Sun Truck Coming

“Sun truck come, Mom?” He is looking out the window into the rain-soaked yard. I admire his optimism and what I like to call his persistent reality. In the world of a two year old, if you say it, it will happen. Reminds me of Kevin Costner and his field of dreams. “If you build it, they will come.” I love the belief of a child like Sean, unfettered by disappointment or broken dreams. A little faith goes a long way in a world such as his. Sure, its been raining all night and into the morning and the branches in the crabapple out front are heavy, but he believes his presence at the window and his staccato pronouncement will bring on the sun. It worked for Kevin with Shoeless Joe, so why not a stubborn toddler? And plus, if his version of reality doesn’t surface, he can just sprawl himself on the floor and kick and scream till he gets his way.

I imagine what must go on in his little head when he says “Sun truck come.” Does he picture the UPS man riding in his “chocolate truck”, running to the porches of the sun receivers each day? Or maybe it’s more like the fire truck, hoisting the ladder to raise up the sun or spraying it out of the hose each morning? Perhaps he even pictures the ice cream truck playing “The Sun will Come out Tomorrow” incessantly while children clamor with their wrinkled dollars for a sunny day. He’s really not that far off. The Greeks thought that Helios drove the sun around the sky in a chariot each day, so why couldn’t the sun arrive in a Honda Odyssey these days? The model with the roof rack of course, wouldn’t want the interior to get ray dust all over it.

This summer it seems like the sun truck has been in the shop for repairs a lot. We have had cooler temperatures and cloudier days. But my stubborn son stands at the window repeating his mantra, willing the sun to shine. He needs it for his real dream. “I go pool, Momma. I go pool.” He is a kid with a one-track mind, and he somehow knows that he has a much better shot at the pool on a sunny bright day. He meets a trip to the pool with the same energy he uses to call out the sun. But when the day stays cloudy and he is failing at his day job, don’t put it past him as the sun goes down to mutter his other favorite phrase: “Moon truck come, Momma.” The kid and his reality are something else. I could learn a lot from a two year old.

Rambling Woman

What if there is nothing to say? Then what do you write? Sleep still covers my eyelids and the air drips with humidity. My back hurts from yesterday’s sunburn and my foot is really itchy. Where is my elixir of thought now? I am fighting the good fight. Set the alarm to wake up early. Poured the coffee. I have found my charged laptop and even avoided those favorite of social sites for the morning. Snuggled in my chocolate leather chair, coffee as close as can be without intravenously being injected. Still I’ve got nothing.

My vacation too long, the broken rhythm of fledgling thoughts mocks me. Like baby birds, they break through shells, but do not fly. I hold them close, feed them worms; still they are grounded. And the what-ifs jump in at just the wrong moment. What if this is dumb? What if somebody laughs? What if no one in the entire free world cares about what I say? But I care, so I continue to pound the keys. Thoughts fly through my brain but don’t stay long enough to matter.

Do I want to live in a world without daily US mail? I always have marveled at the way the pictures of my kids can fly to California in two days and for forty-three cents. How sad it would be not to visit my postbox each day about ten a.m. Oh I know it is mostly filled with bills, but the optimist in me always holds out for a postcard or an invitation.

Do I want to live in a world with Sarah Palin as President? Tired of her antics and Shatner’s poem done in her dishonor and the fact that my Mom always says “Quitters never win.” So where does that leave me? Nostradamus says the world will end in 2012 anyway, so I guess that is your answer.

Do I think the health care crisis can be solved without a mass exodus to Sweden? So sad that people struggle when quality doctors and hospitals should be a right. All the band-aids in the world won’t fix this blood letting.

Now the clock is ticking and the beasts are waking. The actual day starts with demands of breakfast and juice. This carved away time ends without much to show for it. But it’s the exercise that counts. Not for my fingers, for my mind. What do I think? Where am I situated in this world? What is my next step?

Like the why, why, why of my daily world, this is a universe in which the questions are more important than the answers.

Making Memories

The boys frolic in the surf.
Two for each of us,
Remarkably close in age.
They stomp waves and chase boats
And marvel at the dead fish being washed ashore.
We lounge on striped towels, a memory or two floating between us,
Flitting like the stutter steps of the two year olds
Chasing seagulls down the beach.

Time plays its tricks, and it wasn’t so long ago
That it was us playing at the water’s edge.
Joined by her brothers and my sisters,
We built castles and threw Frisbees and
Scavenged for candy our parents hid in trees.

But now we are the Mommies,
Packing sunscreen and snacks and shovels
For a day in the sun.
And I’m not quite sure how this happened.
Time spins so quickly and waves wash so much away.
But these beach days remain with us and
Draw us back with our sons.

We return to make the memories for them
That we hold so dear.
Hunting shells, digging sand, body surfing in the waves.
Now our recollections blend together like the
White froth of surf meeting beach,
As we leave our imprint again in the sand.

