Category Archives: Family

Family

Money, and all that jazz

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Our house (rented) on a cliff overlooking the ocean at Laguna Beach, California
Our house (rented) on a cliff overlooking the ocean at Laguna Beach, California

We rented richly

I don’t remember us being rich as I was growing up. Nor, however, do I remember us being poor.

When I was born, we were living in a house a mile from the ocean in Laguna Beach. When I was one year old, we moved to a house across the street from the ocean. And, when I was five years old, we moved to a house on a cliff, directly above the ocean. When you look at it that way, I suppose we were rich.

We lived on rich land, indeed.  It was land that would become even richer.  Yet my father, Edmund, rented. He refused to buy.

A renter in a buyers’ market

Long before hedge funds and mortgage-backed securities were household names, long before Silicon Valley teemed with venture capitalists, Edmund had the foresight to move his young family to a place that would one day rival New York City zip codes for the priciest addresses in the country.

In what would become one of the world’s hottest real estate markets, Edmund chose not to buy property that would one day increase exponentially in value.

On being un-wealthy

Edmund, who was sent as an adolescent from his boyhood home in China first to boarding school in Korea, and then as a teen to The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, would regale us with stories of having gone to prep school with the sons of the very wealthy.   He, the son of Presbyterian missionaries to China, by comparison,  was poor. And that worldview seemed to inform his thinking about having money from then on.

My memory is that for him, being without wealth was a way of staking his identity.

Heading West

His was a fascinating combination of fear and bravado. On one hand, when he was contemplating moving my mother, Helen, and my older siblings West, from Ossining, New York, to Laguna Beach, he wrote of his fear of making the wrong choice, financially-speaking. Later, as fervently as he had promised Helen a new start in Laguna Beach, he justified why it had not worked out the way he had promised.

Adrift in a sea of new-age wealth

It’s ironic, and not quite surprising, that Edmund never did buy property in Laguna Beach. Ironic, because he had turned his back on wealth, yet he had planted his family in the epicenter of it. Not quite surprising, because to him, having no wealth, in a sea of wealth, seemed to suit him just fine.

Edmund died relatively young, and poor. I’m not sure he would have had it any other way.

Family

In a snapshot: missing Mom’s embrace

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MomToddlerGretchen(1)

Photos that were never taken

The photo here is one of my favorites. It is one of the few I have of my mother, Helen, embracing me. It is one of even fewer I have of her smiling while embracing me. And it is the only one I have, in which we are both smiling while she embraces me. I wish I there were more.

Cameras were not ubiquitous then

Yes, it’s true that when I was a toddler and adolescent, cameras were not ubiquitous, must-have parts of everyday life as they are now. And yet. And, yet there are plenty of photos of me–as a toddler, and as an awkward adolescent, as a more awkward young teen, and then as a self-absorbed, blonde California teen.

In the few photos where Helen joined me and my sister when we were young, she sat–or stood–apart, erect. No hugs. No spontaneous smiles. And, in the final years of her life–my teens–the only photos I have in which both she and I appear, are forced, posed “family” photos: Helen, my stepfather, Brad, my stepbrother, Barry, my sister, Kristin, and me. Oh, how I wish there were photos of just Helen and me.

Memories blurred, presence blurred

What is sadly wonderful about the fact that there are so few photos of Helen with me is that it squares with my memory of her, which is to say, that I don’t recall her spontaneously embracing me in the limited years she was in my life.

This, in turn is sadly ironic, as I have lately come to learn that in the view of my siblings, I was my mother’s favorite. How is it possible, then, that there aren’t photos that speak to that affection?

As I alluded to in another post, “Parenting Ourselves,” my mother was often nearby, yet equally often nowhere to be found, emotionally speaking. She was compelled to anticipate my father’s needs. Then to nurse his ultimate betrayal. Then to nurse herself in sickness. And finally, to die.

It’s different now

Perhaps because I was an older mother, I felt the relentless march of time. I knew that I would not likely have a second child, hence a second chance to take more photos. I knew as well that time would rush by me, and I would wish I had been physically, and mentally present–in life, and on film to capture those moments of life. And so, (almost) anytime the opportunity arose, I said “Yes,” to the chance to be in a photo with my boy.

Little fingers, lasting memories

In fact, one of my favorite photos is of Lorenz, at five, and me, on a wintry day in New York. We were on the beach at Coney Island, our sweaters protecting us from the chill. I knelt behind him, while his beautiful fingers curled around my forearm.

