It seems I’ve not mentioned an endeavor which has become rather the foundation of our homestead here in Greenfield. Months ago, when Elihu and I and realized how little money our eggs sales actually generated after we’d met our expenses, we pondered what to do with that money to maximize it’s usefulness. We came upon a book entitled “One Hen” by Katie Smith Milway in which we learned that a little can do a lot. And so Eggs of Hope was born. With our small profits we’ve begun to ‘purchase’ starter chicken flocks through Heifer International.
While the accompanying video and newspaper article at the bottom may be over a month old – very old news indeed – the business is just beginning. Today we registered our domain name and will unveil a new site soon – if dear old mom can manage one more task on her plate.
Lest you think the talk of home-grown eggs being better is all hype – as I was apt to believe once upon a time – I can tell you that the eggs of home-raised chickens are much, much better than those of their poor factory cousins. I might not have been such a believer had I not used a carton of store-bought eggs recently, as our personal use eggs had been earmarked for the incubator. Yup, our eggs’ yolks are a superb orange color, are much plumper, and lastly, they taste very much like an egg should. (Recently we learned that guinea fowl eggs have the very best egg flavor of all, but a sad footnote to this story is that Clara, our only resident guinea hen and sole producer of these delicious, miniature eggs, was recently lost to a wild animal. We miss her. See our you tube channel ‘elihusmom’ for a little cameo of Clara in the video of our chickens on the first warm day.) But life on a farm is like that. It’s sad to lose a member of our flock, but we find peace in knowing the ones we’ve lost had lived happy, healthy lives and furthermore, died that other animals, equally deserving of a meal, should eat well. We just hope they went quickly. !
Chickens are the most miraculous recyclers. Once, in the beginning of our egg pursuits, I found the idea of eating our chickens’ eggs rather gross (and that was even before they began eating bugs!). I can admit this here, because I know many others have felt the same. Before, I’d thought it was just me. Intuitively it makes no sense that the eggs one buys at the store are somehow more edible, safer, cleaner – more whatever – than the ones that just popped out of your hens today. One knows that these eggs have got to be better. Right? Yet for me, eating that first egg was not exactly easy. That was then, this is now. Now I watch with great joy in my heart as our flock happily scratches away in the grass and leaves, gleaning little insects here and there all day long. I watch their progress as they cover the wide expanse of our property, in the woods, in the field, and sometimes, to my chagrin, in my garden. I am always astounded at how much less feed I buy each month – 50 pounds less – when they are allowed to roam free and forage. I am grateful to be an integral part of this process, grateful to know that in some way I am linked to them, and through them, to the land. Hopefully, with our growing little business, we’ll be able to extend that connectedness out into our great big world. Eggs are made to hatch…
A frustrating post-script:
After spending a good 15 minutes trying different methods of inserting the link to the Saratogian article into this post, I am giving up, and asking readers to simply search for “Elihu Conant-Haque” and you will easily find the link for yourself. Sigh.
Although I have a huge pile of paper on my desk and a very long to-do list, it seems that this may be a good time to write about a topic which is today in the news.
Yesterday, when I first saw the Arnold Schwarzenegger story, I was tempted to fire off a post on the subject, given that it is one with which I am intimately acquainted. And yet, I held back, knowing that I had more to say on the event than the predictable and understandable rants that one might expect. And last night, as my still-husband juggled care taking duties of his two very young boys while trying to communicate with his eldest son by Skype, once again it hit me. The situation throws the family into painful turmoil, yes, but beyond the obvious, it causes the father of the unexpected children his own kind of pain and suffering.
Many times I’ve considered Fareed’s side of this equation. It’s got to hurt to be a father who loves his child, but can’t be with him. I feel Elihu’s sadness when his father says he has to go at the end of a phone call. I also sense Fareed’s feelings of sorrow and powerlessness. Only today he sent an email expressing his concern over things that Elihu and I had recently dealt with, and while these were now history in our fast-moving life, they were yet unaddressed in Fareed’s world. As I explained, we simply cannot catch him up on everything that we experience; we can’t communicate every trauma, dilemma, sickness or difficulty – or even the tiny triumphs and discoveries. There’s just so much life that goes on. If a parent is not physically there, it’s just a matter of simple logistics. Fareed loves his son, yet there he is. Caught in the fallout of his own creation. He simply cannot be a live-in dad to two young families at the same time.