Castles in the Sand

They say it’s a game for children
Shovels flying, filling buckets then
Emptying them one by one
By the water’s edge.

But what do youngsters know about
Heart?
To fill cup after cup
And bucket upon bucket,
Knowing it will all be washed away?

This is a job for dreamers.
Those who can stand to work with precision
In packing and dumping
But hang on to the vision of creating.

Sixteen years old, this castle builder
Works for hours in the blazing sun
Turrets rising meticulously
Spread through the castle proper.
Moats surrounding the outbuildings
His brothers help him build.

They say it’s a game for children
But he senses the truth already.
Works with passion,
Though the tide is coming fast
To destroy what he has fashioned.

This is a job for dreamers.
Those who can eye the surf and
The little boys waiting to jump on
Their creations,
Yet still continue as though
What they are building in this minute
Is the most permanent home of all.

Sean: Snapshots at the Beach

Day 1: The first day he just dealt with the buckets. Four of them in various colors stacked and unstacked and stacked again. No shovel, no sand. Just the buckets. Oh, he did enjoy the sand, just not the way you would imagine. He likes to lay nestled from head to toe, face planted in the grains. Sand covers his body, tucks into his ears and under his swim diaper. Why did I bring this beach blanket and spread it so carefully on the ground if he was going to be so happy to be lying in the sand? But I know what he means; I love the warmth and the texture of the sand on my body too.

Day 2: He has graduated to the watering can today. Trip to the water’s edge to fill it, back to the sand to dump, to the water, to the sand. His little legs churn and continue. Then he plops with a shovel, finally a shovel, and fills the bucket. Same routine, but no walking. Shovel, dump, shovel, dump. This is my two year old. And finally today, he sits on the blanket. Leaves his sandwich on the edge and a gull swoops in to grab it. “Bird take it, Mommy,” he repeats again and again. We lay together then, and I pluck the seeds from cherries for him; the sweet juice drips down his chin. He grins at me from behind sandy, sticky fists: a precious moment with the sun and the sand and my dear little boy.

Day 3: He’s got the hang of this now. Immediately sets ME to work digging a hole in the earth. “Dig sand, Momma”. He gets the water, returning again and again to dump a cupful of water in the waiting hole. He is carrying a shovel, just for show I think, because he hasn’t actually used it. And it throws him just a little off balance so he loses the sloshing water in the bucket. He continues his bucket brigade for one, spilling more water than he makes into the hole. He drops his tools when he spots the big boys running races down the beach. “I go too, guys”, he calls after them, stubby legs flinging sand as he runs. Sea gulls stare at his gait and I marvel at how far he’s come, in beach time and in life. This little man hurling sand and sentences, eating cherries and racing down the beach.

Middle Passage

Reddish pink stripes fill the sky, punctuated by a dropping ball of fire. Deeper storm clouds roll in from the west, colored as purple as the massive bruise on my knee. But it’s the whiff of the dying fish that grabs me and takes me back through the years, as this sharp evening wind moves the poplar branches tonight.

This is the same sunset upon which my childhood memories are built. Thirty years for this sun to rise and blaze and set upon the earth. Thirty years for me to grow and move and change. And I wonder tonight what is the same in myself and in this world, and what has been changed past recognition.

Is the sand that my daughter now shovels filled with grains that touched my chubby young hands so many years ago? Is my water still here, filled with the scent of Ivory soap from bathing in the Bay as a child? What about the shells strewn along the water’s edge? Could they be the same ones I discarded as a girl?

And the bigger questions are about what is still inside me. Do I carry that excitement I see in her face as she splashes in the waves? Or the patience to painstakingly line up her shells in perfect order? What about her belief that anything is possible, that the sun in the sky is glowing just for her?

I’m at a cross-roads now. I can feel it pulsing like those rays of the setting sun. The streaks across the sky and the storm clouds flying east give me pause. This is the middle passage. I cannot make it back to that sweet young girl burying her feet in the sand. And I am not sure where to head. If I follow this horizon line or set out west to chase the falling orb.

The water speaks and the trees give the wind a voice, but I cannot interpret their message. The sun sinks below the horizon and the sky grows redder. I wonder how it can be brighter when the sun is gone. Yet another sign that I cannot understand, just another road I’m not sure how to travel.

So I sit. And I breathe. And I watch these swans and this crane and the snake in the water. And I wait for the instinct, and the courage, and the sign in this flaming red sky.

Was Lost, but Now He's Found

The police car pulled up to the curb on that damp cold night. The burly young officer opened the passenger door to reveal a giggling toddler ensconced on the front seat, replete with dirty diaper and chocolate grin. His grandmother scooped to retrieve him, relief radiating from the clouds in her eyes. It had been a terrifying half hour, but Marty was home safely. The evening had started innocently enough. It was a rare night out. Maura and Marty headed to Grandma’s for some evening fun. But what ensued that evening was anything but amusing.

