Family

The Path Twice Taken

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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.

 

 

  

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.

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.

One Step to the Side

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Forest lake 1

Our family is headed off on a mini vacation to Massachusetts this weekend. It’s primarily a family reunion, but it’s also an excuse for a brief but much-needed change of scene.

I don’t bring my laptop on vacation anymore.  The temptation to check on work is too strong, and I’m getting too lazy to bring anything that won’t fit in a suitcase and my purse.  I do need to write, however, and when my boss gave us all iPads a couple of years ago, I decided it was the perfect vacation writing tool.  It’s turned out to be a lot more.

Sometimes I’ll take a drawing pad and pencils, but because scanning sketches for posts is a bit of a pain, last summer I experimented with drawing right on the iPad.  The sketches from the iPad were simple scrawls at best.  It was a lot like finger painting, and I wasn’t always happy with the results.  I was happy, however, with the experience.   Forced not to work but to create and to do so outside of my comfort zone, I started trying new things that never would have occurred to me if there had been a convenient way to scan sketches into posts.  

Tomorrow I’m leaving work and my current favorite tool (colored pencils) at home.  We have three days.  I can spend that time carrying and organizing my working and writing tools, or I can spend those days living – even if it means traveling a less familiar path.  The sketches will be scrawls for a few days, but I think they’ll have their own rewards.

Great Escapes and Guilty Pleasures

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I’m in the middle of my latest favorite guilty pleasure. It’s Monday. The kids are in school. I have the day off, and I’m hanging at Bob’s Diner, indulging in a veggie burrito and listening to Queen on the jukebox as I write. There’s no champagne or pate on the menu, and I’m not likely to blow through 17 rolls of film recording it, but my Monday mini-vacations are fast becoming great escapes.

Once upon a time and for a few years, the Big Guy and I were DINKs (double-income-no-kids), and we loved every minute of it. We ate out. We went to movies – at an actual movie theatre. We took our time wandering through museums, and we watched rated R videos before nine o’ clock. It was one long date.

We knew kids were in our future, and, while we looked forward to that time, we had enough friends with school age kids to know we didn’t want to take our freedom for granted. Eventually, we got tired of just enjoying other people’s kids and decided it was time to have one of our own. Before we embarked on that journey, however, we decided to take one to Europe as a last hurrah with just the two of us.

So for two weeks, we skipped around Spain and prowled the streets of Paris. Letting serendipity steer us, we eschewed schedules. Spain and Paris were already sultry in April. We consumed art in the mornings and tapas and sangria in the afternoons. We wandered gardens and sampled chocolate concoctions with our afternoon tea. It was an escape filled romance with just a bit of hedonism, fortifying our marriage with fun before a third person came into our family.

Fast-forward fourteen years, and our future is here and full. We’ve added two the family roster, and there are no waking moments when one of us isn’t busy playing chef, referee, chauffeur or tutor. Reality is everything we hoped for when we fell in love with the idea of being parents. It’s also very much what we anticipated, and, while the memory of sun and sangria still makes me smile, sipping a soda, uninterrupted by email and household eruptions is the ultimate great escape.

What’s your favorite great escape?

 

 

Sunny with a chance of SuperDude

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I can predict the weather once a year with near 100% certainty.  The last Saturday in April will almost certainly be sunny and cold.  I know this because this is the day Little League begins in our town, and it would not be the official start of the game season if eager young T-ballers weren’t being watched by smiling parents bundled up in coats and sweatshirts.  There is one thing about this year’s opening day, however, that I failed to predict.  

Most weekdays I get up at 5AM to write or to work while it’s quiet.  Last night, however, I turned off the alarm and decided to let the sun, instead of the gong wake me.  But the official first day of baseball season (as far as Arlington, VT is concerned), is a lot like Christmas, and I found out when a different son – my six-year-old, Thing2 – fully dressed in jeans and a black button-down shirt and tie  crept to the side of my bed and, gently patting my face with his hand to let me know that it was time to go.  

Knowing that it wasn’t an emergency requiring us to ‘go’, I lazily opened one eye and noticed that the sky wasn’t entirely dark.  I turned my head to check the clock on the other side of the snoring Big Guy and, deciding that, at six a.m. I had bought an extra hour of sleep, decided to get up.  

