Author: wingmother

Mother, musician and writer. Seeker of knowledge, lover of humor and good food.

Homecoming

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind1 Comment

I awoke Saturday morning, in my own bed, to the internal soundtrack of a searing Steve Lukather guitar solo, floating atop a lush bed of strings and majestic french horns, the music rising, rising, rising, lifting my soul far above the clouds into the expanse of sky… My own personal and deeply subconscious interpretation – albeit embarrassingly corny – of the bliss I felt at being home, at the triumphant conclusion of an epic journey.

I laughed when I realized the music I’d chosen. I laughed because my bed felt so good. I laughed because it felt so good to be home. I laughed because I felt I had more than come home; I had made it. Whatever that meant. And all that it meant. I’d put eight hundred miles on the car, introduced my son to the ocean, met long-lost relatives, visited the first house I’d ever lived in, rediscovered New York City. And made it back home. Not one hen lost in our absence. All was truly well. We’d been successful – and in ways we’d never even dreamed of. I lay in bed, thinking about home. What it was, how it felt, how I now identified it, how important it was to me.

On our trip folks would naturally ask me where I was from – and I was never quick with an answer. Initially my inclination was to say ‘Chicago’, but as that wasn’t quite true, and that answering so would require a little back story, I would hesitatingly offer that I was from “upstate New York”, and feel a little disappointed in my more truthful answer. Being from Chicago seemed to define who I was – what the better part of my life experiences had been to this point – but as things stood right now, I was in fact not from Chicago anymore. I thought of Army brats and how they usually chose to answer that question. “Oh, I grew up all over”. That would be that. But I didn’t grow up all over, and furthermore I was now a country gal and should probably represent myself as such. Throughout my trip I was given many opportunities to get used to the idea that yes, I was indeed from “about three hours north, in the country, just outside of Saratoga Springs.” If my questioner would look at me for more information I might add: “It’s equidistant to Montreal and New York.” And if another beat followed, I might add “I have chickens.” Ok. I could feel a small amount of pride in that I suppose, but as I didn’t feel it completed the picture accurately, mostly I’d close the conversation by saying that “in my last life I was a musician in Chicago”. That seemed to bring it all up to date with the most amount of truth.

When I first opened the door to our house upon returning, I was hit with the scent of our home. This is something I think all travelers notice first after a long journey. The smell that is unique to their home. I can almost recall the particular ways in which my other homes smelled, the emotional memories that those scents retrieved for me, but had no idea what a fresh return would tell me about this particular house. What hit my nostrils first was a slight smell of, well, ‘funk’. The air told me that this was a summer camp in need of a good airing out. It smelled like a house used only seasonally; a slight hint of must, a shadow of damp linoleum… When I told this to my mom, she agreed that she too had noticed that my house had a particular smell. Not even bad really, just kind of different. She’d wondered if after all my improvements (removal of linoleum and shag carpet, new floors and paint) it might not change the scent. But it didn’t. It smells like a 70s house. Must be in the bones. Cuz I clean it, I maintain it, I open the windows and use fans to keep the inside air fresh. “So this is what my house smells like” I thought to myself upon returning. Crazy. Sometimes visitors have told me it reminds them of a cabin… guess this is at the root of it. Ah well, 70s, slightly funky cabin though it may be, it’s home. My own personal epicenter. Didn’t feel it a week ago, but I felt it for sure now.

We hit the ground running on our first day back as we had a wedding to attend – an early one too, the ceremony was at noon. Elihu kept saying that he was excited as it was his “very first wedding”. (Maybe not entirely true – I was sure he’d been to others, but as a very young one he had likely been playing with his Thomas trains while things had been going on.) But for this wedding – of two people who live just down the road from us and whom we’ve grown to love very much these past few years – he would truly be present. When I told him that it this wedding was significant in another way – that they, as women, were only allowed very recently by law to even marry each other at all – he responded that that sounded ‘hard to believe’ and then added that nobody should be allowed to tell you who you can’t marry. Amazing how things have changed. And how deeply pleased I was that in my son’s eyes it wasn’t even an issue in the first place. As the father of one of the women said that day, “We live in interesting times”. Inspiring times, too.

I mention this wedding because it too was a symbol for me of home. As I met guests from different parts of the country, even from different countries, I began to feel a growing certainty of my being from this place, this small country town. The wedding was at the couple’s home which they had decorated with brilliantly colored gerber daisies and hundreds of brightly colored oragami cranes. The place looked simply stunning. The joy, the love, the sense of family was deeply felt by everyone there. I couldn’t think of a better occasion on which to return home. For me the event helped me feel more deeply my own sense of center. My own family lives here, I now have friends here, I now have a new life here – and for my son it’s really the only home he’s ever known.  In some way, both trip and wedding helped confirm for me that this place really is the center of our physical world; this is where we come from.

