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The Path Twice Taken

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Photo

It’s been almost seven years since the Big Guy wheeled me to the door of the hospital and went to get the car.  With a carefully swaddled bundle in my arms, I waited, but we weren’t alone.  The hospital staff was watching over us, but I had another more trustworthy companion waiting on me and the newest member of the family.  

Only three days earlier, when I’d looked at Jack, my then tow-headed boy, I has still seen the baby I had nursed and cuddled.  As he stood beside me, however, hovering over his new brother and checking to make sure I wasn’t getting too much draft, I realized he was firmly into the next phase.  Only then, as I sat near the hospital entrance, glancing at my new baby and then at my very protective and increasingly capable first born did it hit me that we were about to start the journey of taking a completely dependent life form from diapers to door-holding all over again.

It was a journey full of phases.  Some were longer and more arduous than others, but we loved every one of them.  I loved the nursing (once we got the hang of it) and the toothless smile.  I loved the tiny arms that wrapped around my neck, and I was already loving watching him discover the world outside our yard.

This would be the last time I traveled this path.  I was still fairly busy negotiating the next steps with Jack.  At the back of my brain, however, I made a promise to myself to not let the confidence gained over the last six years of parenting translate into indifference to the joy that the upcoming phases with Thing2 would bring.  

Trying to keep that promise has been challenging when we’re busy or swamped with bills.  For the most part both, though, the Big Guy and I have been lucky enough to see and mark the special moments.  We’ve seen the first smile and step, and we’ve been treated to the antics and theatrics.  And we’ve both repeatedly commented that it’s all going too fast.

A few weeks ago I went to a family reunion.  Cousins and cousins-once-removed all brought children to the event.  The ages ran the gamut from nine months to 19 years old.  Some of the cousins met for the first time that weekend, but any shyness was trampled under the feet of toddlers chasing teenagers around the yard.  

The nine-month-old belonged to the daughter of one of my cousins and was the perfect age for the grown ups to play with.  The child’s aunts and grandparents and cousins were only too happy to hold and cuddle her so that the young mother could take a break.   

On the last night of the reunion, the youngest cousin was hungry and fussy after a day of sight-seeing, and, when her mother went to fetch a bottle, I offered to help.

“Will she come to me?” I asked hopefully.  The ten-year-old holding her was looking less enchanted as her whimpers threatened to escalate, and he nodded at me.  I scooped the baby out of his arms, settling her into mine and began to rock on my feet, mentally traveling that time when I was able to solve all my boys’ problems with milk and a snuggle.  

She settled somewhat.  Her mom handed me the bottle.  She sucked the nipple into her mouth and began to drink.  Her eyes became slits, occasionally widening to make sure I was still holding the bottle, until, sated, she gave into sleep.  For a brief minute, I thought, I would love to do this all over again.

As if on cue, Thing2 emerged from the basement where the older children were watching movies.  He watched me with the baby for a minute before wrapping his arms around my waist.  At first I thought he might be jealous or having memories of that era when he rarely left my arms.  Then he looked up at me.

“Mom, can I help with the baby?” he asked.  I looked down at him.  In that moment, I took another time trip, but this time it was to that moment in the hospital lobby.  Thing2, a superhero who always rescues me from my darker thoughts, now helped me mark a new special moment where I noticed he has slipped out of the baby/little kid phase and become part of a wider world, and I smiled at him.

“No, thanks, Buddy,” I answered and asked him if he could announce to the downstairs that it was time for the big kids to eat.  He smiled, instantly forgetting the sleeping baby two feet away as he ran to the basement door and shouted to the other kids to wash hands.  I handed the somehow still-sleeping baby back to her mother and went to get a plate together for my fussier eater and continue our journey.

 

 

  

Lettuce Listen

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Lettuce

Today I hustled. I fed. I chauffeured. I walked. I shopped. I chauffeured some more.  I prepped.  I cleaned.  I chided.  I sat at a desk in a windowless office watching the light change as clouds softened the sunlight hitting the door.  I messaged.  I read and typed.  I focused and tinkered.  I emailed people in Hawaii and Maryland.  I ran.  

When evening came, I washed and peeled and chopped and cut and cut until I noticed I had one more thing to wash and cut and walked through the door into the rain and out to the garden.  I walked to the middle of the deserted plot and knelt down to pick some lettuce.  I plucked, and as the raindrops softly plop-plopped on my bare shoulders and rat-a-tatted on the lettuce leaves, for the first time all day, I stopped thinking and working and hustling, and I listened.