The February darkness came early, and chilling rain covered the frozen concrete. Grandma and her charges were snuggled warmly on the couch, reading the tale of Cinderella. Nobody noticed when Marty wandered away. Even if they had noticed, they wouldn’t have worried. He rarely stayed till the end of stories, and made his own fun with random things around the house. But as Cinderella and Prince Charming declared happily ever after, Maura and Grandma started wondering about the boy. He was nowhere to be found.

A frantic search of the entire house revealed no two and a half year old boy playing tricks or fallen asleep. He had vanished like the coachman at the stroke of midnight. They broadened their search outside, and enlisted the help of several neighbor boys. Still no sign of the two year old. It was about this time, apparently, that Marty was found wandering the darkened roadway by a kindly woman. He had been trying to walk home. He had left the house of his Grandma, crossed the street, and turned the corner onto a street with no sidewalks, all in his socks. He did not seem alarmed by the ride in the police car nor the end to his evening escapade. His Grandma and sister were alarmed enough for all of them.

When the (thankfully) oblivious parents returned from dinner, Maura met them at the door. “Marty hid from Grandma and I,” her singsong voice implored. The understatement of the year. But all’s well that ends well, especially when you miss all the drama!

The Hole

This hole is already deep. And although I love to garden, my shovel is weary as I lift each handful of dirt, willing my rubber arms to dump it up and out past the edge of the growing hole. The shifting dirt at my feet skews my balance as I fight each shovel to the top. The sun beats down a cadence upon my tear and dirt-streaked face. The humid air presses my lungs and my breath. But I must keep digging.

My fingers raw, the splintered wood handle digs deep into my flesh. This started simply enough. An old treasure map found in an attic corner. The former owners had buried it deeply in the edge of the yard. And so I dig. The mounds at the edge of my hole grow tall, castle peaks stretching to the beating sun. My limbs stretch, too. Reaching across the ever-increasing gap to lift each shovel of dirt higher than humanly possible.

That is always the way with me, shoveling more than I can lift or carry. But I continue, red bandana wiping the sweat from my brow. The shovel clinks suddenly onto a metal home, and I bend to see what I have found. My blistered hands work feverishly now, brushing the dirt from around the box. My fingernails ingest dirt as I try to pry the box from the earth.

The treasure finally gives way, earth dripping around it as I stumble backwards from its weight. I cannot get it out of the hole; I will have to open it right here. I grab the crow bar I have thought to bring, always ready for anything really, and pry the lid from its base. Involuntarily I hold my breath in anticipation of the delights I will find.

The lid falls away and my anticipation turns to disgust. The treasure chest is empty. My work in vain. The blisters on my hands mock me as I sink to my knees, unable to hold back the wrenching sobs of my disappointment.

And so it goes. I haul my battered body to the top of the hole, sliding down again until I think to use the box for leverage. I return to where I started and reverse the actions of the day. I kick the piles of dirt into the gaping hole, tears and sweat joining the flying soil.

I turn silently back to the house, my heart and arms just as empty as before.

Just as Empty as Before

She searches dark corners
Flashlight beams dancing
To illuminate a life she thought she had.
The darkness is empty, as before.

She pounds the keyboard
Searches for adverbs
To express the way her heart is afire.
Her words are hollow, empty as before.

She looks in his eyes,
Pleading for rescue
To find a buoy tucked against the gales.
His vacant eyes, just as empty as before.

She curses the darkness
Reaching for solace
To wrap her aching limbs around familiar skin.
But the dark bed is empty, as before.

So she fills up her days,
Reading and cleaning,
Swimming and dining
To erase the endless ticks of the clock.
But the measured days
Are just as empty as before.

Magic of Friendship

The red velvet bag holds treasures that only these two young girls can understand. They sit cross-legged at the top of the jungle gym, more like Siamese twins than seven year olds who have never met. There is magic here. Teddy bears, shell bracelets, ballerina bunnies: the chemistry is immediate and intense.

Lily arrived in the middle of the night, twenty year old Camry burgeoning with suitcases, coffee pot, tents, and little brothers. In the morning, the playing began. They share a language somehow that erases the twelve hundred miles between their homes, and the even bigger difference in the homes themselves. The same tight-lipped smiles. The same intelligent eyes. Even the same pigtails flapping as they run.

Their Dads started this way, eating honeydew and cantaloupe smashed hip to hip at THEIR Nana’s picnic table. The two oldest grandsons, their Mothers the closest of sisters. Both named Daniel, they have endured their share of lion battles. And now they watch as their oldest daughters forge a bond with make-believe and melons.