For the father who doesn’t entirely want to be there – that may be another story. And while I find it hard to believe that a father wouldn’t want to know about his children’s lives, at least deep down in his heart, I do believe that for some fathers it’s not a priority. (My own feeling is that shame, dysfunction or economics might hold some dads back from being more involved with their estranged children.)
But Fareed is, and I defend him often on this point, a father who loves his children. In fact, I can’t quite understand how he feels so deeply for his daughter Brigitta, when she hardly knows him as a ‘real’ dad, but rather as simply her biological father. I can perhaps understand his need to know her when I examine how I myself might feel if a biological child of mine was removed from my world. I don’t know that I could bear it. He once broke into tears, saying to me that he hoped one day I could meet her and accept her. I’d told him I was working on it, and I was. This is all a very, very difficult process. It’s hard on the wife who finds her world absolutely smashed in an instant, yes. It’s also an enormous burden on the father of the surprise child. Really all one can do is take a breath, and wait for the passage of time to wash mercifully over the broken hearts.
Why should I feel any empathy for these careless men? Really? Yet I do. A moment after the news about Arnold’s love child sank in, I thought ‘how much pain he must have been in all these years’. He had to be apart from a child he created, plus he had to bear the burden of that secret and keep it from his own family. What a horrible situation to be in. Yes, he, my husband and SO many other men have behaved like short-sighted, selfish asses. But look, their hearts are now broken too.
And the children? I know that I have guided my own to find a place of compassion and understanding, as I myself have tried hard to learn those things too. One of my oldest, and dearest friends is the product of an extramarital affair. This person has managed to grow into an exceptional adult – a good friend, loving spouse, and wonderful parent – and has found a way to make it work. This friend chose to close all possibility of contact with the father, and this was what worked in this situation. I imagine there are many ways to make it work. Certainly many children have grown up in a fatherless household. Our own President Obama did.
I also imagine this is a much more common occurrence than we’d think, however, if you google the subject, there’s not a whole lot of support for the single moms that result from the man’s indiscretion (believe me, I’ve searched). I remember in one such search coming across a comedian going on about what an upstanding guy he was. He was married and had no ‘outside children’. That stopped me in my tracks. There was a contemporary term for this? ‘Outside children’? You mean that it’s so common that we might just assume a regular married guy may well have ‘outside children’?? Man, where had I been? I guess all you have to do is take in a couple of Jerry Springer episodes to know that it goes on routinely, and all over. But how does it all end? We all hear the titillating tales, but soon after they’re lost in the wash of incoming news. After some personal exploration into these stories, I’ve come to realize that in the end, if you can’t afford a really good, committed attorney, the resulting single mom ends up in a far worse economic situation, whether she was the wife or the extra marital partner. And the only payoff is…. you got it, the gift of raising her child. The man may be able to pay his bills, but he must always live with the pain of being an absentee dad. The mom may now live on food stamps – but she’s there when her son loses his first tooth…
My dear friend, the one who was raised by a single mom, was in this case a child of the ‘other woman’. It puts a strange spin on my perspective; for she – the ‘other woman ‘ – was an excellent mother, yet it was the ‘other woman’ who utterly changed my life and broke my heart. So how to view this ultimately? I can’t say I’ve found an answer. I struggle with it almost daily. My feeling is that whomever rises to the responsibility of providing for the child is doing the right thing, whether that be in form of providing money for living costs, physical custodial care, or simply encouraging the child to have a healthy relationship with the now-absent parent.
No easy answer. Maybe next time try a condom. Just sayin.