For the past four years I’ve had a flower on the antenna of my car. It is a subdued green, now weathered and frayed from thousands of miles on the move. I put it there before I left Chicago as a symbol of hope for the future and cheer for my aching, uncertain heart. (It also makes my run-of-the-mill gold Honda CRV much easier to locate in large parking lots.) I’ve many times thought of replacing it with something that might symbolize the future I’m moving into. I’d bought a bright, deep orange artificial gerber daisy months with the intention of affixing it to my antenna, but it never felt the right time. I realize my putting this much thought into such a thing – simply doing such a thing – may seem a bit immature (admitting it here in print makes me doubly self-conscious of that), but strangely, having that flower go before me in the world as I drive about has helped me to feel lighter. As if while all this heavy shit was going on I was still able to convey a certain lightheartedness in the world.

After leaving the party last night well past dark and then getting up this morning to go back over and help with the cleanup, it hit me. I spotted an orange oragami crane on my dashboard, a memento of the wedding. I remembered the colorful gerber daisies, the cheer they gave to the party. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I remembered the flower I’d bought months ago. I ran inside, found it, and with hardly more than one swipe with a knife brought the ratty, old flower down. In minutes the new one was up. I felt somehow refreshed. My whole spirit had been renewed; in the trip, in the wedding of friends, in the discovery of home.

The daisy goes before me in the world letting folks know (at least I hope) that I’m moving through my world with a certain good humor and lightness of heart. And at the very least, the daisy ensures that my home away from home is distinct from all others; I’m never unsure as to which car is mine. And at the end of my travels, the daisy leads me back down the long driveway to the little red chicken coop and the plain white house. I may not have believed it before, but I do now. That little white house in Greenfield Center is where we come from. Just look for the daisy…

End of the Beginning

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Although Elihu still answers “No” when asked if he might wish one day to return to New York City, my suspicion is that the seed has been planted and germinates already. It took me a 24 hour cycle to truly ‘get it’ again myself. Just now I parked my car safely in a garage (as on Friday it seems there’s no street parking to be had), and I enjoyed a moment alone in the eye of it all. A corner joint, an outside table, a coffee, a high-cholesterol breakfast sandwich and one, just one, bummed cigarette. Alone and not alone. As we’d gone to bed long after 2 am last night I know Elihu sleeps soundly a block away at our friends’ place. Finally, I am without camera, without destination, my only objective to take it all in one last time.

Private viewing of the bird house at the Bronx Zoo, feeding pigeons from the hand in Washington Square Park, front row seats at the Blue Note last night as Paquito’s guest, rooftop drum playing and merrymaking at night’s end with every tiny space in between peppered with the kinds of magic it would take chapters to convey – yesterday was a perfect New York City day.

There’s never enough time. But for now, I’m sated. And reminded, once again, that yes, there is still a big and bold world beyond our little homestead. Here’s to our safe homecoming. And here’s to many more bright and beautiful voyages beyond our driveway’s end…

OMGNYC

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind1 Comment

Elihu tells me he’s never coming here again. I’d worried he wouldn’t get the full vibe of the place, but he got it alright. It’s a bit intense, that’s for sure, and you can’t really understand it til you’re here on the street. I’m at least satisfied that he has a new perspective on what city living really entails. This visit has indeed made an impact on him.

I cannot possibly catch up on all the nuances of our short visit, but I will use a handy list form to mention highlights of our brief 18 hours thus far in New York City.

1) rooftop dinner with old friends

2) breakfast in Little Italy

3) subway to midtown: FAO Schwartz, pigeons in Central Park, Carnegie Deli, where one of the long-standing waitresses there promises to pass my greetings on to Jackie Mason, who I hear, btw, is doing well these days. (He told me drinking lots of water and stretching daily helped him keep his busy schedule. A sage plan for longevity it seems.)

4) I called my father from the Carnegie Deli, and I heard the happiness in his voice to know that we were here. He remembered his old apartment on West 57th and I promised to have a look. (Just maybe not this time. Too much to do as always…)

5) Elihu nearly collapses in the heat and hustle of the city as we wait and wait for a train that never comes. In the end it is a young blind girl who tells us we’re on the wrong platform for the N train. We have a nice chat with her, and she tells Elihu that a cane really comes in handy and that he might want to use one some day. He would never hear that from me, so I was glad to hear her make the recommendation.

