I Don't Know Why #8
My mother told me I was a robot from Venus and I don’t know why. The eighth installment of an occasional Oldster Magazine column by bestselling novelist Laura Lippman.
As I approach the one-year anniversary of my mother’s death, I find myself thinking about the time she told me that I was a robot from Venus and I was scheduled to be recalled soon, as my mission on Earth was almost complete.
I was 8 or 9 and I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t not believe her.
My mother was a kind, compassionate person. In a family full of smart alecks who teased and snarked — my father, my sister, me — she tried to sit out the cruelty. She enabled and abetted at points; she once allowed my father to persuade me that a woman we met at the beach was the television star Marlo Thomas, which was a bit of a drama. But she never initiated.
Except for the robot story. Where did that come from? There was nothing robotic about me when I was young. The family consensus was that I was the opposite of a robot as a child. Messy, emotional, destructive. Has something in the household gone missing? Look under Laura’s bed, the repository of TV Guides, stained plates, socks, and, eventually, a copy of Lolita. (My mother found that hilarious and did not take away my secret reading material.)
As I approach the one-year anniversary of my mother’s death, I find myself thinking about the time she told me that I was a robot from Venus and I was scheduled to be recalled soon, as my mission on Earth was almost complete.
I was 8 or 9 and I didn’t believe her, but I didn’t not believe her.
I also had a violent streak. When I was 3 years old, I became so upset with my sister that I launched myself at her back, latched my jaws onto her shoulder blade and hung on like a pit bull, drawing blood, refusing to let go even as my parents slapped me in the face.
This story was told often in my family, but no one, except me, evinced any curiosity about what my sister might have done to prompt this behavior. It was just — giggle, snort, giggle, remember when Laura bit Susan in the back and drew blood?
The deadline came and went; I was not recalled to Venus. Yet in my teens, I became increasingly robotic, assuming one believes robots are somewhat perfectionist and over-achieving. By contrast, my sister’s teen years were turbulent. I don’t feel the details are mine to tell, but I will go so far as to share the fact that, as I recently told my daughter, I am simply not interested in The Bell Jar, Girl, Interrupted, or any other books of that ilk. If I dared to express the opinion that it was sometimes difficult being my sister’s sister, my parents would castigate me fiercely: Would you rather BE her?
Well, no. It’s fine. I’ll just be over here, over-achieving my little heart out. Straight A’s, starring in school plays, captain of the “It’s Academic Team,” Most Likely to Succeed. If my high school had a valedictorian, I would have been it.
I took a break from perfectionism in college and my 20s, earning relatively ordinary grades (except in my literature and creative writing classes) and starting my newspaper career in less-than-prestigious venues. But it came roaring back in my 30s like a case of emotional chicken pox, especially after I started publishing novels.
And then I bought my first robot. It was either in the Museum of Folk Art store in New York City or in a long-gone boutique in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. I kept buying folk art robots, sourcing them on Etsy and eBay. I now own — please don’t make me count. It’s one of those collections that’s always on the verge of being out of control. I have a robot corkscrew, a robot tea strainer, a robot ring. I even made my own mother-and-baby robots once, in a workshop at the American Visionary Art Museum, years before I entered its docent program, where I now (happily) show our visitors Devon Smith’s First Family of Robots.
About the same time I started buying robots, a friend began calling me a “good little robot.” She didn’t know about my mother’s story. I’m not even sure she knew about my collection. She had simply inferred that I was a rule-follower, anxious to do the right thing, to be good, whatever that meant, and she teased me relentlessly about it. Once, only once in adulthood, I deviated from my robotic path and I have, in my opinion, paid a steep price for that, but it’s not something I talk about. Do androids dream of electric sheep? Do robots have regrets?
The deadline came and went; I was not recalled to Venus. Yet in my teens, I became increasingly robotic, assuming one believes robots are somewhat perfectionist and over-achieving. By contrast, my sister’s teen years were turbulent. I don’t feel the details are mine to tell, but I will go so far as to share the fact that, as I recently told my daughter, I am simply not interested in The Bell Jar, Girl, Interrupted, or any other books of that ilk.
Was my mother a robot, too? Quite possibly. Did she ever slip from the path of perfectionism? [Wallace Shawn Princess Bride Voice]: INCONCEIVABLE. A year out from her death, I remain astonished by her meticulous records, which made it easier to do the various legal things I had to do as her heir. (My sister is in the memory unit of an assisted living facility, so everything fell to me. Echoes of that long-ago rhetorical question: Would you rather BE her? No, I absolutely would not. My sister is a good person who has had terrible luck.) I needed an extension on my mother’s tax return, but it’s finally done. Sort of. I just got an email about something called K-1’s, which I understand not at all. Also, I seem to have misplaced her ashes. I’m sure they’re around here somewhere. Maybe I should look under my bed.
But if my mom was a robot, then she’s not really dead, just decommissioned. Maybe she was recalled to Venus, her mission on Earth finally done. Which means we will meet again when I am recalled, back together on our Mother Planet, where we can compare notes. I look forward to the debrief.
Maybe I’ll finally learn why I bit my sister on the back.
Wow. So much in here!
My mom never said the exact robot-from-Venus words, but it was always clear to me that she secretly thought I was some sort of changeling - the only one of her four kids who she found a complete mystery.
And as you have mostly tried to be the robot she named you, I have always tried to be not quite of this world, even as I’ve operated pretty successfully here.
I doubt our moms had any idea of what they were putting in train…
Isn't it something how a parent can say something off-the-cuff and forget it a minute later--and it sticks with us forever? We were such little sponges. As well as, maybe, robots.