Thanks so much for sharing our journey… Elihu and I are in a fantastic mood tonight as we’ve now had over 1000 visits to our young blog. I am so grateful to our friends and passersby for coming along with us on our journey. Who knows what lies ahead? Right now, who cares? We just feel so happy right now, and much less alone than we have in the past. Thanks everyone. And don’t forget to say hello sometime. (It will be easier to do that when I get this silly guest book figured out. Soon…)
My son has Achromatopsia. It’s a congential disorder of the retina, which is to say he’s had it since birth, and will have it for the rest of his life. The best metaphor I can find to describe Achromatopsia is this: his eyes have the hardware to see, but he’s missing the software, or the app. Essentially, he is missing a protein in his retina which delivers the visual information from the cone cells to the brain. I do realize that my explanation may be rather simplistic, and those who’ve spent hours upon hours learning about this might find fault with my presentation or correct my understanding about it, yet for our intents and purposes the metaphor works well. All I know is that his experience of the world is much different from ours, and as his mother, his number one advocate, I am always mindful of it. Thankfully, when the technology to deliver the missing protein to his eye is perfected, there is hope that he will one day have the possibility of correcting it.
Elihu is considered legally blind, which is a strange, nether-world in which to live. Yes, he can see. No, he cannot see color – any color at all. Most people are amazed at this fact alone – and in order to demystify it, I usually tell kids to take the color out of there TVs in order to see the world as he does. For the over 30 set I just tell them to envision black and white films, or perhaps even and Ansel Adams photograph. Yet that’s not the end of it. Elihu sees very little detail beyond 20 feet. He also is virtually blinded by light and must wear dark red glasses in order to function. Why red? Because that is the spectrum that sops up most of the light for him. Since he can’t distinguish color, the fact that the lenses are red means nothing besides the comfort they afford him. Essentially, he sees using only rod cells – the ones that kick into gear for us at twilight. The glasses he wears must dim light down to that sort of level. And as those who’ve studied candle power can attest – the sun is not just a whole lot brighter than artificial light, but rather exponentially brighter, so finding ‘comfort’ in outside light is a tall order.
Elihu can’t recognize friends in the hall at school when they call to him. He can’t always follow kids running in the playground. Depth perception is tricky for him; he’s been tripping over curbs all his life. However, as with anything, he’s become adept at living with it, and the older he gets the fewer things he’s surprised by. He’s learned to be gracious when people approach him. He’s learned in part from mom and dad, who being performers are often greeted by people whom they can’t always recall meeting. Being polite is all that’s called for. “I’m sorry, I’m really bad with names, can you please tell me your name again?” or “I’m sorry, can you please tell me again how we know each other?” In his case, I’m encouraging him to tell folks he can’t quite make them out until they’re fairly close up, so they know he’s not being aloof. Elihu is now beginning to feel fairly self-conscious about being different (like he needed a retinal problem to set him apart!) and so he’s going to face some challenges in the next few years. I just keep telling him that a sense of humor helps. This he knows well.
There is an island in the middle of the Pacific – it’s in the Federated States of Micronesia to be more specific – called Pingelap, on which many of the current residents are Achromats. Apparently, hundreds of years ago several of Captain Cook’s crew, shipwrecked on the tiny island, carried the recessive gene for Achromatopsia. They stayed on the island to live, to raise families and ultimately created a gene pool heavily populated with the gene for A. Elihu and I have a dream to one day visit this place, and bring with us dark glasses for all the residents who need them. I cannot imagine having Achromatopsia and living on a sun-drenched island, and it makes my heart lift to think of the relief we might one day bring to them.
John Kay of Steppenwolf is an Acrhromat. (Check out some pictures of them and note John’s dark glasses. Not a costume choice, but a necessity.) I think it’s absolutely ironic that the man who penned the iconic “Born To Be Wild” doesn’t even have a driver’s license. It’s even more ironic that today he produces nature videos. I’ve heard his wife does the color correction for him. This always makes me smile. Go John! Go Elihu! Go As!
Even though Achromatopsia will not prevent my son from realizing his full potential, it is still my single greatest hope that one day Elihu will have the option to choose for himself whether or not to change his vision. Ultimately, it will something that only he can choose for himself. ‘Til that time, we have many adventures awaiting…
Hoo-kay. I’m tired. Don’t usually set an alarm, but after last night I had to. Might have slept til noon. After all that volume and drama, and another two hours of post-blog entry, late night nonsense from Elihu, wouldn’t you know, he’s up early. On his own. He beat me. Never happens. I shuffle in to the kitchen to get the morning going, and he’s at the window, watching birds.