6) I pour a bath in a tub as deep as a swimming pool. I’m minutes away from a long, cool soak. Elihu is flying his helicopter and all is well.

I love New York, but it takes a certain oomph to be here. For now I’m all oomphed out.

Plymouth Ho!

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And here we are! On the north end of Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts. Wareham, to be exact. Our drive went smoothly – we drove the three and a half hours straight without stopping. (A very compelling book on tape by author Gary Paulsen had us riveted and helped to pass the time.) We stopped first at the Mayflower II in Plymouth. The smell of salt sea air hit us right away as did the sound of seagulls. Before us was a vast expanse of water – it was an inspiring sight. Somehow, my child who sees little of any detail beyond twenty feet, he too felt the shift in our space – he too felt the wide-open of it all. We were someplace very different. Sadly, the tourists (of which we were embarrassed to be a part) were everywhere, and it was all but impossible to imagine the scene some four hundred years ago – let alone fifty. We had romantic images in our head which were quickly dashed when reality set in. I had some idea it might be thus, but Elihu was quite disappointed in the commercial nature of the whole affair.

Aboard the Mayflower we met guides in costume who were deeply in character (lots more prep for this gig than Tony N Tina’s Wedding – that’s for sure!) and really helped to bring us into the feeling of the historic ship. Later, we visited an historic town circa 1627 as well as a Wampanoag Indian village that also employed costumed, in-character guides. We both loved the visit. Really fascinating.

And food? Well, what does one eat when on the Cape? Why lobster and clams – the whole silly body of the clam, thank you very much. No strips here. Serendipity guided us with absolute skill as we were prompted to find a restaurant in which we not only sat directly over the water, but we had open windows at our elbows, salt sea air gently wafting in and birds upon birds above and below, skimming, scooping, diving, swooping. We saw our very first cormorant in the flesh as we did a Caspian tern and the black-headed laughing gulls. But almost more amazing was that we sat next to a young boy who, like Elihu, had loved birds since he was small and knew them all just as well. Truly, this kid was a bird boy; so said his grandma and he himself nodded in agreement. Thomas, if you should in fact read this, it makes us happy to know that there is another boy in the world who loves birds as Elihu does. We were very happy to make your acquaintance and hope one day to meet you again.

Perhaps the most important part our trip was made just an hour ago when we visited with my Uncle Paul and Aunt Sandy. I hadn’t seen them in almost twenty years – yet they looked instantly familiar. And for the first time, here before me was a person outside my immediate family with whom I shared a bloodline; his face, build and mannerisms all right here for me to see up close. This was new. In the tiny room I could study my uncle. He was a good looking man – something I found interesting that I’d never noticed before. I could see the resemblance to my mom at once. I sat there, feeling almost as if I were in a dream. The Conants and the Jacksons (my mom’s side) just don’t ‘do’ family. It had occurred to me earlier as I wove around the curving roads and struggled to get my bearings in the dark, that none of them would have made this sort of effort to see us. But in the end it didn’t matter. My uncle’d had a stroke a few years ago and I had to come and see him in person before it was too late. I felt very lucky as we bid them goodnight and made our way down the steps to our car.

We’ll see them again tomorrow. Thankfully we have no agenda here but to lay on the beach, find some sea critters and hang with the family. Right now we’re going to get into bed and continue reading a book about a young boy on a whaling ship that once moored in nearby New Bedford. And just a minute ago, as Elihu flew his rc helicopter (single blade, fixed pitch he’d want you to know) he said “life is too good to be true right now!” Yup. That’s pretty much how we’re feeling.

Happy Post Script: We heard from the young birder and his cousin tonite! (Finally someone taking me up on the “Say Hello” page entreat…) Come back and visit again, Thomas and Lucas – and please share some of your bird stories with us sometime…

Eve Of

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What thanks can I offer to all of you who’ve made this trip possible? I see the donations come in, I breathe a little easier, and yet I don’t. I’ve been given so much help from my friends over the past three – nay, almost four – years, and I begin to feel a little as if I need soon to be doing something for others. But for now I will receive all this kindness because I know you felt inspired to help. I’ll honor that by using your help to create a journey for Elihu and me that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

The eve of the journey is a tense time for me. How do I sleep? I printed out our directions, I have my maps, my car is ready, our bags are packed. Elihu was even asleep hours ago, allowing me the time to collect my thoughts and my things in the quiet of a nighttime house. Seeing all those driving directions had me a bit intimidated. Me? Afraid of getting places? Ha!

