game.

I made sure when I moved to the city that my 7th grade students or colleages did not find out, in fear that I'd be the recipient of unearned sympathy, when it was my mother who suffered. I also didn't want to have to explain the decision I'd made for there were those who believed I shouldn't have spent three years of my life taking care of her full-time, and by those who say I should have never left her with a caregiver, and moved on to a arrangement where my sister and I commuted from New York City for the remaining three and a half years.

I'm sure the sword will cut deeply into me if I do write about my mother, as it will if I do not. For now, I will simply state the facts and a few graphs, which may or may not be part of the Money Game Journal.

On July 8, 2007, Almost 1,000 people showed up at my mother’s calling hours.  A nurse for over 30 years, she was a kind soul who never turned a friend, relative or stranger away. 

Nine days after her burial ceremonies, after director Tom Cavanagh had spent a fair amount of time in the hospital as his wife delivered their second child, we resumed the complete chaos of pre-production for a script I’d spent four years writing. Money Game was one of the last topics of conversation--the most positive and productive one-way conversation I had with my mother in the past six months. Her debilitating illness severly affected her gross motor skills, leaving her to communicate with facial expressions and syllables of short words for the past three years.

I went over to her chair, and bent down to give her a hug and a kiss before I said goodbye. She suffered through a miserable weekend, where she'd looked painfully sad, confused and uncoordinated, but she never complained. As one last ditch effort to make her smile before I left, which we always made out to be as chipper of a departure as possible despite our pain, I told her that I was going back to the city and something good was happening.

"You know that guy Ed, his real name is Tom Cavanagh," I said.

She nodded. "He's helping me make my movie."

Her eyes lit up and she wanted to get out of her chair.

"C-c-can..." she began.

I said, "Yes, you can help. Of course."

She smiled.

"And guess who he wants to play the lead role of the female basketball player?" I said.

Her eye grew wide and she shook her head.

"I said, 'Me.'"

She sat back in her chair and plain as day, said, "Oh, no."

Then she grinned.

Ask any of my friends and they will not claim that I am a highly spiritual person, or if my siblings or I have spiritual moments, we often tend to keep them to ourselves. But when I came home from the last day of the Money Game shoot, unable to look my sister in the eye without crying, I said, “I think mom made sure it finally happened.” 

My sister said, “I think so, too.”

Note to Self: Write about Mom someday.