Oh, The Joys

Obligatory Postween Photos

2009-11-01T10:28:00.009-05:00

Between the Halloween Candy Buy Back Program and the age-old Inter-Sibling Trade Negotiations, I had an hour off this morning!

There must be something wrong with my children though... all the chocolate candy is in the bag for the soldiers and they only kept the sour, gummy, odd things.

[Suddenly I'm feeling rather Semper Fi...]

The Carvers

The Rooster

The Mayor

Happy Day of the Dead!

Capacitación en la Diversidad

2009-10-28T21:00:00.002-04:00

Last night The Rooster chose Maria Shriver's book called "What's Wrong With Timmy?" as a bed time story.

The book's intent is to help kids understand that some children live with disabilities.

The book primarily focuses on the strengths of children with special needs and how much we all have in common, but there is one part of the book where other children make fun of the main character, Timmy, who has Downs Syndrome.

Timmy is sometimes called rude names simply because he is different.

"What do you think about that?" I asked The Rooster.

Roo flipped her palms upwards and bounced her forearms up and down emphatically as she spoke.

"I think that's crazy," she said, widening her eyes. "Differences are what make the world beautiful!"

[Oh, the great beaming pride!]

Just when I was privately gloating about my clearly AWESOME parenting skillz, The Rooster said more.

"Differences make everything pretty! I can wear pink and you can wear red! Everyone can have a different outfit and then... with everyone in different clothes... the world is REALLY, REALLY PRETTY!"

[Greatly shrunken and reduced beam of...]

Hers is a take on the benefits of celebrating diversity that I hadn't previously considered.

It is our differences that make the fashion industry work, people.

Be kind to others or you will never find the perfect fall boots.

"Is next... svim wear!"

Turn, Turn, Turn?

2009-10-27T20:45:00.001-04:00

We have this book...

It has amazing illustrations, each page from the artistic style of a different culture.

I don't quite know what to say or how to explain the book to The Mayor and The Rooster though.

Oh, Biblical Scholars of the Internet, por favor esplain to me the larger meaning of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8!

Is it just the simple message on the surface of the words? There is a time for everything?

Or is it something else?

When is it time to kill? To hate?

When is it time for War -- and isn't that a slippery slope?

How does one explain this text to the short and loud people?

To everything there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and

a time to die;

A time to plant, and

a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and

a time to heal;

a time to break down, and

a time to build up;

A time to weep, and

a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and

a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones,and

a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and

a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and

a time to lose;

a time to keep, and

a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and

a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and

a time to speak;

A time to love, and

a time to hate;

a time of war, and

a time of peace.

Trigger

2009-10-26T20:48:00.005-04:00

Last Friday I took The Mayor for a hearing test.

It's been eight months since his ear surgery and despite the slicing and peeling off of the ear, problems persist.

The Mayor's ear drum is retracting again and the ear is filled with fluid.

His hearing test results show an arc of hearing loss similar to the results we saw prior to the surgery.

Despite the scary reality that my son's jugular vein runs through his middle ear and the fact that the surgeon said "if I NEVER see the interior of your kid's ear again it will be too soon," it looks like more surgery is required.

The doctor wants to put ear tubes in again.

He wants to keep the fluid drained so that the larger problem doesn't re-occur.

Getting ear tubes is a simple procedure, but still.

Surgery is surgery.

I knew going in that the doctor was going to say something like this so I had steeled myself for it.

My lip didn't even tremble.

I was hardened.

When I drove The Mayor back to school, we approached the the building from the back.

We saw a group of children playing on the playground.

"I wonder if your class is outside right now," I said to The Mayor.

I slowed the car and inched along.

The Mayor and I peered out the windows at the kids.

The Mayor rolled down his window.

"The Mayor!" a little girl shouted, pointing.

She ran to the curb to meet us.

"Do you want to play boys chase the girls?" she asked.

As it turned out, it was The Mayor's classmates that were out at recess.

I saw his teacher sitting on a bench and she waved.

The Mayor unbuckled his seat belt as two other children ran up alongside the car.

"Mayor!" they shouted. "The Mayor's back!!"

Suddenly, all the kids on the playground were running for the car.

"Mayor, Mayor!!" they yelled.

My son climbed out of the car and stepped into the grass.

Immediately, his shoulders were draped with the arms of friends.

He strode away from the car at the very center of a literal flock of children.

They had surrounded him and were skipping along suggesting games they could all play.

I caught the flash of his great big smile and the sparkle in his eye as he walked away.

Something about it triggered me and it was when I drove away that the tears came.

Watching You

2009-10-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

My Aunt Nancy received an unexpected messaged when she and I sat together in the family consultation room at Duke University Hospital.

My Granny had been in an awful car accident.

She was transferred to Duke and, ultimately, attached to a ventilator.

My Aunt pulled a sealed envelope from her purse which contained my Granny's advance medical directive.

When my Aunt tore open the envelope's seal and unfolded the document, we noticed my Granny's handwriting across the top.

She had written,

"If you let me become a vegetable, when I finally do die, I will come back and haunt you."

I was reminded of this when I heard my husband shout from another room.

There are some types of shouts that you recognize as correlated to real pain and those are the ones that get you moving.

When I arrived at our bedroom door, I saw him rubbing himself on the... uh... right hindquarter.

After a little rear kneading, he bent over and looked down at the quilt on our bed.

Then he leaned in for an even closer look.

A sewing pin was sticking straight up from out of one of the quilt squares.

The pin's head was sewn inside the center of the square, suggesting that the pin had been there since the quilt was made.