Somehow I feel they’ve already met. The communication is quiet. Even standing right in front of the platform on which they sit, I can barely hear the stories the dollies unfold. The plot thickens and youthful giggles fill the air. The girls and the teddy bears swap bracelets and necklaces and headbands. More huddled laughter ensues.

Together they fight the enemy lines of little brother pirates, their platform a ship that is attacked as they play. They fight the good fight, stealing an eye patch in the melee. Only ballerina bunny is a casualty of war. The pirates take off; the girls return to their whispered delights.

Later they return to the house, playing another game of pretend. This time they are orphans. They enter each room in delighted awe, pretending they have never seen such objects before and creating new names for things like chairs, vases, and the piano that was their great-grandmother’s.

But it is me who is awed. I have never seen anything like this mysterious bond formed in the sparkling eyes of these two cousins. Their quick friendship is magical, and a treasure unlike any the red velvet bag could contain.

Perspective

The humid day melts into dinner picnics, Frisbee throwing, and the laughter of the hardiest swimmers. Buzzing with activity, the Honey Hut dishes out its famous butter pecan. My two antsy sons skip down the eroding path, intent on ice cream. They spy a horse. They sprint towards it, scabbed legs flailing in the gravel. The fact that there is a policeman on top of the horse makes it even better. A giant animal and a man with a specialty tool belt: perfection for little boys.

He sees it all, Billy the horse does. He is the police mount housed in the Cleveland Metroparks and assigned to patrol Huntington Beach with Officer John; Billy offers him the best seat in the house. Perched deliberately on Billy’s back, wizened skin almost protected under his wide-brimmed hat, the Officer can saunter around the parking lot looking for contraband in the back seats of cars. He can see the errant skateboarder who almost gets tagged by a rear bumper. He can keep the peace.

At the same time my boys spot the horse, Officer John notes something suspicious in the back of a dinged-up red Chevy truck. He calls it in, reading the tag number from the dangling license plate. Seems the driver of the car is wanted for an outstanding warrant. Out comes the ticket book as the barefoot driver searches for license, registration, explanations. She even scours the bed of the pickup, long tangled hair flipping like Billy’s tail, as she roots through a bed full of flea market finds.

My boys play in the gravel. The officer and the woman do a strange dance to the music of the crackling walkie-talkie. The boys grow tired of the gravel and scale the picnic table. The officer and the lady continue to dance.

She finally fumbles through the heaps of junk long enough to find all the paperwork and Officer John completes the transaction. She is not pleased. My boys are. Once the official business has transpired, they get to pet Billy.

Perspective on a Tuesday night at the lake. Same balmy night. Same summer sky. Two young boys giggling as they stroke the horse’s flank. One young woman boiling as she adds a ticket to her arsenal. And one stoic horse whose flaring nostrils breathe it all in.

Take it Outside

“Take it outside!” I can hear my Dad yelling these words to my sisters and I as we scream and sing and cavort around the living room. Kicked back in his deep blue lazyboy, he is trying to watch a football game on a crisp Sunday in fall. But he can’t hear the announcer over all the ruckus.

Twenty-five years later and it’s me yelling “Take it outside!” These three loves I call my offspring are at it again, playing Schrackers in the living room. A game designed by them to fray some parental nerves, it involves a lot of running, bumping into each other stomach to stomach, and screaming the word SCHRACKER.

So they take it outside. But then comes the parental guilt. It was fine for my Dad to watch his football game, wasn’t it? I don’t remember feeling abandoned or unloved because he wanted me to play outside. But I am left wondering if I should be outside with my own kids, throwing the football like all the good Mommies. Or maybe the kids should stay inside with me, and we could read The Boxcar Children and make chocolate chip cookies together.

In this world of over-achieving parents and over-scheduled kids, I end up feeling like the evil step-mother. In fact, my daughter and her cousin just spent the last twenty-four hours playing orphan. Trying to tell me something, or have they just had too many viewings of the movie Annie?

But that is a role I am willing to play if it will get my children outside. Creativity happens when I give them that gift. Of course, sometimes I have to lock the door to keep them there! But the other night, for instance, there was an entire talent show on the front porch replete with handbills and audience participation. There was even the comic relief of little brother who kept taping up signs that said things like “No Girls Allowed” and “No Performing.”

They make me laugh, these kids. The wonder of them: the way they use their language and their minds. The way they see the world in black and white and so incredibly skewed in their directions. But I love the pirate heists and Indian wars and orphan dramas in my back yard.

And I am thankful for my OWN parents who suggested that I take it outside. Creativity happens in pockets of time that are not inundated with dance class and soccer practice and art camp. That is a gift I give my children. And let’s face it, a gift to me. While they sail the high seas in the backyard hose, I can swab the decks inside.

And that makes for some very happy pirates at the end of the day.