I can remember finding my way to a boat docked in a small harbor in Portugal with little more than the name of a nearby town – no language, little money (and carrying ten pounds of white flour – staples requested by the captain. Can you imagine making it through international airports carrying ten pounds of a white powdery substance? Whew. A more innocent time it was.) Once in Indonesia, not quite sure exactly where my hotel was, I navigated lanes upon lanes of traffic in Jakarta during a monsoon rain and finally arrived there by way of a trade: my western cigarettes for a one final wild ride in a Bajai that got me there safe. I’ve done hundreds of singing telegrams and in so doing was made to find every manner of crazy out-of-the-way joint you can imagine. All long before GPS. (We did, however, had GPS on the boat, that’s where I first learned of it.) And I love maps. If I lack some good bedside reading material, a map will do. Then again, it may do too well. I might be up all night reading it, cuz I just love to think about going places.

I really shouldn’t fret about the actual ‘getting there’ part. But still, that’s the part which has me up late and unable to sleep. Man, how did we do it thirty years ago? Was it so hard? Didn’t we just take the highways, take most likely looking exit and just ask local folks where to go from there? That must have been how we did it. People have been making car trips for decades without benefit of GPS… I gotta relax. Gotta remember it’s still in me. I can do this car trip thing.

Oh, but I’ve gone off on a tangent, when what I’d wanted to do in this final homemade post was to thank all of you so much. We two are so excited, so happy. Truly we are embarking on a modern day adventure. We know where we’re going, and yet we know not. It’s the little serendipitous surprises that make it so magical. So I guess it’s the anticipation of the things I know not that has me so keyed up at this late hour.

Thanks, dear friends. And now, finally, I’m off to bed. I think I’m ready to sleep now.

Get Crackin’

Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind2 Comments

So much yet to do. The biggest item is off the list: make sure the automatic coop door opener really works. Although I bought it last year (paid for a pricey rush delivery in fact) it sat uninstalled all year long in my garage, as I just couldn’t manage to do it myself as I’d planned. Even bought a sawsall to make the cut in the wall – really, how hard could it be? As I set out I discovered, hard enough. Maybe if I’d had more practice with the saw – which was much harder to control than I’d expected – I’d have been able to cut myself a hole into which I could then install the door. But I simply couldn’t manage it. The whole project, for as simple and straight forward as it looked was too much for me to muster on my own, and in the end I hired my brother to watch over my flock as we left town for a couple of days on divorce business. (And I gave the sawsall to a kid who mowed my 5 acre lawn in trade.)

This year, having a much larger flock and hoping to go away for a much longer time, I simply had to get it installed. When I unpacked it, we discovered chimpmunks had not only filled the entire thing with corn (the industrious little fella was dead at the bottom of his own cache) but had cut both the cord that pulled the door up as well as the wiring that told it to do so. God bless this handyman that I found at random from the local Pennysaver. He fixed it. And installed it. Then, as it began to appear a task completed, the timer got knocked to the ground by the birds on the first night, and came apart in pieces. Day two of coop preparations, four days to departure. I was beginning to panic. Lower back pain had me all but immobile, and now this. Swearing like a sailor, I wrestled the pieces back together in the obscene heat of the garage. It worked, but not quite as it should have. It took two more days until we had both a successful raising of the coop door on its own as well as a successful lowering of the door. Hooray! Right? Nope.

First night it was the new guys. The chicks – who are now just about full grown chicken size, but who eat like teenagers and don’t know the routine of the mature flock quite yet – they haven’t figured out where to go at night. At dark, when all the others are high on their roosting bars, safe for the night, the younguns are in a crowded clump on the ground, huddling for safety. How else do young ones learn but to be taught? I’d thought they’d imitate the elders, but no, apparently it’s up to Elihu and me. So, one by one, Elihu puts the little guys through the tiny open door, where I then take them and place them on a roosting bar. We are teaching them. We hope. Day one it’s forced. Day two, the timer still isn’t working right, so we miss an opportunity. Day three – complete success! Out on their own in the morning, up and safe on their roosts by nightfall! And the tidy little door shut all by itself! Houston, we have liftoff!