Judging by the patterns on the fabric squares, I would have to guess my Granny made the quilt sometime in the early 1960's.

This pin, after nearly fifty years of lying innocently flat inside it's square, decided to stand on it's end and pierce all that is round and firm (and oh, so very nice) on my beloved's backside.

What made it stand at attention and poke my dear husband in the pants seat today?

A message from beyond perhaps?

Knowing my Granny, she was just keeping him on his toes.

I pictured her spirit laughing.

"Gotcha!"

************

If you're interested, there is still time to win a $100 Visa gift card and a year's supply of bread over here.

Call of the Wild

2009-10-21T08:31:00.002-04:00

On the walk to school today, The Mayor took to talking back to the noisy birds in the trees.

Only after testing a few different sounds did he settle on a high-pitched shriek, fairly unlike the bird sounds he and his father heard around them.

He would shriek several times and then listen.

He turned to his Dad and asked, "Where are the bald eagles?"

K said, "I don't think a there are any bald eagles living around here."

"Well," he responded, "I'm going to attract some."

Ritual, Story, Debate

2009-10-05T09:00:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago, I went to the Bar Mitzvah of a friend’s son.

The young man had obviously put a lot of himself into the ceremony as had the rest of his family.

It was a powerful and emotional experience.

Many in attendance, myself included, wept openly during the ritual and I was honored to have been included.

As I left, there were a few things that stood out for me.

First, the Rabbi discussed the way that the Jewish faith was one that honored life-long learning and debate.

In particular, he referenced this young man’s duty to study and question the Torah for the rest of his life and to engage in debate about the nature of its meaning with those in his faith community.

Second, when my friend’s son made his speech, he said that he found it ironic that he was standing before us at all as he had been a two-time Hebrew school drop-out.

He talked about many late night walks with his mother and how their discussions led him back to pursue the Bar Mitzvah.

Having participated in the study that led him to the Bar Mitzvah, he said he felt more connected to his ancestors and to himself.

He talked about the power and importance of story and ritual in one’s life.

I left thinking about both of these things – lifelong study and debate about the true meaning of faith narratives and the power of story and ritual in our lives.

I don’t have what I would call faith, I don’t have absolute faith anyway.

I used to think Church was only for the faithful.

Then one day, about ten years ago, I argued about this with my Grandfather.

“Church isn’t for people with absolute faith,” he said angrily. “Church is about community. It’s a place where you go to struggle through your questions about faith with the support of others.”

I remember this moment so vividly.

My grandfather’s remarks made sense to me, but the task of finding the right faith community seemed Sisyphean in nature.

[And who wants to roll a huge rock up a huge hill forever and ever?]

Since I’ve had children, this notion of finding a faith community has nagged at me.

I didn’t grow up going to church, so it doesn't feel like I worry about it over some sort of guilt that I need to teach my children about the Bible.

I mean, I hardly know anything about the Bible.

I tried to read it once and got as far as Leviticus.

Leviticus is all about how many lambs, bulls, goats, chickens and other animals out to be sacrificed (and in what order and frequency) to please god.

After the sacrificial overload (the literal Silence of the Lambs) and a long string of The Begats (John Boy begat Billy Bob who begat Roy Rogers), I was done reading.

[I hear I missed all the excitement of the smiting.]

I think the nagging I feel is more about suspecting my grandfather was right.

I still don’t have what I would call faith, but finding a community within which to explore my questions seems like it could be worthwhile, something that opens me, something that invites new possibilities…

A few days after the Bar Mitzvah, I was sitting with the father of one of my daughter’s friends at pre-k pick up.

Talking about the Bar Mitzvah, I asked him where he found himself on the spectrum of faith.

He told me he was an atheist.

I probed for clarity.

“So you are absolutely certain that the existence of some force or spirit larger than us isn't possible at all?”

He got his dander up.

“To posit that there is some sort of life force controlling the universe is ridiculous! It’s also incredibly destructive. Some of the most horrible acts of violence throughout history have been perpetrated over conflicting ideas of faith. It’s horrifying and depressing and it doesn’t make sense. God doesn’t exist. This is it. This is all there is.”

His wife, who attended the Bar Mitzvah with me, and I talked further.

She too describes herself as an atheist.

“Maybe it’s because we’re scientists,” she said. “What you can’t prove, can’t exist.”

“I think there’s only a thin line of difference in your belief and mine,” I replied. “That I can’t prove it one way or another makes it possible in my mind.”

I guess I think the existence of God is possible.

That’s what I’ve got.

[Pretty thin, eh?]

Though my parents were essentially agnostic, both sets of my grandparents were Presbyterian.

There’s a Presbyterian church near my house with a reputation for attracting a very diverse congregation and for being oriented towards social justice.

Last week, a friend of a friend who is an active member offered to meet the kids and I there and to show us around.

She met us on the front steps and led us inside.

The sanctuary of the church felt familiar in that it looked very like my Grandparent’s small, country church in Virginia.

Everything happened in the same order during the service and, like all Presbyterian churches, the “trespasses” were replaced with “debtors” in the Lord’s Prayer.

What I wasn’t expecting was when the sermon addressed whether or not David and Jonathan were lovers in the book of Samuel.

I wondered what my Grandparents would have thought of the sermon.

I thought, “What difference does it make if they were or were not lovers?”

But then, the pastor said the same thing… and more.

He said that whether or not they were lovers was irrelevant to the story’s message about the transcendent power or friendship, but that is was politically significant to call out this biblical story of intimacy between two men and accept its possibility from the pulpit.