“I love you, Mimsy” he says, cheerfully. Is this his way of apologizing? “Man, that was quite a night” I say. “What?” he pauses. “Oh, the fight” he says in a softer tone. He gets off the stool and comes over to me. “You’re the best mother in the world”. ??? Does he feel bad? I’m too tired to explore it. Suffice to say, this morning he is changed in some way. I suggest he get dressed, and brush his teeth. But that’s it. Usually I must ask several times. He goes and does these things and returns. I ask if he would like to let the chickens out, something he’s never done by himself as he’s still afraid of the dark garage (it’s out of visual range of the kitchen door, that might contribute). He agrees, then sets out to get his shoes, jacket and glasses – all without any help. Also new. Then he’s off to the garage. ?? He comes back. He is still cheerful. ??
We’re off to the bus. Reminding myself that this is a first for me, and it will not be the beginning of a trend, I drive him to the bus stop still in my pajamas. The bus comes, and he leans in to kiss me. ??? On his own. Then, again a first (as I will not be seen like this standing on the side of the road) he gets out without my accompanying him, leans in through my open window to give me another kiss, then he is off. He gets in the bus, the driver waves, and morning is done. Wow.
Lest people think that things are all roses and birds here at the Hillhouse, I would like all to know that as I write Elihu is in an absolute frenzy. It is after nine, and it is bedtime. Usually, I’d say 99% of the time these days it’s a smooth affair. But tonight, as he was finishing his bath, I told him – as I do many such nights – that I had to go and shut the chickens in. He wanted to go with me. As it was late, raining and also a school night, I said no. He launched into a tirade. A half an hour later he is still begging me to see the chickens. He yells to me he’s tired, and he’s ready to fall asleep but he ‘needs to see his chickens.’ It goes on, at top volume. Now he’s bargaining with me. He has modified his request to simply see the baby chicks that reside in the basement brooder. I am trying so hard to keep my anger at bay. This is a time when I question my treating him so much as a peer. Maybe I’ve blurred the line. Maybe I’ve put too much on him. Usually he’s very reasonable. Not tonight.
I’m not sure how this will turn out. He’s making threats now. He’ll says he’ll throw something. He says he’ll damage something if I don’t let him see the chicks. I told him no he could not see them, and that he was to stay in bed. I told him that was the last I was saying to him on the subject, and told him good night. I’m tempted to respond to him as his protests mount, but I stay myself. Something inside me tells me to hang on. Be strong. Ride it out. And I remember all the nights when he was a baby, a toddler, an angry, strangely possessed creature. Often he would have nightmares long after I’d pulled him from his crib and brought him into the light and into my arms; he’d be flailing his arms at some imagined monsters while I was talking to him, holding him close. At eight he is still afraid to go to the basement on his own. If he’s outside he needs to call to me if he gets out of visual range. I reflect on this. Is tonight about sheer anger at his world? Fatigue? Hidden anxiety? Is is that I haven’t been firm enough with him? Nurture or nature? I understand that he can’t see me when he’s more than twenty feet away. I understand that it’s still tricky to know he has half siblings that don’t live with us, and that daddy lives with two of them – instead of with us. I understand there’s a lot of emotional chaos under the calm waters. I also know that I’ve always respected his thoughts and desires. I’ve always let him express himself. I’ve listened. Have I given too much? Is this the product of my giving him so much of a say in things? Why is he behaving like this tonight? Maybe it’s just time. We’ve had such smooth sailing, and for so long, that perhaps it’s just due. I don’t know. But thankfully, in the short time it’s taken me to write this little bit, he’s quieted. I’ll wait.
Many minutes later, all is still quiet. I’ll wait until I’m sure. I don’t want to start this all over again by checking on him before he’s out. And he can sometimes take hours to be out. Some nights, when I’m beyond cajoling and prompting I’ll just fall asleep on my bed, waiting for him to finish his bedtime routine. I’ll awake an hour later to find him at his desk, drawing birds. He’ll be happy, relieved to finally see me, and he’ll readily climb into bed with me there to read to him. He is a tough one to figure some days.