“You still have a few hours till we have to be there, Buddy,” I said quietly as I headed to the bathroom.  Thing2 was too excited to let me have a morning to pee alone, and followed me in.  “But I’m glad you’re dressed warmly.  Do you think that tie is going to be comfortable under the new team T-shirt?”

Thing2’s thought for a moment.  Then his mouth popped open, but before he could reveal his solution he had scurried back to the bunk room at the end of the hall.  I could hear the sound of toys being excavated from a corner and Thing1 grumbling that it was too early for this.  By the time I sat down at my desk with my morning caffeine, Thing2 had found and implemented the solution.  

Breathless, Thing2 came racing into the study, still wearing the shirt and tie.  Over it, he had donned his fake superhero muscles and another T-shirt.    I checked the clock again.  It was six thirty, we were on outfit number two, and Thing2’s superhero alter ego SuperDude had already started to emerge.

“Do you love it?” he asked.

 I smiled, but I didn’t say anything.  In an hour and a half we’ll need to leave the house with him warm and wearing clothing that won’t leave a permanent indent on his skin if it gets hit with a baseball.  But even super heros evolve, and a lot can happen in that hour and a half.  

Fab, Four and Going to Fenway

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Abbyroad

We don’t take many vacations anymore.  Most of our holiday time is spent at relatives’ homes, so when we find time and opportunity for a trip that involves seeing something new, it’s an event.  So it was Serendipity Sunday this afternoon when the Big Guy stumbled on the ultimate humdinger (or hum-hummer in this case) of a family summer vacation.

I can’t remember a day when at least a bar of a Beatles tune hasn’t sprung from the Big Guy’s lips or emanated from his Martin guitar.  An excellent musician, the Big Guy has most of the Beatles songbook programmed into his fingers, and our kids have grown up listening to their Dad serenade them at all times of the day with Blackbird or Ticket to Ride.  It’s no accident, obviously, that twelve-year-old Thing1 and six-year-old Thing2 are avid fans, and, aware of the possible alternative musical fixations, neither the Big Guy nor I have discouraged their affection for a band that disbanded over 40 years ago.

Living in Vermont, the only other entity that could claim that kind of loyalty from our boys is the Boston Red Sox.  There are a few Yankee fans around here, but having parents who met, married and lived in Boston, Thing1 and Thing2 were Red Sox fans before they knew what baseball was.  The irony of their afflictions (being a Red Sox fan is an affliction, condemning one to a lifetime of heartbreak) is that, until two years ago, neither of them had been to Fenway.  Ticket prices are not what they were when the Big Guy and I were living six blocks from the Green Monster, so even Thing1 has only seen it as part of a school tour.

Enter Sunday afternoon.  The Big Guy was sitting on the couch, quietly browsing the web for car parts for an ongoing project when a soft ‘Huh’ escaped his lips.  I waited a few minutes before asking ‘What?’

“The Stones are coming to Boston this summer,” he said.

“Really?” I was cautious.  We’d seen the Rolling Stones years ago at the Boston Garden, and we both want to see them again before they throw in the towel.  The kids love the Stones too, so I asked, “How much are the tickets?”  I held my breath.  They hadn’t been cheap 15 years earlier.  The Big Guy scanned through the ticketing site.

“They’re not on sale yet,” he said.

“I heard cheap seats were selling for $600 someplace in Cali-” I started, but the Big Guy cut me off.

“And Paul McCartney’s playing at Fenway!” He exclaimed.  “And the tickets are cheaper.”

It wasn’t much of a toss-up.  In the end, we quickly decided our Fabulous Four would have its first Fenway experience with one of the original Fab Four.  It’ll be old and it’ll be something completely different.

And Sometimes It’s Just a Tutu

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Most of the little bit of picking up that gets done around here gets done by yours truly.  I’m well past the ‘It’s not my job’ mentality, but every once in a while I like to use the naturally  messy petrie dish we call home as, well, a petrie dish.  My contribution to behavioral science this week consisted of observing how long a discarded sock would remain on the floor under a child’s chair before somebody – not me – was motivated to move it to the hamper.  By Saturday morning the sock under the chair was in danger of evolving into a life form, so, before we headed out to breakfast at our favorite diner, I notified the troops that we would be cleaning when we got home.  Little did I know that out of drudgery could come enlightenment.