Prison Walls

Locked up tight, concrete walls surround me. A thimble-sized sink attached to the wall drips water through the night. I lie awake from the plopping droplets, pierced by the thin lumpy mattress at my back. And the bars. The bars are as thick as the legs of my child, as strong as his stubborn will. My pen is my chisel. I will escape this prison.

I am writing my way out of my broken heart today. Each word breathes for me, a shuddering gulp after the stale prison air. Each sentence pushes the walls back bit by bit. Like a bucket brigade, my pen carries word upon word upon word to douse the fire of my sadness. That hot wall of orange rushes toward me. But sentences coil and spring to my aid.

I am writing my way out. The pen chisels and the concrete dust falls away. A painstaking task, I work feverishly through the night and open a small hole in the concrete fortress. Every night is the same. These words will free me. I write on.

The tunnel forms slowly. The dust piles at my feet. I hide it carefully between lumps in the mattress and the remains of dinner. No one must know my plan. I go on as if nothing at all has changed.

But inside this tunnel, a new life emerges. The rhythm of the chisel softens the concrete and it peels away more easily somehow. I can see a pinprick of light up ahead. My chisel is feverish as the words flow more quickly.

More light streams in; I can almost taste sweet freedom. I raise the chisel once more and to my horror, hear the unmistakable clang of the prison bars behind me. I have been discovered.

Once more I lie upon this mattress, listening to the dripping water beside me. It beats a rhythm I cannot feel. The walls close in, my pen falls silent. And my heart is locked up tightly once again.

Opposites Attract

The sun pelts the concrete. Screams and laughter pierce the air. Maura and Rachel giggle in the lounge chair they share. Young girls on opposing sides of age seven, they are so dedicated to snack time at the pool, and whatever it is that seven-year old girls whisper when their Mothers are not listening. Maura is jealous because Rachel gets a two-piece suit; Rachel doesn’t dare to jump off the high dive like her friend. Sarah gets her own chair, but gives up corners to the bouncing boy around her. Marty is smitten, all brown puppy dog eyes and jumping around his “best friend in the whole world” to prove it. Sean is a blueberry newton eating-machine. He needs no audience and doesn’t have a clue he is the odd man out at the pool.

And the Mothers. How did we get here from there? Cut to camera two and another lounge chair almost twenty years ago. This time an overstuffed falling-apart deal and a council meeting for our college club in the upper room of the Chapel. It was me that was amazed by this poet, this writer with all of the answers. I was the one jumping around like a puppy dog back then.

And the calendar pages have spun us to this point at the pool. It’s the big things I remember most vividly.

She asks the question noone else will ask. Is it over? Are you NOT going through with this? We are in my third floor apartment on the questionable side of town. The aroma of burnt toast and Downy mingles with the smell of pot and drifts up through my door. I am a huddled mess, and there is Laura making my shattering engagement seem livable. A few days later, I am in a ball in my parent’s basement, her voice in my ear on the phone. Her mantra of calm. Her prayer for me: everything will be okay.

And it was.

Then came the babies. And the hormones. And the sobbing…..of the Mother. It was Laura I called, day upon day upon day. This baby won’t eat. What are these red bumps? He just won’t stop crying. Tylenol or Motrin? Why won’t he sleep?
I was covered in puke, painstakingly dressing the wiggling mass of my daughter….or my sons. Laura was the voice of reason in those sleep-blurred days. Who else would put your breast pump together? Or keep answering the calls of a crazy lady even after checking the caller I.D.?

Now the babies are not babies and the crumpled ball in the basement is standing tall. But I still am yapping like a puppy dog, amazed by her medical knowledge, her faith, her resilience. I admire her love of home. Sometimes I just wish I could sit still, give up the running and be comfortable in my own skin. What exactly am I looking for? I envy how she has found it in her taco spaghetti nights, her chopped-to-perfection salads, her homemade cinnamon scones.

We’ve come a long way since those college days. We have twirled through jobs and homes and beliefs. Our hair is grayer and our laughter is quicker, I think. We know what life is about. And its funny how you get what you want: those two young women so many years ago, with their ferocious need to change the world, have done just that with these beautiful children lounging by the pool.

The Nerve

She packs up the fiddle lovingly, cords tucked together just so. Pauses to talk to her latest fans, smiling and nodding, although I imagine she’d like nothing more than to sit down, kick back with a cold beer. Or maybe a hot tea. She has just spent nearly two hours on her feet, pulsing her soul through her fiddle and boots. She left it all on the stage, red hair flying, arms and bow and cord intertwining like some dangerous snake garden. Her voice is hauntingly sweet, her fiddle moreso.

And now she is tired. But no homestyle bed awaits her. Another night in a faceless motel. Ann Arbor. Cleveland. Pittsburgh. The cities roll by as fast as the dots on the map, as quickly as her bow dances across the fiddle. And I marvel that she is doing what she loves. Night after night, in places she cannot know, she bares her heart to the crowd.

