Mona Simpson: The Rubber Stamp

Summary

Episode Summary: Mona Simpson – "The Rubber Stamp"

In this poignant episode of The Moth, celebrated author Mona Simpson shares an intimate and compelling narrative from her life, titled "The Rubber Stamp." Originally performed live in Los Angeles, the story delves deep into themes of family, identity, financial struggle, and the unexpected sources of salvation.

1. Early Struggles and Financial Hardship

Mona begins by painting a vivid picture of her upbringing in a single-parent household. Growing up in an unfurnished apartment, she and her mother faced persistent financial instability. Mona recounts the constant tension of living with limited resources:

Mona Simpson [03:30]: "We lived in literally an unfurnished apartment with no furniture in it and we had had the gas and electric turned off more than once."

She illustrates the omnipresent stress of financial constraints through memories like avoiding restaurant outings to prevent the sight of returned checks:

Mona Simpson [04:15]: "There were restaurants we didn't go to because we knew there would be a check penned up on a bulletin board that had been returned from the bank."

2. The College Application and Identity Crisis

As Mona navigates the college application process, she grapples with questions of identity and representation. Sitting on the carpeted stairs of her unfurnished apartment, she confronts the limitations of identity categories:

Mona Simpson [02:50]: "I went along I called Questions down to my mother. Mom, am I anything? What do you mean? Well, it says Asian American, African American, Hispanic, Native American. Does it say Syrian or Arab American? No."

Her mother's pragmatic approach to their situation contrasts with Mona's growing anxiety about their reliance on extended family for financial support:

Mona Simpson [06:00]: "She knew things that I didn't. That there were connections, networks that I couldn't understand yet."

3. Maternal Despair and Mona's Crisis

The narrative takes a darker turn as Mona describes her mother's mental health struggles and despair over their financial predicament. Her mother's ominous statements sow seeds of fear and uncertainty in Mona:

Mona Simpson [09:30]: "When I take you to college, I may not come home again. I may go somewhere else. You may not know me anymore."

Mona's fear intensifies, leading her to a psychiatrist whom she consults about her mother's hints at suicide:

Mona Simpson [11:45]: "I pulled out money from my pocket. The bills were curled up from being in my pocket and he refused to take any of my cash."

Despite this, Mona resolves to continue with her plans to attend Berkeley, driven by both necessity and a desire to support her mother.

4. The Unexpected Savior: A Bureaucratic Hand

In a twist of fate, Mona's financial future hinges not on her family's support, but on the intervention of a bureaucrat at Berkeley's Financial Aid Office. She narrates her encounter with the Director of Financial Aid, whose unexpected appreciation for her creative work leads to her scholarship approval:

Mona Simpson [15:10]: "He looked at me and said, I don't know much about literature, but these are the kind of stories I like to read... he rubber stamped my application and okayed my scholarship for four years."

This moment underscores the theme that sometimes, salvation comes from the most unexpected places, challenging Mona's earlier reliance on familial support.

5. Reflections on Family and Identity

Years later, Mona reflects on the lasting impact of these early experiences on her relationship with her father and her sense of identity. She describes the challenges of reconnecting with a father who had been absent for much of her life:

Mona Simpson [16:30]: "The more we tried to behave like a father and a daughter, the more ersatz the connection felt."

Through this reunion, Mona finds a semblance of beginning and energy, but also acknowledges the irreparable gaps shaped by her past:

Mona Simpson [17:00]: "In those connections I felt the energy of a beginning."

6. Conclusion: An Epic Journey Through Loss and Gain

Mona concludes by reflecting on her journey from fraught beginnings to unforeseen resolutions. She emphasizes that her path was epic and fraught, marked by both losses and gains:

Mona Simpson [16:00]: "The journey to the other side is epic and fraught and involves as many lives losses as gains."

Her story serves as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the intricate ways in which connections—both expected and random—shape our destinies.

Key Takeaways

• Financial Struggles: Mona's early life was marked by persistent financial instability, highlighting the challenges faced by single-parent households.

• Identity and Representation: The college application process forced Mona to confront issues of cultural identity and representation.

• Unexpected Salvation: Mona's academic future was secured not through traditional familial support but via the compassionate intervention of a bureaucrat.

• Complex Family Dynamics: Reconnecting with her father later in life revealed the complexities and gaps in familial relationships shaped by early hardships.

• Resilience and Growth: Despite numerous setbacks, Mona's journey underscores the resilience required to navigate life's unpredictable challenges.

Notable Quotes

• Mona Simpson [02:50]: "Does it say Syrian or Arab American? No. Well, just leave it be then."

• Mona Simpson [03:30]: "We lived in literally an unfurnished apartment with no furniture in it and we had had the gas and electric turned off more than once."