Hormones and Other Things That Go Bump in a Life

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boys at baseball

At home it’s still the story we know – twelve-year-old Thing1 and six-year-old Thing2 play together a lot because we live in the country and my work-at-home job precludes a most of non-school related chauffeuring.  Thing1 has spent hours coaching Thing2 on the finer points of throwing and catching – hollering at him (with love of course) when he sees his younger brother’s elbow in the wrong position and cheering when Thing2 makes a hit off of one of his pitches.  He fields with comic incompetence, always letting his younger brother get around the makeshift bases to win the run and the game.

Last year, Thing1’s enthusiasm bubbled over at the ballpark, and he even spontaneously volunteered to help the coaches at most of Thing2’s T-ball practices.  He caught fly balls at first, helped the five and six year olds remember where second was, and played catcher for the more ambitious players.  When the new season started, I waited for Thing1 to jump into action.  And then I waited some more.

“Don’t you want to go help them?” The Big Guy and I asked at different times and then together at the ballpark.

“I just don’t see the point,” Thing1 responded in a voice that has taken on a deeper timbre.  Each query was met with one of his.  “Why does it matter?  Why are we here?  Why can’t I just go home?  What’s the meaning of everything?”  No amount of cajoling or browbeating was going to get him on that sunny field, but Saturday mornings are family time for us, and Thing2 has spent years watching his big brother’s games, and we decided Thing1 should return the favor.  “I’ll stay,” he replied when we informed him of the judges’ decision, “but I won’t enjoy it, and I’m just going to watch.”

We chalked his attitude up to hormones and decided to enjoy watching Thing2.  We’re both willing to tolerate the moodiness – we even sympathize with it – but we were pretty sure that only time would be able to handle it.  Even without his cape, however, Thing2’s has superpowers that we are still discovering.

Our six-year-old was oblivious to the drama on the sidelines as he walloped a ball off the T and skipped happily around the bases.  Then it was time for the tiny teams to switch from practice game to plain old practice, and he skipped to the outfield.  Jumping and dancing and tossing his glove in the air, he chattered with his new teammates, occasionally pausing to listen to the coach’s directions.

The teams formed parallel lines to practice throwing and catching.  Somehow having generated more energy from having run across the field, Thing2 spun and leapt to his assigned spot.  His assigned partner had the ball, and as the three of us migrated around the perimeter to get a better look, we saw him field a grounder with ease.

“Huh,” mumbled Thing1.  “He remembered what I showed him last week.”  It was Thing2’s turn to toss now, and he jumped and then lobbed the ball across the row to his partner.  The other kid missed, and Thing1 called out to his brother, “Keep your elbow in!”

Thing2 heard his brother and smiled and waved just in time to ignore the ball that was coming back to him.  He ran and chased and then ran and threw.  The ball barely made it to the other kid, and Thing1 gave a loud sigh.  “This is just painful,” he mumbled, “he’s forgetting everything I showed him.”

“They’re having fun,” I said.  “What’s he doing wrong?”

Thing1 started to explain throwing theory to me just as Thing2 had another throwing turn.  Then he saw his little brother pull back his arm for another toss.  “Wait,” he said, “I’ve got to go help him.  This is just too painful to watch.”  Swinging himself over the fence and stuffing his hand into his glove, he marched over to the group of kids.

From the fence on the sideline, I heard him correct Thing2’s.  There was no yelling now.  He was still serious, however, as he began showing some of the other five- and six-year-olds on Thing1’s row how to catch and throw.  The coach waved a welcome at the self-conscious newcomer and turned his focus to another part of the practice line.

Thing2 caught the ball again, earning a pat on the back from his older brother.  He looked up, and we both saw the beginning of a smile on Thing1’s face.  Then he turned to face his practice partner.  Mindful of his elbow, Thing2 pulled his arm back and threw.  And the smile turned into a cheer.

Thing2 chattered and danced as we headed back to the car and to breakfast at Bob’s Diner.  Thing1 was quieter but no longer sullen.  We didn’t try (at least not much) to coax any admission that the game had been fun, and in the end we didn’t need to.