He said he felt a responsibility to bless their intimacy, the possibility of their homosexuality, and to publicly recognize it as acceptable in God's eyes.

[Preach it, radical church man!]

At other points during the sermon, the pastor referenced the congregation's uncertainty on matters of faith.

This relieved me.

Still, it was jarring to sit in what looked like any small, southern, Christian church but tasted like something else entirely.

Flavor combinations I had never before experienced were being offered here.

The Mayor and The Rooster seemed to enjoy themselves quite well.

They were whisked off to various Sunday school and other children’s activities where they did various arts and crafts projects, heard stories and were not, at any time, asked to sit still.

Towards the end of the service, the children of the congregation rejoined their parents in the sanctuary for communion and the recession.

During the final hymn, The Rooster danced joyfully in the aisle between the pews.

No one seemed to mind, so I didn’t stop her.

As the robed members of the choir and the various church elders stepped down and into the aisle marching towards the back of the church, The Rooster turned and began high stepping her way out as well, leading them all.

I called her back then.

I know my shy girl well enough to realize that if she fell out of her musical reverie with the length of the church between us, she would dissolve into an instant bucket of tears.

When it was our turn to spill out into the aisle and out of the church, a number of people stopped me to remark that they were sure The Rooster would have led the church elders and the choir right out of the building and onto the street.

The way she had been swept outside of herself made me think again about my belief in the power of ritual and story.

Faith based or not, ritual and story bring meaning to our lives and I want to provide it for The Mayor and The Rooster.

I looked around at the assembled congregation.

“Is this the community?” I wondered. “Are these the people amongst whom I will finally struggle with my questions about faith?”

I left feeling like I might be willing to go on a second date, but that I was nowhere near ready to make a commitment.

[Definitely no good night kiss.]

***********

And now for something completely different....

[A naked organist!]

Can you guess what The Mayor would choose to eat if offered his choice of canned spinach, canned pinto beans or white bread?

His choice might surprise you – and it could lead you to a $100 dollar prize and a year’s worth of free...

Check it out.

Sawdust

2009-09-27T19:35:00.006-04:00

We spent the day at our friends Elke and Michael’s house.

K finished helping Michael build a sukkah for the upcoming Sukkot holiday.

While the men donned tool belts and slowly coated themselves in flecks of sawdust, The Mayor, The Rooster and I helped Elke and her kids decorate the sheets that will serve as wall coverings in the temporary structure.

In the spirit of celebrating the harvest, we drew pictures of fruits and vegetables and wrote their names on the sheets with fabric paint and markers.

No one seemed to mind that while employing all my protestant determination, I copied the Hebrew words for “fig,” “olives,” “dates" and “grapes” upside down and backwards.

“That’s okay,” Michael said laughing at me, “when God looks down on the sukkah he’ll be able to read it.”

While we were busy working, a phone call from Denver told us that Michael’s Grandmother, Bubie Sarah, passed away.

She was 98 years old.

She had Alzheimer’s as well as severe dementia.

About two weeks ago she simply stopped eating and drinking.

She just refused.

I wondered if she had any clarity about refusing or if she shut down unknowingly.

The end of a long life.

She was born in 1911 in a small shtetl in Poland.

Her father came to America when she was five and worked for seven years saving money to bring the rest of the family.

Michael told us about her life over lunch and I tried to imagine being separated from my family for seven years.

During World War I, German Soldiers were billeted in Sarah’s village.

One of them was friendly towards her and when he was leaving to return home he gave her a bar of soap.

It was the first she’d ever held.

She put the soap in a box of sawdust under her bed.

Periodically she would take it out to gently hold and admire it, each time returning the prize to the safety of the hidden box.

Sarah got her first pair of shoes when she was twelve.

They were bought for her in Warsaw when the family was on the way to America.

Two years after arriving in the New World, Sarah’s mother died.

She spent most of her teen years and early adulthood taking care of her father.

Michael said she was the quiet type.

"She’d fade quietly into the woodwork, so much so that people would forget she was there."

“She learned a lot about people and things that way,” Michael told us.

“She developed a great insight.”

“She had huge hands and she cooked strange foods that no one else cooked,” Michael said.

“I was afraid of her when I was a boy, but I discovered that her foreignness was a gift for me.”

We added another bit of writing to the sheet that will become the sukkah wall.

"Celebrating Sukkot with love in our hearts for Bubie Sarah, always."

A Guy Walks Into A Bar

2009-09-16T08:35:00.005-04:00

The Mayor, who is five, is currently going through the (widely studied) "Catskills" phase of his early childhood development.

Oh, the jokes.

[Oy, the jokes.]

Last night at dinner, he told the same (long), (unfunny), (obscure) joke three times.

With each telling the joke became longer and more obscure.

His dinner remained untouched as he cracked himself up and bewildered the rest of us.

Inspired by his own hilarity, The Mayor suggested that the family take turns telling jokes.

"You can go first, Dad," he said.

K took a deep breath.

"Okay, Jack Nicklaus and Jesus Christ were out on the golf course."

"Dad, Dad," The Mayor interrupted, "if you don't have a FUNNY joke to tell, you can just say something silly."

[I put the full text of K's joke in the comments section in response to the many requests.]

The Dark Lord

2009-09-07T21:14:00.003-04:00

My friend Merrily was out of town this weekend so we invited her husband Gepetto out with us.

I guess we didn't look after him very well...

Just Keep Swimming

2009-09-03T13:55:00.005-04:00

When the pull of life's undertow is dragging me down, I swim.