Except for Maximus, who walks around the empty pen, waiting for us to come and talk to him. He fits through the small door just fine, but for some reason he has chosen not to follow his flock. He’d rather wait for me to come out and make my nightly check; he likes to talk to me. He gurgles and grunts low to me, follows me on my feeding and watering chores, stays ever close. “Oh Max” I cry to him in frustration. “You’re supposed to use the door too!” Maybe he needs some teaching like the little ones did. I can’t open the door or I’ll throw off its timing, so instead I open the large door with the diamond patterned window panes (Elihu called it the ‘Shirley Nelson door’ the moment he saw it cuz he said it looked ‘just like the kind of door a woman named Shirley Nelson would have in her house’.!) I pick up my soft, white goose and I carry him across the threshold, depositing him gently inside. “You must go inside with everybody else, Max” I scold. I’m happy to see the little ones have all now found their own spots on the new roosting bars. All seems well. If only the goose would go in on his own. I’m prompted to do some googling on the subject of geese and raccoons – could a raccoon, of which we have plenty, really take down my gander, attitude and all? I learn that yes, he could. So I have a goose problem still. Earlier I’d had too much testosterone in the pen, so I’d placed Bald Mountain on his own in the brooder pen for the week. Sorry, you’ll be ok big guy. It’s still a lot better than being stuck in a tiny cage for the 4H poultry show at the county fair for a week…But what to do with the goose? I’m trying to make it so that ALL my birds go in, roost and the door closes. Period. So the gal who’ll watch them has only to fill the food and water. That itself if enough of a chore. One more dilemma to solve before we go. Geez. Will we go at all? I wonder.

While I try to get every last piece of laundry folded and put away, and while I refresh my bed with a seldom-washed sheet still hot from the dryer, Elihu takes up a corner to help me make my bed as we begin to discuss the Max situation. It is clear that we cannot simply leave him outside in the pen. He will likely be gotten. The only option is our garage. Full of crap, some garbage, much of it not – in fact there are many nice things still left from my mid century life that I need to find good homes for.  But I do not want to come home in a week to find the furniture chewed on, green sloppy goose shit all over the cement floor… but what choice do we have? “Look”, Elihu begins, “it’s not a tiny garage, he’s got enough room. You just have to cover up the nice stuff and make Max his own little area. Wood shavings in that corner by the brooder pen. That’s all he needs. He’ll be fine”. Good lil man. Yes, if we doctor up that one last open bit of garage and make it his, he’ll be comfortable. Leave a fan on. He’ll be ok. And I can put up the baby gate by the door so that when our chicken sitter comes to set out food she won’t get goosed by our goose. (Sweet creature to me, to everyone else he is his master’s protector. )

All the while, my back continues to morph and shift, to become something foreign and new. I’ve had lower back episodes – one or two a year – for the past decade. I always bounced back within a week, nothing was ever any different afterward, and in fact it was all but forgotten by a month out. But this time I blew it, I guess. I went to a chiropractor. Initially , my experience was insightful and educational to a certain degree, but holy shit! That man actually did something to me! I was glad to leave my first appointment standing straight – when I’d walked in hunched over and to one side. But today it is a vastly different situation. I think I’d gladly take back my initial posture if I could get rid of this: I am now asymmetrical, my spine is twisted – as in no longer a straight line up and down – and my back sounds like jiffy pop being made on a stove… almost any movement at all and there’s a crackling sound. No pain, but the sound is new and disconcerting. And that I feel I’m a walking S is weird too. I can do stretches, breathe in deep, visualize my stretch and so forth… but nope. Nothing doin. I cannot straighten myself out. I seem to now have a new problem on top of the original one I’d come in for. !!!! I was so ready to receive this as the wholistic means of treatment and health from here forward…A practice that took into consideration the whole body, stress level,  diet, movement…but in reality it seems much more focused on simply vertabrae related ‘subluxations.’, one of which I believe the good doctor may himself have created. I know I sound a little paranoid here, but I’ve gone from a situation which though uncomfortable, was at the least, familiar, and at best, something I knew how to manage. But this popcorn popping, s – curving back is altogether new to me. What do I do with this? It’s annoying as hell! I can’t carry my bag on my left shoulder because I’m so newly outta whack. Huh? No one told men that new problems would likely pop up…. did they? Did I miss the handout?

Bed made. Kid asleep. Post slogged through, perhaps less intelligible than most, but well, it’s done. Soon I’ll update you on our itinerary. Our plans have changed so many times that to have posted updates as they occured would only confuse. This we know: I will drive us, with my new little popcorn-popping back, to the historic Mayflower II. (We’re smack in the middle of a historic kid’s book about a young boy on a whaling ship – and he speaks of my own mother’s home town, New Bedford, as if it were modern day New York City. It will be fun to see the town so described in the novel.) Yup, we’ll see the ship, then promptly ship out to visit my Uncle Paul and Aunt Sandy. Cousin Rusty seems a lot like my brother Andrew; he’s 50 and still lives at home. He slinks in and out, says very little and what he does remains mostly mystery to his family. Then there’s Janice, his younger sister and my other cousin. While younger than me, she is a grandmother. Yeeks. My paternal grandma had my dad at 45. Janice musta had hers in her late teens. Crazy. But for us, the craziest thing will be hearing ‘that accent’. We don’t often hear people who sound much different from ourselves, so it’ll be fun to be in the area and hear this local accent. Elihu will get a big kick out of it.