He’s out. And my laundry lies in an enormous mound on my bed, just waiting. I too am a little angry I suppose. Nights like this I wonder how different it might be if I had a partner to help bear the burden. I could easily succumb to my own temper right now. I imagine that my laundry would be folded by now if I’d had some help tonight. I wonder if there would even have been an episode at all if we were a family with dad present. But I do realize this is just one night of many. I know that every family has nights like this. I guess I probably have it pretty good for the most part. So for now I’ll pull out a Gilmore Girls DVD, enjoy a moment alone and get this laundry folded and put away.
A friend in Chicago recently told me that there was a Scottish band by the name of Old Blind Dogs heading my way, and that they’d be at Caffe Lena soon. He advised we go, and asked we remember him to the band as the bouzouki player they jammed with in Flossmoor the day Bin Laden got knocked off. Ok, it was an introduction of sorts I suppose. The day had arrived, yet now I was losing my resolve to go. It seemed too expensive for us, plus I was rather pooped from my long day. I asked Elihu how he felt. I cited the pros and cons. I asked him on a 1 to 10 scale how he felt. He said 8. Then we pulled them up on you tube and listened. “Oh yeah, I wanna go” he said. “We gotta go, it’s a 10 now.” “It’s going to cost a lot” I warned, reminding him of our plans to build a new coop. “But I’ll always remember this!” He got me. That’s always been my ultimate gauge for making a decision. He was probably right. So I was off to clean up.
Caffe Lena is a tiny coffee house at the top of a creaky flight of stairs in Saratoga Springs which has been there over 50 years now. As a child I knew Lena, who was old by then, or at least to my young eyes looked as old and whiskered as a witch (I suppose everyone over 40 appeared this way). She was always kind to me when my parents would drop me off to hear a show. She’d wait at the top of the stairs and wave down to my folks, letting them know she’d keep watch over me. There’s a folk-art sort of portrait of Bob Dylan at the top of the stairs done on a piece of plywood, made on the occasion of his appearance there in 1960. The walls of the narrow downstairs hall are covered in ancient handbills of past performances under a thick, shiny lacquer. The bathrooms are tidy and their walls covered with happy graffiti. Elihu himself wrote in red sharpie on the night of his performance there last year. He had drawn a woodpecker climbing up the wall. Beside it he wrote “Elihu’s first open mic – 3/11/10” in a six-year old’s lettering. It was as much a right of passage for me as it was for him.
This time, Elihu counted the stairs as we creaked our way up towards the cozy room. I was ready to pay the steep admission, yet when they saw his size, the woman kindly offered to charge only $5 for his ticket. A nice way to start the night. Also, there were two unreserved seats right next to the drummer’s side of the stage. Wow. We’d gotten there early enough to find good seats, yet these were better than I’d hoped. It wasn’t a big place, yet Elihu can’t see much detail past ten feet, and so a table’s distance away can make a big difference in his experience. We were set!
The group’s bassist had been detained in Minneapolis by customs. I thought it a shame, both for the guy himself, and for the remaining trio. They’d have to fill it all up by themselves. I needn’t have worried. The three musicians created so much sound that the poor fellow was hardly missed. The drummer had a small setup; a large djembe sat before him, a deep snare to his left, then a high hat, a kick drum, another mounted djembe and two cymbals, one with a chain draped over it for sizzle. He also played a small talking drum which he could hold as he played. By mid-set Elihu was just not able to stop playing on the table. Even though our table partners seemed easy-going enough, I was worried that I might be the mom who thinks her kid’s so wonderful that rules don’t apply to him. “How bout just one finger? Like this.” I tapped with my index fingers on the edge of the table. Good solution, for a short while. Their energy was just too all-consuming. (At one point in a moment of inspiration he grabbed my arm and shouted in my ear “Mommy, I’m going to busk and make $25 and I’m going to buy myself a pair of brushes tomorrow!) The scene reminded me of years ago, when I’d go to shows with an egg shaker in my purse because sooner or later the music would become too compelling to resist, and I’d simply have to join in on something. Our neighbors were kind about it, but I was still unsure whether Elihu’s enthusiasm was too much. It was a great set, yet in spite of that Elihu was beginning to feel tired and he asked if we could go soon. I tried to distract him by calling his attention to something in the arrangement so that he’d forget about wanting to go; it was the first time I’d heard live music in such a long time and I wanted to stay. We made it to the end of the set, and the band announced they’d take a couple minutes’ break. Elihu and I made our way out.