I imagine I have been shipwrecked and that I must try to reach the land.

[I usually imagine this is taking place somewhere near the Fiji Islands.]

[The water is completely shark free so I don't have to worry about that.]

[Hey, this is my head trip so I can manufacture whatever weird details see me through.]

It amuses me that I routinely swim when stressed, trying very literally to save myself from metaphorically drowning.

I know I could probably sail home on some sort of chemical lifeboat, but as long as I am able I somehow favor trying to get there on my own.

So I swim and swim and swim.

Today it took me two hours to reach the shore.

Strapless

2009-08-31T21:00:00.007-04:00

I usually hang out at Rooster's pre-k playground for awhile after I pick her up.

It gives her a chance to play longer with her best friend and I effectively kill time until I can go pick up The Mayor.

[And it would be unfair not to admit that I really like the standing around and talking with the other parents part.]

Over time, I have developed a friendship with the parents of one of The Rooster's best friends.

The wife is secretly hysterical.

She is an introvert and, should you meet her on the street, you might find her quiet, but you would not know her true nature.

She endlessly e-mails me links to you tube videos of Latvian, Pirate Eurovision contestants.

Recently, after I retaliated with a little failed Karaoke, she admitted that "Tuts My Barreh" is her new make-out, come on, theme song.

[So you can see why I like talking to her.]

And that is just what I was doing when I heard,

"Mommy, come strap me in!"

The Rooster and her friend had climbed up on the baby swings.

Now, technically, they're not supposed to be on the baby swings in the first place because they are much too big.

"It's okay Roo," I called to her, "just hold on tightly to the rope."

Four seconds later I watched her fall and hit her chin. Hard.

I ran to her, scooped her up, covered her in love and apologized.

It was absolutely my fault... I was too pre-occupied talking to my friend.

[Oh, the guilt!]

A nano second later, The Rooster's friend also fell and she too, began to cry.

Her mother scooped her daughter up just as I had done.

When our girls calmed down a bit, she caught my eye and said,

"We should probably just split the Mother of the Year Award."

Ack!

No more going strapless!

Ask For What You Need

2009-08-28T09:00:00.003-04:00

My children were picking on each other at breakfast the other day.

[Because every day is the same.]

I interrupted them and asked WHY they fought so incessantly.

In response, they simply accused each other of being annoying.

[Oh, struggle of struggles!]

"Mayor, can you think of something The Rooster could do to make you feel good instead of annoyed?" I asked.

He thought for a moment.

"She could stop kissing and hugging me so much. I don't always like to be touched."

"And what about you, Rooster? Can you think of something The Mayor could do that would make you feel less annoyed?"

"He could help me to not feel so little all the time," she said.

[Mi pobrecita!]

A few days later they were both trying to make King Tut masks, an art project meant for much older kids.

There were a lot of pieces to cut out and The Rooster became increasingly frustrated.

"Here, let me help you," The Mayor said. "I'll cut your pieces out for you."

Beaming, she watched him cut. She didn't touch him at all.

Work-A-Day Buddha

2009-08-26T14:57:00.005-04:00

Because of a meeting at work, I spent the last two days with a Buddhist priest.

In our forty eight hours together, I asked him a lot about his faith.

Fundamentally, he saw the world as a borderless garden where everyone is welcome and invited to plant seeds.

He suggested that each of us find our best, most compassionate selves when we help nurture the seeds that others plant, when we recognize the good in others and help them.

He said he believed that love and compassion existed within every person, that it was universal.

“When you recognize the good in another person,” he said, “they go on to recognize the good in someone else. It creates a ripple effect for a more peaceful world. In seeing the good in others, you polish the goodness in yourself.”

The priest said he tried to approach every human interaction as an opportunity to help.

"How can I help you?" he liked to say.

I got home late the first night, and kept K up late talking about the idea of trying to recognize the good in others as an everyday act.

I wondered if there might be a way to employ these ideas when The Mayor and The Rooster become entangled in their many, daily struggles.

[My children spend a good part of every day trying to annoy each other, poke the other in the eye or generally disrupt the other’s peace.]

I imagined pulling them apart in one of those moments where, as a parent, I am forced to intervene lest blood be shed.

What if, before I got down to the business of mediating the mac-n-cheese vs. hot dog debate, I asked each of them to quiet themselves and say something nice about the other person?

What if I asked them to stop and recognize the good in their sibling?

I wondered if, over time, the practice would result in mutual consciousness of actually liking each other.

[A mother can dream.]

The next night at dinner I suggested that each of us say one good thing about every other member of the family.

Taking turns, we did it and it was actually pretty nice.

After dinner, K and I were in the kitchen cleaning up while the kids finished eating.

[How long can one linger over a chicken nugget, grasshopper?]

As they usually do when left alone, The Mayor and The Rooster started in on each other.

K and I ignored them.

[Unless there are screams of pain, we try to shut out the bickering.]

Then we heard The Mayor say,

“I’m not going to talk about it with you anymore. You’re just trying to pick a fight with me and there’s no point in arguing.”

“Bravo!” I thought, until The Rooster responded.

“No, I’m not. YOU’RE trying to pick a fight with ME.”

“No, YOU'RE trying to pick a fight with ME.”

“No YOU are.”

"No!"

"You!"

Oh tiny green shoots of compassion, may I suggest you avoid my home address when attempting to blossom in the borderless garden.

[Sigh.]

Faith is action to which you have dedicated your whole being.
Act for others first, with compassion.
Kindness has no borders.
You give, you grow, you transform.