We have two decadent nights in Wareham, and nothing but beach and family to fill our time. Oh, and maybe a visit to the Plimouth Town Living Museum where the actors in costume speak as they did some 400 years ago, and where they don’t break character, where they serve food of the time sans utensils. That, we just might go see. Whale watching will have to wait. Money and time don’t allow it this run.

Next, our question is to return home? Or to continue west, via New Haven to New York City. My back pain will likely play a large role in this decision. We have yet to contact our NYC friends with the latest timetable, so friends, if you’re reading, please know things have been tricky. I hope that I may leave it at that and not cause hurt feelings or piss people off.  I’m also aware some may have altered plans on our account. Hope not too much. We’ll ask if you might receive us Tuesday, maybe also Wednesday night?? And Jersey friends, maybe the following two nights with you?

Little time. Lot and lots to do. I think I may even have forgotten how to pack. Hoooo – I’m woozy tired now. I’m gonna go and rest my crackin’ back so tomorrow I can start crackin’ the whip….

July 4th Pics

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Our Fourth of July in Saratoga Springs, New York

Elihu meets Jeremy, a fantastic drummer busking on Broadway

Elihu jams with Jeremy

Elihu takes a spin on the homemade drums

Finally, the duck pond in Congress Park

Posing with a duck

Elihu takes a quiet moment ‘to connect’ with the duck before he lets it go

Watching a great kid drummer and his band

Aahh!

the joy of the Fourth

The tip jar on the morning after

Drum Break

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Elihu put his head out of the window as we drove home from town, his hair blowing back, a look of absolute bliss on his face. I was relieved. In spite of all the hoopla about this day, and how much Elihu had wanted to spend it here in Saratoga, it hadn’t exactly turned out as we’d planned. Although he had jammed a bit with a street drummer at the start of our day, he’d missed the parade (and anyway the consensus on the street was that it was lame this year) and there weren’t the usual throngs of people on the sidewalks. Instead of him busking and raking in some good cash, we’d spent most of the day under the shade of the enormous maples in Congress Park, Elihu chasing – and catching – his beloved ducks. So far it hadn’t been much different from any other summer’s day. He’d passed on the historical reenactors in their sweaty woolen costumes, he’d passed on the cajun band, he’d passed on the antique auto show. Anything that might have made this day different and special – he just wasn’t into it. And so I napped on the lawn as Elihu showed off for the kids, deftly picking up ducks like a guide at a nature preserve, gently unfolding their wings for all to see, explaining to anyone who’d listen all the wonderful attributes of the humble mallard.

It’s been a hot one today. After a couple hours of duck wrangling, Elihu was not only sweaty, but his clean white shirt was covered in muck. So too was his left shoe; an angry mother duck had tugged it off his foot and dropped it in the pond. ! Elihu asked if we could go home to regroup. We’d come back for the fireworks as we’d already staked out our place with our red wagon and some folding chairs. Going home and getting cool  for a bit was not a bad idea. He even said that ice cream sounded good. (I should like to point out that we are not ice cream people. We prefer salt to sweet.) But in that muggy moment, it sounded like a good idea. So we headed back to the car, stopping at Ben and Jerry’s en route. Unlike the coupons that sit unused and long-expired in the bottom of my bag, I did have a coupon for Ben and Jerry’s that he’d won last Halloween. It did not have an expiration date.

We finished our ice cream in the cool of the shop and headed back into the heat to find a band playing just outside. Kids from the middle school I’d guessed. Just a trio – but they sounded pretty good. The drummer was impressive. Elihu stood stock still in front of the band, eyes glued to the drums. I coaxed him around to the back of the bandstand where we then watched the kid on the drums with his magic-trick double bass drum pedals. Elihu was getting excited now. He pulled me close and shouted in my ear, “Mommy – do you hear his snare?? I want mine to sound like that? Why doesn’t it?” I told him that we probably needed new heads by now, and that we should tune them. He nodded enthusiastically with a huge smile on his face. Happy mommy. Happy kid.

The drummer’s dad came around the back and set a bottle of water down for him, and before he left, he reached over and quickly tousled the boy’s hair. Just a second before the young drummer had seemed like a rock star, but framed in the small gesture of his father’s love, he seemed instantly a little boy. I looked at my own son, and imagined him just a few short years into the future. One day he might be rock star, but no matter what, some part of me would no doubt always think of him as my little boy too.

