Patricia
About this author:
Patricia Ljutic’s poetry, memoirs and essays have been published in national and regional publications including the Adams’ Media anthologies, My Mom Is My Hero and A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Special Needs, and The Bay Area Poet’s Coalition, The Contra Costa Times, Sage Woman, Circle Magazine and Ciao! Travel with Attitude.
A Writing Mama since 2006, Patricia writes about her daughter, niece and son, a boy who has blessed her with unexpected experiences: Monster Trucks, batting cages, behavioral plans, neuro feedback, the complexities of Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, and the extraordinary resilience of his spirit.
In addition to writing and her family, Patricia loves silk scarves, amber jewelry, velvet jackets and cooking country Italian. Currently, she is working on several short fiction and non-fiction pieces and a book that has not yet decided what it’s going to be when it grows up.
My Articles:
We Get IT Michelle, Now Stop!
I loved you during the campaign, especially when you wore that little Gap plaid empire-tie dress. While I admitted to myself that being significantly less fit and curvy than you and with twice the bosom, wearing a plaid empire dress would make me appear as if I’ve got a table strapped to my chest—I still felt pangs of pride that you looked so together for Fourth of July.
Just watching you be you made it a true Independence Day for me.
I experienced delight watching news stories about your post-holiday shopping frenzy as women lined up to buy themselves that same dress.
When There is a Big Gap in Your Children’s Ages
The gap between my children has never seemed as large as it does now. I intended to have them three years apart, but infertility interrupted my plans and my son, George, came along nine years after his sister, Venny.
To Be Someone
Sometimes a child sits beside you, and you just have to say something.
I wouldn’t have predicted I would be that person, especially on that day. I had become frustrated by the children whose parents did not want to fish, but who came for the festival, and seemed content to let their kids crowd around us while my sister and I fished with our children. To avoid more feral kids I moved across the pond. After a thirty minutes respite, they came—a father and his daughter.
I felt jarred by the very first words he spoke to her. His tone was impatient, commanding, impersonal, as if he had come to fish and she was a necessary inconvenience.
Gum-Snappin’, Music-Boppin’ Road Trip
I felt delighted for the opportunity to drive my twelve-year-old son, George, and ten-year-old niece, Lily, on the two-hour trip from Suisun to Apple Hill Farms. With my work schedule — anytime, especially with them, is precious. Adding to my happiness was that while the kids were absorbed by assembling their fishing gear, they didn’t think to bring their handheld video game devices, and I didn’t remind them.
Teddy Bear Dick
I’m at my computer sending off a morning e-mail to a friend before I leave for work. My son, George, walks over to me and stands near the chair.
“Yes?” I say, still looking at the screen.
“Thomas called me a teddy bear dick,’’ my ten-year old son announces.
Names
I’m at my computer sending off a morning e-mail to a friend before I leave for work. My son, George, walks over to me and stands near the chair.
“Yes?” I say, still looking at the screen. “Thomas called me a teddy bear dick,’’ my ten-year old son announces. I stop typing. Did I hear him correctly? I try not to laugh. Who would put those two images together? I turn to look at my blond, green-eyed, athletic son, dressed in his school required khaki slacks and navy polo shirt.
I find myself thinking: you don’t look like a soft, round, stuffed animal. I compose myself. Name calling is a serious matter. I sit up straight in my chair.
Shoe Search
Why with four pairs of shoes, can we never locate a matching left and right for my son to wear? Even when I buy two pairs of the same sneaker, only one out of four can be found. They hide under dressers, sofas, blankets or deep in the pants leg of the jeans George wore yesterday. Some hide out for weeks in the back seat of my husband’s Cruiser, while others get lost on the lawn and serve as caverns for snails and spiders to explore.
Except for the soccer cleats. Cleats don’t hide. They remain at the ready, hoping to be worn to a game. I can’t decided which I dread more, not being able to find my son’s shoes or having him wear those cleats that click, click, click on my tiled floors. And how delighted George seems to jam his feet into those narrow two-year old cleats.
“Take them off.”
Visiting Rats
No one tells you about those pilot runs when a child nearing adulthood lives with you.
The little nudges and tests that allow children between 18 and 21 to get ready to be in the world and allows parents to let go—the time between their independence and your parental freedom.
One of my daughter’s test runs began when she and her boyfriend, Ari, started dating. While they attended community college together they split their time between our home and his. At first, my husband, son and I found it difficult to accommodate Ari being around. A year later, Venny and Ari have matured and remain supportive and loving toward each other, and we’ve grown used to them.
Late one evening, Venny entered our bedroom carrying an unnamed, four-month old rodent with a classic pink tail and long pink toes on each of four feet—a rat—with a white fur coat and individualized black markings, by which Venny could distinguish it from the other three.
Becoming Two
I still basked in the early years of motherhood— that warm summer morning after my daughter turned two, when we stopped at a gas station and she released herself from her car seat to sit up front while I pumped gas.
I bought her an apple juice at the convenience store and she took a gulp and smiled at me. Rush hour was over and we were only customers there; no need for me to fill my tank and drive off. The day belonged to us, and as the pump ran, I walked over to the passenger side of the car to talk to my daughter through the opened window.
I found myself in one of those moments when I could not help but admire creation. The sunlight, gold and visible in the air and my daughter, her light brown hair, translucent, wispy and her gray eyes that I suspected would someday turn brown but always remain vibrant, like a golden ember. And her long slender fingers and hands so small she needed to use both to hold the juice bottle steady enough to raise it to her lips. Venny wore lavender shorts, and green jellies on her feet.
- Anjie Reynolds
- Anne-Christine Strugnell
- Annie Yearout
- Avvy Mar
- Beth Touchette
- Cathy Burke
- Cindy Bailey
- Claire Hennessy
- Cynthia Rovero
- Dawn Yun
- Dilyara Breyer
- Dorothy O'Donnell
- Eliza Harding Turner
- Gloria Saltzman
- Hyla Molander
- Inga Wahl
- Jennifer Gunter
- Jennifer O'Shaughnessy
- Jennifer Taekman
- Jessica O'Dwyer
- Kaitlyn Gallagher
- Kimberley Kwok
- Kristy Lund
- Laura-Lynne Powell
- Laurel Hilton
- Lauren Cargill
- Li Miao Lovett
- Lianna McSwain
- Lorrie Goldin
- Maija Threlkeld
- Maria Dudley
- Marianne Lonsdale
- Marilee Stark
- Mary Allison Tierney
- Mary Beth McClure
- Maya Creedman
- Mindy Uhrlaub
- Patricia Ljutic
- Paula Chapman
- Pru Starr
- Robyn Murphy
- Ruth Scott
- Shannon Matus-Takaoka
- Sheila McCormick Whitescarver
- Sho Sho Smith
- Svetlana Nikitina
- Tania Malik
- Tina Bournazos