Food Chain

2009-08-22T10:55:00.003-04:00

At dinner the other night, The Rooster discussed her day at pre-school.

She led us through a list of proposed names for class pet hermit crab and we weighed the merits of each proposal.

"Joseph suggested Hermie," she told us.

[Oh, the original!]

The Mayor rolled his eyes and wryly contributed his own idea.

"Why don't you just call the hermit crab Bait?"

[!!!!]

It's usually his sister's role to be the macabre one.

Uncertainty

2009-08-17T08:08:00.005-04:00

I went running with Merrily on Saturday morning and she made me cry.

She told me about her friend M.K. who is dying of lung cancer.

She has two kinds of lung cancer, though she isn’t, nor has she ever been, a smoker.

The doctors predict that she will only live a few more months.

M.K. is 41, she’s the mother of a six year old daughter and she is furious.

Every time she looks at her daughter, she wants to cry.

“Even if I lived six more years, or eight more years, it wouldn’t be enough. I still won’t be here when she graduates, when she gets’s married or when she has her own child... I shouldn’t be burdening you with all this,” she cried to Merrily.

“This is what I can give you,” Merrily said. “I can listen. I can do that for you.”

On our final lap around the neighborhood, I found myself unable to speak.

My voice kept cracking and breaking.

“She’s in the anger stage of her grief,” Merrily said, “and who wouldn’t be? She’s had the rug ripped right out from under her.”

“You think you’ve got things under control, even though you know in the deepest part of yourself that there isn’t any such thing, but you find comfort in the path you imagine you’re walking along and then WHAM.”

The path M.K. meant to walk is denied to her now.

“She has to find a new path,” Merrily said.

I thought about how hard it would be to figure out how to live the last days of your life if you knew that’s what they were.

It would be fantastic if you found out that you were dying and you could simply make sure you lived each day to the fullest - if for no other reason than to be present and joyful in your children's final memories of you.

I know that is unrealistic though.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could learn that you were dying and skip the angry part?

Of course M.K. is angry.

I would be angry too.

As we talked about M.K.'s situation, I found myself wishing.

I wished that if something similar ever happens to me that I would find a way to write letters to my children.

I thought about writing letters to them that could be handed over at all of the big life moments to come in their lives like birthdays, graduations and weddings…

That led me to think that maybe my discipline around journaling should shift.

Maybe I should write to them.

Maybe I should write even about ordinary days and bind up a journal of letters that reflect on the events of any average Tuesday.

I imagined writing to them as adults, the age they would be when they eventually read the letters.

I pictured my children finding the journal at the time of my death.

Some part of me says, “you should do that,” and urges me on.

Another part of me calls it “tempting fate” and warns against it like a shaman trying to ward of a bad omen.

The Law of Averages

2009-08-13T21:49:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine was in town on business and we were able to get together for lunch.

I first met him at a party when we were in college.

It was a fraternity party where the "brothers" were all engineering students with severely enlarged cerebral cortexes.

[I only went to the coolest parties.]

[Geeks Unite!]

Anyway, it was the mid 1980’s and John had on a skinny, leather tie.

I was instantly IN LOVE.

I stalked this poor boy for several years until he finally quasi dated me and then broke my heart when he told me that, while he liked me very much, he did not LOVE me back.

[Only it took him a really long time to say it because he used a metaphor about setting off forever in a canoe with just one person and how I might be the person for the canoe, but… (??)]

Years later, after staying intermittently in touch, we actually became friends.

Both of us ended our starter marriages around the same time.

[Practice helps.]

Though he was never a good match for me, he has been a very good friend and I am grateful for it.

One thing I like about John is the way that he has always, even when we were in college, known what to ask people.

Anytime he meets someone new, he produces a miraculous question – one that draws the person out of themselves and seduces them to share something personal, interesting, or unusual.

John has a talent for that.

Today, in the heat of the mid-day, Georgia sun, we decided to walk to lunch.

On the way, John told me that he often asks older men what they would do differently if they could go back in time.

He asks them what they would do differently if they were him.

The two answers he’s received that he likes the most are: 1.) don't buy things you don’t need; and 2.) plan for a second career.

John talked a lot about the second one.

He talked about the balance we strike between ambition and parenthood.

Sometimes we’re content not to climb the ladder for awhile as long as we can balance our family lives with our professional ones.

Some older men have told him that they then found themselves at the end of their careers having achieved something far less than what they dreamed of achieving when they set out.

“It took a long time to figure out that I should have prepared myself for a second career – something far less lucrative, but far more fulfilling.”

I thought about my Grandfather.

He worked for years as an engineer for a company that made elevators.

After he retired, he spent the next fifteen years gardening and doing woodwork.

He didn’t make a living at either of these, but he grew much of the food he ate and he made furniture and gifts for all the members of our family.

Most importantly, he seemed happy with all of it.

John’s questions made me want to start asking older women what they would do differently, what they would do if they were me.

[I know, I know. Moisturize.]

It also made me think about how I’ll spend my days when the children are grown and I am retired.

What will be my “second career” as John's advisor called it?

Softly She Sang

2009-08-03T21:51:00.006-04:00

"I am with you and we are together..."

She softly sang to herself as we drove along.

My mother and husband were in the front seat and I was sandwiched between The Mayor and The Rooster's car seats.

The Mayor begged for me to keep my right arm limp while he beat himself in the head with it and laughed.

[Oh, the proud.]

