Not too long ago I had the chance to appreciate my family from afar, which, as anybody who has ever had to share a bed with an incontinent four-year-old can tell you, is the best possible way to appreciate them. One night, after I had been gone for several days, I was talking to my daughter, Clementine, on the phone. I don’t know what I was expecting from her–maybe: “I miss you”; “When are you coming home?”; or even, “Don’t forget to bring me a present”–instead, what I got (as my husband held the phone to her ear and tried to block her view of America’s Next Top Model long enough for her speak to me) was: “Could you, the next time you go to the store, get me some sunflower seeds? Thanks.”
At first I was confused: did she think I had gone to Kansas, or that maybe I was off trying out for the major leagues? She couldn’t really be burning up the long distance lines with her snack requests–could she? As it turns out, yes, she could; any doubts I may have had on that score were removed after I gently reminded her that at that moment I was approximately 1400 miles away from our local Bashas’ and she replied with: “Yeah, get the ones out of the shell.” And then she hung up.
I don’t know why it was surprising to me that I could be gone from the house for three days without her noticing my absence; after all, as far as I can tell she has never fully recognized my presence. Although, it’s not so much that she doesn’t recognize my existence: the sunflower seed request proves that she is aware, at least on some level, of that. What is, in fact, in doubt is my visibility: to Clementine I am largely invisible. (Yes, I realize that in this she is no different from any other nine-year-old, but being completely normal doesn’t take away from invisibility’s sting.)
I can’t say for sure when exactly it was that I turned invisible (although I know that if Clementine was asked she would insist it happened that time I was driving her and her friends to the movies and started singing along to Prince’s “Kiss”–complete with all the kissing sound effects). I was fairly sure, however, that my status was somewhat in limbo after the third time she changed the channel from Law & Order to Ugly Duckling without even an “oh, were you watching that?”; or maybe it was after the fifth time she set her empty cereal bowl down on top of the paper I was trying to read. By the time she led her first group tour through the bathroom while I was still on the toilet, my position as a non-entity was confirmed.
Not that my life on an alternate plane of existence is all bad: sometimes my invisibility pays off, like when I’m driving her and her friends somewhere and I hear her talking from the backseat. “Remember how we broke all of those dishes last night and then blamed my brother, and my mom believed us and punished him instead? That was great.” Or when she tries to sneak contraband cheetos past me and into her room while I’m sitting two feet away on the couch.
In my more romantic moments I could feel like I’m the Patrick Swayze character in Ghost, always lovingly present but never seen. In my less romantic moments I still feel like a character in Ghost, only it’s the annoying one played by Whoopi Goldberg. The one who Demi Moore, by dint of sheer willpower, manages to ignore for most of the movie; except maybe for those times when Demi needs someone to run out to the store to pick up some sunflower seeds–the ones out of the shell.