• Mona Simpson [09:30]: "When I take you to college, I may not come home again."

• Mona Simpson [15:10]: "He looked at me and said, I don't know much about literature, but these are the kind of stories I like to read."

• Mona Simpson [16:00]: "The journey to the other side is epic and fraught and involves as many lives losses as gains."

Mona Simpson’s "The Rubber Stamp" is a heartfelt exploration of the intersections between family, financial necessity, identity, and unexpected avenues of support. Her storytelling captures the emotional landscape of overcoming adversity and finding one's path through unpredictable turns of fate.

Transcript

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[Dan Kennedy]

Together we'll go far welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. The story you're about to hear by Mona Simpson was told live last year in Los Angeles at a show we did there. The theme of the night was around the stories of coming home. Here's Mona.

[Mona Simpson]

So I was doing my college applications on the carpeted stairs of our unfurnished apartment and as I went along I called Questions down to my mother. Mom, am I anything? What do you mean? Well, it says Asian American, African American, Hispanic, Native American. Does it say Syrian or Arab American? No. Well, just leave it be then. Or you could write in Syrian. I left it be. And then a few minutes later I called down, do I need financial aid? There's just a box where you check yes or no. This was a peculiar question for me to ask. I'd grown up with my mother who was a single parent and a speech therapist. She taught stroke victims to talk again in convalescent hospitals throughout Southern California. But we'd always needed money. We'd always been short of money. And that was not really a secret. There were restaurants we didn't go to because we knew there would be a check penned up on a bulletin board that had been returned from the bank. Once I was going to the bathroom and saw one of those checks and hoped my high school friends at the table didn't have to pee too. We lived in literally an unfurnished apartment with no furniture in it and we had had the gas and electric turned off more than once. And in fact my mom had even sent me to the landlords to encouraged them to give us an extension on our rent. And this being Los Angeles, our landlord happened to be Jack Haley Jr. Who was the Tin man in the wizard of Oz. So one night in November, my mom drove us up to their house which was north of Sunset. It was a white ranch house and and my mom waited in the car while I went inside. Mrs. Haley answered the door. It was about 7:00 at night and she was wearing a white quilted floor length robe and her hair was done and her nails were polished and she had makeup on and she led me to the kitchen counter where the Tin man was sitting in a ratier bathrobe. And she asked me how I was doing in school and I said good. And she said well, that's great, that's just wonderful. And the whole time we spoke the Tin man was watching a small portable television on the counter. A rerun of gun smoke. But our conversation worked. We stayed in our rental that day when I was doing my applications. My mom came to the foot of the stairs and said, no, you don't need financial aid. She looked up at me with an expression I was familiar with on her face. It meant that she knew things that I didn't. That there were connections, networks that I couldn't understand yet. She said, that's all taken care of. The Syrians promised me. The Syrians were my father's family, whom she hadn't seen since I was born. Once upon a time she lived in Hum, Syria, on one of the poshest streets. Her father in law, my grandfather, had been a wealthy man. I pictured him on a horse, wearing a keffiya and fez, making sharp arm gestures. He controls the price of wheat in all of the Middle east, she told me with with kind of reverence when my father had brought my mother home from Madison, his father had been delighted with my stylish mother, and he furnished their apartment with all the latest appliances. Still, when she got pregnant with me, she didn't like Syrian food anymore. The Syrian butter in particular nauseated her, and one day when she was supposed to be on a shopping spree in Beirut, she bolted and went to the airport and got on a plane for the US and eventually made her way back to Green Bay, Wisconsin, in time to deliver me at the Brown County Hospital. I've always blamed the Syrian food for the fact that I, like my mom, turned out short. My father had followed my mom soon after she left, but they divorced a little while after that, when I was still young enough to have very few memories, and I'd grown up seeing him very little, and we didn't have an address for him or a phone number, and needless to say, he didn't send child support. Nonetheless, his family were the very Syrians my mother was counting on to send checks to the University of California regents to pay for my college tuition. That summer around July, she said, I'm getting worried. I haven't heard from the Syrians yet. They really better get in touch because there's not that much more time. What would happen if she didn't hear from the Syrians? It occurred to me all of a sudden that we didn't have any paperwork, and I realized we didn't have an address for them, and they probably didn't have an address for us. We'd moved. I counted maybe seven or eight times in my life. How would they find us? And then I began to think, what would happen if they didn't get in touch with us? Would I not be able to go to college? Everyone I knew expected me to be going to college. And then I pictured Berkeley and and imagined sort of an entrance gate where you paid to drive in the way we had once when we went to a national park. I pictured myself with my pillow and my blanket and my box of books, and I wondered how much you'd have to pay. I had $3,000 saved for my two jobs. My best friends were the best students in our class. But I was much more interested