Every Saturday since, he’s surreptitiously and spontaneously found his way onto the field, shedding his somberness for an hour and a half.  Thing2 still watches his elbow, but his inner superhero seems to understand that while he’s chasing balls and bases, he’s doing another even more important job.

And the Winner…

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The Winner of the Common Threads Give-a-Way is…

Exhibition

The winner of the Common Thread Give-a-way and Veronica Hallissey’s book, The Last Bird Sings, is Julie.

If you haven’t already, take a minute to visit Veronica’s blog, From an Upper Floor. She is a wonderful writer and poet.

 

In July, the featured artist will be Jane McMillen of Little House Home Arts. Below is one of her new pincushions:

small+strawberry1

And, please don’t forget to check out the blog’s of other participating artists: Jon Katz ofBedlam Farm; Maria Wulf of Full Moon Fiber Art; and Kim Gifford of Pugs&Pics!

 

The End of a Year, Beginning of an Era

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Closing piece for reading

A little over a year ago I stumbled into a writing workshop at Hubbard Hall, our local community theater and arts center.  The Hubbard Hall Writer’s Project was led by celebrated author Jon Katz, and, as with almost every other class or event our family has experienced at Hubbard Hall, it was life-changing event for me  – and for every member of the group.  

There was an application process for the workshop, and getting that acceptance letter felt like winning the lottery.  I hadn’t shown my work to anyone outside my family and had only been prepared for rejection.  That letter was a thousand times more valuable than any lottery ticket.  

Jon, our guru, later told us that he wanted to find a group that not only wanted to write but that would work well together.  He chose wisely.  Over the last year our group has become a family of sorts.  We’ve become sounding boards and safe havens for each other, and everyone in the group has flourished.  What began as an artistic exploration of rural life became a search for authenticity in our creative and personal lives.  Jon encouraged us all, and, recognizing our strengths, we began to grow and to encourage others. 

Last Friday night, we met to celebrate the impact of the last year.  The unseasonably steamy evening started with a reception which allowed all of us to display our work and continued with readings by each of the writers.  The evening was warm and encouraging – just as the year has been.  

I like public speaking about as much as I like shopping for a new swimsuit.  I wasn’t nervous when it was my turn to read, however.  Working with the video portion of the presentation kept me busy much of the day and evening, and I didn’t have time to feel nervous – at least not about the reading.  

The crowd dispersed quickly after the presentation, and the writers returned to the reception room to clean up their displays.  We all milled around a bit, even after our families had left, and I think I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want it to end.  Even though the group is going into its second year, when we started our goodbyes, I began to feel nervous.  

I’ve been working on a collection of short stories that should have been done last month.  Dealing with some mental health issues has slowed down progress, but there’s been a part of me that feels this project is part of my workshop experience.  I know I’ve been a little afraid that when it’s done, so is the workshop.  I felt a little of that on Friday night as I climbed into my car. 

When I got home I made sure the kids were in bed and then turned on the computer and checked messages, intending to sign off quickly and visit with my visiting sister-in-law.  Unconsciously, I clicked on the link to  our group’s Facebook page.  There, like a beacon in the soupy heat of the evening, were celebratory posts from one, then two and then a third writer.  A post from our guru suggesting a get-together appeared.  I didn’t know what to post that could add to the conversation, and I closed my computer. 

The next few days I didn’t go near my computer much.  We had a guest and baseball and garden to occupy us, and I like getting away from the screen.  For the rest of the weekend, however I took with me the knowledge that while the year of writing un-dangerously may be ending, it’s okay because it’s really part of an era that’s just begun.

I’ve posted and reposted links to the blogs of most of our members below (one author is currently keeping her blog private).  They are growing, breathing proof that some of the best work comes from an atmosphere of encouragement.  