A stranger had seen us laughing at the wind-tossed surf, and asked me if I’d like him to take a photo of us. I am to this day grateful that I said, “Yes.”

Family

Our heritage, our hair

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VanBurenVanDeusen

A rich heritage

I like to think that if I had really, truly appreciated my rich heritage when I was younger, I might have saved myself countless hours of envy. Instead of bemoaning my curly hair, or my prominent nose, I might have instead seen in them traces of my resilient Dutch roots, roots strengthened by long winters first in Amsterdam, and then, in New Amsterdam.

Instead of wishing I had a more exotic complexion, I might have relished the common thread I shared with those first Dutch settlers who braved the endless days at sea crossing the Atlantic–without the benefit of sunscreen.

Before New York was New York

For, long before vertical showcases poked at the Manhattan sky, long before private jets brought captains of international businesses gliding into the gleaming metropolis, and long before the streets of lower Manhattan were paved with proverbial gold, a ship arrived, and with it, a man who was one of the founders of New Amsterdam, today’s New York. This man was also my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather.

His name was Abraham Pietersen

Abraham Pietersen arrived in the New World in 1631. A miller by trade, he was one of the first 300 Dutchmen to settle New Amsterdam.

In a wonderful New York Times article, entitled “The Van Dusens of New Amsterdam,” the author elevates Abraham Pietersen, saying that “it all began with Abraham,” alluding to the Old Testament Abraham. The Dutch Abraham was born in the town of Duersen, in Brabant, Holland, and hence, the name in its many variations all trace back to the village of Duersen.

My cousin Martin Van Buren

I have Presidential royalty in my Dutch blood. It turns out that the great aunt of Martin Van Buren, the 8th U.S. President, was my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, Cornelia. That makes Martin Van Buren my distant cousin.

A curly hairitage

When I look at the image of Martin Van Buren, I see traces of my father. The nose, the curly hair, the intelligent eyes. And I see traces of myself. I can continue to wish I didn’t have curly hair, or that I had a more refined nose. Or, I can celebrate these attributes as reminders of my connection backward through time. I am so much more than what I see in the mirror. Among many other things, I am the best—and the worst—of every one who has come before me.

Family

A bracelet in time

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The little things

Sometimes, it’s the little things. A song we listened to together. A photo of her favorite beach. Or, a chance sighting of a pair of sunglass clip-ons. My mom was forever searching for her clip-ons.

Yes, sometimes it’s the small things that hold the strongest memories for me.

Forty years is a long time to miss someone

It’s been almost forty years since she died. That self-detected lump in her breast led to a radical mastectomy and chemotherapy and hair loss. But the malignancy would not be defeated.

Within two years, I would take her on her last car drive, to South Coast Community Hospital in South Laguna Beach. By that time, the cancer had spread to her bones, and it was all the doctors and nurses could do to keep her from passing out in pain.

Even the best memories are poor substitutes

I was a teenager when she died, so I’ve spent the better part of my life with only the memories of her to provide a mother’s closeness. Those memories have been a poor substitute: a memory doesn’t have a shoulder to cry on, and can’t offer a word of encouragement. Nor can a memory tell you to “break a leg” or “show ‘em all you know.”

A small triumph

And yet, sometimes the little things triumph, bringing her back into focus. Today I am wearing one of those plastic bracelets they give you at the hospital; the nice lady in Admissions gave me one today at the hospital outpatient center where I go for my annual mammogram, a talisman against the cancer that struck down my mother.

The last time I saw her alive, which was the moment she took her last breath, she, too was wearing one of those plastic bracelets. Today, I look at my wrist inside of the plastic bracelet, and I imagine her wrist inside of her plastic bracelet. That little thing, that shared experience brings me comfort.

Family

Parenting ourselves

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Empty Swing 9.26.12

The Child-Less Swing

I love the story this photos conveys: a swing without a child, a bench without a parent.

As the child of an alcoholic father and a codependent mother, I was that child, often too busy parenting myself, too serious, to let go, to be a child in a swing.

A Father Present, Even in His Frequent Absence

Strangely, although my father was primarily absent, his presence permeated our home. I recall much time spent in nervous anticipation of his arrival home. And when he was home, there was an undercurrent of expectation toward his imminent departure, not to mention a wellspring of fear that one of us might trigger his anger.