And I wonder what it is she has left behind. What haunts her as the miles roll on? Is there someone to miss? Some business she left unfinished? Or is she at peace? Just a woman and her fiddle with a song that must be played.

I wish I had that nerve. I wish I had the heart to jump in a beat-up green van and drive across the country, to drop everything at home and take my music on the road, to believe in myself enough to quiet the voices of doubt and know that my music had a story that had to be told. Of course, MY music is not music at all. My fiddle my laptop, my fingers dancing over the keys. Nobody wants to hear the cow-dying saxophone playing I engage in. And I don’t yet believe that anybody wants to read what I write either.

But on a night like tonight, when I hear the throbbing beat of her fiddle and see every vein in her arms engaged with her song, I catch a glimpse of her dream in motion. And I want to share my own song with the world.

My Little Runaway

The police car pulled up to the curb on that damp cold night. The burly young officer opened the passenger door to reveal a giggling toddler ensconced on the front seat, replete with dirty diaper and chocolate grin. His grandmother scooped to retrieve him, relief radiating from the clouds in her eyes. It had been a terrifying half hour, but Marty was home safely. The evening had started innocently enough. It was a rare night out. Maura and Marty headed to Grandma’s for some evening fun. But what ensued that evening was anything but amusing.

The February darkness came early, and chilling rain covered the frozen concrete. Grandma and her charges were snuggled warmly on the couch, reading the tale of Cinderella. Nobody noticed when Marty wandered away. Even if they had noticed, they wouldn’t have worried. He rarely stayed till the end of stories, and made his own fun with random things around the house. But as Cinderella and Prince Charming declared happily ever after, Maura and Grandma started wondering about the boy. He was nowhere to be found.

A frantic search of the entire house revealed no two and a half year old boy playing tricks or fallen asleep. He had vanished like the coachman at the stroke of midnight. They broadened their search outside, and enlisted the help of several neighbor boys. Still no sign of the two year old. It was about this time, apparently, that Marty was found wandering the darkened roadway by a kindly woman. He had been trying to walk home. He had left the house of his Grandma, crossed the street, and turned the corner onto a street with no sidewalks, all in his socks. He did not seem alarmed by the ride in the police car nor the end to his evening escapade. His Grandma and sister were alarmed enough for all of them.

When the (thankfully) oblivious parents returned from dinner, Maura met them at the door. “Marty hid from Grandma and I,” her singsong voice implored. The understatement of the year. But all’s well that ends well, especially when you miss all the drama!

Unwrapping a Memory

This memory right here, see? Yes, the one tucked carefully between Girl Scout Camp and swimming lessons. Its wrapped so carefully I almost forgot I left it there. It hurts to take it out, like pulling band-aids off the slow, painstaking way. I don’t unwrap it often. The scene is just so perfect and the summer air so balmy that I can’t even start the tape of replaying the memory before I want to be back there. Summer days were the best. They always were.

We woke up with the birds, a sweet alarm trilling through the morning air. Even at the tender age of 9, I started the day with coffee. Of course she filled the mug with a half-cup of milk and a Grandma-sized tablespoon of sugar as well. We sat outside on the dock, in those rusted metal chairs that aren’t supposed to rock, but do if you bounce your leg just right. The waves whisper their good mornings: to the wizened lady decked out in a blue-grey housecoat with twin grey braids pinned to the top of her head, to the tanned girl with the sleepy eyes beside her, to the swooping sea gulls catching a breakfast meal.

The day like any other July day, Grandma eating peanut butter off a spoon for breakfast, washing it down with cupfuls of milk. Me eating toast made from bread kept in the fridge: everything got so damp near the water.

Chores came next: running the sweeper whose mouth was so small it hardly picked up more than a lint at a time, making my bed and straightening the couch cover where she slept, emptying the ashtrays, weeding between the rows of tomatoes in the garden. The house was tiny, a cottage really. It didn’t take long.

Next was a lukewarm shower in the rickety stand up shower, water pump churning when I had been in for longer than four minutes. I can still smell the Irish Spring and the dampness of that tiny bathroom.

But the best part of the day came around three o’clock. After our chores and bathing, neighbor visiting and lunch, we put our pajamas back on and settled in to read. She laying on her striped couch with a well-worn mystery, me in the flowered chair nearby. We read and read till dinner, then read some more. The only thing better than the reading was the pudding. Always butterscotch pudding with whipped cream and a maraschino on top. Perfection.

So here I sit on my own porch with the birds, today’s coffee more caffeine than milk, my sweet sleeping daughter well on her way to being the young girl I was so many Julys ago. And I have a quiet minute to unwrap this memory, to wish for the innocence I knew, to long for a moment again with the Grandma I love so much.