There’s nothing like the threat of impending chores to bring out the best restaurant manners in our boys, but not even the carefully folder napkins in their laps or a moratorium on Sound Effects Theatre on the way home from breakfast were going to save them yesterday.  Before they settled onto the couch, the Big Guy and I issued marching orders.  Ignoring their declarations of exhaustion, we dispatched twelve-year-old Goliath to walk the dog and assigned six-year-old Thing2 the task of removing toys from the living room.  Our stipulation that they could not be relocated to his bunk (on it or under it) produced a rebellious frown, but he said nothing and set about his task.

The Big Guy began cleaning up green plastic Easter grass, as I tackled the kitchen.  I was loading the last plate into the dishwasher when I realized it had become very quiet.  I looked around for the boys and noted that Goliath(Thing1) had filled the wood bin and was dutifully putting away videos.  All traces of resentment had disappeared as he finished and asked, “What next?”

As I gave him another task, however, I wondered what had happened to Thing2.  Toys had disappeared from the coffee table in the living room.  Boots were no longer strewn across the floor.  But my ordinarily animated six-year-old was strangely silent.  I checked his room, but it was still an empty mess.  I searched the other end of the house until a grinning Big Guy came to get me.

“You have to see this,” he whispered.  I followed him to the kitchen, camera in hand, thinking the cats were doing something funny.  The Big Guy led me around the kitchen island to peer into our pantry where Thing2 stood on a step-stool scrubbing the counter top in a yellow tutu.

“Wow,” I exclaimed as I snapped a quick photo, “you are doing an fantastic job.”  The cleaning butterfly in our pantry looked up at both of us, a smile painted on his face.

“I cleaned the whole thing,” he said.  “And next I’m going to do the counter out there and on the other side of the room and…” and he hopped off the step-stool and flitted to his next task.

Thing2 has many alter egos.  Most of the time he’s some form of wig-wearing superhero I like to call SuperDude.  He’ll stuff his sleeves with muscles and fairy wings before leaping over a couch with a single bound as he goes forth on his mission to eliminate boredom and from our lives.  Today, however, there was just the outfit he’d worn to impress a waitress at the local diner and the yellow tutu.

Later, I wondered what had prompted such a toned-down costume and asked him who was cleaning the pantry yesterday.

“That was me mommy,” he answered.

“That wasn’t a superhero?” I asked.

“No,” he answered.

“So how did you settle on the tutu for a cleaning outfit?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me as I tried to divine my six-year-old’s fertile imagination.

“I was putting away the toys in my clothes drawer and couldn’t fit everything in,” he said.  “And I saw the tutu at the back and knew it didn’t belong there so I got it out and decided to wear it so it didn’t have to go on the floor.”

Assured by my stunned silence that his logic was sound, Thing2 turned his attention back to the TV, happily leaving me to hover between the wistful acknowledgment that he might be out-growing his alter egos and the recognition that we’ve just begun to discover our youngest son.

 

Friday Good

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“Be Afraid” read the headline on Good Friday afternoon, and I obeyed.  Without reading any further, I let the super-sized red letters on the headline burn themselves in to my soul.  I gave into anxiety, and I knew I had no one else to blame.  I was the one who had clicked on the link when I should have been working.  

And, once I clicked, I couldn’t tear myself away.  The bees were dying.  We’re at the brink of World War III with a tiny country on the other side of the globe, and there was plenty of pestilence to go around.  Thankfully, work inundated me with enough work again to prevent any festering of my worries, and by the time I had time to click on news again, it was time to feed the family.

Cooking for dinner seemed about as pleasant way to cap off a nine hour day as a root canal, so I decided to ring up East Arlington Takeout.  Birthed just this winter, this little restaurant stepped in to fill a void created when one of our old favorites closed down due to recession and retirement.  I dialed and a decidedly young voice answered.  I knew it had to be a daughter of one of the owners.  Despite her youth, she calmly and professionally took my order, asking the appropriate questions and let me know it would be ready in twenty minutes.