I particularly recall his insistence that my mother have dinner ready by 5 pm, though he would depart shortly after we ate and remain out until long after we were asleep. I am sure his swift after-dinner departure was a source of sadness for my mother.

A Mother Doing, Rather Than Being

My mother. We revolved around her, as the moon around the Earth, yet she was in her own orbit, revolving around my father, as the Earth revolves around the Sun. If she wasn’t anticipating his needs, his anger, or his betrayals, she was likely protecting herself from them by staying in almost perpetual motion.

She was a “human doing,” and not so much a “human being.” Although she did not hold a job outside the home, she was a prolific volunteer and joiner. There were Women’s clubs and Hospital Auxiliary clubs, school PTAs and Community Playhouse committees. These I remember.

Taking on a Parent’s Role

For me, parenting myself meant earning the highest grades, selling the most Girl Scout cookies, getting in the least trouble, making the fewest demands. As a result of parenting myself, I became hyper-responsible. I felt responsibility for others lives, whether or not they wanted me to.

As an adult, I now try my best to let others take responsibility for their own lives, while I pay attention to that little girl named Gretchen in the swing, from my place on the bench.

Family

Contract Cohabitation

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Contract Cohabitation Softcover

Two bookends, and a book

If a cruel confrontation with polio in his childhood, and a visit from the same foe in his last years were the bookends to my amazingly smart, amazingly flawed father, Edmund’s, time on Earth, then surely one of his most prized accomplishments, set midway between those bookends, was the publication of his book, Contract Cohabitation: An Alternative to Marriage.

Published in 1974, while the scent of the hippy movement was still in the air, and the promises of “Open Marriage” had not yet been betrayed, his book was widely and well-received, even earning him a turn on “The Merv Griffin Show.”

The essence of Contract Cohabitation as a concept is a rejection of the limitations of traditional marriage, in favor of an employer-employee relationship in which either party is free to leave within thirty days.

Looking for love in all the wrong places

As Edmund tells it in his book, he came upon the idea of Contract Cohabitation almost accidentally. After leaving my mother for her former best friend, who was also the wife of his own former good friend, he was swallowed-up by a series of tempestuous romances filled with passion and recriminations.

One day, as he was driving in Northern California, it came to him: he envisioned a relationship that would allow him to be himself, and yet still have committed companionship. For this, he was willing to pay a salary.

Blank contract included

At one-hundred-ninety-two pages, Contract Cohabitation is part-memoir, part-showcase, and part-instruction manual. The book, published by Avon and by arrangement with Grove Press, Inc., is physically impressive, and includes a blank contract for the parties to fill out.

There is also an engaging compare-and-contrast between the ideals of Open Marriage and Contract Cohabitation. Edmund opines that Open Marriage rarely works in practice because one partner to the marriage invariably is overcome by jealousy or feelings of rejection.

In the realm of Contract Cohabitation, however, such feelings will never be an impediment, because both the employer and the employee are free to leave at any time (with a thirty-day notice).

When sex is involved, can it really be that easy?

In a perfect Contract Cohabitation world, calling one partner an employer, and the other an employee, and signing a contract and paying a salary will obviate the need for jealousy and possessiveness.

This, even though sex is an integral part of the arrangement. And, as we know, any time sex is thrown into the mix, all bets are off, no matter what you call the relationship.

Family

A story ready to be told

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DadToddler

Made in China

My father, Edmund Lorenz Van Deusen, was born to Presbyterian missionaries in Tsingtao, China, on December 13, 1923.  He would go on to create a firestorm with his free-love lifestyle, and a titillating book about that lifestyle, entitled “Contract Cohabitation.”

A life prematurely lived fully

Edmund died on January 18, 1994, a mere one month and one day after his seventieth birthday.  Proudly unrepentant to the end, he died alone, in his small home. He was ten years older when he died than he had expected to be, yet more than twenty years younger than his older siblings who are still alive. Years of alcohol and tobacco abuse usually do win out in the end.

I am my father’s daughter

Edmund’s story is my story. It is a story that is at once too painful to tell, and yet too compelling not to. Edmund epitomizes 1970’s California, and more specifically, Laguna Beach, land of tie-dye and patchouli, free love and divorce. On these pages I’d like to tell his story, and by doing so, tell the story of those he affected so profoundly, including my mother and me.