The place is small, and the drummer was right there. Elihu stood before him and thanked him. “Do you want to see the drums?” the fellow asked. No doubt he’d noticed Elihu’s interest. The two walked back to his setup and had a little session. The drummer showed him his talking drum, and encouraged Elihu to try. He tried it briefly, but I could tell he was jonesin to get at the monster djembe on stage. “Go on” the man said, smiling kindly. Elihu ran the whole way round the room to get on the stage, and when he got there he sat down and began to play. It was a very loud drum, and he was playing a little rushed and scattered. I leaned in to encourage him. “Just do your groove, honey, you know, your thing“. He took a breath, then began.
Elihu grooved hard. He made a couple intentional false stops. He had the audience. He started up again. Not too long. Just enough. He slammed his hands down together in a final woomp. There. That’s it. The place went up in shouts and applause. During the whole thing I just laughed and laughed. Even though I know what he has, and how he’s gotten better, it felt just wonderful to have a whole room of people share in it together. What a moment. As we were leaving, the drummer gave Elihu a CD. I’d even considered buying one – something I’d seldom do – yet now here was another gift. Amazing. As I chatted my goodbyes to some folks at the ticket table, I noticed Elihu making small talk with the bagpiper – and the two parted laughing like old comrades. We smiled all the way down the stairs and onto the street.
A warm, weekend night in Saratoga is almost always a party. And so it was tonight. Before we’d gone to the show, we’d set an old dinner roll on the sidewalk outside to feed the sparrows with and found it still waiting for us. So we picked it up and headed around the corner into the alley in search of some birds. Hattie’s Chicken Shack was booming. People filled the restaurant. The old screen door creaked open and thwacked closed behind the crowds as they exited. We walked around to the back of the restaurant, hoping to find a late-night sparrow waiting for handouts, but it was too dark, too noisy, too Saratoga. There was a garden in the back of the place that was also full of people. The windows to the kitchen were open and faced the alley. “Look at all those guys workin so hard! They’re still slammed!” I said as I pointed to the chefs bent over stainless tables. One saw us and smiled. “Did you eat here tonight?” he asked. “Naw, a little pricey for us” I answered, smiling back. Truly, these days, it was a different Hattie’s. It wasn’t always so upscale; I could remember many decades ago when Hattie herself stood guard. Her ancient husband, a slight, bald black man was always in attendance, a towel draped over his arm. He was the epitome of gracious service. Many summer nights the restaurant was populated by only a few tables. The chicken was always the most delicious I’d ever had, anywhere. The cook shouted down to us from his window. “Want some chicken? Wait – just wait a second” he ducked back into the kitchen and returned with two drumsticks in his tongs, which he reached out the open window and handed to me. “They’re really hot, watch out”. I thanked him with a huge smile and a look of amazement. As I juggled the hot chicken, Elihu ran into a neighboring bar and came out with a pile of napkins. We made our way across the street to Ben & Jerry’s where they have large, freed-standing swinging seats for their patrons. Although it’s still a ‘new’ place in my mind, I realize that many local kids have grown up knowing this corner as if it’s always been here. My son will too. And so, it has become one of those defining little corners of the town. We sit to eat our chicken. We rock, we take in the perfect air. The sounds of bands come at us from distant bars. Bunches of big kids sit and check their phones. Couples walk by with their dogs. It’s a perfect night in town. We are in no hurry, and I wait for Elihu to have his fill. I don’t want to end tonight by telling him we have to go. We don’t.