Out in the Pacific Northwest, visiting my mother, my brother-in-law's family and joined by Grandma New York, we made our way towards Fort Worden State Park on the Olympic Peninsula.

The Grandmas treated us all to a stay at an amazing house, The Retreat at Sycamore, seemingly designed for the sole purpose of drawing out your inner Zen Buddhist.

Every inch of the house and grounds made you want to sit quietly and simply contemplate.

[Too bad those of us in on the treat included four children under the age of seven who beat the house's giant gong incessantly, taking only intermittent breaks to divert yet still more water from the "personal cannonball pool" also known as the hot tub.]

Driving across the Hood Canal Bridge for a short excursion seemed like a welcome escape.

As we drove along, The Rooster held my hand in her soft, small one and sang.

"You and I are together, we are right here."

She gazed out the window singing this comforting little song to no one in particular other than herself.

"We will always be together, you and me, Roo and Mama."

She sighed happily. Just as I thought my heart would burst she added the song's finishing touches.

"We will always be together... forever... until you turn into a vampire."

I Forgot to Tell You Something Last Easter...

2009-07-21T19:40:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned, we went to church for the first time in over a year last Sunday.

The children pointed at the stained glass windows in recognition and elatedly remarked,

"Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus!"

[They know all about Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus because we routinely pass a ceramic, household Garden Mary forever praying over the sad state of the zoysia and, at Christmas time, there is a giant, plastic, light-up creche two doors down.]

The Mayor, my most earnest child, concentrated fervently throughout the mass, trying with all his soul to understand the meaning of the service.

As usual, he asked a lot of questions.

[Which would be less of an issue if he didn't speak in ALL CAPS.]

"WHO'S THE GUY IN THE ROBE?" he yelled.

[That would be the Priest.]

"WHAT ARE THOSE KIDS DOING UP THERE ON STAGE?"

[Alter girls...]

"WHAT IS THE PRIEST HOLDING UP AND BREAKING?"

[Bread. The body of Christ.]

"WHAT? HIS BODY? WELL... I'M HUNGRY."

During a particularly quiet moment, when the parish was deep in silent prayer, a look of realization and then alarm, spread across The Mayor's face.

He turned to us, his eye as wide as saucers.

"DID JESUS DIE?!!!?!" he asked, incredulous.

The Rooster looked concerned.

"JESUS DIED?!! she cried.

All the parishioners turned in their seats to face us.

Baaaa-d Catholics

2009-07-19T20:46:00.006-04:00

The Mayor and The Rooster, under the influence of peer pressure from their short and loud, southern, church going, tiny friends, came home this week and complained that their father and I actively deny them the experience of going to church.

"You NEVER take us to church," they whined. "We want to go to church."

[Church of the Zoo no longer counts, apparently.]

So, okay fine. We'll go to church.

The Mayor went on to insist that he had to have dress clothes just like those his father wears to work in order attend.

He hounded me about this every day this week until I took him to Macy's and set him free with my credit card.

In the image of the Father?

Indeed.

Let us pray.

At the church mass, there was a whole lot of talk about Jeremiah.

[Not the one who was a bullfrog.]

The Priest read something from the Bible...

"Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the LORD."

[I pity the fool who misleads my flock!]

"Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away."

[The well known Ovine Diaspora.]

"You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds."

[Serious time out.]

"I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow; there they shall increase and multiply."

[Oooh! Baby lambs!]

"I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing, says the LORD."

The Mayor furrowed his brow in all earnestness, concentrating on the words, determined to follow their meaning.

Finally, he leaned over to his Father and said,

"Why is he talking so much about people who own sheep?"

The Priest gave K a look of concern because my poor husband was suddenly hunched over with his shoulders shuddering violently and he appeared to be inconsolably sobbing into his hands.

Time Travel

2009-07-17T10:30:00.008-04:00

"Who is the pregnant woman?" I asked, thinking she looked vaguely familiar.

"See the boy in the Spiderman shorts?" she said.

He was a young, African American child of about three.

I admit, I had noticed him but only because in forty one years of summer visits, I had never seen a person of color at this particular swimming pool.

"Yes, I see him," I said.

"That's Bob," she told me. "He's her son and now she's pregnant with her second child."

"Is Bob's father here?" I asked looking around.

She shrugged.

"No one knows who Bob's father is, " she confided. "No one knows who the father of the baby she's about to have is either... or even if the two children will have the same father."

My cousins or their friends always catch me up on the local gossip during my two visits a year to my Granny's rural, Virginian community.

Throughout my life, all the stories they consider most scandalous have reached me in these hushed whispers.

Everyone's secrets are known and shared, passed along at covered dish suppers at the church and beside the pool on the Fourth of July.

Eventually, they get tired of talking about any given scandal and shift into a state of acceptance, but there is a long, crowded trail of whispered words lining the path to that destination.

"Bob is a wonderful child," she said, "but the truth is that he is going to change things around here."

My faced asked her to say more.

"More and more, people are coming from farther and farther across the county to join this pool. It's gotten so I don't know everyone that swims here any more."

She looked wistful for a moment, then went on.

"There's never been a black person that belonged to this pool. It's a private, community pool for our friends. While we can't legally keep anyone from joining, there's been a long standing respect for the fact that we pulled together and built this pool for ourselves. We welcome any other community to pull together and build their own pool too."

She paused.

I understood that she expected me to interpret what she said in a particular way.

I felt awkward and shifted from foot to foot.

"Now black people are going to see Bob up here and they're going to ask to join and we're going to have to let them."

She paused again and then shrugged.