Pugs and Pics by Kim Gifford, Vermont writer, photographer, artist and pug lover.  Whether she’s writing about her beloved pugs or her distinctive photographs, Kim’s work is humorous, heartwarming, and sometimes heartrending.

http://www.pugsandpics.com/

 

 A real life milkman-turned-writer and poet, John Greenwood’s blog Raining Iguanas is a journey of discovery and nurturing of his own talents as a writer and artist and of his native Upstate New York.  It combines the best of pleasurable escape and motivating inspiration.

http://rainingiguanas.blogspot.com/

 

Bedlam Farm by the venerable and always affable Jon Katz, was the inspiration and benchmark for each of our blogs.  Honest and fearless, Jon’s blog is living, breathing proof that the most important thing in life is to never stop growing.

http://www.bedlamfarm.com/

 Merganser’s Crossing by Diane Fiore, follows her journeys with her father and his dementia at the end of his life.  Diane’s blog is intensely personal and incredibly relevant at the same time.  Hopefully she will give us a book out of this, but, for now, it’s worth not only visiting, but going to the very beginning and reading it straight through.

 http://merganserscrossing.wordpress.com

 

Coordinated Mayhem by Rebecca Fedler. A recent college graduate and a poet, Rebecca is prolific and powerful.  Sometimes funny and always intriguing, her poetry is as insightful as it is entertaining.

 http://coordinatedmayhem.wordpress.com

 

Common Threads – The Things that Bind us

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Exhibition

This month I am trying something new by joining with the artists of the Common Thread Give-a-Way.

For much of the last year, a group of artists have come together to form the Common Thread Give-a-way.   Each month one of the group will be giving away a piece of their art.  The Give-a-way is the first Monday of each month.  If you’re interested in winning you just have to leave a comment on the artists blog who is giving something away.  The winner will be picked randomly and announced that Thursday.

This month’s artist is poet and artist Veronica Hallissey.  Hallissey’s blog is From an Upper Floor, and she is giving away a book of her poetry.  I spent some time this weekend with Veronica’s blog, and it is beautiful and uplifting. Veronica is a wonderful poet and I highly recommend checking it out.

As part of the Common Threads Give-a-Way Veronica is giving away a book of her poetry. For a chance to win just visit her blog, From an Upper Floor, and leave a comment. A winner will be chosen at random from all those who commented and will be announced on Thursday. Also, please don’t forget to check out the pages of the other participating artists, Jon Katz, Jane McMillen, Maria Wulf, Kim Gifford, and me!

Those Who Served

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Those Who Served

I took this photo a few years ago.  It could be any Vermont cemetery, with headstones dating back to the Civil War and even the Revolution.

A number of people in my family in recent generations have served.  We’re lucky, however, that they’ve all lived to tell their tales.

One of my hobbies is genealogy, and, in tracking one of the Big Guy’s great-grandmothers, I’ve discovered a number of family members who weren’t so lucky.  Some of them gave limbs.  Others did give lives, but all of them went to war, leaving families to make their own sacrifices.

I have lots of Vermont cemeteries and historical societies on my ‘to visit’ list as I try to trace the stories of how people met and lived.  We do have some stories, however.  They’re stories of husbands whoncame home from war forever scarred.  There are also stories of mothers raising families of seven on their own, keeping up the fight on the home front long after they had buried husbands and the wars had ended.  They are stories of families who continued making sacrifices for the rest of their lives.

Yesterday the Big Guy worked.  My boys and I missed the parades, knowing they never feel quite the same when the four of us can’t be there together.  The three of us had breakfast at our favorite greasy spoon and then spent part of the day in the garden.  In our brief travels, however, we passed a few of those picturesque cemeteries that we see everyday, and this time I found myself thinking, not only of the people who gave their lives on the battlefield but of the people who gave them up.  And then I thought of the people who are still giving their lives and the ones who love them and are giving them up still.

I’m not a cockeyed optimist, but there’s still a part of me that hopes that some day we (as a species) will serve them and ourselves by finding a better way.

 

Boys Will be Boys

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Car show

My idea of a hot car is one that goes from zero to sixty – degrees – in under fifteen minutes.  Even when I plunk down my two dollars for a twenty million dollar fantasy, a dream car is usually last on the list.  My automotive apathy, however, met its match when I married a classic car junkie.  

Not content to merely thumb through car magazines, the Big Guy lives for car shows.  He’s successfully passed his love of all things automotive on to our two boys which means any car show or antique car museum in a 60 mile radius shows up on our weekend to do list.  That’s why it’s hardly surprising that we’ve found ourselves speeding down route 22 in New York in the driving rain on what would normally be a lazy Sunday afternoon.  

The rain should stop.  This antique car show is at the studio and mansion of the man who sculpted the Lincoln memorial.  Despite the rain and the fact that my fantasy to do list still doesn’t include finding another car show, I’m looking forward to the afternoon.  It’s not the gourmet lunch or the elegant display of painstakingly restored cars that will make the day for me, however.