My anxiety was gone as I headed out.  I was still tense from work and lost in plans for the weakend, thought, and  I took my worries to the EAT.  I wouldn’t bring them home.  

Located in what used to be a convenience store, the takeout place consists of two halves.  One half is the kitchen and prep area.  The other half is a waiting area for customers and kids.  Near the window and door of that half sit a counter and register, but behind shelves laden with pizza boxes are a few couches and a TV where the owners’ children hangout and do homework. 

It’s not a sit-down restaurant, but it has already become a popular local hangout.  We’ve made it our go-to place on Friday nights, and I’ve started looking forward to it for more than the food.  Everytime I walk in – even on weeknights – it’s hopping. Last Friday night friends I know from both boys’ schools.  I saw people I met while working weddings once upon a time.  I saw their kids pitching in and hanging out.  I saw their kids’ friends pop in to watch TV.  And I saw a small business,at the ripe old age of three months, becoming an institution.

I think I really felt a little magic  as I got back into my car and watched the tableau through the windows framed by the dark blues of late winter dusk.  I love seeing a small business defy the odds and experts.   When you see one taking off in its first three months and building a devout following, it’s inspiring.  It’s even more inspiring when you know it’s the culmination of the dreams of moms and pops you know – not just some faceless corporation.

I pulled out of the lot feeling good about our purchase as I always do and not just because the food tastes good and got me out of cooking.  As I drove home, I though about missiles pointed at us, about cyberattacks, about dying bees, and all the other things in the world I can’t control (maybe we’ll help in the bee area this summer).  But, as the smell of a custom made italian sub permeates my car, it soothed me, reminding me of the little things I do influence.  

Honor Thy Family, Honor Thyself

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My mother’s parents, in their later years, moved from Hawaii, where they’d spent much of their retirement, to Ohio so that they could be closer to their children and grandchildren.  My grandmother suffered a series of debilitating strokes soon after they moved, and my parents, especially my mother, became instrumental in supporting both my grandparents, emotionally and, often, logistically.  

My mother made sure our family visited them regularly during the week.  She helped my grandfather adjust to his new roles of caretaker, housekeeper and cook – tasks my grandmother had primarily done during the fifty-plus years of their marriage.  When my grandmother passed away, my parents – geographically the closest of his children – continued the Sunday dinners and afternoon visits with my grandfather.  They took him on family vacations, provided (in the case of my father) second medical opinions, and did everything they could to ensure that he was independent but not alone in the last years of his life.

It was labor, but there was more love than obligation in it.  Although I know both my parents felt blessed to have those last years with my mother’s parents, it was not always easy.  Watching both parents rise to the occasion with love and grace, however, was a powerful lesson for me and my sister.  It is one I think about often as my parents have started their retirements.

So when, at the first meeting of the Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop, Diane Fiore revealed that she would be writing about her Saturday drives with her late father, I knew her blog would be good before I read a word.  It was.  

For most of the last year on her blog, Merganser’s Crossing, Diane has been telling the story of how what started as a daughter’s duty to help emotionally and logistically support a father suffering from increasingly intense dementia became a path to a close relationship and better understanding of her dad.  It has been humorous and heartbreaking, honest and enlightening.  Illustrated with sketches, photographs, and now, the loveliest watercolors, it is also evolving.

After learning that her mother had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Diane decided (with her mother’s support and permission) to chronicle the next phase of her journey on her blog.  Already the story has seen her and her husband move so as to support her mother’s needs better.  As she writes simply but compellingly of her new life, navigating the changes and relationships, the same love and grace I once saw in my parents comes shining through.  

We live in an often harsh world.  Too often culture and media not only reflect that harshness, they amplify it.  It makes stumbling on a story like Diane’s all the more valuable and inspiring.  It’s an oasis of kindness and hope, and it’s worth visiting again and again.

About Family

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My younger son dances.  He sings.  He has a crate full of costumes – including a rainbow wig, several superhero outfits and a tutu – and a puppet theatre complete with curtains sewn by his grandmother.  He loves dressing up and taking on all sorts of personae.  He is the sum of his arts – joy in a skinny six-year-old package.