"Bob is a sign of the times, I suppose. Things are changing and these are the times we live in."

-July 4th, 2009

The Trailer

2009-07-12T09:00:00.002-04:00

"Wasn't she somehow involved with that man whose wife died in the trailer when that tree fell on it?" I asked gesturing discreetly at a pregnant woman in a pool chair.

She pulled me aside in confidence.

"Well actually," she said, "that was her sister."

I was at the community pool in my Granny's small, rural community and though I've been swimming there on summer vacations since I can remember, keeping everyone's life story straight is difficult since I am just an occasional interloper from the city.

"See that shirtless boy over there in the camouflage shorts and bare feet?" she asked me. "He's the one. He was that baby."

She gave me a knowing look.

In my grandmother's tiny Virgina hamlet, there was an accident about nine years ago.

During a severe thunderstorm, a tree fell on a trailer home and killed the mother of a newborn baby boy.

The child was protected and saved by his mother's body, though it took hours to extract him.

This is one story that I have never forgotten as I find it haunts me still.

I have often thought about the boy's father and wondered what it must have cost him to live through the combined death and survival.

I have also thought about the boy and wondered about growing up in the shadow of this strange sacrifice.

My confidant brought my wandering attention back to her story.

She pointed at the pregnant woman that I had asked initially asked about.

"Now her sister," she said, "you might have seen her. She was here earlier in the pink halter top?"

I nodded.

"Well she's married to the father now and that little girl in the pink bikini is their daughter."

The little girl in the pink bikini struck me as impossibly beautiful and I worried again about the father, only this time not for his passed, but for his future heartache.

What will it be like to be the father of a girl that pretty when she comes of age?

The Breathtaking

2009-07-08T20:38:00.004-04:00

I'm always elated when I pull off the final, little, state highway and follow the unmarked country lanes that weave their way through the Virginia farmland to my Granny's house.

I fill my lungs in anticipation thinking that I'm almost there.

It was no different as I drove in for the Fourth of July holiday last weekend.

I passed flowering rows of tobacco, faded red barns and endless, crooked fence posts.

Shafts of sunlight filtered down through the hardwood trees making the pavement sparkle.

Out of nowhere, a brilliantly colored hummingbird appeared.

The hummingbird was the most extraordinary shades of royal blue and aqua marine, really quite breathtaking.

I admired his beauty and watched the beautiful arc of his flight and then, understanding his fate, suddenly sucked in my breath.

BLAP!

I looked in my rear view mirror and there, in the middle of the road, was a royal blue and aqua pancake.

Welcome to the countryside!

Home

2009-07-01T21:28:00.007-04:00

"I want to go home!!!" she wails.

It doesn't matter.

We can be at THE MOST FUN PLACE IN THE WORLDVIEW OF ALL THREE YEAR OLDS and if things don't go her way, we hear it...

"I want to go home!"

[Accompanied by a great and tragic wailing.]

Lately she's started saying it when we're at home.

[Um. Hello? Roo? Look around, Sweetness. We ARE home.]

But our actual location doesn't seem to matter.

Tonight, K felt a little sorry for her sad, little, worn-out self and he picked her up.

She smiled and snuggled her face into his neck.

"Home," she said.

The Devil's Punchbowl

2009-06-28T22:07:00.011-04:00

My heart raced.

I regularly suffered from anxiety that something bad would happen to Joseph, that I’d be widowed young.

It scared me that I thought those things, but as I went to the phone, the pounding in my chest got stronger.

Of the few people who knew where I was this weekend, who would be calling so early?

“Hello?” I asked the cordless banana.

“Jessica. It’s Therese.”

[Onset of full blown panic.]

“Oh my God. Oh, my God. What’s wrong?”

There was no way Therese would have been out of bed so early on a Saturday morning if it wasn’t serious.

“Campbell’s gone,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s John. He’s dead,” she said.

“What? When?”

“Yesterday. He drowned.”

“How the hell did he f*cking drown?” I demanded, angrily.

“He was up in the mountains with his roommate’s dog and some friends.”

“But John can swim! Was he drunk?”

I was incredulous.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what happened?” I insisted.

“A friend of his from Aspen called this morning. He has John’s address book. He’s calling all of us.”

“What did he say? Was he there?”

“No. He wasn’t there, but he said that the dog fell in the water and John went in to save him and drowned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either," she paused, "he’s gone though.”

“Does Joseph know?”

“No one knows where Joseph is.”

“What do you mean no one knows where he is?”

“He’s not at the house.”

“Did you call him?”

“Yeah.”

“And…?”

“I got the machine.”

“He’s probably at the hospital. I think he was on call,” I said.

“You’d better call him,” she said. “He’d probably rather hear it from you.”

I agreed.

“What’s everybody doing?” I asked.

“There’s a funeral in Montana on Wednesday for the family and his friends are having a service in Aspen on Saturday.”

“Are we going?” I asked.

“I can’t go to Aspen," she said regretfully. I can’t afford to go to Aspen.”

“Well, is anyone going?” I asked, worried.

“Chicago's going.”

“They’re all going?”

“A bunch of them… I think.”

“F*cking Campbell.”

Therese started to cry.

My eyes felt like they were on fire and a huge hand kept squeezing my heart.

“Alright, I’m going to try to call Joseph at the hospital and then I’ll get on the road home,” I told her.

“He’s gone,” she said quietly.

“Man, I’ll see you later,” I said hanging up the phone.

I felt like a cartoon character in a deep freeze.

I wondered if I was still asleep.