But finally, it’s time. We get in the car, roll down the windows and begin to drive through the twinkling streets. We’ve brought along his djembe, and he plays it in the back seat as passersby look for the source of the sound. Soon we’re passing the mansions of North Broadway as we head out for the country roads. We put the CD in. It starts slow. “Where are the quarter notes?” Elihu asks. “There’s really no time yet, you can play what you like”. So he does. A freeform, expressive sort of playing. Then the groove begins. It fades up, and Elihu joins in. We are now winding through the dark on the last road to our house. The road twists and turns, it rises and dips. The music seems to grow with intensity as we come nearer to our home. Then we turn down the long driveway into the woods. When I bring the car to a stop, Elihu leans forward and gradually fades the track down to silence. We notice that Uncle Andrew has closed the chickens in their coop for us while we were out. It’s official, this night was perfect.
Last night, as Elihu and I lay side by side in bed, lights off and awaiting sleep, he said to me “You know why I’m so glad to have you as my mom?”, to which I said nothing, letting a moment pass. “Because every day with you I learn something new”. And shortly thereafter, we were both asleep.
Tonite I’ve just drawn a bath, while he’s gone outside to watch the birds’ final visits to the feeder in the dimming light, a light which finally allows him to watch them without his usual dark red sunglasses, eyes wide open. He called to me, saying he heard a Woodcock in the neighboring field. “Please, Mommy, we have to go see him!” he begged. A bath will always be there. This was an opportunity. We grabbed our flashlights and headed out.
In the distance, the black silhouette of the hills stood out against the last light of day. The sun had been down for a while, yet there was still just enough light to see by. A buzzing sound, more like a lone cricket than a bird, sounded from the middle of the field. It was a short, raspy, buzzing sound that reminded me of a bug lamp zapping out a mosquito. It was intermittent, but his location was unmoving. After several failed attempts to locate the bird we hit upon a good tactic. I would scan the field with my light, eventually seeing the bird’s eyes reflecting back, two shiny retinal mirrors. Surprisingly the bird stood still as we carefully approached. I would get the bird in my spot of light and Elihu, lamp strapped to his forehead, would begin his approach. We made three good tries, the third time, although I was still a good hundred feet away, I was able to see the bird’s form. Elihu crept closer still, and finally, only feet away, he witnessed the bird fly up and away, my spot following the bird in the air as best I could. Impressive. A bird I might well go my whole life through without ever seeing (hell, without Elihu’s knowledge of his call I’d never even know I shared my world with such a creature) had just shifted something inside of me. I could just make out his strangely long bill in the light. His shape was so different, so unlike all the easily-spotted birds that we’ve almost come to take for granted. It was a grand moment. Elihu was elated. He cheered and laughed. We both agreed it was a perfect end to our impromptu mission and we began to walk back to the field’s edge, back to our cozy little house behind the tree-lined stone wall.
“I saw exactly what he looked like and now I can draw him” Elihu said as we neared the house. Clearly, the bath would have to wait a moment longer. Drawing, bath and call to Daddy follow. I am so tired now, I cannot keep my eyes open long enough to read to him from the Burgess Bird Book for Children. Instead, I lay on my side, facing him. His eyes cannot close. He stares at the ceiling. I know he is reliving the moment over and over. I can share it with him no more, and fall asleep.
Today, we’ve both learned something new. Thank you, my dearest Elihu. I’m so glad to have you as my son.
Although the date was different last year, the day was the same; mother’s day, the day when our hummingbirds returned. They arrived again this year only a few hours ago. I had washed out the feeders, mixed a fresh batch of sugar water and hung them outside our kitchen window only minutes before the first male came buzzing in. This is a thrill in our house. “The hummingbirds are back!” I shouted. Elihu began to dance and nearly cried in his joy. He also practically knocked me over to get up on the stool to see for himself. He found it difficult to eat dinner tonight, as preoccupied as he was with the tiny bird. Thankfully, in this final hour before dark the little fellow is making repeat trips to the feeder, and as Elihu chats with his father on the phone he is nose to the glass, watching.
If anything was ever said to be truly mind blowing, it would be the nearly two thousand-mile journey these tiny birds make each year to return to their summer homes. To see them again is to find one’s own hope and courage renewed. Amen.
If I have come to live here for no other reason, I might consider the insight I’m given by living with my mother close by. While I have tried to discipline myself to see things from the half-full rather than half-empty perspective, my mother reminds me why this is still such a struggle for me. She is, inherently, a seer of the half-empty glass. And fundamentally, I think I may be so too.