We make him leave the costumes at home (on school days anyway), but he brings his joy everywhere he goes.  He dances when he walks.  He falls in love with people at the drop of hat and is still at the age where he wants to marry everyone with whom he falls in love.

Most of the time his antics and his expressions of love – for his parents, his brother, the waitresses at Bob’s –  produce smiles from people around us.  It’s hard not to smile at someone who’s compulsively happy.  But every once in a while I’ll catch another adult watching his gaiety, and I can see a question forming behind the gaze.

I know the look and the question.  The look is judgement warring with joy.  The question is the wondering if the gaiety is evidence that our dancing, affectionate child is gay.  I don’t know.  I also don’t care.

I have seen and heard this story since I was in high school.  Several of my closest friends came out to our circle of friends before and after graduation.  Some came to the realization that they were gay very early in life.  Some had supportive parents.  Others lived in the shadow of projection (once with a violent result) because certain mannerisms or affinities were proof to others that they were gay long before they had considered the question themselves.

I would like to say that I was always mature and supportive.  With my male friends I remembered it made no difference.  With my best friend, I am sorry to say, I was less mature, mainly because she was suddenly dating and someone else was monopolizing her time.  At the time I wasn’t adult enough to remember I had done the exact same thing to her a year earlier.  The one thing I do remember, however, is that who my friends dated didn’t change how I saw them because they were still the same loving people who had accepted me for all my flaws as we went through the high school gauntlet together.

Today, as I’m watching the news, waiting to see how the Supreme Court is going to rule on marriage equality in California, I’m thinking about our journeys.  Some of my friends are still single.  Some have had commitment ceremonies – two couples the same year the Big Guy and I were married – and are still happily married themselves.  Our journeys have been different, but the parallels are still there.

We all wanted to fulfill our potentials.  We all wanted to love and be loved.  And we each wanted to be part of a family of our choosing.  It’s the same thing I want for both my kids.  But, most of all, I want them to have the same chance at happiness that I have had – regardless of the person they find to love.  So today, to me, this issue isn’t about politics.  It’s about my family.

 

 

 

 

A Little Night Music

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I got off work late last night. The dishwasher still needed emptying, and, not feeling like cooking, I decided to order out for all of us and treat myself to a twenty minute get away. It was the worst decision of the day, and it was the best.

When I stepped out into the dark, I could already feel the hand gripping at my chest. It’s been squeezing and releasing it for days now. I’ve been here before. It’s a place at the bottom and I hit it every few years. It’s a place where all hell can be breaking loose, or – like last night – not. It’s a place where I have a family I love and that loves me, where work and lifework are going well, where there are new friends and rekindled friendships. And it’s a place where, inspite of fortune, seemingly, to spite myself, I worry over every word I speak or write, where every noise and voice is like a hammer on my soul, where I start clicking the buttons to withdraw from my world, and where that hand tightens around my chest until a dark winter road is as good a place to say good night as any other.

I’ve been here before. The way out of that place is often the repetition of the litany that people need me to keep it together, that no child should ever think a mother chose to leave him for any reason. Last night it was enough to get me home to where our nightly music had already begun playing and recalling the better way out.

The soundtrack of our evening is dissonant and sometimes silly. It starts with a “Hi Mom!” and a “Thanks for getting dinner!.” The sound climbs on the rhythm of plates being arranged on a table by an unsteady but enthusiastic six-year-old pair of hands. The song swells on a chorus of “Guess what happened to me?” and “Did I eat enough to get desert?” It’s all punctuated by staccato laughter, until it crescendos on a joke gone overboard.

The next movement is a long decrescendo. It’s a tremolo of “Mom, can you wash my jeans for tomorrow?” , “Mommy, can you come snuggle with me?”, and “Mom, where’s the extra shampoo?” The song modulates as I squeeze into the lower bunk for a goodnight kiss and snuggle with Thing2, starting as I lie on a remote and the car it controls sounds its own momentary surprise symphony. The strains of “My Sweet Lord” being played on the Big Guy’s ancient acoustic guitar close out the the soundtrack as a still small pair of arms wraps around me, and the chirping becomes soft snoring and the snoring becomes salvation for another night.