I dialed Grady Memorial Hospital and actually got a helpful operator who paged Joseph, but got no response.

I told the operator I was his wife and that it was an emergency. I held the line while they looked for him.

John was Joseph’s college roommate and had just been a groomsman in our wedding a few
months earlier.

John cried when he said goodbye to us in Atlanta.

I remember wondering why he was so upset. He had acted like it was the last time he’d ever see us.

The operator returned to the line, “Your husband has left for the day, M’am.”

“Thanks,” I said and hung up.

I dialed home.

“Hello,” his voice answered.

“Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you hear?”

“Yup.”

“When?”

“A friend of John’s just called.”

“Are you o.k.?”

“I don’t know.”

“Therese said Chicago is planning to go to the service in Aspen.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m coming home this afternoon. We should go too.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“But… why not?”

“Everyone will be depressed and upset. I don’t want to remember John that way.”

“That’s not how you’ll remember John," I said softly. "Going would just give us a chance to be around other people who will miss him."

“I don’t need that. I’m too mad at him. What a stupid f*cker! F*cking drowned! F*cking &sshole!”

“Babe,” I started.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

There was a silence.

“Okay, listen, I said. "I was up late last night with Lori and David. I’m going to get some food and coffee and then I’m coming home.”

“You don’t have to come home. You needed to get away. There’s nothing you can do here.”

“I want to be with you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, but I’m coming home.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. See you later.”

The line disconnected.

I felt bewildered by Joseph’s reaction. I couldn’t understand him not wanting to go to the service. John had been one of his best friends.

Joseph grew up in a small town in Illinois.

John’s mom had also grown up there and her parents, John’s grandparent’s, still lived there.

John’s grandfather was an historian who knew all there was to know about Abraham Lincoln. Joseph had grown up knowing him.

When the two families learned that John, who grew up in Montana, and Joseph were both going to the University of Illinois, they suggested the two young men look each other up.

Joseph and John met early during their freshman year.

They became fast friends, hung out together constantly and developed a crush on the same girl in the dorm cafeteria (a friend of mine from high school as it would turn out.)

During sophomore year, John and Joseph roomed together and built a common group of friends.

Like many U of I graduates, most of the crowd moved to the city after college and the few of us in Atlanta called them, collectively, “Chicago.”

A few moved to Aspen, Colorado in a quest to remain young and free of responsibility.

To please his parents, John took a job as a recruiter for a college in Winter Park, Florida.

He suffered through a year of wearing a tie, keeping a respectable nine to five schedule and the insult of failing to get laid despite the sun, sand and abundant availability of fruity cocktail beverages.

In the end, John traded the career path in for a ticket to Aspen and a job bartending at a place called Cooper Street.

At our wedding, John bragged about his relaxed life, the skiing, the women and the decadence of Aspen.

He could mix and match party favors like a wardrobe, partying harder and longer than anyone.

He lived outrageously and gave out hugs and kisses like candy.

Before our wedding, John flew to Florida to visit his mom.

He drove up to Atlanta in a rented convertible and arrived with a severe sunburn.

“Who’s the really pink guy?” people asked us.

There was a party the night before the wedding and though John wasn’t the host, he ran the party.

He challenged everyone to drink more, do more.

He spent the final hours of the night driving his rented convertible around and around I-285, Atlanta’s perimeter.

Joseph had to give John eight glasses of water to get him up to get ready for the ceremony in the morning.

He washed his hair with one hand while the other held his weary body up, braced against the tile.

By the time he got to the wedding, I suppose he was restored.

He was beet red in all the wedding photos, but grinning from ear to ear.

I remembered his red face as I trudged back to Lori’s guest bedroom and fell back onto the bed.

Lori’s puffy morning face and fuzzy pink robe appeared in the doorway for the second time that morning.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Did you meet John Campbell at my wedding?”

“The guy with the sunburn?”

“Yeah. Him. He drowned yesterday.”

“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later. I need a little more sleep so I can drive back to Atlanta.”

“O.K.” she said, leaving me.

I closed my eyes and opened them two hours later.

Lori was in the shower.

I smelled coffee, so I dressed and went to the kitchen.

David was in his underwear at the kitchen table.

“Morning. Want some coffee?” he asked.

“Yes. Definitely.”

David got up to get me a cup.

He was almost forty, which seemed pretty old to me at twenty six.

Although he was almost ten years older than Lori, I had liked him immediately when she introduced him as her fiancé.

He was a photographer, musician, nightclub owner and full time graduate student.

He had degrees in things like anthropology and sociology and was particularly interested in Mexico's culture, history and people.

He spent a lot of time traveling, gathering data for his thesis and writing articles for magazines.

To me, David was unpredictable, creative and perfect for Lori.

“I heard about your friend,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Is this the first friend of yours that’s died?”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“That’s rough,” David said handing me a cup. “I’ve had a couple die on me already. It’s hard. It makes you think about your own mortality, the meaning of life and all that. It makes you wonder if you’re living your life the best way you can.”

I took a sip of coffee.

“I had a friend who over dosed,” he said, “another drowned and another died of liver failure. Each time, I couldn’t f*cking believe it. The guy that over dosed… well, I guess he was the best off because he was too messed up to suffer. The guy that drowned was drunk and fell off a boat. Pieces of him floated up to shore the rest of the week. The last guy was the hardest. He died slowly and we all had to sit up there in that hospital room and watch. Man, that was awful. He knew he was going to die and he was so mad because there was so much he still wanted to do.”

I finished my coffee, packed up my things and started the long journey home.