Growing Language

“BALL”. “DOGGY”. “MAMA”. First come the nouns. As I watch my third child acquire and develop language, I marvel. The nouns always come first. Babies need a way to name their world, to identify the objects that they see. And Sean is a writer. Although he can barely hold a laddie pencil in his chubby grip, he knows that every good story needs a few good characters with a few interesting toys.

“LOOK!” “GO”. “RUN”. Next come the verbs. The heart of the story, even a young babe understands that a story needs to move. As Sean’s own body limbers up and accomplishes actions like “JUMP!” and “FALL”, his language mirrors these steps.

Adjectives and adverbs tend to come together. For some reason, the children in my house really enjoy adverbs like “PROBABLY” and “ACTUALLY” along with traditional adjectives such as “HOT” and “GOOD”. Careful not to overuse these and make his language too flowery, Sean often skips these altogether.

Now two years old, Sean has mastered an economy of language that makes me smile. All drinks are “mokey,” for instance. Perhaps he is maturing, though, because yesterday he did specify “apple mokey.” All vehicles are “trucks”: “choo-choo trucks”, “school trucks”, “air trucks”. All animals are “doggies”, including polar bears, mice, actual dogs, and sometimes his older brother.

His sentences are economical as well. The Spartans would be proud. He does not waste any words and NEVER uses superfluous language. If two words are good, one is even better. “Up me” when he wants to be picked up. “I go pool” for obvious reasons. And don’t even get me started on the hours of subtext he can put into the word “MINE!”

His all-time favorite phrase, though, is “ALL RIGHT!” Usually reserved for his revered Uncle, as in “All right, Nick!”, I have also heard “All right chips” and “All right meat.” The kid knows what he likes!”

But my favorite sentence of his, when he’s in the mood and the wind is blowing at exactly twelve knots from the northwest, features his brown eyes locked on mine and his arms around my neck and his sweet baby voice crooning “Love you, Mommy.” Best story ever written!!

Petting Elephants

The scene is so vivid in my head, even after nearly two decades. I was dragging myself through the alley on my way to class that morning. My mind was brimming with details of the Just War Theory and Thich Nat Hahn for Fr. Susa’s discussion on Social Justice. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some unexpected movement. Turning my head toward State Street, I encountered a line of elephants, horses, dogs and llamas meandering down the street. Seemed kind of hard to believe for a Wednesday morning, but I soon realized that the circus was in town. The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus animals had arrived by train on the lakefront, and their trainers were walking them to their temporary home near the arena.

I continued on to class, my mind on the parade of pachyderms. I was just so intrigued to see my little college haven overrun by a single file line of beasts! My college was in downtown Erie, not some grassy campus, but still. Animal parades were not so common. I ditched my books after class and headed towards the train. It was parked on the bayfront, and I strolled past the first several cars. It soon became apparent that the circus performers lived on the train. I met a horse trainer, an acrobat, and the second string announcer. They were all willing to tell their story and let me in on the magic of their life. Not surprisingly, the guys who flew around in the ring of fire were not very friendly.

I then followed the path the elephants had taken just a few hours early. I found their makeshift home set up next to the arena where the circus was to be performed. The entrance to the animal tent was barricaded, and there were several trainers tending to the animals nearby. I called to get their attention. I think my innocent amazement shone through because after a few minutes of chit-chatting, the trainer invited me inside the tent. I was allowed to go back into the inner sanctum of animals. Petting the elephant was a privilege I hadn’t dreamed of, but all I had to do was ask! I even got to pet the rhinoceros. Every circus has to have at least one outlandish animal! I wandered around the tent a few more minutes before I headed back to campus.

I learned such an important lesson that day! All I had to do was ask and the world of the circus opened up. A little investigation and a smile went a long way to a great experience. And I got past the barricades simply by asking. That is such a great life lesson. A little hard work, kindness, and asking for what I want can go a long way.

I had forgotten this lesson for a while. Almost twenty years of grad school, teaching, giving birth and mothering had wiped away the lessons I learned from that day. Although elephants themselves have wonderful memories, I did not. I am starting to re-capture that feeling. That belief that I can do anything, that the world is open to my dreams, that I am as likely a candidate as any to pet a rhino. This doesn’t necessarily mean I will run away and join the circus, but I will take a chance and go back where you’re not allowed to go. Who knows what animals await!

