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.
It is early on the morning of my son’s eighth birthday. Lying on my right side I look at the clock. 6:38. Eight. Eight. I begin the new contemplation for today. What does eight feel like? Can I see all eight of those years at a glance and fully ‘get’ what it means? I feel I can, and for the first time in my son’s life, he seems to have the full history of a young person. A little of this, a little of that, and the discretion that comes with experience to be able to sort it all out.
When he turned five he turned to me, and in all earnestness said, “you do know that I’m more 45 than 5, don’t you?” Feeling his need to be understood, and indeed understanding just what he meant, I reassured him that I got it. I got it. Five was a year of turmoil. Looking back I believe that he felt trapped inside the body of a small kid. Deep inside he seemed to be so very frustrated by his own lack of ability, experience and knowledge. This may seem a bit profound a statement to make about a five year old, but I can tell you, as his nearly constant companion and fretting mother, I know this to be true. That year Elihu was prone to destructive explosions of rage that seemed to erupt right out of the blue. I have a scar on my left forearm of where he bit me. I’d meant to prevent him from breaking anything, as he was moving rather like a weed wacker – spinning his arms outward to take down whatever lay in his path – and so I wrapped my arms around him. As I held him fast, and as his rage found its last possibility of expression, in desperation to rid the torment from his system, he leaned over my protective arm and sunk his teeth in. That was the year we moved here, the year everything changed.
I had always thought I’d done a pretty good job of keeping things hopeful and cheery during this transition. I’d thought it much harder on me than on him. I’d lost my best friend of the past twenty years, I was giving up my friends and life, while my son had barely started to make friends, much less get into the rhythm of a ‘life’. This all may have been true, but at five, Elihu felt something was not right. I now believe the import of that year was not lost on this tiny person. While I may have told him initially that we were ‘going to visit grandma and grandpa for a while’ (and subsequently apologized many times for having duped him), I think he knew shortly after we arrived, that this was no visit. His life had just been changed, and he’d had no say in it. What was worse, he was tricked into it. (Even now, at eight, the fallout from this past chapter rises up and threatens him in the form of panic attacks, which we both approach head on, unwilling to allow the unsettled feelings to grow, as we work together – along with a softly listening counselor at the local family services office – to learn what feeds them, and to pick apart the issues and discuss them all in love and understanding.)
In his sixth year his rage lessened, and he began his life of birds in earnest. That was the year we came home from Tractor Supply with our first family of chickens. The photos I saved in his first grade memory book show the summer of a carefree young boy on a farm. (I squirm to use the term ‘memory book’, but it was created at the request of his first grade teacher. I admit I have felt great disdain in the past for those who would spend hours of precious time ‘scrap booking’, but I did learn that making a simple book that reflects the highlights of a particular year is a nice way of keeping the chronology correct, if nothing else. And there is actually plenty of ‘else’ as well.) There is a photo of Elihu, arms outstretched, running after our white Pekin drake, Joseph. It is filled with the joy of summer and a young boy’s pure, nature-driven heart. Yet by just looking at the photograph one wouldn’t know that this is a rare moment in which Elihu has ceased to hold his dark glasses tight to his head in order to block out the sun so he can see well enough to track the bird. One wouldn’t know the back story of our new life alone, without husband, dad. The tenuous day-to-day balance of need and supply isn’t apparent in the images. But the photos do remind us that many delightful moments did happen, and in spite of the back story, there were some truly happy times that year. A year of discovery, the door to our future was then flung wide open and we crossed the threshold, mouths wide open.
Elihu’s seventh year was one, I’d say, of transition. While five was small and not so well-equipped to do things, at six Elihu was becoming aware of what was needed in order to do things. Seven then, was putting it into action and finally doing many things for himself that he couldn’t when he was younger. And now, at eight, I realize that the door to that pure, innocent chapter of Peter Rabbit and Pooh is now beginning to close. This is the year when the magic of Santa may no longer hold. When the cracks in his tiny-child beliefs will become bigger and harder to ignore. I’ve always marveled that a kid who took such a scientific interest in his world, measuring wingspans and learning migration routes, could so easily believe that one man delivers gifts to every child on earth in one night. (That Santa delegates, and has a lot of elves helps to ease the doubt a bit.)
So here I am. Quite possibly the last birthday in which my son will believe that the presents sitting on the kitchen table in the morning were delivered magically, as he slept, by the birthday angel during the night. Eight feels like a long time now. No longer does it feel as if my son were born just a few short years ago. So much life has passed for us since then. Here is my son, small child no longer. Young boy today. In a few minutes I will wake him, I will tell him that when I went into the kitchen to make breakfast I found something. I will tell him in a quiet, wondering way – so careful not to overdo it – and then I will share once more, perhaps one final time, that breathless moment of delight when he sees the unbelievable sight before him. Happy birthday, my beloved Elihu.
The Hillhouse 