As with past shows – elegant or rustic – I know I’ll be focused, not on the cars but on the boys.  My day will be spent snapping one photo after another as the Big Guy hoists six-year-old Thing2 up to examine the brass lights on a shiny Model T.  I’ll try to surreptitiously capture twelve-year-old Thing1’s lanky form bending over to study a curvy dashboard through the window of an antique Mercedes.  And, at some point in the day, when they’ve dropped their guards and their games and the three of them are smiling, comparing notes and fantasies, I’ll make another, permanently mental image of my three boys being boys on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The Cure

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The hairy edge

A week ago I got the prescription. Two days later I picked it up. I’m not functioning. These magic pills feel like my last straws, but I still can’t bring myself to open the bottle.

It’s been twenty-odd years since I last turned to Prozac.  The drug and the disease it’s meant to treat are both better understood, and I understand I’m at that place where I need help that can’t come from myself or another human.  I’ve tried other magic pills and management methods. Some of them get me out of the cave for a while, but, as the characters on my favorite guilty pleasure show ‘Once Upon a Time’ are fond of saying, All magic comes with a price.

Managing the big “D” with tricks means getting through it, but it also means experiencing every throb of worry and pain in every nerve. It means that tears are always waiting in the wings for the weak moments as over-analysis of very interaction keeps the psyche in a constant state of almost-adolescent angst. The magic pills dull that pain, but they do have a price.

Some cause weight gain (pretty depressing). Others lead to all nighters for nights on end.  But all of them, while evening the keel and pulling my attention from the depths back to the horizon, wrap themselves around the soul like a neoprene wetsuit.  It’s not a straight jacket, but the thick, impenetrable insulation does inhibit sensation.  It’s a price, and the question I ask of every bottle of magic pills is how much?

The last year has been the most creatively-productive one I’ve ever known.  Stimulated by new friendships forged at a writer’s workshop at Hubbard Hall in Cambridge, NY, I’ve written and drawn more and more regularly than ever before.  Before the workshop, I was a dabbler, trying to choose between two crafts and vacillating between them as the mood struck me.  A year of unprecedented encouragement offered a more rewarding search for authenticity in our work.  The workshop which started with a focus on rural and small town life ultimately became the search for the stories and meanings in all of our lives.  

That search meant opening my eyes and my soul.  It meant discovering beauty and meaning in my very ordinary life.  It meant living life and recognizing the ways I had kept it out.  

Depression doesn’t keep life out.  It keeps me withdrawn from life, watching it from my cave, but I’m never quite sure if the pills are a way out of the cave or just a way to be less aware of it.  It’s that uncertain but sometimes strong anesthetic effect that makes me fear the cure as much as the disease.

But there’s another uncomfortable reality.  The deeper I go, the less I write.  Not ironically, and the less I write, the deeper I go.

There’s a romantic picture of the tortured artist.  It isn’t entirely unfounded.  There is an frighteningly long list of authors and artists whose lives were upended and prematurely ended by mental illness.  

However, as I struggle to work at the one occupation that truly gives me satisfaction, I’ve begun to wonder how much of their ability to express their creativity was actually hamstrung by their cranial chemical imbalances.   Mania may produce periods of intense productivity, but, as I study the lives of the luminaries, it seems that the despair at other end of the spectrum often coincided with a withdrawal from life and work.  

By contrast, the few people I’ve met in ‘real life’ who are working as artists or writers, are the ones who have managed their moods to allows themselves to ‘show up for work’ everyday.  There is no drama in the work.  There is only the work, as there is with any other job.

Right now, I feel constantly in jeopardy of failing the day job and the parenting job  – forget achieving the dream job of writing.  I know only fear of the unknown keeps the pills in their bottle, but int this moment the pursuit of the authentic is yielding one other invaluable lesson.  It is that fear can be as crippling and counterproductive as any mental illness, and, while the debate over the link between creativity and mental illness thrives, my small hope is that conquering my fear of what might happen will be the stimulating cure to any analgesic effects of the curative I’m about to swallow.

Communion

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Communion

I planted the other morning. It was stiflingly humid out, but I knew storms were coming to water my garden in the afternoon, and there was still one big bed to dig sow.