I’d thought we’d stay for the set, but Elihu surprised me by saying “Let’s go now, Mommy, I want to keep this beat in my head! I need to play it before I forget it!” He pulled at my arm. He was serious. On our way out, I had to say hello to the drummer’s dad. He dutifully gave us a flyer of their upcoming shows, and I thanked him and told him he was a great dad. I smiled, then as we turned to go, he told Elihu to be sure and stay with it. Elihu nodded. And we were off.

We rode home with all the windows open. I’d thought to keep the radio off as to help Elihu keep that pattern in his head, but he asked me for music. I turned on the radio as we set out over the country roads. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a contented boy. “Don’t worry Mommy if today didn’t happen the way we thought. Today has far exceeded my expectations.” I smiled to myself at his choice of words. And what a good little man to reassure me so.

Upon arriving home he immediately went to his drums. I went out to the coop to check on things, and I from there I could hear him playing and playing. It was cool in the basement where his drums were, he was probably in heaven. I thought of how lovely a day it had been so far, and regarded the night yet before us. I was in heaven too. This little break was just what we needed before we set out to cap off our Fourth.

Near and Far

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This moment feels very surreal. Fareed and Elihu sit at the kitchen island, small computer before them, skyping with Elihu’s sister in England. Her mother and I are friends, we’ve many times compared notes on the sometimes outrageous behavior of our childrens’ father, and I know her to read the blog. I have no bad feelings towards her or her daughter, but nonetheless, it is a strange feeling to be in the next room of this tiny house listening to Fareed, Elihu and his sister talk. I don’t need to pretend I’m not hearing them, nor do I need to tiptoe around and pretend I’m not here. To tell the truth, I’m not sure this girl even has any real concept of me existing at all. I wonder sometimes, does she wonder? Does she ever wonder about her brother’s own mom? She is a few months older than Elihu, it can’t be too long before she begins to ponder this. But I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter I guess. For me, I cannot imagine being in her shoes – or those of Fareed’s other sons’. Hmm – are they in turn her little baby brothers?? Man, I guess so. But I’m not even sure she knows about them at all! Strange. I know that in the real world there are many such twisted familial relationships throughout many cultures – and that there have been all through history, it’s just that I myself never in a million years could have envisioned being personally involved in such a tangle.

Elihu’s baby brothers can’t have understood yet – in any meaningful way – that their brother has a different mother. I often wonder at the years yet ahead and how these relationships will evolve. Elihu loves his siblings very much, and he’s said many times to me that he hopes I can meet them one day. Just how will that work? I can, in fact, imagine seeing his sister and her mom. That would actually be enjoyable, I think. But how will it be to see Fareed’s ‘other’ woman and their two sons? I did send her an email last summer, thanking her for taking care of Elihu; an olive branch of sorts. But she didn’t respond. I simply can’t know how she thinks of me. The spin Fareed might be putting on our story. Does he paint me to be a shrew? A selfish bitch? I don’t know. And I can’t do much about it. But I will, no doubt, one day come face-to-face with the lot of them, and I want to weather it with as much grace as possible. Even today I think I would cry if I should see them in person. I don’t even know what the boys look like – although Fareed does tell me stories about them. I try to smile, try to listen without taking it personally. And I think I’m doing better at that. I know these kids have nothing to do with what went on between their mother, their father and me. So that helps. But it’s still bittersweet.

Elihu comes over to me and whispers ‘do you hear that, Mommy? She’s got a British accent!’ I listen for a moment, and yes, I hear the sweet little voice of a girl who no longer sounds like she’s from Denver. I almost want to say hello, but there’s no reason. I hear her mother, and I might say hello to her too, but for what? This is their call, and really, it’s not my business. Again, this moment just feels strange.

They are so far away, yet they are so intimately a part of our own lives. They seem as unrelated as strangers, and yet they clearly aren’t. Life sure is unpredictable and full of contradictions…

House Guest

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Elihu’s father is here. He arrived on Thursday, and he leaves early tomorrow. More accurately, we drive him to the airport bright and early tomorrow. Which will be a bit of a feat in that we’ve just had two Fareed-style nights ending way past midnight. I don’t try much to change it; Elihu is so happy to have both his parents in the same place that I let the evening grow later and later, knowing that soon enough it will be a tiny, quiet house again with just we two.