“Nancy’s your mother?” people say with great interest. “What a great woman! I love Nancy!” they usually say. With too much back story to impart, and knowing it’s not really the point anyway, I usually smile and respond that yes, that’s what they all say. From an outsider’s perspective my mother is one upbeat person whose personality attracts. The same could be said about me too, I suppose. But as with anyone, there’s so much more to the person that is apparent at a first encounter.
The only person to ever bear intimate witness to the two sides of the Conant women was my near ex. He was quick to point out how similar I was to her. I would protest – for the woman I see is always muttering asides to herself under the martyred burden she constantly feels. My mother, when faced with new information, almost always responds with a victim-like disgust. It seems no matter what is offered, she feels it represents an unwelcome challenge and a burden that she herself will ultimately have to carry. And in light of the back story, I get it. Her own father left and began a new family cross town before he’d wrapped things up properly with her mother. This was in a pre divorce-as-common-occurance world. Her father hardly surfaced again in her life. This and more chapters help explain to me, at least, why she reacts as she does. In summary, she feels the world has screwed her, she has to fight for what she does have, and if she doesn’t do something that needs to be done, no one will. Whether she’s made her world fit her truth, or it existed like that in spite of her choices, I can see that many of her suspicions of the world have come true. After all, if she doesn’t work, there will be no bills paid. If she doesn’t make supper, Dad won’t eat. If she doesn’t do the laundry no one will. (Is this not the case for most mothers? I think we all have reasons to see our jobs as invisible and thankless at times.) But if she would just stay her knee-jerk tendency to groan about the prospects before she responded, she might find that things aren’t as doomed as she’s programmed to believe.
I don’t like to spend too much time in my parent’s house because of the thick and negative energy there. When my mother turns away from us, my father and I share knowing glances and shrug our shoulders in our shared powerlessness as she mutters to herself in the aftermath of what she’s perceived to be some gross wrong that has just been imposed on her. She lives on a vocabulary of passive-aggressive asides. When I try – sometimes ever so gently, sometimes in the anger of a shameful blowup – to call her attention to this, she takes it in without protest, but she never seems to hear me, or to get it. My near-ex said that my own negative tendencies (or the “Nancy” in me, he’d say) added to his desire to leave me. And to some extent I can understand this, however I’d offered that our situation was different; self-discovery and change was something I embraced, something I actively sought. I’d say we had tools and abilities available to us that our parents didn’t. He wasn’t moved. (His current girlfriend is to the outsider’s perspective a perennially cheery thing who, to me, seems to share some aspects of Betty Boop. Blonde, curly hair, a buxom figure and a super-high speaking voice that might do well in character parts, she is rather the polar opposite of me. Perhaps he needed to get as far away from the shadows of my essence as possible.) My parents are lost in the world of their own creation. At this late date there seems no desire to change. It’s not my business to enlighten them either.
So, in an effort to be a half-full person, I don’t try to impose my insights on my mother as a matter of course. Rather I study her. I notice her responses to things, and I reflect on how I might respond to the same. It helps me to see my own habits, and to understand what I’d do well to avoid. Seeing my mother, and how she lives in her own world has helped me to avoid going further down the poor-me path. In that we both share a story of father-leaving-family I can begin to understand how deep her pain goes. It’s a difficult assignment to turn this around, but I’m equipped and ready for the job. To choose up rather than down, possibility rather than hopelessness. I have a few tricks that I employ to help myself to see the reflection without wincing. My near ex once challenged me to replace ‘no, but’ with ‘yes, and’. It was a good suggestion; it’s a technique I come back to when I think I need some regulation in my outlook. I also realize that it’s easier to criticize than to complement (why is this and what does this say about we humans?) and so I curb my first reaction to express what’s displeasing, and instead, I offer my gratitude for what is pleasing.
And so I offer my gratitude for my mother and all she’s shown me about the world. I thank her for teaching me all the wonderful secret things that only a mother can. I thank her for the reflection of my own imperfections. I thank her for going before, and I hope that I can serve to resolve some of the issues that she’s labored under for so long. With the mirror of my mother I see who I am, and I begin to learn the things that I may yet become.
The Hillhouse 