in making money those days than I was in getting grades, so that was a concern. But as the weeks went on, my mom's mood tanked and she began to say things like, when I take you to college, I may not come home again. I may go somewhere else. You may not know me anymore. Or when I'm driving home from Berkeley, I. I might just drive the car over the cliffs at Big Sur. This terrified me even more than the money I had that $3,000 saved. But I needed her to live in order to go. The only person I told about my mother's soft suggestions of suicide was a psychiatrist I found in the phone book. I went to him and I talked for about 40 minutes and he said, go. He thought that my mother wouldn't hurt herself. He didn't know. He'd never met my mother. He'd only met me 40 minutes earlier. But I tried. I pulled out money from my pocket. The bills were curled up from being in my pocket and he refused to take any of my cash. And then we did what everyone else I knew was doing. We packed up my books and my clothes and my pillow and my blanket and my Olivetti portable typewriter and we put them in the trunk of my mother's car to set off for the adventure of parent taking the kid to college. She drove me up to Berkeley. There was no admissions gate. She walked me to my dorm room where she raised an eyebrow at my roommate who was asleep with wet hair and a towel turban at 2 in the afternoon. And then she went back to her car and left. She didn't drive off any cliffs when I called her that night, feeding quarters into the dorm payphone, she was already back in our apartment getting ready for bed. So the Syrians didn't call, they didn't send us money. But we didn't talk about it anymore. In a way we hadn't really mentioned the restaurants we didn't return to. We had a certain delicacy around our biggest failures and sorrows. But at Berkeley, in my dorm mailbox, I received computer generated bills. And in October the bill was twice what it had been in September. And then in November it was three times as much. I decided I'd better go to the financial aid office. By then I was sort of a member of a pack of kids who followed around a poet named Josephine Miles who suffered from multiple sclerosis and who had to be carried into the classroom over shoulder like a log by a football player she'd hired to do just that. And she encouraged me to apply for a writing fellowship, which I did. And I eventually found myself in the office of the Director of Financial Aid of Berkeley. He had a big massive desk and I was sitting across it from him. There had been a snafu. In order to qualify for financial aid or scholarships or loans, anything at that time, the state of California required you to submit your parents tax returns to either prove that they couldn't afford it or that you were independent from them. And my mom, despite repeated requests, had just simply not sent hers. I'm sure it was a combination of humiliation or perhaps the hope that she'd still be able to pay somehow. Anyway, I sat across from him and I saw that he had the folder of my submission for this writing scholarship. My poems and short stories. And I'd worked really hard on this work. I did the best I could do at the time, but I can tell you now they weren't very good. Nonetheless, he looked up and said he was younger than I am now. And he looked at me and said, I don't know much about literature, but these are the kind of stories I like to read. And he rubber stamped my application and okayed my scholarship for four years. So in the end, I was saved. Not by the Syrians, but by a bureaucrat. Now that I'm grown up, I know that it's not such a small club. Those of us who grow up with a mentally ill person, and for those of us who had a true and deep bond with an illusionist who believed in hidden connections and mysterious systems and faith, really the journey to the other side is epic and fraught and involves as many lives losses as gains. And in the end I found myself with sort of random words from that period and having lost the music of the language. And I left the dome of my mother's wishes when I was about 20, never to return. Eventually I met my father, who'd been the subject of my daydreams for many, many years. But by that time I was in my 30s and he'd lived for decades without children. And we outgrown the only role we could have had for each other. And the more we tried to behave like a father and a daughter, the more ersatz the connection felt. But the first time I met him, he introduced me to my Syrian cousins who were the children of his, his brother. And in those connections I felt the energy of a beginning. The first time my Syrian cousins came to visit here in Los Angeles, my one cousin who's my age and a pediatrician pulled me aside on the front porch. My son then was in eighth grade and said, when he's in time for college and you need money for tuition, he you let me know. Okay? Thank you.

[Dan Kennedy]

Mona Simpson's novels include My Hollywood, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road, the Lost Father and Anywhere But Here. Her books have won the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize, the Whitting Writers Award, and placed as finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award. Her brand new novel Casebook is out now.

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[Dan Kennedy]

Also, one more quick announcement. The Moth main stage is returning to Martha's Vineyard. That's going to be Saturday, August 9th. For tickets and for a list of all of our upcoming tour stops, just Visit the site themoth.org Our podcast host.

[Wells Fargo Representative]

Dan Kennedy is a writer and performer living in New York and author of.

[Mona Simpson]

The new novel American Spirit.

[Wells Fargo Representative]

Available now.

[Dan Kennedy]

Thanks to all of you for listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York. The Moth Podcast and the Radio Hour are presented by prx, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more [e-mail].