From Guitar Hero to Civic Hero

“Raymond. We’re glad we came today. Its nice to meet you,” pronounces Emma, just a little too loudly. I can hardly believe my eyes, or my ears. Emma, with the most perfect hair in my seventh grade class, so uninterested in school, so gaga over make-up and fashion and boys, meets forty-something Raymond at the Palm Crest Nursing Home. He is stricken with a debilitating muscle malady, and he lives life on a tray. That is the only way to describe the rolling bed apparatus that his emaciated frame and gnarled limbs call home. Others shy away, unable to see the humanity in his misshapen shell, but Emma, usually so removed from the lesson, so intent on her frivolities, gets it. And this is why we are here, why I spent my summer vacation to plan a new service curriculum for my seventh and eighth graders. I wanted my teetering-on-the-brink of adolescence charges to GET IT, so they could understand a little bit more about the real world. Not everyone lives in a mini-mansion on a golf course or drives a Lexus or works out at Five Seasons Fitness Club. And there is more to learning than adverb worksheets and formula writing on standardized tests. The human condition is found in a nursing home or a soup kitchen or a low-income nursery school.

Face of Freedom

The man was singing. I cannot imagine a more disgusting and demeaning job: cleaning the bathrooms at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. But as I walked by that early morning, the wrinkled man with the mop in his hand was singing a beautiful Italian love song. I stopped in my tracks. I just couldn't believe that such beauty could come from such a difficult vocation. And I think about him again today on Independence Day. He knew what true freedom was about. Wherever we are, whatever difficulties we face, we have a choice. Our attitudes are not chained by tyranny or even circumstance. We can choose our own behaviors despite external difficulties.

My Dad always said it this way: "When you get a lemon, make lemonade." True freedom comes when we take control of our attitudes, our responses, our feelings. Then no matter what happens in the swirling vortex around us, we cannot be chained. Even death has no power when we are truly free. Something beautiful can prevail. When my brother in law died at age 29, the family was obviously devastated. Since he loved riding bikes so much, even into adulthood, my husband and I decided at Christmas to buy a bike for a child that did not have one. For the past seven years, each Christmas morning brings us the comfort of knowing a little boy is so excited about his new bike. Despite missing Brian, we choose our attitude.

I think of him often, the mopping Italian singer. He grounds me, and helps me to breathe deeply and enjoy what I have. For me, making a beautiful song out of difficulties does not always come easily. But I try. And on a day marked for remembering the beauty of freedom, I remember that wizened airport man and his unchained melody.

His Burial Day

The scene familiar, the spongy rained-upon earth, the mourners lined with grim expression, black clothes billowing quietly…so silently. One lone tree stands sentry near the open pit, covered for the afternoon with veiled railings ready to nestle bronze casket into earth. The priest steps in, ashes to ashes and dust to dust blows through the silenced throng. The grown woman shudders, fists clenched and knees unbending, as the final prayers are uttered. Brain afire, sobs relentless, she stoops to spoon soft earth upon her weary father’s grave. The dirt slides through her painted fingers, and takes her back to days in the sun, pudgy legs plopped in the soil, Dad’s tanned legs standing firm as he weeded row upon row of tender peppers and radishes. So many plantings, so many harvests, between that day and this. So many lessons for dirt and tear stained cheeks, skinned knees and bruised hearts. Now, tending to this final planting, covering softly the man who had gardened her for so many days, she sprinkles tears and soil atop his softened earthen home.

America's Pastime....Redefined

"Another baseball game, another pop fly, another bunch of boys, and another blue sky. Boys laugh. Boys play." Love that song by Sam Baker. My five year old boy was laughing and playing in the back yard tonight. Giant orange bat in hand, he contorted his body beyond what I would think could be a hittable stance. His sure brown eyes twinkled as his sister taunted "Eh batter, eh batter." He swung purposefully and deep. A total whiff. The second pitch caught him looking at a bird that flew by. Amazingly, he caught the third pitch on the edge of the bat and the ball banked off his shin to his feet. The baseball bat suddenly transformed to a golf club as he shanked the ball around the yard. I heard him mutter "I'm a great golfer!"

That is one of the things I love about my son: his ability to create, to use his imagination and look at the world outside of the (batter's) box. And secondly, I admire his strong belief in himself and his talents. If one avenue doesn't quite work out as planned, he can make the adjustments on the fly and make himself look like a winner. I hope for his sake that he keeps this spirit alive, this sense of creativity, his self-confidence. And I hope that every bunch of boys he encounters will appreciate the way he sees the blue sky and the world around him.

Earth Moving

I love to take something that isn't and turn it into something that is, especially in the yard. There is something wonderful about shoveling and raking.....creating something beautiful among the crags. Today I took my show on the road, dumping four yards of top soil strategically at my in-laws. The shape of the newly edged beds makes me smile. The carefully raked lines on the gently sloping piles of dirt beckon. All that is left is the planting. I say sometimes that gardening is easy because it gets finished. Unlike teaching and parenting, which are so very CONSTANT, when I got to the end of the dirt pile today, it was just done. But that is not really true either. There is watering, fertilizing, weed-pulling, trimming. The jobs change with the seasons but they are still there. I am a gardener of many things: my children, my yard, my family, my friendships, and more and more I realize it is the gentle pulling and patting that yields the best results.