An hour later I sat down at my computer, soaked in sweat and spring steam. The earth that shelters two-thirds of our house was serving its purpose by keeping the room cool, but I wanted something more. There wasn’t time to shower, and I had more garden time planned after work, but little dots of dirt sliding down a sweaty arm can feel more like the creepy crawlies. When the rain arrived, I was strongly tempted to hit BRB (be right back) in the work chat room and head out for an au natural shower.

The Big Guy set the precedent for this last summer when he attempted to save water with a risqué hose down during a down pour. For a while, the only way to get my two boys clean (at the same time) was to wait for a swimming party, a rainy day or, preferably, both at the same time. Pond jumping is especially purifying in the rain, and only the din of thunder and misdirected parents ordering everyone inside can muddy the sensation.

Outside, the wind intensified, whipping the spindly white birches until their highest branches seemed as if they would sweep the forest floor. I abandoned any ideas about dancing the dirt away in the rain. I knew I’d need to venture out later to mulch anyway, spurring the need for another, if more conventional, conventional shower.

But getting the dust off wasn’t really the point. I knew what I really wanted. It was a cleansing I craved; it was a communion with the elements. But summer is young and I’ve just begun to tend my garden.

Grounders

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Grounded

It’s Saturday morning, and we’re off to T-ball.  Almost all our Saturdays involve some morning sport with one or both of the boys.  In winter it’s the perfect antidote to cabin fever, but this morning it’s helping get me grounded again.

A weekend away at the Cape led to a week of catching up at work and at home.  I forgot most of what I wanted to write about, and substituting marathon digital days for family face time was hardly inspiring.  As we drive down the hills from our house to the main road, it’s impossible not to notice the intense green that’s overtaken the mountains with the longer days.  I know that’s not where I’ll find my inspiration today, but I will find it.

We’re a little late getting to T-ball, and the boys have to run to get from the parking lot to the field in time for the first at bat.  By the time we get to the dugout, twelve-year-old Thing1 is helping the coaches and six-year-old Thing2 is zipping around the bases and racing bunted balls to first base.  It’s one of the few times I don’t have my camera with me, and all I can do is watch and let the rhythm of the day get me grounded in our lovely rut again.  And that’s where the inspiration will be.

A Separate Piece

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Separate piece

My sister and I never slept together happily.  We shared a bed and then a just a room for a very short time.  Soon after my parents bought their first house, they decided to give themselves a little peace and quiet by separating us into different rooms.

Twelve-year-old Thing1 and six-year-old Thing2 still share a room.  Their bunk bed gives one an aerie and the other a cave, so they each have some private space.  We know, however, that Thing1 needs his own space.  Thing2 idolizes his older brother and was at first reluctant, but, lately, seemed to have embraced the idea.  This last weekend, his subconscious told me a different story.

We had gone to Cape Cod for a reunion with 22 of my mom’s closest relatives.  My cousin and his wife had taken charge of feeding and entertaining the swarm, but the visiting nuclear family units were sleeping at a nearby B&B.

The Big Guy and I, for once finding ourselves in a motel room with a bed large enough to hold both of us – he’s 6’6′ and I’m no model – decided to do something radical and sleep together.  This put Thing1 and Thing2 in the other bed together, carrying on a loud, argument-filled tradition in our family.

Our boys have never slept in the same bed.  At first, I worried that this weekend my parents would be enjoying a little revenge for all the vacations memories my sister and I had scarred with our squabbles over who had a bigger slice of the bed and who really needed all the blankets.  By the time we returned from dinner at my cousin’s house, however, they barely had enough energy to get out of their clothes – let alone fight – before passing out.

The Big Guy and I were almost as tired as they were, but, unused to the light from the suburbs (night in the country is pitch dark), I woke often during the night.  When I woke, I walked, and each time I was treated to a new snapshot of a unique ballet.  In every image, Thing1 had migrated farther towards the edge of the bed.  And, each time, his little brother had followed, wrapping an arm around Thing1 or wedging his head into his brother’s back.

Thing1 didn’t get quality sleep, but I think he’s learning – however painfully – what my sister and I only truly appreciated after we moved out of my parents’ house.  Watching Thing2 sleepily stalk his older brother, I realized that, with the determination of a deer tick on a toddler, he was impressing on Thing2 the unconscious understanding that no matter where he goes in his life, he’ll never truly be alone.  At least that’s what I hoped was happening.