My back is not much better. Fareed says I look like a pregnant woman from the back when I walk. I can either hunch over forward supported by a cane, or lean way back, waddling side to side. Not much room for comfort. I’m almost out of the muscle relaxers my local doc kindly prescribed for me a couple months ago during the last back episode, but thankfully have only to wait one more day for the chiropractor. I admit, I’m putting all my hopes in him. I don’t know how I’ll manage to make our proposed trip if I don’t get better. But honestly, I don’t know how we’ll make it anyway. A few kind people have been more than generous in our travel campaign, but in spite of sending out an additional hundred emails to friends and students, we haven’t received any donations besides those first few, so I’m really wondering how this can work.

And besides, I’m beginning to feel a little sick about my open solicitation for money. Was I too honest? I am poor, but do I need to be so blatant about it? I thought if I likened the gift to the purchase of an ice cream cone it might lighten things up a bit. Now I just don’t know. Without the benefit of a live audience I have no idea how my show is going over. I see the stats and discover that people in Pakistan are reading my posts. Relatives? I think first. Might they help us out? But no – it couldn’t be. The Haques fairly swept me under the family rug when Fareed changed families. (Jill and the boys are welcomed at family gatherings, while my absence has neither been explained nor asked about.) Besides, Riaz has always been the one to send money back home – not the other way ’round. I need to just relax about this. But I can’t! Between my back and students’ summer vacation plans I’ve already lost so much income these past two months. It’s crazy. I made less than half my usual take. So now what?

I’ll ask Fareed before he leaves.  Maybe there’s a soft spot in him somewhere. And I know there’s a cushion of some sort; after all, no matter how broke he tells us that he is, he always manages to take us out to dinner, he seems to have enough for impromtu purchases, admission tickets and such, and he has enough to take a bus and a taxi if need be. Maybe he can set aside his feelings that I’m asking too much – maybe he can for a moment picture his son visiting the Mayflower, seeing a whale, visiting with kids with Achromatopsia, seeing New York City for himself. Maybe. Sometimes I feel a little pang inside when I hear that Elihu has just had another ‘first’ visit to some place significant – and that he was there without me. But I set it aside, knowing that’s not really what’s important, that such thinking is more about me than Elihu’s own benefit. But still. I realize as the parent who’s not a part of much of his son’s life, it’s gotta sting. And to help fund that kind of event – to help make it possible in the first place – that might even hurt a little. I don’t know. But just like I did with you, I gotta ask.

You know how when it rains, it pours? Been a good summer storm over here recently. Thursday night, with back out, Fareed here (oh, did I mention I got pulled over en route to the airport for speeding – then got an additional seat belt violation cuz lil man was out of his seat, having a post-dentist appointment tantrum about not wanting to get braces? Sheesh.) and heat now soaring, I discover that the pipes that evacuate my kitchen skins both ruptured at the same time, and greasy, soapy water came cascading all over my kitchen floor as I stood doing the dishes after supper. Really? Ok. I can take it. Clean it up. Call the plumber. Friday morning the plumbers came. Did a nice job. Didn’t even take long, plus they had positive anecdotal stories about chiropractors. But last night, with a profound sinking of heart, I noticed that my beautiful (remember, it’s all relative, but for me, it is beautiful) laminate ‘wood’ floor began to buckle. And not only that, but small bubbles have formed just under the laminate. Crap crap crap. I allowed myself some bitter complaints last night, but today I will try my damned best to pretend that it’s all ok, and that in fact nothing has changed. And next week I’ll figure out what to do about the $500 plumber’s bill. For now, it’s moment by moment.

I did manage to get out of bed last night to shut all the windows after the house had cooled off. That’s key. By early afternoon the heat will have caught up with the tiny house, and we may have to find a distraction someplace else, but for now it is very pleasant inside. By the time the midday heat gets a hold of the place, we’ll probably be on the way to visit the local aviation museum – which will be especially meaningful for the boys as they have been making a wooden model of a WWII plane (for the past half dozen visits!) and to see the real things will no doubt be inspiring. The air conditioning will be inspiring too, I imagine.

The roosters are crowing, and I am reminded of how hot it must be getting in the coop. I’m going to go and let them out for the day – and this time, rather than keeping them behind their newly installed fence (the original culprit behind this wave of back trouble), I will in fact let them have the run of the place. Much cooler shade to be had in the trees, more cool grass and tasty bugs as well. So off I go, hopefully finding distraction in this and other domestic tasks so that the bubbling kitchen floor doesn’t grab a hold of me as it did last night. I’ll put the rug back. That should help.

Just wish my other concerns were as easy to remedy as throwing down a rug or seeing a house guest off on the plane.

 

Travel Campaign link:

http://www.gofundme.com/q1ke4